Hunt's survey aims to reexamine the arguably misused and overused term picturesque, by giving due attention to this garden design movement in all its complexity. From bucolic vistas in Buckinghamshire, England, to Budapest, Hunt traces notions put forth by writers like Horace Walpole, who alluded to the imagery of recognized artists William Kent, Turner, and lesser-known landscape painters as a means of formulating a theoretical understanding of picturesque events. In considerable depth, the oeuvre of landscape designers Lancelot Brown and the work of Humphry Repton in England is studied in comparison with influential figures who produced especially distinctive estates in France, Italy, and across Europe. Profusely illustrated with a trove of historical garden plans, drawings of fanciful follies, and paintings depicting diverse garden elements associated with the picturesque, Hunt's effort provides an encompassing overview that brings to light the extensive scope of realized picturesque creations, along with myriad imagined ideas. Alice Joyce
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