Lithograph on paper by Charles Joseph Hullmandel after John Skinner Prout.
Tintern Abbey
Charles Joseph Hullmandel (15 June 1789 – 15 November 1850) was born in London, where he maintained a lithographic establishment on Great Marlborough Street from about 1819 until his death.
Included as one of the first UK World Heritage Sites in 1986, the clue is in the name when it comes to Ironbridge Gorge. This was the place – a dramatic wooded ravine created by the River Severn – where the first cast-iron bridge was built in 1779.
Ironbridge, the town that sprang up beside the elegant River Severn crossing, became the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution.
This area, overflowing with natural resources such as coal, iron ore and limestone were all useful to the fledgling industries of the time.
Throughout the 18th century the gorge was a hotbed of production and manufacture, from smelting lead and blowing glass to making parts for steam engines and railway wagons.
However, the lack of a bridge over the Severn was a continual problem. The ferries that carried raw materials across the river were unable to operate whenever it was in spate or too low.
Ironworks owner Abraham Darby III was duly commissioned to build a bridge. The result was an immediate success. And when the structure remained solidly in place during the terrible Severn floods of 1795, it served as Darby’s cast-iron guarantee to customers as to the efficacy of his product.
Foot’s Cray Church, Sidcup
from “Greater London ... Illustrated" by Edward Walford, 1823-1897
Details from Drinkstone Park, Cornard Woods? circa 1747 by Thomas Gainsborough
The title of the artwork shows that there is some doubt surrounding the place depicted in the painting: it could be Cornard Woods in Suffolk, which was the setting of other works by the artist, including the similar canvas in the collection of the National Gallery of London; or it could be Drinkstone Park, since the park's owner was also the owner of this canvas.
See the painting at Museu de Artes São Paulo
C.R.W. NEVINSON
1889 - 1946
Steep Hill, Lincoln
Oil on canvas
The painting was titled Looking down the Street but the scene represented is clearly the lower part of Steep Hill in Lincoln.
See the picture at Hull University Art Collection, Brynmor Jones Library
Detail from John CONSTABLE East Bergholt, Suffolk
Cloud study 1821
Oil on paper pasted onto oak panel
In an age when landscape painting was considered an inferior art form, Constable was ahead of his time. Ironically, although his paintings are imbued with a love of the English landscape, particularly the scenery around his native Suffolk, he found greater success in France than in England.
His scientific approach to nature was greatly admired by the French Impressionists of the later part of the 19th century.
Wishing to record exactly what he saw, Constable often painted out of doors. He considered the sky to be the key note in a landscape and executed many rapid sketches, such as this Cloud study, capturing the English weather in all its moods.
See the painting at
FERENS ART GALLERY, HULL
Stanley SPENCER
Greenhouse and Garden 1926
Oil on canvas
An eccentric and highly imaginative individual, Spencer remained an independent artist, who set himself apart from any of the then fashionable groups. He attended the Slade School of Art along with David Bomberg, Paul Nash and Wadsworth among others.
Many of Spencer's visionary paintings and landscapes were inspired by life in his native town of Cookham-on-Thames, Berkshire. Here we see the view through the door of the greenhouse at 'Lindworth' Spencer's house in Cookham. The detailed still life in the foreground is a recurring device in his landscapes.
Spencer was encouraged to paint still life and flower paintings during the 1930s by his dealer Dudley Tooth. They were easy to sell and provided him with a regular income.
Ferens Art Gallery, Hull
Laurence Binyon, English Poet
from Liberty and The Law by Christopher Hill
from The Story of England by Michael Wood
Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788)
Cornard Wood, near Sudbury, Suffolk, 1748
from Silas Marner by George Eliot
from The Spectator, Vol 6, 1729
From The Engineer’s Story by Amelia B. Edwards, 1866
'Blue Pool, Purbeck, Dorset' by Elsie Barling (1883–1976)
The Dorset Museum
All around, from every quarter, the stiff, clayey soil of the arable fields crept up; bare, brown and windswept for eight months out of the twelve. Spring brought a flush of green wheat and there were violets under the hedges and pussy-willows out beside the brook at the bottom of the 'Hundred Acres'; but only for a few weeks in later summer had the landscape real beauty. Then the ripened cornfields rippled up to the doorsteps of the cottages and the hamlet became an island in a sea of dark gold.
Opening lines from Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson
An 18th century engraver depicts a druid at Stonehenge. The druid is cutting down mistletoe in an oak grove.
The monument is much older than the druids and the stones were never surrounded by trees.
From The Antiquities of England and Wales by Frances Grose
