ACADEMIA Letters

Reimagining Light: Qualities of the Picturesque, the

Poetic and the Photogenic in the Romantic Period
Sarah Thwaites (Denley)

In the nineteenth century, as the Romantic period was giving way to more Modern thinking,
so began a period of experimental exchange between the arts and sciences about the properties
of light that introduced the world to photography. The works of the nineteenth-century French
photographer Ildefonse Rousset exemplify the dynamics between the picturesque, the poetic
and the photogenic that interests this discussion.1
In a series of photographs of Parisian river scenes taken during the 1860s, Rousset uses
the water’s surface to analogise the function of the camera.2 A pair of albumen prints entitled
‘The Lovely River’ is described enthusiastically by Theophile Gautier in 1865 for their mirror-
like effect of the river where ‘a delicate diamond speckled festoon shimmers along its shores,
and, here and there, patches of light fall from the sky on to the water’s dark ice through
the shredded foliage’.3 Rousset demonstrates that an object’s innate relationship with natural
light is technically, and aesthetically, the essence of photography. This idea was central to the
works of the eighteenth-century artist and author William Gilpin, whose writings introduced
the aesthetic of the Picturesque.
The evolution of Gilpin’s aesthetic is at the heart of the works of experimental photog-
raphers like Rousset. Gilpin’s studies characterise how the light capturing quality (photo-
1
This paper is part of a wider study on the concept of light and how artists of the Romantic period reimagine
light as a metaphor for the creativity of the individual rather than as a metaphor for an omniscient entity, or God.
In the wake of the enlightenment period, Romantic artists and writers seek new ways to explore concepts of light
in relation to the individual mind. The study examines how these new ideas resonate with contemporaneous early
photographers who were experimenting with light to find technical solutions to perfect their image-making.
2
See Ildefonse Rousset, Tour de Marne, 1865.
3
Gautier’s 1865 review is quoted in Ortel, Philippe. ‘Poetry, the Picturesque and the Photogenic Quality in the
Nineteenth Century’. Journal of European Studies. Vol. 30. No. 1. 2000, (25-6). (My translation).

Academia Letters, March 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Sarah Thwaites (Denley), sarah@tryworks.co.uk

Citation: Thwaites (Denley), S. (2021). Reimagining Light: Qualities of the Picturesque, the Poetic and the
Photogenic in the Romantic Period. Academia Letters, Article 502. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL502.

1
genicity) of objects is symptomatic of art’s relationship with its subject. Gilpin’s essays and
observations repeatedly turn to the matter of how natural light can play on the surface of
objects, ‘the glimmering surface of things’,4 to find the most picturesque manner. Much of
Gilpin’s picturesque depends upon the reflective quality of natural landscape elements and no
feature is more instructive on this subject than the picturesque lake, which he describes as,
‘one vast expanse of crystal mirror.’ He goes on: ‘The mountain-shadows, which sometimes
give the water a deep, black hue (in many circumstances, extremely picturesque;) were soft-
ened here into a mild, blue tint, which swept over half the surface. The other half received the
fair impression of every radiant form, that glowed around.’5
The mirror-like surface of the lake, shadowed by steep-sided landscape that envelopes
the water, captures with verisimilitude the ‘impression’ of every detail. Gilpin’s fascination
with what he terms ‘advantageous light’ (such as ‘the blush of dawn, the noon-tide shade
or evening-glow’) has the more apparently subtle effect of accentuating picturesque forms
by their ‘glimmering surfaces.’ Gilpin remarks on the difficulty of painting to capture such
delicate effects: he maintains, ‘…it is very difficult in painting to manage so feeble an effusion
of light in such a manner as, at the same time, to illuminate objects, and produce an effect…
That shadowy form of great objects, which is sometimes traced out by a silver thread, and
sometimes by a kind of bright obscurity on darker ground, almost oppresses the imagination
with sublime ideas.’6
From a technical standpoint, Gilpin illustrates the photogenic impulse of the picturesque,
elucidating the problem of capturing certain ‘effusions’ of natural light: if the light is too
‘weak’, how can things be ‘illuminated’ by the artist? Conversely, if the light is too strong,
how can the artist control the resultant contrasts between its brightness and darkness? Yet the
artist must maintain the integrity of the natural scene, rendering its imitation both ‘effective’
and ‘real’. Like the photographer with their sensitized plate, Gilpin uses the control of light
to impress a visual pattern through the language of ‘silver threads’ and ‘shadowy forms.’
In the period of early photography (c. 1837-1890), to take good photographs required a
particular quality of light which was bright, but not glaring, and naturally filtered to highlight
the subject and reach the photographer’s plate. Photographers were concerned with these lim-
itations and each subtlety of innovation in the experimental stage of nineteenth-century pho-
tography provided new creative potential.7 J. J. Woodward’s 1872 journal article, entitled ‘On
4
Gilpin, William. Observations, relative chiefly to picturesque beauty, made in the year 1772: on several parts
of England; particularly the mountains and lakes of Cumberland, and Westmoreland. Book 2. Vol. 2. Second
Edition. London: Printed for R. Blamire, 1788. (72-3).
5
Gilpin, Observations, relative chiefly to the picturesque. Book 2. Vol. 2. (73).
6
Gilpin, Observations, relative chiefly to the picturesque. Book 2. Vol. 2. (83).
7
Developing new ways to manipulate natural light was intrinsic not only to the success of photography per

Academia Letters, March 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Sarah Thwaites (Denley), sarah@tryworks.co.uk

Citation: Thwaites (Denley), S. (2021). Reimagining Light: Qualities of the Picturesque, the Poetic and the
Photogenic in the Romantic Period. Academia Letters, Article 502. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL502.

2
the Use of Monochromatic Sunlight, as an Aid to High-Power Definition’, gives a fascinating
and retrospective insight into how this subject was discussed and had developed over the prior
three decades.88 Woodward’s article discusses how best to regulate natural sunlight in order to
attain high definition when viewing microscopic objects. Woodward refers to the work of the
chemist and photographic experimenter, J. W. Draper, who some thirty years earlier, in 1837,
had written a paper, ‘Experiments on Solar Light’, where he records his experiments on light
absorption. Draper identified a successful method of absorbing the more distorting red and
yellow rays from the spectrum, which gave precedence to the sharpening properties of the blue
and violet colours. Draper’s purpose is, as Woodward puts it, ‘to reconcile the chemical and
visual foci of portrait objectives, to escape “the effulgence” of the solar rays thrown directly
on the sitter, as practised at that time.’ Draper’s intention was to manipulate sunlight with fine
dexterity; by the time of his second article Draper had devised an arrangement of filters and
mirrors through which he was rid of the unwanted brilliancy (over-exposure) of the sun and
thereby enhanced the clarity of the image conceived on the photographic plate. The conclu-
sion of Woodward’s article provides a further revelation, which is perhaps often overlooked:
before the electric light was invented and more readily available in the 1870s, photographers
could only work in natural sunlight, as oil and gas lamps did not provide a sufficient quality
of light to make successful pictures. Photographers needed to be innovative to achieve tonal
character.
The Romantic writer worked within a similar context: only natural light was available to
give expression to mood and perception. Therefore, depictions of sunlight and moonlight that
today we view as archetypically ‘romantic’ in eighteenth and nineteenth century literature,
in fact had much to do with technical necessity. Highly emotive romantic imagery serves to
remind us of a particular period when sun light controlled the rhythm of the day: but it is
ironic that reliance on so few forms of light that might appear creatively constricting, serve
to heighten their artistry. For example, the works of Herman Melville repeatedly explore
the picturesque mode for its light-attentive possibilities. By the time Melville writes Moby-
Dick in 1851, his mastery in depicting the sun and moonlit sea is evident. However, with
the absence of modern forms of lighting on the Pequod, the only means of visibility at night-
time was that derived from the light of the moon or by lamplight. For Melville, the careful
se, but to the mid-nineteenth century photographer’s success as a portrait artist. American daguerreotypists were
more keen than most to develop perfection in this field. See also ‘Studies in Light Phenomena’ (12-16) and
‘The Role of Light in Image Formation’ (56-71) in Susan M. Barger and William B. White. The Daguerreotype.
Nineteenth-Century Technology and Modern Science. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University
Press, 2000.
8
J. J. Woodward. ‘On the Use of Monochromatic Sunlight, as an Aid to High-Power Definition’. American
Naturalist, Vol. 6, No. 8, Aug. (454-460).

Academia Letters, March 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Sarah Thwaites (Denley), sarah@tryworks.co.uk

Citation: Thwaites (Denley), S. (2021). Reimagining Light: Qualities of the Picturesque, the Poetic and the
Photogenic in the Romantic Period. Academia Letters, Article 502. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL502.

3
mediation of lamp-lit scenes give contrast to the clarity that is offered by bright sunlight and
give relief to the moodier tempers of the setting and rising sun or the romantic lunar light.
The flame-lit scene offers an innovative aesthetic dynamic. As a device the lamp-lit image is
a recurrent theme and forms important structures within the narrative. The structural purpose
of the lantern is to put before the reader a moment of complex half-light that offers a new
technical relationship with its surroundings.
For artists of this period the allure of photogenic subjects is their implicitly ephemeral
character. Natural light is constricted by time and therefore the practicality of an aesthetic
that is derived from a relationship with it, is also ruled by it. As with light, water is also in
constant motion: perpetually under the control of its environment. Rousset’s river, Gilpin’s
lake and Melville’s sea are, as to the photographer, a constant source of interest and it is in
this sense, that open water, with its reflective potential and its perpetual subjection to the
atmosphere of its environment, provides the perfect aesthetic metaphor for the modern artist.

Academia Letters, March 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Sarah Thwaites (Denley), sarah@tryworks.co.uk

Citation: Thwaites (Denley), S. (2021). Reimagining Light: Qualities of the Picturesque, the Poetic and the
Photogenic in the Romantic Period. Academia Letters, Article 502. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL502.