A Modern Idyll, a classical book, has been considered important throughout the human history, and so that this work is never forgotten we at Alpha Editions have made efforts in its preservation by republishing this book in a modern format for present and future generations. This whole book has been reformatted, retyped and designed. These books are not made of scanned copies of their original work and hence the text is clear and readable.

For over two decades visual artist and historian Brenton Hamilton has created a sustained body of work, mostly concentrated within the historic processes employing nineteenth century photography techniques, no longer commercially available. Hamilton has produced a unique body of work using methodologies like gum bichromated forms, platinum, and collodion ambrotypes on black glass, French variants of paper calotypy and of course the embellished cyanotype. Influenced by the Surrealist motifs; coaxing dream like, chance collisions of fragments from art history, Hamilton shapes a new landscape in his photographs. The present symbolism of the dark night sky and the freedom to look outside himself towards unfettered ideas and musings, learning to make a new place with paper and metal salts and light allowing him to rest and wonder. He combines human anatomy, astronomy and botanical imagery to create intriguing and provocative arrangements. His work references to ancient Greece and Rome, as well as 15th and 16th century Dutch and Italian paintings. Hamilton uses symbols and visual elements from the history of art to create a thoroughly contemporary vision.

This book, first published in 1989, recounts the changing perceptions of the countryside throughout the nineteenth- and twentieth-centuries, helping us to understand more fully the issues that have influenced our view of the ideal countryside, past and present. Some of the chapters are concerned with ways in which Victorian artists, poets, and prose writers portrayed the countryside of their day; others with the landowners’ impressive and costly country houses, and their prettification of ‘model’ villages, reflecting fashionable romantic and Gothic styles. This title will be of interest to students of history.

From country lanes to thatch roofs, a stroll through the enduring appeal of the nineteenth-century trope of rural English bliss. A Sweet View explores how writers and artists in the nineteenth century shaped the English countryside as a partly imaginary idyll, with its distinctive repertoire of idealized scenery: the village green, the old country churchyard, hedgerows and cottages, scenic variety concentrated into a small compass, snugness and comfort. The book draws on a very wide range of contemporary sources and features some of the key makers of the “South Country” rural idyll, including Samuel Palmer, Myles Birket Foster, and Richard Jefferies. The legacy of the idyll still influences popular perceptions of the essential character of a certain kind of English landscape—indeed for Henry James that imagery constituted “the very essence of England” itself. As A Sweet View makes clear, the countryside idyll forged over a century ago is still with us today.

*Creating the Countryside* provokes reflection on the artistic, social and political forces that have played an important role in forming successive generations perceptions of this green and pleasant land. The rural idyll occupies a deeply rooted place in the nations psyche Compton Verneys Capability Brown landscaped grounds are themselves an expression of this. *Creating the Countryside* explores how artists have shaped the vision of rural life and landscape, offering a new perspective on the countryside and its expression in contemporary art and society. Works by artists including Thomas Gainsborough, Claude Lorrain, George Stubbs and Stanley Spencer are joined by pieces from contemporary artists such as Mat Collishaw, Anna Fox, Sigrid Holmwood and Grayson Perry to present you with a broad spectrum of responses to, and interpretations of, this sceptred isle.