His final series of Landscapes of the Moon and Aerial Flowers are among his most visionary, and refer to much of his previous work, and that of William Blake.
Blake
At the height of his surrealism, his paintings were inspired by found objects, Freud, and the megalithic monuments of Wessex.
Rainbows are one of nature’s grand spectacles. How careful, then, have painters been to get their colours in the ‘right’ order?
Landscapes influenced by Blake and Palmer, then some of the strongest images of the First World War. The start of a remarkable career.
He recovered some of his youthful vision in the 1860s, when he painted rich rustic views lit by the setting sun.
He started topographic paintings when he returned to London, and during his extended working honeymoon in Italy.
Largely self-taught, he was a precocious painter whose major works started when he was only 20. This covers his early work and time in Shoreham, to 1835.
Financial success in 1846 finally allowed him to concentrate on landscape painting – and to paint many sunsets and harvest scenes.
Almost forgotten now, apart from the help that he gave William Blake, he was the most prominent British landscape painter after Turner’s death.
Tracing Blake’s influence through his friends John Linnell and Samuel Palmer to the likes of Graham Sutherland and Eric Ravilious.
