The Picturesque
A Tug-Of-War Between Power and Love in Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey and Pride and Prejudice

Beauty and love, two concepts that seemingly depend on each other with ease are two sides of an unbalanced power dynamic according to picturesque beauty and representation. The picturesque is an aesthetic framework for viewing natural scenery that is reflective of nostalgia for antiquity and history. Austen was aware of Burke and Gilpin’s writings about the picturesque and beauty and incorporated humour and criticism inspired by them in her novels. Catherine Morland and Henry Tilney in Northanger Abbey are engaged in discussions about picturesque travel and scenery, through which Austen reflects on the unnatural and didactic method of developing taste in eighteenth-century England. Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice embodies picturesque beauty qualities naturally which Austen uses to explore the paradoxes of associating class and luxury to the picturesque. This paper first identifies how Austen deploys the picturesque aesthetic mode as a narrative device. Secondly, it discusses how Austen connects the act of visual viewing of landscapes to developing mental and social outlook. Lastly, this paper considers how Austen uses the picturesque to develop the character arcs of the female protagonists Catherine and Elizabeth. Austen engages the tropes of picturesque representation in her novels to highlight how power and the passage of time dominate ideals of beauty, love, and gendered expectations of social roles. This is significant because the picturesque transcends its original association to scenery and becomes a political and social tool for maintaining social order and morality.

Edmund Burke distinguishes love and beauty as two cooperative entities that are inherently unequal in power. Burke defines beauty as “that quality, or those qualities in bodies, by which they cause love, or some passion similar to it” and love as “that satisfaction which arises to the mind upon contemplating anything beautiful” (Burke 136). He associates certain features with beauty. One is “smoothness: a quality so essential to beauty” and secondly, “the appearance of delicacy, and even of fragility” (136, 137). He creates an unequal relationship between the two concepts by stating that “we submit to what we admire, but we love what submits to us; in one case we are forced, in the other we are flattered into compliance” (136). He establishes an inherent power imbalance between beauty and love, whereby the object, women, embodying beauty is inferior. Men, the viewers of such beauty, love women or things that “submit” to them and reinforce patriarchal power. To demonstrate fragility or delicacy suggests the embodiment of instability and weakness in women, which is idealised and aestheticised as beauty worthy of love.

William Gilpin develops Burke’s work by adding the picturesque as a third category that helps reinforce the power dynamic. Gilpin distinguishes beauty from the picturesque. He defines beautiful objects as those that “please the eye in their natural state,” whereas the picturesque is “capable of being illustrated in painting” (Gilpin 138). In picturesque beauty, ‘ruggedness’ and “roughness forms the most essential point of difference” (138). To turn something beautiful into picturesque, one has to turn smooth and delicate into rough and rugged, because smoothness “offends in picture” (139). Gilpin builds further on Burke’s power dynamic by adding the “rough touches of age” in the picturesque (139). It is age and the passage of time which “gives that dignity of character; that force of expression; those lines of wisdom, and experience; that energetic meaning” in the portrait of the “patriarchal head” (139). Age is associated with time, and time is associated with history which gives age power and authority over the young and the present. The aestheticization of the past, through the picturesque, is a way to establish authority and power over the youth that may want change and progression on a political and social level. As Dabney Townsend writes, “picturesque aesthetic demands ‘appropriation; something we can call our own,’ the ‘exclusive right of enjoyment, with the power of refusing that others shall share our pleasure’” (367). 

In Northanger Abbey, Austen deploys the picturesque as a narrative device by guiding the novel by Catherine’s fascination with abbeys and palaces that embody picturesque ideals. Catherine’s fascination for Blaize Castle and Northanger Abbey is typical of picturesque travellers because “enthusiasts for the picturesque sought out wild scenery, preferred ruined abbeys to Doric temples and valued a native Gothic past over the classical heritage” (Duckworth 278). Blaize Castle and Northanger Abbey represent history and ancestry through their darkness, mysteriousness, and ruggedness. It is the “temporal passage, often through the evidence of decay, but also through the fullness of development” that give such locations authority and influence over what is considered ideal and aesthetic (Townsend 367). The embodiment of this history and knowledge of the past guides Catherine’s curiosity and opens up space for Henry Tilney to teach Catherine good taste by demonstrating how to be a picturesque tourist. Catherine observes on her walk with the Tilney siblings that they were “viewing the country with the eyes of persons accustomed to drawing, and decided on its capability of being formed into pictures, with all the eagerness of real taste” (Austen 124). Austen is foreshadowing a dramatic and humourous development of Catherine’s taste throughout the novel as she engages with the Tilneys more and is exposed to the lifestyle of excess that the picturesque influences. Austen pokes fun of Henry when he at face value is satisfied by Catherine parroting his admiration of the landscape and “talked of fore-grounds, distances, and second distances - side screens and perspectives - lights and shades” (125). These artistic qualities are references to Gilpin’s text, and Austen writes sarcastically throughout this passage at how ‘delighted’ and ‘pleased’ Henry is at Catherine’s natural ‘good taste.’ Austen, through this sarcasm, humorously highlights the superficiality and the irony of natural taste needing to be taught and constructed.

Moreover, the emotions that Catherine feels at the inadequacy of appreciating the picturesque speaks to a larger social condition of exclusion and entitlement to pleasure for the elite. Gilpin outlines two considerations for picturesque travel; first, the object, which is “beauty;” second is the source of amusement, which are the pursuit for the object, and the attainment of the object (Gilpin 139-140). Catherine does not understand the beauty of the landscape and therefore the associated amusement does not happen either. Instead of feeling happy for being validated by Henry’s misunderstanding of her natural taste, she feels shame for not having good taste naturally. Distance is another attribute of the picturesque that enforces its exclusivity (Townsend 369). Not only does Catherine feel a physical distance from the landscape, but also an emotional distance from the Tilneys and their conception of the picturesque. The duality of the distance that takes place is a method excluding those like Catherine who are not accustomed to seeing things as ‘drawing’ and encouraging submission to the picturesque method of viewing as the ideal. Austen portrays this sense of exclusivity and inflexibility throughout Northanger Abbey in moments such as General Tilney boasting about the improvements to the abbey which will be covered later in the paper. 

In Pride and Prejudice, Austen uses Elizabeth’s movement through walks and travel to demonstrate picturesque admiration and estates. A lot of the critical moments in the novel for Elizabeth occur during her walks and travel. Austen pokes fun at Gilpin when Elizabeth refuses to walk with Mr Darcy, Miss Bingley and Mrs Hurst. Elizabeth jokes that the path is not big enough for them and that “the picturesque would be spoilt by admitting a fourth” (Austen 80). Here Austen is insultingly joking about Gilpin’s theory about three cows forming a group (Duckworth 285). And so, Austen is incorporating contemporary knowledge about the picturesque aesthetic and writers like Gilpin in her narrative and dialogue. 

From walking to Netherfield to visit her ill sister Jane, to receiving an explanatory letter from Mr Darcy while walking after she rejected his first proposal, Elizabeth’s movement from one landscape to another not only serves as moments of solitude where she is able to reflect on the events that have happened, but also as moments to observe the picturesque qualities of her environment. For example, when Elizabeth and the Gardiners drive to Pemberley, she is particularly intrigued by the natural materials and scenery and she “admired every remarkable spot and point of view” (Austen 227). Selecting appropriate vantage points to view the landscape is critical in picturesque travel as there needs to be a comprehensive view of different artistic properties like light, shade, colour, etc (Duckworth 280-1). Elizabeth exclaimed that “she had never seen a place for which nature had done more, or where natural beauty had been so little counteracted by an awkward taste” (Austen 227). Elizabeth is delighted by the “handsome, stone building… backed by a ridge of high woody hills” and appreciated the comprehensiveness and harmony of “the whole scene, the river, the trees scattered on its banks, and the winding of the valley” (228). Through Austen’s explicit use of picturesque language here, Elizabeth describes Pemberley in a manner that assumes the scenery had unfolded like so in nature, even though there is an obvious sense of the construction of the picturesque to create the appearance of the natural. The Pemberley estate becomes a representation of the idealised picturesque aesthetic that people travel to tour just like Elizabeth and the Gardiners. 

The picturesque aesthetic, in eighteenth-century England, was related to morality and the development of character as well. Townsend writes that “both in their effects and their causes… character and art are bound together” (369). In order to appreciate the picturesque and train generations of people in the same way, one needs to “produce an aesthetic vocabulary that shapes attitudes… the attitude toward luxury and excess expressed by seekers after the picturesque” (Townsend 371). This attitude is dependent on “distance and separation” on a physical and emotional level as identified in Northanger Abbey (Marshall 414). In Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth reflects on Darcy’s attention towards her and asserts that “she hardly knew how to suppose that she could be an object of admiration to so great a man” (Austen 79). This reflection relates back to Burke’s claim that one loves what submits to them, and it is beauty that submits to love. Austen is using Burke’s language to criticise the notion that just because Elizabeth is an object that embodies beauty, she is inferior to Mr Darcy because he views and loves her beauty. She is questioning the assumption that Elizabeth will ‘submit’ to Mr Darcy’s love and admiration simply because she possesses beauty. This move distinguishes Elizabeth early in the novel as a character that will defy societal expectations of beauty and gendered power dynamics, which will be covered further later in the paper. By using Burke’s language and concept, Austen is engaging her readers in a discussion about societal gender relations and the morality surrounding women’s assumed inferiority, ‘fragility’ and ‘delicacy’. 

Furthermore, Austen uses terminology of picturesque portraiture and art to highlight the paradox of claiming the picturesque aesthetic to be natural. In Pride and Prejudice when Miss Bingley condescendingly jokes about putting up Elizabeth’s portrait in Pemberley alongside the Darcy family, she does so not only to insult Elizabeth's social status and claiming the absurdity of associating the Bennets with the Darcys, but she also unknowingly describes Elizabeth as fitting to the picturesque aesthetic in her real self. Although Miss Bingley insults Elizabeth’s ‘wildness’ and how ‘untidy’ and ‘blowsy’ her hair was when she first came to Netherfield to attend to Jane, these descriptions are what Gilpin uses to describe a picturesque individual on a portrait (Austen 66). Gilpin writes, for portraits, messiness such as “dishevelled hair” or faces “agitated by passion, and its muscles swol’n by strong exertion, the whole frame is shewn to the most advantage (139). Elizabeth fits into the theoretical concept of picturesque beauty, but in reality rather than in picture form, which confuses the understanding of what constitutes natural beauty versus constructed beauty on a societal and artistic level. Portraits are a form of history and time, it is evidence of ancestry and lineage. Portraiture is expensive, making it exclusive to those of high classes and ranks, and preserves memory. The history that portraits embody is a way, as Gilpin states, of asserting power and authority on lower ranks and dominating the ideal in culture, aesthetics, and socially acceptable norms. 

As mentioned before, Austen criticises the lifestyle of excess and conspicuous consumption influenced by the picturesque in Northanger Abbey. One prominent critique of the picturesque was the negligence of practicality in the pursuit of the aesthetic. Many landowners would indulge in heavy expenses for improvements and changes “while neglecting their social responsibilities as landowners,” which Austen criticises (Duckworth 283). When Catherine is invited to Northanger Abbey by General Tilney, she is ecstatic at fulfilling her curiosity and fascination, however, she is overwhelmed by the grandiosity of it. While describing the dining parlour, Catherine states that the Tilneys live “in a style of luxury and expense which was almost lost on the unpractised eye of Catherine” (Austen 168). Austen is criticising the elitist culture of over-expenditure and consumption for the sake of consumption. This critique spotlights the economic inequality between the classes where people like the Tilneys are able to throw their money at unnecessary improvements for the sake of the aesthetic while many are unable to secure their land or live comfortably. Duckworth points out that “General Tilney’s grandiose improvements at Northanger Abbey not only disappoint Catherine Morland’s Gothic anticipations but identify him as an avaricious consumer capitalist (283). General Tilney wants to show off his property and its improvements because it is reflective of his social standing and is a move to impress Catherine as a potential daughter-in-law under his misguided assumption of her family’s wealth. Austen is demonstrating how the picturesque aesthetic ideal is created and enforced rigorously by the elite, to impress and maintain the social order and continue its exclusivity. It is a way to assert one’s authority to dictate appropriate marriage prospects, which is a social and economic consideration and is standardised by the powerful and elite. 

While in Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth embodies and demystifies the picturesque ideal, in Northanger Abbey Catherine is fascinated by and trained to understand the picturesque by constantly following and trusting Henry’s taste. Catherine declares “her passion for ancient edifices was next in degree to her passion for Henry Tilney” and is excited that she will be “with the person whose society she mostly prized” (Austen 147). Austen is explicitly playing with the dynamic of love and power here. Love is a product of the beautiful submitting to the admirer. Catherine, naive to the social dynamics of gender relationships, is suggesting herself to be inferior to Henry, both in respect to gender and class. Catherine enjoys Northanger Abbey only when Henry is present on the property, and is exhausted by it in his absence. Her pleasure and leisure are directly influenced by the presence of Henry, connecting her love for the picturesque with her love for him. She objectifies herself as a beautiful object wanting of his love as Burke described, placing herself as inferior to Henry, the admirer. She also lacks the vocabulary and understanding of the picturesque to appreciate landscape the same way Henry does, placing herself as inferior in class and taste. 

Austen intentionally engages this dynamic between love and power to criticise the social conventions that are rehearsed and unnatural for the sake of social order. Catherine constantly shames herself for not being knowledgeable or sensible enough and is often gaslighted by Henry and the Thorpes causing her to doubt her own thoughts and depend on Henry for guidance on all things social and picturesque. For example, when Catherine was suspicious of General Tilney, Henry resorts to question her way of thinking rather than comforting her troubling mind (Austen 195-6). Similarly, Isabella and John Thorpe refuse to accept Catherine’s rejection of John’s feelings, placing the blame on her actions rather than the impropriety of John (149). It is after Catherine’s dangerous carriage ride home alone, forced by General Tilney, that she reflects and lifts herself out of her ‘inferiority’ and she demands proper treatment and respect from the Tilneys. Her family demands consent from General Tilney for Henry and Catherine’s marriage, even if it meant a temporary banishment for Henry. Catherine’s character development in the novel is shaped by the constant shame and exclusion she feels by the invasiveness of the picturesque in every aspect of elite society, from vocabulary to consumption and expenditure. She learns to value her own pleasures and starts to trust her own opinions and thoughts, just as she did in the beginning when she was assertive about her distaste for history reading and her love for novels or her pride in her self-taught grammar. 

Elizabeth’s character development in Pride and Prejudice charts her in between originality and copy. Marshall states that “the resemblance between works of art and works of nature makes it increasingly difficult to tell the difference between originals and copies” in a time when the picturesque aesthetic dominated every circle of elite culture (Marshall 417). Elizabeth is in between these two states of originality and copy. As mentioned before, Elizabeth inherently possesses the qualities of picturesque beauty, outside of the picture. It is her natural possession of these qualities that confuse picturesque expectations of beauty and aesthetic standards. On the one hand, she possesses originality because she is naturally ‘rugged’ and ‘wild’ which make her beautiful in the picturesque sense. On the other hand, these qualities are only supposed to exist in picture, not in reality, which separates her from the standards of beauty among women at the time. It is this tension between originality and copy that draws Mr Darcy to her and colours her as a progressive person and future of England. Elizabeth explains to Darcy the reason he was attracted to her by suggesting he admired her for her ‘impertinence’ and because she was unlike the women that embodied ‘civility’ and ‘deference’ (Austen 329). Firstly, Elizabeth never quivers in her opinions or appearance, she refuses to submit to Darcy’s admiration and rejects his initial proposal, asserting authority over herself and allowing reflection on Darcy’s part rather than just herself. So, Austen shakes up the power dynamic Burke initiated and suggests a level of equality or mutual respect between love and power, demystifying the authority the picturesque holds over social codes of love and gender relations. Secondly, Austen holds Elizabeth up as the future of England and progressive politics through this active refusal to submit. Elizabeth’s intermediacy between original and copy of the picturesque and her marriage to Darcy is a step towards opening up the exclusive aristocratic culture to the middle class. She becomes a physical representation of how one can both be and not be part of the picturesque ideal and be absorbed into the aristocracy rather than stay excluded. Instead of associating the picturesque quality of the passage of time solely with the past that holds power and influence over people, time incorporates the potential of the future as well. 

The picturesque, over the course of the eighteenth-century, transcended its initial association with nature to become a representation of political and social ideals that was based on exclusion, distance, and superficiality. As Townsend argues, “picturesque subject matter… is only acceptable if it suitably insulated from the actual world of the viewer. The picturesque requires a dissociation from the actual consequences and realities of what appears” (370). Catherine and Elizabeth become embodiments of the ‘consequences and realities’ that the picturesque is insulated from. It is upon breaking the barrier between the picturesque and reality, demystifying the metaphorical distance between scene and observer, that both the female protagonists understand their individual strength and autonomy. Austen meticulously deploys the picturesque throughout both novels as reflective opportunities that engage discussions about gender and class, and how the power imbalances that are claimed to be natural are in reality unnatural. The past is ultimately encouraged to remain only as the past and not an influencer on the present.

Disclaimer: This work is original and the property of Aroni Sarkar. It is not authorised for any use, copies or dissemination.

Works Cited

Austen, Jane. Northanger Abbey. 2nd ed., edited by Claire Grogan, Broadview Press, 2002.

Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. 2nd ed., edited by Robert P. Irvine, Broadview Press, 2020.

Burke, Edmund. “A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful.” British Literature 1780-1830, edited by Anne K. Mellor and Richard E. Matlak, Heinle & Heinle, 1996, pp 134-137.

Duckworth, Alistair M. “Landscape.” Jane Austen in Context, edited by Janet Todd, Cambridge University Press, 2009, pp 278-288. 

Gilpin, William. “Three Essays: On Picturesque Beauty; On Picturesque Travel; and On Sketching Landscape.” British Literature 1780-1830, edited by Anne K. Mellor and Richard E. Matlak, Heinle & Heinle, 1996, pp 138-140.

Marshall, David. “The Problem of the Picturesque.” Eighteenth-Century Studies, vol 35, no. 3, Spring 2002, pp 413-437. 

Townsend, Dabney. “The Picturesque.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol 55, no. 4, Autumn 1997, pp 365-376.