The Contemporary Picturesque?

My landscape work is based around a study of the urban fringes & semi-rural landscape under the title, ‘Is this the Contemporary Picturesque?’. This project aims to address the effect that humans have on the environment. The images combine ideals of the Romantic, Picturesque (‘traditional’ landscape) in regard to aesthetic, with the anti-social aspects of human activity (such as fly-tipping, vandalism, decay & expanding development) from a retrospective viewpoint.

The work is not intended to show the land in a negative light, more to focus onto the negative aspect as a motif & show how it exists within the location; to show ‘the spirit of the place’ & how this is still apparent, despite the negative influence of man. In effect, the work aims to challenge the assumptions people have of how ‘good landscape’ should look, compared to how it is treated; to present this reality as an environmental aesthetic & to hopefully raise awareness of our concept of social morality.

Whilst every effort was made to reproduce the vibrancy of the originals, please note that these are scans from prints & therefore some degredation of quality may have occured (i.e. the prints look better!).


All images are Copyright: Robert James Egan
(No unauthorised reproduction/alteration without permission)