Editing Ann Radcliffe (section)

==== Gothic landscapes ====
[[File:Bandits on a Rocky Coast MET DP323412 (cropped).jpg|alt=Gloomy painting of coastal cliffs, with small figures in the bottom-left who are gesticulating and armed with swords|thumb|upright=1.2|[[Salvator Rosa]]'s "Bandits on a Rocky Coast", painted between 1655 and 1660. Rosa's landscapes influenced Radcliffe's novels.]]
[[File:'Landscape with a Piping Shepherd' by Claude Lorrain, c. 1629-32, Norton Simon Museum.JPG|alt=Hazy and serene landscape, primarily of trees and hills in the distance, with a small shepherd figure.|thumb|upright=1.2|[[Claude Lorrain]]'s "Landscape with a Piping Shepherd", painted between 1629 and 1632. Lorrain was also a visual influence on Radcliffe's novels.]]
Radcliffe's novels often used landscape descriptions to reinforce the emotional impact of the story.{{sfn|Brabon|2006}} These descriptions are typically hazy and atmospheric, rather than topologically accurate to the novel's setting.<ref name=":8">{{Cite journal |last=Lewis |first=Jayne Elizabeth |date=2006 |title="No Colour of Language": Radcliffe's Aesthetic Unbound |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/195946 |journal=Eighteenth-Century Studies |volume=39 |issue=3 |pages=377–390 |doi=10.1353/ecs.2006.0009 |issn=1086-315X}}</ref> Her descriptions of landscape were particularly influenced by the painters [[Claude Lorrain]], [[Nicolas Poussin]], and [[Salvator Rosa]].<ref name=":8" /> Her contemporary [[Nathan Drake (artist)|Nathan Drake]] said that her novels combined "the softer graces of a Claude" with "the wild landscape of Salvator Rosa".<ref name=":8" /> Radcliffe's uncle had an extensive collection of landscape paintings and illustrations, chiefly focused on ruins and picturesque views, which would have been familiar to her.{{Sfn|Norton|1999|pp=23–24}} 

One assessment emphasised these landscapes as key to Radcliffe's literary success: "She was, indeed, a [[Prose poetry|prose poet]], in both the best and the worst senses of the phrase. The romantic landscape, the background, is the best thing in all her books; the characters are two dimensional, the plots far fetched and improbable, with 'elaboration of means and futility of result'."{{Sfn|Kunitz|Haycraft|1952|p=427}} Her literary landscapes also formed part of her legacy, as some literary historians credit her with popularising "the convention of atmospheric 'scene'" which became prominent in nineteenth-century fiction.<ref name=":8" />