A Stream Near Clovelly, North Devon

John Middleton

1850 · Watercolor over graphite with touches of gouache (bodycolor) and reductive techniques · Drawings and Prints

Middleton belonged to a small group of artists who contributed to a late flowering of the Norwich School of landscape painting around 1850. The artist was just twenty when singled out by the Norfolk Chronicle as "one of the most rising young artists of the day...[distinguished by a]...brilliancy of colouring, charming alteration of light and shade, admirable drawing and grouping." His career was cut sadly short by consumption, leading to his death at age twenty-nine but, in the preceding decade, he produced sparkling works such as this freely washed rendering a country stream bordered by trees made during a summer tour of North Devon in 1850.

Artist

John Middleton

Date

1850

Medium

Watercolor over graphite with touches of gouache (bodycolor) and reductive techniques

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

A. Hyatt Mayor Purchase Fund, Marjorie Phelps Starr Bequest, 2018