Imag(in)ing Iberia: Landscape Annuals and Multimedia Narratives of the Spanish Journey in British Romanticism

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Notes

 [1] On the transition from eighteenth-century to Romantic travelling and travel writing, see Adams (1985); Saglia (2002).

 [2] In his Characteristical Views, the pamphleteer and historical writer John Andrews (1736-1809) observes dismissively: ‘From these and other causes of a similar nature, Spain, you must readily perceive, is no country for travellers. Those conveniences and accommodations that invite the curious to visit other parts of Europe, are almost utterly unknown in this infrequented region’ (Andrews 1808, p. 65).

 [3] Spanish authors also felt the need to control and direct images and interpretations of their country and, in the 1820s, began to publish descriptions and illustrations of Spain and its (past and present) culture for the benefit of the British reading public. In particular, it was the liberales, escaped from Ferdinand VII's persecution, who devoted themselves to diffusing knowledge about Spain. See, for instance, José María Blanco White's complex geo-cultural and political account of the country in Letters from Spain by Don Leucadio Doblado, first published in instalments in the New Monthly Magazine and then as a single volume in 1822; and Blanco's long essay ‘Spain’ in the Quarterly Review (Blanco White 1823, pp. 240–276) where he seeks to explain why, throughout their history, the Spanish people repeatedly seem to ‘rush from anarchical liberty into absolute despotism’. Finally, see the literary activities of such figures as Antonio Alcalá Galiano, Telésforo Trueba y Cosío and Valentín Llanos Gutiérrez (Llorens 1954; García Castañeda 1982).

 [4] In 1819 the American Jacob Perkins had taken out a patent for the processing of steel printing plates. Previously, copper had been employed almost exclusively. Steel plates proved more advantageous, as they had a longer life and thousands of impressions could be printed from them without any deterioration. As a result, the prices of these reproductions went down, and steel engravings began to be mass produced and marketed through the Annuals. In addition, many of these publications were issued in both small and large formats, and the plates included in the latter were usually printed on high-quality India paper and could be bought separately in special portfolios (Bain 1973).

 [5] In a letter to Allan Cunningham of 21 December 1828, Robert Southey highlighted this acquisitive desire, observing that ‘these Annuals are picture-books for grown children. They are good things for the artists and engravers, and, therefore I am glad of their success’ (Southey 1849–50, V, p. 339).

 [6] As Sonia Hofkosh remarks, ‘the gift books functioned metonymically not only for individuals in the personal realm of feeling and relationship, but also publicly as recognized signs of education, taste, luxury; they functioned as signs, in other words, of that excess which delineates the very sphere of the private’ (1993, p. 206).

 [7] On the fact that these volumes were increasingly valued for their illustrations taken from the work of well-known painters, and their development of ever more accurate reproduction techniques, see the anonymous essay on ‘Improvement of Literary Taste’, Gentleman's Magazine, 97, November 1827, pp. 387–389, and the review of some of the Annuals in Gentleman's Magazine, 99, October 1829, p. 351.

 [8] Instances of exclusively or preponderantly visual Annuals are The Continental Annual (1832) illustrated by Samuel Prout; The Landscape Album (1832, 1834) illustrated by William Westall; Heath's Picturesque Annual (1832–45); Turner's Annual Tour (1833–55) illustrated by J. M. W. Turner; The Oriental Annual, or Scenes in India (1834–40); The Continental Tourist (1835); The Continental Landscape Annual of European Scenery (1835, 1837–38); The Landscape Souvenir (1835, 1837–39) with views by Samuel Prout and James Duffield Harding and text by Thomas Roscoe; Heath's Gallery of Engravings (1836–38); The Scenic Annual for 1838, edited by Thomas Campbell; and Finden's Tableaux (1837–44). Nevertheless, not all of these ventures were successful. Alaric Watts's The Cabinet of Modern Art, launched in 1835 and published by Whittaker, was offered as a yearly summary of contemporary artistic production with a view to exciting public curiosity about British art and satisfying the demand for visual artefacts. This publication, however, was not well received by the public, and by 1837 it had replaced its original critical and biographical pieces on the engravings with more traditional verse and prose commentaries (Renier 1964, p. 13).

 [9] For specific bibliographic references, see Boyle (1967).

[10] One of John Britton's students, Samuel Prout (1783–1852) contributed to spread the fashion for representations of Continental picturesque views especially thanks to his numerous publications in the 1830s. James Duffield Harding (1798–1863) was another important representative of the early Victorian school of landscape painting. Together with David Roberts and John Frederick Lewis, these artists produced thousands of picturesque works that, in the shape of steel engravings for the Annuals, found their way to an ever expanding public of purchasers (Pidgley 1986).

[11] See the list of paintings for these years in James Ballantine's Life of David Roberts (1866, pp. 70–79), and the chronological list of pictures (pp. 248–249) that shows how most of Roberts's works in the years 1833 to 1838 dealt with Spanish subjects.

[12] A partial facsimile reproduction of this letter is in Antonio Giménez Cruz's La España pintoresca de David Roberts (2002, p. 343).

[13] In the Landscape Annual for 1838, Roberts thanks those who had provided him with sketches of the places he had been unable to visit: ‘to Colonel Harding of the Royal Engineers; to Richard Ford, Esq.; to Lieutenant Smith, and to Lieutenant Edridge, of the Royal Artillery, he is proud to express his obligations for their uniform courtesy and urbanity’ (Roscoe & Roberts 1838, p. v).

[14] On 25 November 1833 Roberts wrote exultingly to his friend Hay about the newly signed contract and its favourable terms, entitling him to £420 per volume and the possibility of choosing the engravers: ‘My dear Hay,—I have just concluded an agreement to do the illustrations for the Landscape Annual for next year, consisting of twenty drawings and a vignette, for which I am to receive four hundred and twenty pounds, and to have the choice of my own engravers. This I incline to think is the highest price any artist, with the exception of Turner, has received for drawings of a similar nature’ (Ballantine 1866, p. 67).

[15] Richard Ford, by then already an authority on Spain, had been residing in the Peninsula in the years of Roberts's journey there. They had been unable to meet on that occasion, but, as soon as they were back in Britain, Ford sought Roberts's acquaintance and helped him with advice on how to publish some of his innumerable drawings. Also the painter John Frederick Lewis was in Spain at the time of Roberts's expedition. Both artists had been inspired by David Wilkie's trip to the Peninsula in 1827–28, knew each other, and tried to meet in Spain but failed to do so. Their contact was re-established in Britain and, while Roberts was working on Jennings' Annuals, brought out two volumes of Spanish prints—Sketches and Drawings of the Alhambra (1835) and Sketches of Spain and Spanish Character (1836). These publications anticipated Roberts's own later volume of Picturesque Sketches in Spain, Taken during the years 1832 –33 (1837) containing 26 lithographs, three of which were his own. The latter volume was very successful and, in his record book, Roberts wrote that, to the best of his knowledge, no other similar book had sold as many copies. In effect 1200 copies were sold in the first two months, and it was still selling in 1857 (Pidgley 1986, p. 65). Finally, Roberts's Spanish works of the 1830s were also related to another descriptive volume on Spain—George Vivian's Scenery of Portugal and Spain (1839)—published by P. and D. Colnaghi, the latter of whom was the art merchant representing Roberts.

[16] On Roberts's representations of Granada, see Calvo Serraller 1978 and Galera Andreu 1992. On the origins of Gothic architecture in Islamic architectural styles, see Raquejo 1986.

[17] This approach was dictated by Roberts's characteristic tendency to increase the spectacularity and picturesque values of his subjects, and thus to metamorphose Spanish landscapes into sublime Gothic vistas (Symmons 1996).

[18] A reviewer in The Atheneum observed approvingly: ‘The scenes are treated with consummate skill by the painter, and translated no less excellently by the engraver’ (Ballantine 1866, p. 70). Another reviewer in the Literary Gazette remarked: ‘A more picturesque and romantic series of views it is impossible to conceive; and although, at one moment, we may be tempted to regret that so much beauty is confined within such narrow limits, at the next we are compelled to acknowledge that, however large the space that might have been allowed, it would have been difficult to introduce into it a greater number of those qualities that constitute the charm of art. In some of these admirable plates natural scenery, in others architectural magnificence, predominates; while the figures introduced in the picturesque costume of the country add much to the interest of this delightful publication’ (Ballantine 1866, p. 70). And, in a piece for Fraser's Magazine (December 1837), William Makepeace Thackeray approved of Roberts's artistic achievements, singling him out as one of the few painters who produced high-quality art for the Annuals: ‘In Roberts's Annual the prints are successful; for the artist is skilful, and his drawings are far more easily copied in engraving than subjects of history or figures’ (Pidgley 1986, p. 49).