Publisher's Synopsis
Samuel Palmer is one of the best known and loved but most widely misunderstood English Romantic artists. Samuel Palmer & the Poetical Landscape presents a new interpretation of Palmer as one of the most consistently innovative landscape artists of the nineteenth century. It includes focused discussion of works in the Ashmolean Museum, which houses the greatest collection of Palmer's work in the world. This book includes previously unpublished material as well as interpretations of little-known works by Palmer in public and private collections.Since his son's biography, published in 1892, Palmer has been seen as the victim of Victorian materialism, a visionary who sacrificed his talent to the naturalism popular with the middle classes. It is generally believed that Palmer's early work of the Shoreham Period was inspired by his love of William Blake, and, after his marriage to John Linnell's eldest daughter, his later watercolors and etchings more indebted to Linnell. However, Palmer himself would have argued that his whole career was devoted to an exploration of what Linnell called the 'poetical landscape' to 'create spiritual perceptions'. Palmer was essentially self-taught, and experimented throughout his life with unconventional techniques in his determination to convey the 'infinity and endless suggestiveness' of nature. This book discusses Palmer's relations with the Old Masters he admired, notably Claude Lorrain; his seniors, such as Blake and Turner; and his contemporaries, first the 'Ancients', and later his fellow members of the Watercolour Society and the Etching Club. Through a close examination of the works by Palmer in the Ashmolean Museum and other collections, both public and private, and a fresh reading of his letters, many of them unpublished, Samuel Palmer & the Poetical Landscape offers a unique account of the artist's art and life.