Paysage au pluriel

Lut Pil

In 'Landscape in diversity. Belgium and the staging of the picturesque landscape in the nineteenth-century album and book ', picturesque art is once again mapped out in its full breadth. This is done on the basis of material never used before, collected in an unusually rich private collection of mainly lithographic albums and illustrated editions from the first half of the nineteenth century. The picturesque landscapes and sites depicted (and constructed) therein were experienced by the public as a world with great vibrancy. 'Picturesque' stood for interesting, expressive and curious, for original, charming and bizarre, for typical, folkloric and spicy. The picturesque reality had cachet and character, relief and local color. It originated in fantasy, which she in turn fueled. Her antonyms were no less clear: what was not 'picturesque' was colorless and tasteless, was banal. The...