"Were we desirous of showing to a foreigner, ignorant of both, what is the character of English rural scenery, and what is that of our school of landscape painters, we should introduce him to tho pictures of John Linnell as best exhibiting the peculiar features of the one, while manifesting the highest qualities of the other. Turner be regarded as the chief of the idealists, Linnell may be accepted as the head of the naturalists; and yet, strange to say, there are people so devoid of perception that they cannot estimate at their proper value either of those two great artists. The former had laid aside his pencil for over, and was gone to his rest, almost before the public had learned to appreciate him at his true worth; and it is only within the last few years, comparatively, that the works of the latter came to be understood and eagerly sought after: now they command any price he chooses to ask for them, and must always hold the foremost rank in the productions of our native school.
Linnell's style is as original in its way as that of Turner; there is no artist, ancient or modern, with whom he can be compared, not one to whom we can point as his model; he is, as it wore, his own master; he looks at nature with his own eyes, not with those of another, and represents her after his own fashion — one as true as it is beautiful. Simple as his subjects almost invariably are, he renders them grand by the boldness of his treatment, the vigour of his execution, and the richness of his colouring; in this latter quality his pictures are absolutely unrivalled." — 1865 Art-Journal
- Evening, Storm Clearing Off
- Labour
- On Summer Eve by Haunted Stream
- Barley Field with Wagon and Haymakers
- A View Near Hampstead
- Sunset Over Hampstead Heath
- Portrait of William Mulready
Works by Linnell's children
- James Thomas Linnell, The Rainbow
Bibliography
“Selected Pictures from the Collection of James Fallows, esq. Sunnybank, Manchester: Labour.” Art-Journal (1865): 208-209. Hathi Trust Digital Library version of a copy in the University of Michigan Library. Web. August 16, 2013.
Wood, Christopher. Paradise Lost: Paintings of English Country Life and Landscape, 1850-1914. Lndon: Grange Books, 1993.
Last modified 23 December 2017