Biography (1805 - 81)
Header Photo: Harvesters, 1830 (Detail) by Samuel Palmer
Watercolour
© Estate of Samuel Palmer
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Samuel Palmer ~ Biography
Painter (1805 - 81)
Samuel Palmer was a painter of pastoral landscape and the most important follower of Blake, whom he met in 1824. He was very precocious and exhibited at the RA from 1819. His 'Shoreham Period'(1826 - c. 34) was the moment of perfect balance between inner and outer vision - a landscape charged with fecundity and Christian symbolism, expressed in terms of observed detail. Others influenced by Blake - they called themselves 'The Ancients' - included Palmer's life-long friend Calvert, the Varley brothers, and George Richmond.
This 'primitive and infantine feeling' (his own words) for landscape began to fade c.1832: in 1837 he married the daughter of John Linnell and visited Italy, and his son later wrote of these events: 'After the Shoreham and Italian periods, the whole of my father's life became a dreadful tragedy'; but this view is now regarded as a melodramatic overstatement. His early work has influenced many Romantic painters, e.g. Sutherland: examples are in London (BM, V&A, Tate, Courtauld Inst.), Cambridge, Cardiff, Manchester, Oxford, Philadelphia, Yale (CBA), and elsewhere.
In 1976 T. Keating claimed to have forged several Palmer drawings.
Source: The Penguin Dictionary of Art and Artists (Penguin Reference Books)
Samuel Palmer ~ Trivia
Admidst the hilly scenery of the Shoreham valley in Kent, Palmer painted small, 'ideal', jewel like landscapes. The works combined a medieval primitivism with a passionate love of nature. He portrayed moonlit harvesters, congregations leaving church on starry nights with a full moon or trees in full blossom.
Palmer's landscapes had deeply religious overtones. He wrote: 'One must try behind the hills to bring up a mystic glimmer like that which lights our dreams. And these same hills (hard task) should give us promise that the country beyond them is Paradise.'
One of the members of the 'Ancients', a group of young artists who gathered around Samuel Palmer, was George Richmond.
Palmer and his wife, John Linnell's daughter, spent their honeymoon in Rome. He produced two memorable watercolours whilst there, Ancient Rome and Modern Rome.
Albin Martin (1813 - 88) was an associate of Palmer.
His watercolour, Going to Sea (Going to India - The Father's Blessing and the Mother's Prayer), 1858, 19.4 x 42.9cm, is in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Coming from Evening Church, 1830, tempera on paper, 30 x 20cm, is in the Tate Gallery (Britain), London
Further Reading: Victorian Painting
Samuel Palmer ~ Gallery
Samuel Palmer: Biography >> Trivia >> Gallery >>
Victorian Painters Index >>
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Samuel Palmer Books and Dvds available @ amazon.com
Samuel Palmer
Cornfield By Moonlight
Canvas Print
© Estate of Samuel Palmer
Samuel Palmer
Lonely Tower
Canvas Print
© Estate of Samuel Palmer
Samuel Palmer
Classical River Scene
Canvas Print
© Estate of Samuel Palmer
Samuel Palmer
Tityrus Restored to His Patrimony, 1877
Canvas Print
© Estate of Samuel Palmer
Samuel Palmer
Christian Descending into the Valley of Humiliation
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© Estate of Samuel Palmer
Samuel Palmer
Harvest Moon
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© Estate of Samuel Palmer
Samuel Palmer
Page from a Sketchbook
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© Estate of Samuel Palmer
Samuel Palmer
The Bridge at Shoreham
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© Estate of Samuel Palmer
Samuel Palmer
On the North Coast of Devon, Lundy Island in the Distance
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© Estate of Samuel Palmer
Samuel Palmer
View of Clovelly, Devon
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© Estate of Samuel Palmer
Samuel Palmer
Tintern Abbey at Sunset (1861)
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Samuel Palmer
The Weald of Kent
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© Estate of Samuel Palmer
Samuel Palmer
The Timber Wain (1833 - 34)
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Samuel Palmer
Early Morning
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Samuel Palmer
The Water-Organ, Tivoli
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© Estate of Samuel Palmer
Samuel Palmer
Self Portrait
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© Estate of Samuel Palmer
Samuel Palmer
The Water-Organ, Tivoli
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© Estate of Samuel Palmer
Samuel Palmer
Beddgelert Bridge, North Wales
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© Estate of Samuel Palmer
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