English Watercolors

by Graham Reynolds

Overview

English artists have made a unique contribution to the art of watercolor painting. In no other Western country has this very attractive medium been used so consistently, or for works of such stature, as in England between 1750 and the present day. In this general survey of the whole period, Graham Reynolds, formerly Keeper of Paintings and of Prints and Drawings at the Victoria & Albert Museum, discusses the paintings of over 100 artists including the well-known watercolorists such as Cozens, Girtin, Cotman and De Wint, as well as artists who are equally known for their work in other media - Gainsborough, Turner, Constable, Sargent, Henry Moore. The 140 illustrations, 64 in color, show the work of these and lesser-known artists and reveal the versatility of this medium, so the reader will be introduced to its use for illustrative caricature and portraiture as well as to the finest examples of traditional landscape watercolors.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780941533430
Publisher:	Dee, Ivan R. Publisher
Publication date:	04/21/1998
Edition description:	REV
Pages:	160
Product dimensions:	8.80(w) x 9.84(h) x 0.73(d)

About the Author

Graham Reynolds Obe was for many years Keeper of Paintings and of Prints and Drawings at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London. He has had a distinguished career caring for and writing about British art and has produced some twenty books, including English Portrait Miniatures, Constable, the Natural Painter, Victorian Painting, and Turner. He is on the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art (in Britain), and has won the prestigious Mitchell Prize for the History of Art (1984) for his catalogue raisonne of The Later Paintings and Drawings of John Constable.

Editorial Reviews

To compress the history of English watercolors into 160 pages might seem foolhardy, yet this jewel of a book does so with style. It's a story colored by tragedy, bold experiment and exotic travel. John Robert Cozens, whose misty scenes inspired J. M. W. Turner, went mad. Richard Bonington, painter of Venetian canals and French seascapes, died at the age of 25. Manic-depressive John Sell Cotman, totally neglected in his lifetime, wrested haunting poetry from a wooden gate or a lake. In this survey by a one-time curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum, English watercolor emerges as an art form as substantial as oils. John Constable's Stonehenge , for instance, couldn't have been done in any other medium; the stone slabs almost dance against a violet, rainbow-streaked sky. Satirist Thomas Rowlandson, visionaries William Blake and Samuel Palmer, globe-trotter Edward Lear, and modernists Henry Moore and Wyndham Lewis are among the watercolorists whose work here expands our conception of the medium. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

In this survey, Reynolds (formerly curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum) discusses the paintings of some 100 artists, including such well-known watercolorists as Cozens, Girtin, Cotman, and De Wint. Includes 140 high-quality illustrations, 64 in color. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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