The Geological sublime in Victorian landscape painting

Abstract

Very little has been written about the sublime in Victorian landscape painting and it is more commonly associated with the Romantic period. Nevertheless, an examination of the work of mid-nineteenth-century artists shows that the sublime continued to play a role in landscape art well into the Victorian age. However, the subject as a whole is an extremely broad one and beyond the scope of this thesis. Given that the mid nineteenth century was marked by a shift towards a more materialistic culture, together with great leaps forward in scientific knowledge, a study of sublime landscape paintings influenced by geological discoveries is particularly revealing. Many of the controversies within the field of geology reflected wider societal changes and an examination of the Victorian 'geological sublime' touches on concerns found more generally in the wider Victorian sublime. The artistic engagement with geology was heavily influenced by the landscape theories of John Ruskin and this study has focused principally on three artists who painted geological landscapes with his precepts in mind: Alfred William Hunt, John Brett and John William Inchbold. I have explored their treatment of sublime geological landscapes through the lens of Ruskinian theory, together with the impact of traditional conceptions of the sublime and contemporary geological developments on their work. The paintings of these artists can be seen to have utilised aspects of the sublime which were unique to the Victorian period, while building on earlier Romantic achievements. Their Victorian geological sublime mirrored a febrile climate in which artistic, scientific and religious change united to produce a new kind of sublime landscape art which was the visual expression of a moment of great cultural uncertainty.