Thomas Rowlandson - Citizendia

Portsmouth Point by Thomas Rowlandson.

Thomas Rowlandson (July 14, 1756 – April 22, 1827) was an English artist and caricaturist. Events 1223 - Louis VIII becomes King of France upon the death of his father Philip II of France. Year 1756 ( MDCCLVI) was a Leap year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Events 1500 - Portuguese Navigator Pedro Álvares Cabral becomes the first European to sight Brazil. Year 1827 ( MDCCCXXVII) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian Calendar (or a Common England is a Country which is part of the United Kingdom. Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population whilst its mainland A caricaturist is an artist who specializes in drawing Caricatures List of caricaturists Oguz Aral (1936-2004 William Auerback-Levy

Biography

He was born in Old Jewry, in the City of London, the son of a tradesman or city merchant. Old Jewry is the name of a street in the City of London, in Coleman Street Ward linking Gresham Street with "The Poultry" For London as a whole see the main article London. The City of London is a geographically On leaving school he became a student at the Royal Academy. This article refers to an art institution in London For other meanings of Royal Academy see Royal Academy (disambiguation. At the age of sixteen, he lived and studied for a time in Paris, and he later made frequent tours to the Continent, enriching his portfolios with numerous jottings of life and character. Paris (ˈpærɨs in English; in French) is the Capital of France and the country's largest city Career portfolios are used to plan organize and document Education, work samples and Skills People use career portfolios to apply to College or Training In 1775 he exhibited a drawing of Delilah visiting Samson in Prison, and in the following years he was represented by various portraits and landscapes. Delilah ( דלילה - D+*uL+iJ+L+oH+, Standard Hebrew meaning " who weakened or uprooted or impoverished" from the root dal meaning Samson, Shimshon ( Hebrew: שמשון, Standard Šimšon Tiberian Šimšôn; meaning He was spoken of as a promising student; and had he continued his early application he would have made his mark as a painter. But by the death of his aunt, a French lady, he inherited £7,000, plunged into the dissipations of the town and was known to sit at the gaming-table for thirty-six hours at a stretch.

Discomforts of an Epicure; self-portrait by Thomas Rowlandson from 1787 to prove that he could aim his caricatures at himself

In time poverty overtook him; and the friendship and example of James Gillray and Henry William Bunbury seem to have suggested caricature as a means of filling an empty purse. James Gillray, sometimes spelled Gilray (born August 13, 1757 in Chelsea; died June 1, 1815) was a British For his son see Sir Henry Bunbury 7th Baronet Henry William Bunbury ( 1750 - 7 May 1811) was an English A caricature is either a Portrait that exaggerates or distorts the essence of a person or thing to create an easily identifiable visual likeness or in literature a description His drawing of Vauxhall, shown in the Royal Academy exhibition of 1784, had been engraved by Pollard, and the print was a success. Vauxhall is an inner city area of South London in the London Borough of Lambeth. Rowlandson was largely employed by Rudolph Ackermann, the art publisher, who in 1809--issued in his Poetical Magazine The Schoolmaster’s Tour--a series of plates with illustrative verses by Dr. Rudolph Ackermann ( April 20, 1764 &ndash March 30, 1834) was an Anglo-German Inventor and Publisher. William Combe. William Combe (1741 – 19 June 1823) was a British miscellaneous Writer. They were the most popular of the artist’s works. Again engraved by Rowlandson himself in 1812, and issued under the title of the Tour of Dr Syntax in Search of the Picturesque, they had attained a fifth edition by 1813, and were followed in 1820 by Dr Syntax in Search of Consolation, and in 1821 by the Third Tour of Dr Syntax in Search of a Wife.

He also produced a body of erotic prints and woodcuts, many of which would be considered pornographic today. Pornography or porn is the explicit depiction of Sexual subject matter with the sole intention of sexually exciting the viewer

The same collaboration of designer, author and publisher appeared in the English Dance of Death, issued in 1814-16, one of the most admirable of Rowlandson’s series, and in the Dance of Life, 1817. Dance of Death, also variously called Danse Macabre (French Danza Macabra (Italian or Totentanz Rowlandson also illustrated Smollett, Goldsmith and Sterne, and his designs will be found in The Spirit of the Public Journals (1825), The English Spy (1825), and The Humourist (1831). Tobias George Smollett (bapt 19 March, 1721 &ndash 17 September, 1771) was a Scottish author best known for his Picaresque Oliver Goldsmith (10 November 1730 or 1728 &ndash 4 April 1774 was an Anglo-Irish writer poet and Physician known for his Novel The Vicar Laurence Sterne ( November 24, 1713 &ndash March 18, 1768) was an Irish -born English Novelist and an Anglican He died in London, after a prolonged illness, on 22 April 1827.

Rowlandson’s designs were usually done in outline with the reed-pen, and delicately washed with colour. They were then etched by the artist on the copper, and afterwards aquatinted --usually by a professional engraver, the impressions being finally coloured by hand. For other uses of etch or etching, see Etching (disambiguation, for the history of the method see Old master prints. Aquatint is an intaglio Printmaking technique a variant of Etching. Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it As a designer he was characterized by the utmost facility and ease of draughtsmanship, and the quality of his art suffered from this haste and over-production. He dealt less frequently with politics than his fierce contemporary, Gillray, but commonly touching, in a rather gentle spirit, the various aspects and incidents of social life. His most artistic work is to be found among the more careful drawings of his earlier period; but even among the exaggerated caricature of his later time we find hints that this master of the humorous might have attained to the beautiful had he so willed.

His work included a personification of the United Kingdom named John Bull who was developed from about 1790 in conjunction with other British satirical artists such as Gillray and George Cruikshank. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located John Bull is a National personification of the United Kingdom in general and England in particular originating in the creation of Dr George Cruikshank ( September 27, 1792 — February 1, 1878) was an English Caricaturist and book illustrator praised as

Sources

British Museum, London
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Lewis Walpole Collection Yale
Chris Beetles
University of Liege
Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires Preserved in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum, Mary Dorothy George. Vol VI 1938, Vol VII, 1942 VOL VIII 1947, VOL IX 1949
Dictionary of British Cartoonists and caricaturists 1730-1980 Bryant and Heneage, Scolar Press 1994

Biography

Sources

See also