RA Magazine Spring 2013 Issue Number: 118 The power of landscape
in the north of England Two exhibitions celebrate the poetic
power of landscape in the north of England, writes Ian Warrell.
John Atkinson Grimshaw, 'On the Tees, near Barnard Castle',
c.1868. On show at the Bowes Museum. © Leeds Museums and
Galleries/The Bridgeman Art Library. In Britain, our
appreciation of the great landscapes of the North is often
shaped by the words of poets, especially the Romantics of the
early 19th century. An exhibition at the Bowes Museum explores
the echoes caused by the publication of Walter Scott’s epic poem
Rokeby, 200 years ago. It was an instant hit, selling 10,000
copies in only three months, and thereafter drawing countless
tourists to the locations it describes in Teesdale, between
Barnard Castle (home of the Bowes Museum) and Darlington.
Artists also began to include the banks of the Tees and the
Greta on their northern itineraries. But when it came to
creating an illustrated edition of the poem, Scott’s publ