Mysterious Wisdom
Page 41
48 L504
49 Ibid.
50 L502
51 Ibid.
52 L959
53 L481
54 L492
55 L511
56 L499
57 L517
58 L559
59 L538
60 AHP
61 L159
62 L512
63 Linnell, Palmer, Blake, Linnell and Co., p. 285
64 L551
65 Ibid.
66 L1042
67 L587
68 L517
69 L729
70 L581
71 L&L114
72 William Faithorne, The Art of Graving and Etching.
73 L&L99
74 Ibid.
75 Ibid.
76 L&L100
77 L189
78 L865
79 Ibid.
80 Guardian, 30 April 1856
81 Critic, 1 May 1856
82 AHP
83 L529
84 L560
85 Story, The Life of John Linnell, Vol. 2, Chapter 4
86 AHP
87 L&L119
88 L871
89 L565
90 L425
91 L556
92 L567
93 L557
94 Ibid.
Chapter 19: A Bitter Blow
1 L530
2 L551
3 L578
4 L609
5 L554
6 L570
7 L577
8 L594
9 L731
10 L602
11 AHP
12 L604
13 AHP
14 L608
15 L614
16 L607
17 L604
18 L609
19 L629
20 L184
21 L675
22 L609
23 Ibid.
24 L613
25 L638
26 L628
27 L607
28 L609
29 L683
30 L642
31 L636
32 L624
33 AHP124
34 L606
35 L618
36 L620
37 L631
38 L&L125
39 L641
40 AHP
41 L624
42 L&L125
43 L642
44 L643
45 L631
46 L642
47 L633
48 L871
49 L730
50 L625
51 L645
52 L681
Chapter 20: Redhill
1 L&L127
2 L1041
3 L648
4 L177
5 L686
6 L755
7 L751
8 L755
9 L654
10 L&L131
11 L650
12 L685
13 Linnell, Blake, Palmer, Linnell and Co., p. 311
14 L772
15 L656
16 L650
17 L674
18 Ibid.
19 L806
20 L&L147
21 L&L148
22 L787
23 L763
24 L752
25 L693
26 L711
27 L665
28 L672
29 L730
30 L720
31 L&L168
32 L653
33 L816
34 L817
35 L&L138
36 L744
37 AHP
38 AHP131
39 L&L132
40 L&L133
41 L&L135
42 L677
43 L750
44 L515
45 L803
46 L&L135
47 L624
48 AHP
49 L675
50 AHP
51 L768
52 L&L129
53 Ibid.
54 L731
55 L&L130
56 Ibid.
57 AHP
58 L810
59 Letter to Martin Hardie (V&A)
60 Ibid.
61 L765
62 L845
63 L850
64 Letter to Martin Hardie (V&A)
65 Ibid.
66 L791
67 L781
68 L679
69 L&L134
70 L&L133
71 L&L130
72 L&L134
73 L759
74 L756
75 L&L128
76 L747
77 L751
78 L747
79 AHP137
80 L&L137
81 L780
82 L874
83 L&L136
84 L897
85 Ibid.
86 L928
87 L&L135
88 L782
89 L&L136
90 L898
91 L&L144
92 L&L22
Chapter 21: The Milton Series
1 L769
2 L&L161
3 L709
4 L809
5 L811
6 L752
7 L&L146
8 L770
9 L777
10 L776
11 L775
12 L797
13 L808
14 L817
15 L818
16 AHP153
17 L658
18 Art Journal, 1 June 1866
19 L&L149
20 AHP
21 L&L149
22 L690 note 1
23 L690
24 L698
25 L699
26 L696
27 L970
28 L737
29 L704
30 L&L91
31 L&L152
32 L764
33 L904
34 L913
35 L965
36 Ibid.
Chapter 22: The Lonely Tower
1 L685
2 L&L155
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 L&L157
7 L&L158
8 L970
9 L964
10 L963
11 L820
12 L974
13 L60
14 L974
15 Letter to Martin Hardie (V&A)
16 L&L100
17 Letter to Sir Frank Short, 12 November 1920 (Ashmolean)
18 Linnell, Blake, Palmer, Linnell and Co., p. 345
19 Ibid.
20 AHP
21 L935
22 L939
23 L1015
24 This memoir was published in 1897
25 Philip Gilbert Hamerton, An Autobiography and a Memoir by his wife, London 1897, p. 441
26 L928
27 L954
28 L1035
29 L967
30 L919
31 L951
32 L966
33 L1058
34 L664
35 L990
36 L1052
37 L142
38 L956
39 L932
40 L978
41 L941
42 Ibid.
43 L969
44 L1038
45 Ibid.
46 Stirling (ed.), The Richmond Papers, p. 88
47 L1055
48 L1058
49 L944
50 L1042
51 L1052
52 L1077
53 John 11:25, the Bible
54 William Butler Yeats, The Phases of the Moon
Chapter 23: The Legacy
1 AHP
2 Lister, Calvert, p. 58
3 Grigson, The Visionary Years, p. 96
4 Stephens in Athenaeum, 16 April 1881
5 The Times, 13 April 1881
6 The Spectator, 16 April 1881
7 L1073
8 L700
9 L&L18
10 Letters to Martin Hardie (V&A)
11 Eric Maclagan in a letter dated 2 November 1926 to A. H. Palmer
/> 12 ‘Samuel Palmer: Being’, a lecture delivered to the Print Collectors’ Club on 16 November 1927, Print Collectors’ Club, London, 1928, p. 47
13 Quoted in foreword to the catalogue The English Vision, an exhibition at William Weston Gallery, London, 1973
14 Malcolm Yorke, The Spirit of Place, p. 89
15 Kenneth Clark, Landscape into Art, p. 71
16 Tom Keating, The Fake’s Progress, p. 182
17 Ibid., p. 183
18 L703
19 L1073
20 L923
21 L537
A page from Samuel Palmer’s 1824 sketchbook. Palmer studies the way that light streams through shadowing foliage. He frames a single figure within a painted Gothic frame. Accompanying notes record precise visual details from the ‘very brilliant horizon’ to the textures and tones of the monk’s bald head: ‘rather red’, ‘globular’, ‘polished & smooth’.
Early Morning (1825). Palmer captures the quiet harmony of dawn in this delicate sepia. Doves call from the boughs of the crinkle-leaved oaks. A hare picks its solitary way up the shadow-streaked path.
William Blake and John Varley (1821) by John Linnell. The ebullient Varley is sketched in the middle of animated conversation; Blake is leaning back with an expression of benign detachment. Varley was probably trying to convince Blake of his astrological theories.
Portrait of an Artist (1829). When Richmond titled this miniature likeness of Samuel Palmer it was an act of affirmation, of faith in the future career of his friend who in Shoreham would sometimes don archaic robes like these.
Oak Trees in Lullingstone Park (1828). For Palmer, trees were far more than mere leafy adornments of a picturesque composition. They seemed like people: each with an individual personality and look. He saw in these oaks the noble descendents of the great Celtic giants which had once sheltered the valley of Shoreham, and he tried to evoke their monumental splendour as surely as Milton, in his poetry, does.
Coming from Evening Church (1830). This image distils the essence of Palmer’s convictions. The natural and spiritual merge as villagers process home from their ivy-clad chapel beneath trees which soar upwards like the Gothic arches of a church. The light of the moon falls, a benediction from above.
In a Shoreham Garden (c. 1830). The extraordinary pictures which Palmer kept secret in his ‘Curiosity Portfolio’ are now considered among his finest paintings. They are works of splendour. Here nature runs riot in a profusion of pale apple blossom.
The Magic Apple Tree (c. 1830). Another of the works which were shown only to close friends, this painting glows as bright as an autumn bonfire. Palmer exults in the harvest’s rich gifts. Colour becomes a pure sensual pleasure.
Yellow Twilight (c. 1830). ‘In a half-lit room the drawing seems luminescent; both startling and tender,’ wrote Palmer scholar Geoffrey Grigson, who counted it among the artist’s very greatest works. ‘In few things painted by an English artist is vision held so securely and with such simplicity and such delicate, grave concentration.’
The Harvest Moon (1833). Villagers harvest together through the star-spangled night, gathering in the natural bounty of the land. Palmer used oil for this painting and submitted it (along with Th e Gleaning Field ) to the Royal Academy. It remained unsold.
Cypresses at the Villa d’Este (1838). Ruskin may well have been thinking of this study when he wrote that Palmer’s ‘studies of foreign foliage especially are beyond all praise for care and fullness’.
The Rising of the Skylark (c. 1843). A tiny oil panel is infused with an atmosphere of poetry. The spectator can almost hear the tumbling notes of the lark; sense the longings of the watcher who unlatches the gate.
King Arthur’s Castle, Tintagel, Cornwall (1848–49). Palmer loved the wild moors and coastlines of the West Country. Here he tries to infuse a topographical study with Turner-esque energy, sketching the huge bluff of rock that Turner himself had once depicted, assaulted by powerful shipwrecking storms.
Opening the Fold etching (1880). The pent-up flock rushing outwards with the first rays of risen light reflects the longing of the artist who yearned for the dawning of a new world.
The Lonely Tower (reworked 1881 version). For the last fifteen years of his life, Palmer was occupied by his Milton project. This image – the last in the cycle but among the first to be finished – is the most evocative of his late works. A ruined tower stands on the edge of a cliff, a proud remnant of something that had once been great keeping solitary watch over the quiet of the night.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my agent George Capel for her irrepressible enthusiasm, my editor Michael Fishwick for his constant encouragement and a stern ticking-off; Anna Simpson and Alexa von Hirschberg at Bloomsbury for their judicious attention, Laura Brooke for her energetic work in the publicity department and Kate Johnson, the copy editor, for her expertise and thoroughness.
I am enormously grateful to the Royal Society of Literature and the Jerwood Charitable Foundation for the generosity of an award which meant so much more than just the money – though I was delighted enough with that – and to my husband Will for his understanding, patience and undeviating support.
I would like to thank Josh, Alfie and Ella, for keeping me company along the banks of the Darent; my parents for taking care of me like the mad lady in the attic; Anna, Tid and Ben for bearing the brunt of my boring telephone calls; Catherine Milner for always managing to show me the bright side; Alice Miles for her laughter and late nights out drinking; Catherine Goodman for calming walks along the canal; Nancy Durrant at The Times for being accommodating; Gordon Cook of the Fine Art Society for his time and advice; and the artists David Inshaw, Emily Patrick and Tom Hammick for their painterly insights. Thank you, too, to the many residents of Shoreham – especially Ken Wilson – who would so kindly point me in the right direction as I poked about in their village; and also to the inhabitants of Palmer’s former home in Redhill.
I would particularly like to remember Sebastian whose life ended just before I had ended the book. He wouldn’t have read it anyway because it wasn’t about him.
I am also thankful to Flea and Bear for staying beside me all through the writing and finally to Katya for coming along right at the end like the last full stop.