Holland Park Living
Picturesque
John Nash (1752 – 1835), the architect of the cream terraces of Regent's Park was the greatest exponent of the Picturesque movement.
The essence of the Picturesque Movement was that the beauty of the landscape - of the real world - was the proper source of aesthetic inspiration. However, its exponents didn't admire the actual beauty of the real world. They admired it only if it looked like a painting. In fact, the word Picturesque was taken from pittoresco, the Italian for "in the manner of a painting." So it is not surprising that Nash's partner in his first architectural practice was Humphry Repton, who became a famous landscape gardener. Landscape gardeners not only rejected formal gardens, they also rejected the landscape if it was not landscaped enough. Hills were levelled or created, lakes filled in or excavated, and trees uprooted and moved about, to give the newly designed country house its proper picturesque setting.
The effect on Nash's buildings is not immediately obvious. His Regent's Park houses seem to modern eyes to be the height of classical formality, but their irregular silhouettes are Picturesque.
