Surrey Landscape by Linnell

A Surrey Landscape, 1858

John Linnell (1792-1882)

Oil on canvas

Paintings like this from late in Linnell’s career are based in the real landscape around his home near Redhill in Surrey.

Earlier in his career Linnell had been closely associated with the artist and poet William Blake. Both men had sincerely held religious beliefs. Linnell’s pictures were viewed at the time as authentic visions of a timeless British landscape, filled with serene light and religious feeling.

Linnell was the son of a woodcarver and picture dealer and started copying paintings when he was eight years old. He became a pupil of John Varley in 1804, under whom he learned to draw direct from nature. At the age of 13 Linnell became the Royal Academy's youngest student. He also studied at Monro’s Academy. Linnell became a brilliant sketcher and painted in both watercolours and oils, but gave up portrait painting to concentrate on landscape painting in 1847.

Given by Mr Barnes in 1928