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| Self-Portrait |
Samuel Palmer (1805 – 1881) English painter and etcher of
visionary landscapes who was a disciple of William Blake.
Palmer’s
father, a bookseller, encouraged him to become a painter. By 1819 he had
already exhibited small landscape studies at the Royal Academy.
The works that survive from 1819 to 1821 are able but conventional. In the
following years, however, there are signs of a profound change in his thinking,
perhaps connected with his conversion from the Baptist faith to a personal form of High Anglicanism and with his
discovery of medieval art.
A
sketchbook of 1824 (British Museum), rediscovered in 1956, already shows all
the elements of his visionary style: a mystical but precise depiction of nature
and an overflowing religious intensity, united by a vivid re-creation of the
pastoral conventions. In October 1824 the painter John Linnell took him to see William
Blake, who
encouraged Palmer in the mystical direction he was taking and provided examples
of his own work for Palmer to follow. Blake’s influence can be seen clearly in
the “Repose of the Holy Family” (1824–25) and the series of sepia drawings of
1825.
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| 1824-25 Repose of the Holy Family oil on panel 31 x 39 cm Ashmolean Museum of Art, Oxford, UK |
In 1826
Palmer visited Shoreham in Kent, and the
following year he settled there. His Shoreham paintings became more
naturalistic but were still charged with visionary intensity. The years 1827–30
were his most productive, but after 1830 his work shows unmistakable signs of
artistic decline. As his religious fervour faded, the precarious balance
between realism and vision was lost. He left
Shoreham for London in 1834, and expeditions to Wales and Italy confirmed the break
with his own past.
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| The house in Shoreham, Kent, where Samuel Palmer lived ( photo copyright Poul Webb ) |
Palmer’s
real forebears are writers rather than painters. He read with enthusiasm the
writings of the German mystic Jakob Böhme, the pastoral poems of John
Milton, and
above all the works of John Bunyan, whose “Countrey of Beulah” is the nearest
equivalent to Palmer’s “Valley of Vision.”
Biographical
notes from Encyclopaedia Britannica
This is part 1 of a 5 - part series on the works of Samuel Palmer:
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| 1795 Hecate, or The Night of Enitharmon's Joy by William Blake pen and ink with watercolour on paper 44 x 58 cm Tate, London |
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| 1819 Sketch from Nature in Sion Park oil on card 32.7 x 27.6 cm Yale Centre for British Art, New Haven, CT |
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| 1821 At Hailsham, Sussex: A Storm Approaching watercolour and graphite on wove paper 59.7 x 43.8 cm Yale Centre for British Art, New Haven, CT |
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| 1821 Evening pen and bistre 19.2 x 26.8 cm © Victoria and Albert Museum, London |
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| 1824-35c Untitled sketch india ink wash 13.6 x 17.8 cm approx © Victoria and Albert Museum, London |
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| 1824c Untitled Drawing pen and ink on paper © Victoria and Albert Museum, London |
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| 1824c Harvest Celebration ink sketch 11.7 x 19.1 cm © Victoria and Albert Museum, London |
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| 1824c Sunset pen sketch 11.7 x 19.1 cm © Victoria and Albert Museum, London |
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| 1825 Early Morning pen and ink wash with gum arabic and varnish 18.8 x 23.2 cm Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK |
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| 1825 Study of a Hand Holding a Knobbled Stick pen and chalk sketch 10.2 x 7 cm © Victoria and Albert Museum, London |
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| 1825 The Rest on the Flight into Egypt oil and tempera on panel Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK |
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| 1825 The Valley Thick with Corn pen and brush in dark brown ink with gum arabic 18.2 x 27.5 cm |
Painted shortly after he settled in Shoreham in Kent. The
Darenth valley appeared to Palmer a perfect, neo-Platonic world and he called
it the 'Valley of Vision'. In this picture he creates an ideal image of
pastoral contentment, unaffected by the outside world. The unseasonal combination
of flowering horse-chestnut and huge ripe heads of wheat symbolise fertility
and the richness of the soil:
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| 1826-28c A Hilly Scene watercolour and gum arabic on paper mounted on wood 20.6 x 13.7 cm Tate, London |
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| 1826c Harvest Under a Crescent Moon wood engraving on cream laid paper 13.3 x 10.5 cm Yale Centre for British Art, New Haven, CT |
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| 1826c Landscape, Girl Standing ink and gouache on card 11.5 x 13.4 cm Tate, London |
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| 1827 George Richmond Engraving "The Shepherd" (see below) pen and ink 12.7 x 11.7 cm The Huntington Library, San Marino, CA |
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| 1827 The Shepherd by George Richmond engraving on paper 17.8 x 11.4 cm Tate, London |
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| 1827c A Moonlit Scene with a Winding River black and brown wash, gouache, and gum on wove paper 18.1 x 26.7 cm Yale Centre for British Art, New Haven, CT |
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| 1827c A Shepherd and his Flock under the Moon and Stars pen and brown ink with grey washes heightened with white gouache on card 52.7 x 40 cm Yale Centre for British Art, New Haven, CT |
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| 1828 Ancient Trees, Lullingstone Park graphite on cream wove paper 37.1 x 26.7 cm Yale Centre for British Art, New Haven, CT |
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| 1828 Oak Trees, Lullingstone Park pen, brush, brown ink, graphite, watercolour, gouache and gum arabic on wove paper 29.5 x 46.8 cm National Gallery of Canada, Ottowa |
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| 1828c A Country Road Leading Towards a Church watercolour 18.4 x 15.2 cm © Victoria and Albert Museum, London |
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| 1828c An Ancient Barn at Shoreham watercolour © Victoria and Albert Museum, London |
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| 1828c Ruth returned from Gleaning pen and ink and wash, heightened with white 29.4 x 39.4 cm © Victoria and Albert Museum, London |
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| 1829 Pear Tree in a Walled Garden watercolour and tempera over brush and grey wash, traces of graphite, on grey paper 22.2 x 28.3 cm The Morgan Library and Museum, New York City |
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| 1829-30c A Kentish Idyll brown wash on paper 8.9 x 10.8 cm © Victoria and Albert Museum, London |
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| 1829-30c Nocturnal Landscape with Full Moon and Deer bodycolour and wash © Victoria and Albert Museum, London |
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| 1829c A Cow Lodge with a Mossy Roof watercolour and gouache with pen and black ink on cream wove paper 59.7 x 43.8 cm Yale Centre for British Art, New Haven, CT |
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| 1829c A Wooded Hillside at Underriver, near Sevenoaks, Kent pen and ink sketch on paper, heightened with white 15.2 x 27.3 cm © Victoria and Albert Museum, London |
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| 1829c Cornfields with Barn, Shoreham pen and brown ink with grey wash over graphite on cream wove paper 33 x 20 cm Yale Centre for British Art, New Haven, CT |
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| 1829c The Bridge at Shoreham pen and brown ink, brush and black and grey wash and white gouache, over graphite, on grey-brown paper 22.1 x 27.8 cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City |
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| 1829c The Primitive Cottage pen and ink wash, heightened with white 22.4 x 30.2 cm © Victoria and Albert Museum, London |
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| 1830 Coming from Evening Church tempera, chalk, gold, ink and graphite on gesso on paper 30.2 x 20 cm Tate, London |
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| 1830 Harvesters by Firelight pen and black ink with watercolour and gouache on wove paper 28.7 x 36.7 cm National Gallery Of Art, Washington, DC |
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| 1830 Shepherd Under a Full Moon pen and brown ink with brush in India Ink heightened with bodycolour on white card Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK |
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| 1830 The Magic Apple Tree pen and Indian ink, and watercolour, which in some areas has been mixed with a gum-like medium on paper 34.9 x 27.3 cm The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK |
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| 1830 The Sleeping Shepherd oil, tempera and chalk 39.4 x 51.8 cm |
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| 1830-35 View from Wilmot Hill, Kent watercolour over black chalk on cream wove paper 24.6 x 36.5 cm Art Institute of Chicago, IL |
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