Refuting two myths: Jane Austen, the picturesque and the landscape

Of the many speculative things written about Jane Austen, two of the most commonly recurring are, firstly, that she was 'enamoured of the Picturesque' and, secondly, that she disparaged Humphry Repton and the idea of Landscape Improvement. Both these ideas arise from either a misreading of her work or a disregarding of the text of her novels. History has very little direct record of Austen's beliefs or philosophy on most matters, so it is important that we reference her own writings for information. Nothing Austen herself wrote backs up either of these claims, but they seem almost to have a life of their own nevertheless.