Debates on the idea of the 'picturesque' were a popular subject in the late eighteenth century. This influential work, An Essay on the Picturesque as compared with the Sublime and the Beautiful, was first printed in 1794. Its author, Uvedale Price believed that the 'picturesque' was situated between the sublime (the idea that the landscape contained structures which inspired awe and fear – ruinous abbeys, mountains etc) and the beautiful, and therefore contained aspects of the two. In viewing the world in this way, Price contested the landscapes delineated by Lancelot 'Capability' Brown. Where Brown designed landscape along classical order, Price favoured rugged hills, stony paths and overgrown woodland.

Price's theories, possibly through his friendship with the amateur artist and influential patron Sir George Beaumont, came to illustrate the views taken by artists and poets of the romantic period and were satirised in literary works such as Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey and Pride & Prejudice.