When the aspiring graduates of those academies went to Italy to advance their knowledge through first-hand encounters with revered works of art, they were also expected to work from local models and record, on the spot, Roman ruins, picturesque towns and the Italian landscape.

WSJ: Appealing to Modern Eyes | The Path of Nature | Metropolitan Museum of Art | By Karen Wilkin

And another cleric, William Gilpin, the father of the Picturesque movement, drew up a list of pedantic instructions on how to view the landscape.

ECONOMIST: A green mythology