John Linnell the Elder

British, 1792 - 1882

Birth PlaceLondon, England

Death PlaceRedhill, England

SchoolAGOArtists

BiographyJohn Linnell’s prodigious talent for drawing was nurtured from youth and when he was just thirteen years old he entered the Royal Academy School. He studied under John Varley (1778-1842) and quickly became an artist of astonishing range and ability; winning his first award in landscape drawing when he was only 16 years old. Linnell is linked to the naturalist movement in British landscape painting and he was one of the first artists to deviate from the tradition, established by Claude Lorrain (1604-1682), of creating an ideal landscape. Instead, unlike Claude, Linnell based his work on meticulous studies of nature. A crisis in faith led Linnell to convert to the Baptist church in 1811 which had lasting effects on his work. After this point his landscapes took on a more spiritual character as he became preoccupied with humble rural scenes and images of labourers at work. Linnell married in 1817 and the financial pressure led him to take up portraiture as a way to support his growing family. His portraits show a remarkable talent for capturing the personality of the sitter and his depictions of the people and families of the aristocracy led him to great prosperity. By the 1840’s Linnell had amassed enough money and fame to abandon portraiture for landscape painting. In his later years he became fixated on depicting religious and biblical scenes, though he never abandoned the landscape studies upon which he had built his reputation.
Linnell was an influential mentor to other artists. He commissioned William Blake (1757-1827) to complete a series of engravings illustrating the Book of Job and a series of watercolours depicting Dante’s Divine Comedy which supplied the aging Blake with a steady income in his later years. He was also a friend of Samuel Palmer whom he encouraged to look at early renaissance paintings and to closely study nature. Linnell and Palmer shared the belief that landscape painting could be a form of religious art.

Person TypeIndividual

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