Studio: international art (74.1918)

The Landscape Element in Thomas Rowlandsoris Art

Indeed, in landscape work his rendering of
country scenes, villages, rustic cottages, lanes,
fields with cattle, woodland, river, and shipping
scenes—all these seem to have been done by
another individual artist rather than the Row-
landson who did grotesque drawings and carica-
tures which were often indefensibly vulgar.

Apart from this, it is clear that the chief merit
of Rowlandson's work lies in its spirited draughts-
manship and harmonious and tactful colouring.
In a word, he excels as a skilled water-colourist.
He was certainly thought a master in this
medium by his contemporaries and the men
who followed him. George Cruikshank, the
illustrator and caricaturist, who was actually
working during Rowlandson's life, had the
most profound admiration for his predecessor's
genius. To the late Joseph Grego he spoke of
Rowlandson as a most accomplished water-
colour painter, and the equal, in his opinion,
of most of the founders of the early English

School in that medium. Cruikshank thought
that Rowlandson was particularly good in his
maritime and water-side sketches. He drew
shipping with picturesque ease and dexterity,
his far-spreading landscapes and other works,
recalling in a forcible degree the drawings of
William Van-der-Velde, who he (Cruikshank)
thought was the only artist whose marine studies
could be quoted in comparison with those of
Rowlandson.

But his landscape work was not confined to
the river. He travelled a good deal on the
Continent—namely, in France, Flanders, Hol-
land, and Germany. He did not neglect his
native land either, for he made extensive tours
over a good part of England. He must have
seen the Lakes, and his excursions took him
into Wales, Cheshire, Cornwall, Devon, and
Somerset. Bath he naturally visited, and
Brighton, just becoming fashionable, he knew
well, as he also did Margate. He diligently

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