185
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
M. C. Tobias, J. G. Morrison, On the Nature of Ecological Paradox,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64526-7_20
Chapter 20
The Grampians
20.1 Beauteous, Befallen (Fig. 20.1)
George Fennell Robson (1788–1833) came from the northeast of England, in
Durham, and by the age of 20 had fallen swoon—as would every generation after
him—to the highlands of Scotland. While he loved painting birds, his principal
obsession was early morning and late afternoon lighting on the Grampians—their
Lochs, summits, and distances, the imperturbable shadow play and incarnate longings before the human stance and its plausible exile. He championed an early nineteenth century calling that took from the legendary language of Dionysius Longinus’s
treatise On The Sublime
1
which was as much the language itself—dangling in “the
space between heaven and earth”—as a study in effective metaphors and imagery
2
.
Other painters of Robson’s generation—Patrick Nasmyth, Sir Robert Ker Porter,
Ramsay Richard Reinagle, John Fleming, and his engraver Joseph Swan
3
—each
capitalized on Longinus’ sentiments, as assimilated by Edmund Burke in his
Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful
(London, 1757) and his Vindication of Natural Society published a year earlier.
Burke, a Dublin-born statesman, harbored a massive, historical punch whose
traction derived from his keen abilities to merge both the language and content of
scenery and the feelings they may elicit, with political realism of his time. His
points-of-view on civilizations from India to France were very much in tune with
those of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s An Inquiry into the Nature of the Social Contract;
1 Translated from the Greek, With Notes and Observations, And Some Account of the Life,
Writings, and Character of the Author, By William Smith, London, 1770, 4
th edition.
2 ibid., p.31.
3 See The Lakes of Scotland. A Series of Views From paintings Taken Expressly For The Work by
John Fleming Engraved by Joseph Swan. With Historical and Descriptive Illustrations by John
Leighton, Published by Swan, Engraver, Glasgow, 1834.
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
M. C. Tobias, J. G. Morrison, On the Nature of Ecological Paradox,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64526-7_20
Chapter 20
The Grampians
20.1 Beauteous, Befallen (Fig. 20.1)
George Fennell Robson (1788–1833) came from the northeast of England, in
Durham, and by the age of 20 had fallen swoon—as would every generation after
him—to the highlands of Scotland. While he loved painting birds, his principal
obsession was early morning and late afternoon lighting on the Grampians—their
Lochs, summits, and distances, the imperturbable shadow play and incarnate longings before the human stance and its plausible exile. He championed an early nineteenth century calling that took from the legendary language of Dionysius Longinus’s
treatise On The Sublime
1
which was as much the language itself—dangling in “the
space between heaven and earth”—as a study in effective metaphors and imagery
2
.
Other painters of Robson’s generation—Patrick Nasmyth, Sir Robert Ker Porter,
Ramsay Richard Reinagle, John Fleming, and his engraver Joseph Swan
3
—each
capitalized on Longinus’ sentiments, as assimilated by Edmund Burke in his
Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful
(London, 1757) and his Vindication of Natural Society published a year earlier.
Burke, a Dublin-born statesman, harbored a massive, historical punch whose
traction derived from his keen abilities to merge both the language and content of
scenery and the feelings they may elicit, with political realism of his time. His
points-of-view on civilizations from India to France were very much in tune with
those of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s An Inquiry into the Nature of the Social Contract;
1 Translated from the Greek, With Notes and Observations, And Some Account of the Life,
Writings, and Character of the Author, By William Smith, London, 1770, 4
th edition.
2 ibid., p.31.
3 See The Lakes of Scotland. A Series of Views From paintings Taken Expressly For The Work by
John Fleming Engraved by Joseph Swan. With Historical and Descriptive Illustrations by John
Leighton, Published by Swan, Engraver, Glasgow, 1834.