Journey 2
William Gilpin
Tintern
How did Gilpin react to poverty?
Tintern Abbey is another example of Gilpin using artistic licence to improve the picturesque.
Although it was Wordsworth’s 1798 poem that made Tintern truly famous, it was a highlight
of tours even in Gilpin’s day.
But initially he was unimpressed, and his pictures again show signs of embellishment. It was only as he got nearer that he praised the softening effect time had had on the abbey’s ruins.
Perhaps because he was a clergyman, Gilpin was more sensitive than many of his contemporaries to the down and outs who lived in the ruins. But he had no solution or advice. If he understood how they fitted into God’s plan, he doesn’t let on. The admirer of the picturesque simply didn’t know what to make of poverty.