Aestheticising empire: the colonial picturesque as a modality of travel

The “picturesque” arose in late eighteenth-century Britain as a way of perceiving and representing landscapes, yet its endurance in the colonial era lasted much longer and is comparatively far less studied. This essay suggests that, in the period of high imperialism at the turn of the twentieth century, a colonial picturesque aesthetic developed as a consequential modality of travel. Drawing upon classically picturesque motifs yet mobilising new resources in the validation of colonial ideology, the colonial picturesque asserted the imperial traveller’s authority and reinforced the control of a Great and world-encompassing Britain. This article seeks to theorise the traits of the colonial picturesque as a distinct discourse by undertaking a close reading of travelogues by two imperial tourists in Burma, V. C. Scott O’Connor and G. E. Mitton, in an effort to synthesise other work describing the picturesque in the British colonies into a coherent discursive frame.