Samuel Palmer
Born – London, England 1805
Died – Reigate, England 1881
Samuel Palmer was a child prodigy who first exhibited landscape drawings at the Royal Academy when he was fourteen years old. He was introduced to the great visionary artist William Blake in 1824, a meeting that significantly intensified Palmer’s already mystical imagination. After a move to Shoreham, in Sussex, in 1926, Palmer produced a number of small ink and wash landscapes, as well as several oil paintings, which are now generally regarded as his best work. A Hilly Scene shows a nocturnal and mysterious scene that, in his own words, reveals “a mystic glimmer” behind the hills. His imaginative, lyrical landscapes relied on the Pantheistic idea of the unity in all things. Palmer’s depiction of sheaves of corn and trees abundant with fruit symbolized the idea that the way to salvation was through a simple life led in harmony with nature. In Shoreham, Palmer became the central figure of a group known as the Ancients. He returned to London in 1835, after which he acquired a reputation as a conventional, academic painter. His early work was rediscovered in the 1930s and 1940s and influenced several painters, Graham Sutherland and Paul Nash in particular.
Masterpieces:
- In a Shoreham Garden
- Coming Home from Evening Church
Text: The A-Z of Art, Nicola Hodge and Libby Anson.
Books About samuel palmer
Samuel Palmer, 1805-1881: Vision And Landscape
Buy on Amazon
Tate British Artists: Samuel Palmer
Timothy Wilcox
Buy on Amazon
Samuel Palmer: The Sketchbook of 1824, New Edition
Buy on Amazon