SAMUEL PALMER (I805--8I) is one of the most original and influential of British painters. A younger contemporary of Turner and Constable, he looked at nature as much with the inner as with the outer eye, producing vision-inspired landscapes of unprecedented boldness and great poetic richness that form a striking contrast to the dominating naturalism of the day. His unique approach to landscape was encouraged by his friend the great visionary poet and artist William Blake and has remained an inspiration for poets and painters ever since.

  Palmer's art reached its creative heights when he settled in the Kent village of Shoreham with a number of like-minded friends. Calling themselves The Ancients, this group turned their backs on the modern world and sought to reconnect with a more primal vision of nature. In later life Palmer developed a more conventional form of art, though one that could still be deeply meditative and infused with a poignant lyricism.  Marking the bicentenary of Palmer's birth, this catalogue is published to accompany the largest retrospective exhibition of his work for nearly eighty years. Bringing together nearly all his greatest works from collections around the world, supplemented with essays by eight distinguished scholars, it celebrates the full range of the artist's achievement.

Directors' Foreword

Authors' Acknowledgements

Introduction

William Vaughan

Brothers in Art, Brothers in Love:

The Ancients as an Artistic Community

William Vaughan

To fancy what is lost to sight: Palmer and Literature

David Blayney Brown

The Politics of Vision:

Palmer's Address to the Electors of West Kent, 1839

David Bindman

Samuel Palmer's Materials and Techniques: The Early Years

Alexandra Greathead

Samuel Palmer's Materials and Techniques: The Later Years

Marjorie Shelley

Poetic Feeling and Chromatic Madness:

Palmer and Victorian Watercolour Painting

Scott Wilcox

The excitement of gambling, without its guilt and its ruin:

Palmer and Printmaking

Elizabeth E. Barker

The Artistic Rediscovery of Samuel Palmer

Colin Harrison

Chronology

Part One: The Visionary

1 Early Years (1805－23) William Vaughan

2 The Primitive Vision (1823-5) William Vaughan

3 Shoreham and the Ancients (1825-3O) William Vaughan

4 Later Shoreham (1830-35) Colin Harrison

Part Two: The Victorian

5 The Traveller (1835) Elizabeth E. Barker

6 Italy (I837-40) Elizabeth E. Barker

7 Sketches and Idylls (184O-C.1865) Elizabeth E. Barker

8 The Lonely Tower (c.I865 81) William Vaughan

Bibliography

List of Lenders

Contributors

Index of Works

Index of Names

Photographic Acknowledgements