more aesthetically constructed compositions. Their services were sought not only by the Crown but also
by the owners of country estates who wanted a visual record of their land and homes. There was a
growing market from 1715 to 1755 for the topographical “prospect” view or print (Grindle, 2008, 128).
Antiquarian studies of national monuments and sites also became popular (Crowley, 2011, 10–11).
Accurate, “made onthespot” topographical studies grew in importance with the acquisition of colonial
territories, particularly from the Seven Years War onwards, since there were strong practical,
navigational and military reasons for “mapping” less familiar territories (Crowley, 2011, 2). Topography
was often combined with creativity. The cityscapes of Canaletto rose to fame and offered technically
accomplished and imaginatively reconstructed representations of spectacular and complex urban spaces,
in which elements of the view were subtly rearranged or repositioned. They were particularly sought after
for the country mansions of the landowning gentry.
At the other end of the hierarchy from decorative, ornamental and topographical landscapes were the
“historical” or “poetic” landscapes often composed in oils and in sizes similar to those of history
paintings. Smaller pastoral subjects by Watteau (inspired in turn by Giorgione, who worked in the late
fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries), and larger scenes by his followers Boucher, Fragonard and
Gainsborough (who had been inspired both by French rococo and Dutch traditions), raised the popularity
of the genre. Classically inspired “poetic” landscapes evoked utopian scenes in which human beings
existed in harmony with nature. The example set by Poussin and Claude, both of whom operated outside
the Academy system, continued to inspire artists throughout the eighteenth century, and into the nineteenth,
notably in the work of Richard Wilson (1714–1782) and Turner. Claude’s compositional formula
encouraged nostalgic and elegiac readings of his landscapes that raised the genre to levels of
philosophical significance often absent from more sensuous, rococo landscape scenes such as those of
Boucher. He used atmospheric or aerial perspective (the use of light and color to suggest recession into
depth, with warm foreground browns giving way eventually to a paler middle ground and “distant” blues)
and a clear structure of receding planes interlinked by bridges and streams, through which the eye was
gently led. “Stagewing” or framing effects were provided by clumps of trees at lefthand and right
hand edges and both the scale of and attention to detail receded with depth. Above all, he was famous for
enveloping his large compositions in a unifying golden light. Narrative figures and incidents were situated
in the nearest planes and represented scenes from classical myth or poetry that inspired thought on the
human condition.
Vernet rose to fame in the Paris Salons of the 1760s and was inspired by Claude. It was, however, for the
greater truth to nature his works represented that he achieved most critical acclaim. Diderot praised the
fact that the artist’s skies, seas and light effects seemed to be those of nature itself. Vernet’s work often
introduced theatrical or dramatic effects by including incidents such as storms and shipwrecks. These
references to heroic suffering, further popularized through a range of Salon reviews that transposed his
paintings into heroic narratives, raised implicitly the status of much of his work to that of history painting.
By this stage of the century, works in lower genres that avoided some of the mannerism (the routine or
exaggerated application of a conventional style) found in less effective history paintings, gained in status.
This applied particularly when, as in Vernet’s case, “historical” elements were incorporated in order to
appeal to the feelings and imagination. In Britain, Richard Wilson thrived as an eighteenthcentury
emulator of Claude, Nicolas Poussin and Gaspard Dughet/Poussin (1615–1675). (The latter was Nicolas
Poussin’s brotherinlaw, whose style combined elements from the work of both his close relative and
from Claude: he eventually adopted his brotherinlaw’s surname.) Like Canaletto and other widely
known landscape artists, Wilson produced works for an educated elite versed in ancient classical sites
and culture, and his best known “heroic” works, such as his The Destruction of the Children of Niobe
(1760) had their reputation further enhanced by extensive circulation in print form (Grindle, 2008, 122).