The Invisible Landscape

The paper is based on the case study of three artists from the late 18th and early 19th century including Thomas Gainsborough,George Stubbs,George Morland,John Constable in terms of the image of the peasant in the English landscape painting of that period to make a revelation of the disguised ideology and power relation. Chapter one elaborates the social reality of the English countryside of the period in question as well as the rural landscape painting to show the disparity between the two categories. Chapter two progressed with the "cottage door" series which Gainsborough executed during his old age reflecting his personal ideas, the requirements of the Academism, the pastoral tradition as well as the effect of the aristocratic taste on rural landscape painting. Chapter three compares the work of Stubbs with that Morland of the same period, putting forward the significance and effect at work on the English ruling class by the imagery of "industrious" peasant during the specific era of the French Revolution. Through the analysis of a number of works by Constable, chapter four is devoted to revealing how the image of peasant is constructed by the English national ideology during the Napoleonic Wars.The conclusion can be drawn based on the analysis and interpretation:the English rural landscape painting of the late 18th and early 19th century is not a genuine representation of the contemporary reality, instead, the image of peasant is constructed by the social, political, economic, cultural and historical forces, therefore can be taken as the power relation and mainstream discourse. As a way of representation, the rural landscape painting implemented this discourse, disguising the ideology and power relation by being "real" and "natural" at the same time, stereotyping the rural life and the image of the peasant on the one hand, and masking the ruling order as eternal the laws of nature.