Manuals for painting nature: Alexander Cozens and Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes

The 18th century saw the first publications of pedagogical manuals for painting nature. Still far from the au plein-air methodology of the 19th century and typical of the Impressionist movement, Alexander Cozens and Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes both published treatises-manuals with very different visions, but which dealt with the approach to nature through painting and for painting. Cozens (1717 - 1786), an English draughtsman and teacher with Russian roots, published his popular A New Method to Aid Invention in the Drawing of Original Landscape Compositions in 1785, proposing a drawing method based on the stain rather than the line and promoting the picturesque. Valenciennes (1750 - 1819), French painter and teacher, neoclassical, published in 1799 the extensive Elements of Practical Perspective for Artists, followed by: Reflections and advice to a student on painting and in particular on the genre of Landscape. A treatise and manual on perspective, but with a part devoted exclusively to the aspects that make up the natural landscape. Both works, only a few years apart, propose a new and radically different approach to nature through the experience of nature.