Old Man of Coniston from the Gardens at Brantwood (recto); Sketch of a sinking boat (verso)

Arthur Severn

[1890–1901] · Watercolor, gouache (recto); fabricated black crayon (verso) · Drawings and Prints

Severn’s sunset watercolor focuses on a mountain known as the Old Man, located near Coniston Water in the Lake District. The work was painted at Brantwood, the home of the critic and collector John Ruskin, where the artist spent part of each year after 1871, when he married Joan Agnew, Ruskin’s niece and ward. Freely handled washes imitate effects in oil, with forms rendered broadly and tone given more emphasis than fine detail. Severn’s association with the Aesthetic movement encouraged effects such as the band of mist rising against a dark cliff and the visual rhyming of mountainside and watery reflections below. They also point to an admiration for J. M. W. Turner’s late watercolors, several of which Ruskin owned.

Artist

Arthur Severn

Date

[1890–1901]

Medium

Watercolor, gouache (recto); fabricated black crayon (verso)

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Purchase, Ian Woodner Family Collection Fund, 2022