Reverend William Gilpin, born on June 4, 1724 was considered to be a well known an English artist, and also a clergyman, schoolmaster, and author. William Gilpin is best known as one of the originators of the idea of the picturesque. While he was still studying at Oxford, he anonymously published A Dialogue upon the Gardens ... at Stow inBuckinghamshire. This was a part guidebook to Stowe, part essay on aesthetics, and shows that Gilpin had already begun to develop his ideas on the picturesque.
One of the unusual creation for the time, William Gilpin showed an admiration of wild and rugged mountain scenery, that is thought to be rooted in his Cumbrian upbringing. More unusual were his ideas about the perception of beauty which were purely aesthetic and often divorced from other qualities of the object viewed, such morality or utility. Ultimately, the grand theories of wild natural beauty gave way to the tamer and more commercialized picturesque of the mid 19th century. But Gilpin's works remained popular and several new editions, with additions by John Heaviside Clark, were brought out. Even today, when a tourist composes a photograph with their camera, they may be unconsciously applying principles originally popularized by Gilpin.
