IDEOLOGY AND POWER IN THE ENGLISH RURAL LANDSCAPE PAINTINGS OF LATE EIGHTEENTH AND EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY

Topic 

IDEOLOGY AND POWER IN THE ENGLISH RURAL LANDSCAPE PAINTINGS OF LATE EIGHTEENTH AND EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY

Instructions 

The student needs to write a PhD proposal. Her idea is:

“Study the image of peasants in English rural landscape paintings from the end of the 18th century to the beginning of the 19th century, and reveal the relationship between ideology and power hidden in the rural landscapes.

Through the works of British artists Thomas Gainsborough, George Stubbs, George Morland and John Constable.”

Proposal Structure:

1. Introduction (300 words)
2. Set out Aims and Objectives (200 words)
3. Literature review (800 words)
4. Methodology (200 words)
   1. I am not sure what the best methodology is to research this type of project – so will leave this to writer.
   2. Secondary sources? Online articles?

Answer Preview 

The predilection for landscape is not unique to the contemporary artists. Similar artworks are identifiable in earlier centuries and different nations (Waites, 2013; Robinson, 2006). The landscape taste shows a long-standing human identification with the past and present, and the pleasant disposition towards the natural surroundings. For example, the eighteenth-century landscape painting, predominantly done in England and France, illustrated romantic outdoor scenes that lionized nature. Richard Wilson, a painter for his native England, illustrated a group of fishermen at a lake, surrounded by foothills in the Swondon from Hlyn Nantllle (Ross, 2006, p. 21). Other English landscape painters include Thomas Gainsborough, George Stubbs, George Morland, and John Constable, and are also known for their precise detailed depiction of the rural landscape in the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries.

Word Count: 1900