1952 Print Watching the Coast Thomas Rowlandson Art Canon John Shirley XAAA5
CONDITION
This 59+ year old Item is rated Near Mint / Very Fine. Light wrinkling. No natural defects. No surface rub. No tears. No water damage. Please note: There is printing on the verso.
- Product Type: Original Halftone Print; Black / White
- Grade: Near Mint / Very Fine
- Dimensions: Approximately 10 x 7 inches; 25 x 18 cm
- Authentication: Serial-Numbered Certificate of Authenticity w/ Full Provenance
- Protection: Packaged in a custom archival sleeve with an acid-free black board (great for display, gift-giving, and preservation)
This piece was illustrated by Rowlandson, Thomas. There is no visible artist signature.
Rowlandson, Thomas
Thomas Rowlandson (13 July 1756 Ð 21 April 1827) was an English artist, draftsman, printmaker and caricaturist working in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Born in the Old Jewry in London in 1756, Rowlandson moved with his family to Richmond, North Yorkshire in 1759, following his fatherÕs declaration of bankruptcy.
Following the death of his uncle, James, in 1764, Rowlandson returned to London to attend the Soho Academy, likely the beneficiary of his widowed auntÕs monetary assistance. At the Soho Academy, a respected boarding school, Rowlandson befriended Jack Bannister and Henry Angelo, two individuals with whom Rowlandson would manifest an increasingly intense interest in the arts and develop lifelong friendships. Upon leaving the Soho Academy, Rowlandson enrolled at the Royal Academy of Arts. It was during his second year at the Royal Academy that Rowlandson began to assert his individuality, discovering the direct, graceful and fluid line that would develop into his distinctive style.
In 1772, RowlandsonÕs uncle, Thomas, died, and he was once again the beneficiary of a widowed auntÕs generosity, as he was invited to join her in Paris to further pursue his artistic studies. Rowlandson accepted the invitation, concentrating his artistic study in the Louvre and Bibliothèque Nationale, while pursuing relaxation and excitement in the nocturnal, and then fashionable, gambling resorts. The two disparate scenes provided Rowlandson the education from which he would draw for his mature work; his solitary artistic studies filling volumes of sketchbooks with notes and drawings after old mastersÕ prints, drawings, and paintings, and his nocturnal forays educating him about complex social interactions and contemporary issues. Later overtaken by poverty, Rowlandson combined his extensive understanding of composition, color and line with his nuanced understanding of the social condition in dramatic and exquisite fashion, becoming a formative satirist and caricaturist of his time; the result of which is mature works of great beauty, depth and social insight.
RowlandsonÕs mature work employs wit and artistry in equal measure. Dealing less frequently with political themes than his fierce contemporary, James Gillray, Rowlandson employed his deft artistic handling to ridicule the purported and prevailing morals and manners of his time, providing a subtle social commentary about the artificiality of societyÕs norms and other contemporaneous issues. RowlandsonÕs work focuses on the reality to which he was simultaneously witness and participant, a reality defined by the degradation of purported and proclaimed morals, which were so frequently, yet hypocritically, espoused. Fluid draftsmanship that is at once vigorous, yet thoughtful, and a simple and well-defined palette characteristically define his dynamic compositions that delicately delineate a sensitive realism of exaggerated commonplaces unified by subtle arrangements of chromatic harmonies and humorous, yet sincere commentary.
Keywords specific to this image: cannon, weapon, weaponry
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