Landscape Painting and the Agricultural Revolution

by George Edwin Fussell

Book cover: Landscape Painting and the Agricultural Revolution

Extent: 108 pages

Publisher: Heinrich-Barth Institute

Subjects: Art & Art History, Eighteenth-Century Studies, Nineteenth-Century Studies

Language: English

Hardback (Published)

(December 1984)

ISBN: 9780907132172

Price: $94.00

Out of stock

The text discusses the development of English landscape painting during the 18th and 19th centuries, notably by artists like Gainsborough, Stubbs, Constable, and Turner. It highlights the artificial nature of this landscape, shaped by agricultural revolution and Enclosure Acts.


The development of landscape painting in England during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries has attracted considerable attention. The art of Gainsborough, Stubbs, Constable, Turner and the Norwich School is accepted as part of the British heritage, and the countryside as depicted by these artists is familiar not only to the specialist, but to most of us today. Nevertheless, this was an artificial landscape, one that had been created by the improving farmers of the period. The changes in the British landscape as a result of the new farming methods introduced by the agricultural revolution of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is the theme of Dr. Fussell’s study. The author examines the introduction of the new methods of farming in the seventeenth century, the growing adoption of the new systems that led to the numerous Enclosure Acts of the eighteenth century, the consequent transformation of the countryside, and the growth of demand for landscape painting among the nobility and richer landowners.

Introduction The Birth of the Agricultural Revolution, 1660-1750. The Example of Low Countries Farming and Landscape Painting Landscape Change, Landscape Gardening and Painting The Great Age of "Improved Farming and Landscape Art, 1760-1815 Postwar to the Repeal of the Corn Laws: the Florescence of Landscape Painting 1815-1850 Bibliography Index Plates

  • By (author) George Edwin Fussell