British 1836-1893 Atkinson Grimshaw Gallery Grimshaw's primary influence was the Pre-Raphaelites. True to the Pre-Raphaelite style, he put forth landscapes of accurate color and lighting, and vivid detail. He often painted landscapes that typified seasons or a type of weather; city and suburban street scenes and moonlit views of the docks in London, Leeds, Liverpool, and Glasgow also figured largely in his art. By applying his skill in lighting effects, and unusually careful attention to detail, he was often capable of intricately describing a scene, while strongly conveying its mood. His "paintings of dampened gas-lit streets and misty waterfronts conveyed an eerie warmth as well as alienation in the urban scene." Dulce Domum (1855), on whose reverse Grimshaw wrote, "mostly painted under great difficulties," captures the music portrayed in the piano player, entices the eye to meander through the richly decorated room, and to consider the still and silent young lady who is meanwhile listening. Grimshaw painted more interior scenes, especially in the 1870s, when he worked until the influence of James Tissot and the Aesthetic Movement. On Hampstead Hill is considered one of Grimshaw's finest, exemplifying his skill with a variety of light sources, in capturing the mood of the passing of twilight into the onset of night. In his later career this use of twilight, and urban scenes under yellow light were highly popular, especially with his middle-class patrons. His later work included imagined scenes from the Greek and Roman empires, and he also painted literary subjects from Longfellow and Tennyson ?? pictures including Elaine and The Lady of Shalott. (Grimshaw named all of his children after characters in Tennyson's poems.) In the 1880s, Grimshaw maintained a London studio in Chelsea, not far from the comparable facility of James Abbott McNeill Whistler. After visiting Grimshaw, Whistler remarked that "I considered myself the inventor of Nocturnes until I saw Grimmy's moonlit pictures."[9] Unlike Whistler's Impressionistic night scenes, however, Grimshaw worked in a realistic vein: "sharply focused, almost photographic," his pictures innovated in applying the tradition of rural moonlight images to the Victorian city, recording "the rain and mist, the puddles and smoky fog of late Victorian industrial England with great poetry." Some artists of Grimshaw's period, both famous and obscure, generated rich documentary records; Vincent Van Gogh and James Smetham are good examples. Others, like Edward Pritchett, left nothing. Grimshaw left behind him no letters, journals, or papers; scholars and critics have little material on which to base their understanding of his life and career. Grimshaw died 13 October 1893, and is buried in Woodhouse cemetery, Leeds. His reputation rested, and his legacy is probably based on, his townscapes. The second half of the twentieth century saw a major revival of interest in Grimshaw's work, with several important exhibits of his canon.  Related Paintings of Atkinson Grimshaw :. | Leeds Bridge | October Gold | In Peril | A Mossy Glen | Spirit of the Night |
Related Artists:
Louis-Philippe Crepin
(1772-1851) was a French naval painter, one of the first Peintres de la Marine. Crepin was notably a pupil of Joseph Vernet and Hubert Robert. His Combat de la Bayonnaise contre l'Ambuscade, 1798, depicting the Action of 14 December 1798, is one of the main exhibits of the Musee national de la Marine.
Edouard Richter
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James Sharples
(1751 or 1752 in Lancashire - 26 February 1811 in New York ) was an English portrait painter and pastelist, who moved to the United States in 1794. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1779. James was first intended for the Catholic priesthood, but became an artist instead.Sharples headed a family of successful portrait artists, including his third wife Ellen Sharples. He had four children, George by his first wife, Felix Thomas Sharples from his second marriage (c. 1786- after 1823), and James Sharples Jr.(c. 1788-1839) and daughter Rolinda Sharples (1793-1838) with this third wife, Ellen. Felix, James Jr. and Rolinda joined the family enterprise at ages 17, 15, and 13 respectively. Before marrying Ellen Wallace, James had been active in Bristol, Liverpool and Bath, where he taught drawing. Ellen was a lady of French extraction who had relations in America. The family left for the United States in 1796, but, according to Ellen's diaries, their ship fell into the hands of the French, and for seven months the family spent time in Brest, near Cherbourg. Landing in New York, James quickly became popular for his small portraits in pastel and his miniatures. From 1796 to 1801 he worked mainly in Philadelphia and New York, securing portrait commissions. The family traveled throughout New England region as itinerant portrait painters, looking for work and making inexpensive copies from the originals portraits they had made of popular and well-known figures, such as George Washington and James Madison.