John Linnell (painter)
{{short description|British artist (1792–1882)}}
{{Other people|John Linnell}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2020}}
File:John Linnell by John Linnell.jpg
John Linnell (16 June 1792{{spaced ndash}}20 January 1882) was an English engraver, and portrait and landscape painter. He was a naturalist and a rival to the artist John Constable. He had a taste for Northern European art of the Renaissance, particularly Albrecht Dürer. He also associated with the amateur artist Edward Thomas Daniell, and with William Blake, to whom he introduced the painter and writer Samuel Palmer and others of the Ancients.
Life and work
File:John Linnell - Wheat - Google Art Project.jpg
John Linnell was born in Bloomsbury, London on 16 June 1792,{{sfn|Baskett|Snelgrove|Egerton|1972|p=132}} where his father was a carver and gilder. He was in contact with artists from an early age, and by the age of ten was drawing and selling portraits in chalk and pencil. His first art teacher was the American-born artist Benjamin West, and he spent a year in the house of the painter John Varley, where William Hunt and William Mulready were also pupils, and made the acquaintance of Shelley, Godwin and others. In 1805 he was admitted to study at the Royal Academy, where he obtained medals for drawing, modelling and sculpture. He was trained as an engraver, and executed a transcript of Varley's "Burial of Saul."{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}
File:John Linnell - Hanson Toot, View in Dovedale - Google Art Project.jpg
In 1808, the 16-year-old Linnell moved into Mulready's house, whose wife had accused him of infidelity with both other women and boys. Linnell's association with Mulready may have caused the breakup of Mulready's marriage.{{sfn|Clairmont|Clairmont|Godwin|Stocking|1995|p=4}}
In 1817 Linnell married Mary Ann Palmer in Scotland and they had nine children together including their first born, Hannah Linnell, who later married the landscape painter Samuel Palmer.John Linnell - A Centennial Exhibition, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge catalogue 1982
In later life Linnell occupied himself with the burin, publishing, in 1833, a series of outlines from Michelangelo's frescoes in the Sistine Chapel, and, in 1840, superintending the issue of a selection of plates from the pictures in Buckingham Palace, one of them, a Titian landscape, which he engraved in mezzotint. At first he supported himself mainly by miniature painting and execution of larger portraits, such as the likenesses of Mulready, Richard Whately, Peel and Thomas Carlyle. Several of his portraits he engraved in line and mezzotint.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}
He painted many subjects like the "St John Preaching", the "Covenant of Abraham", and the "Journey to Emmaus", in which, while the landscape is usually prominent the figures are of sufficient importance to supply the title of the work. However, it is mainly in connection with paintings of pure landscapes that his name is known. His works commonly deal with some scene of typical uneventful English landscape, which is made impressive by a gorgeous effect of sunrise or sunset. They are full of true poetic feeling, and are rich and glowing in colour.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}
Linnell commanded large prices for his pictures, and about 1850 he purchased a property at Redhill, Surrey, where he lived till his death on 20 January 1882, painting with unabated powers until within the last few years of his life. He devoted himself to painting landscapes notably of the North Downs and Kentish Weald.{{sfn|Wilton|Lyles|1993|p=339}} His leisure was occupied with a study of the Bible in the original language. He also published several pamphlets and treatises of Biblical criticism. Linnell was one of the best friends and kindest patrons of William Blake. He gave him the two largest commissions he received for single series of designs—£150 for drawings and engravings of The Inventions to the Book of Job, and a like sum for those illustrative of Dante Aligheri.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}
He was a friend of the painter Edward Thomas Daniell. A blue plaque commemorates Linnell at Old Wyldes' at North End, Hampstead. The plaque mentions that William Blake stayed with Linnell as his guest.{{cite web |url=https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/william-blake/ |title=Linnell, John (1792-1882) & Blake, William (1757-1827) |publisher=English Heritage |access-date=14 March 2022}}
His eldest son William Linnell (1826-1906) was also an artist most noted for his 1840 drawing of Smugglerius, which is an écorché sculpture of a man posed in imitation of the ancient Roman sculpture known as the Dying Gaul.{{cite web | url=https://www.felicecalchi.com/smugglerius/?lang=en | title=The True Story of Smugglerius | date=8 December 2012 }}{{cite web | url=https://www.swangallery.co.uk/item1000473/oil-paintings/original-oil-painting-by-william-linnell.html#:~:text=William%20Linnell%20Biography,father%27s%20house%20at%20Redhill%2C%20Surrey | title=Oil Painting | William Linnell | Travellers in a Wooded Landscape }}
Gallery
=Landscapes=
File:John Linnell (1792-1882) - Kensington Gravel Pits - N05776 - National Gallery.jpg|Kensington Gravel Pits (1811{{ndash}}1812), Tate Britain
File:John Linnell - In Dovedale - Google Art Project (2467112).jpg|In Dovedale (1814), Yale Center for British Art
File:John Linnell (1792-1882) - Kingsey Village, near Thame, Oxfordshire - 290365 - National Trust.jpg|Kingsey Village (1826), Calke Abbey
File:John Linnell - The Rest on the Flight into Egypt - Google Art Project.jpg|The Rest on the Flight into Egypt ({{circa}}1827), Yale Center for British Art
File:John Linnell - The Last Load.JPG|The Last Load (1853), Tate Britain
File:John Linnell (1792-1882) - Harvest Moon - T00043 - Tate.jpg|Harvest Moon (1858), Tate Britain
File:John Linnell - The Prophet Balaam and the Angel - Google Art Project.jpg|The Prophet Balaam and the Angel (1859), Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
File:John Linnell (1792-1882) - Reapers, Noonday Rest - N01546 - National Gallery.jpg| Reapers, Noonday Rest (1865), Tate Britain
=Portraits=
File:John Linnell - William Collins, R.A. - Google Art Project.jpg|William Collins (1831)
File:Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Bt by John Linnell.jpg|Portrait of Sir Robert Peel (1838)
File:Sir Thomas Baring.jpg|Thomas Baring (1842)
File:William Coningham (1815-1884) by John Linnel (1792-1882).jpg|William Coningham (1842)
File:John Linnell - Thomas Carlyle, 1795 - 1881. Historian and essayist - PG 893 - National Galleries of Scotland.jpg|Thomas Carlyle (1844)
File:John Linnell - Augustus Wall Callcott, R.A. - Google Art Project.jpg|Augustus Wall Callcott (1847)
Legacy
Linnell has over 150 oil paintings in public ownership in the United Kingdom.{{citation needed|date=August 2020}}
References
{{reflist}}
Sources
{{DNB |wstitle=Linnell, John |volume=33|ref=none }}
- {{Cite EB1911|wstitle=Linnell, John}}
- {{cite book |last1=Clairmont |first1=Clara Mary Jane |last2=Clairmont |first2=Charles |last3=Godwin |first3=Fanny Imlay |last4=Stocking |first4=Marion Kingston |title=The Clairmont correspondence : letters of Claire Clairmont, Charles Clairmont, and Fanny Imlay Godwin. Volume 1: 1080-1834 |date=1995 |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |location=Baltimore |isbn=9-780-80184-633-5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ftgKAQAAMAAJ&q=The+Clairmont+correspondence:+letters+of+Claire+Clairmont,+Charles+Clairmont,+and+Fanny+Imlay+Godwin,+Volume+1}}
- {{cite book |last1=Wilton |first1=Andrew |last2=Lyles |first2=Anne |title=The great age of British watercolours: 1750-1880 |date=1993 |publisher=Prestel |location=Munich |isbn=9-783-79131-879-0}}
- {{cite book |last1=Baskett |first1=John |last2=Snelgrove |first2=Dudley |last3=Egerton |first3=Judy |author3-link=Judy Egerton |others=Pierpont Morgan Library and Paul Mellon |year=1972 |title=English Drawings and Watercolors, 1550-1850: In the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon |publisher=Harper & Row |edition=1st |pages=132{{ndash}}133 |location=New York |language=en |isbn=978-0-87598-035-5 |lccn=77190656 |url=https://archive.org/details/englishdrawingsw0000bask/page/94 |access-date=17 October 2023 |url-access=registration}}
Further reading
- {{cite book |last1=Cruan |first1=Katharine |title=John Linnell, a centennial exhibition |date=1982 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |isbn=9-780-52124-737-5 |url=https://archive.org/details/johnlinnellcente0000crou/page/102/mode/2up |ref=none}}
- {{cite book |last1=Story |first1=Alfred Thomas |authorlink1=Alfred Thomas Story |title=The life of John Linnell |date=1892 |publisher=Richard Bentley and Son |location=London |oclc =1048309161 |url=https://archive.org/details/lifeofjohnlinnel01storuoft |volume= 1 |ref=none}}
- {{cite book |last1=Story |first1=Alfred Thomas |authorlink1=Alfred Thomas Story |title=The life of John Linnell |date=1892 |publisher=Richard Bentley and Son |location=London |oclc =1048309161 |url=https://archive.org/details/lifeofjohnlinnel02storuoft |volume= 2 |ref=none}}
External links
{{commons category|John Linnell}}
- {{Art UK bio|wikidata=Q250732|name=Linnell |nocount=true}}
- [http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/linnell_john.html Linnell online] (ArtCyclopedia)
- [https://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/gallery/linnell/ The John Linnell Archive] at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
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Category:19th-century English painters
Category:English male painters
Category:English landscape painters
Category:English watercolourists
Category:English portrait painters
Category:People from Bloomsbury