Humphry Repton (1752–1818), last master of the English landscape garden, translated the pastoral tradition into the visual language of before-and-after views. His famous “Red Books,” with fold-out sketches, offered clients landscapes of transformation, at once pragmatic and theatrical. Repton’s style bridged the smooth naturalism of Capability Brown and the eclectic, picturesque gardens of the nineteenth century, earning him the title of the first to call himself a “landscape gardener.”
With our 21st century attentions challenged by endless streams of information on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, as well as blockbuster films supercharged by quick cuts and loads of special effects, Roundhay Garden Scene is improbably well suited for our age: who really has the time to spend more than 1 or 2 seconds on any one piece of visual content?2
Andy Warhol’s 1964 film Empire, an 8-hour long, black-and-white movie featuring a single shot of New York City’s Empire State Building, offers a useful counterpoint.
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