Alfred Elmore (1815–1881) was a British history and genre painter.

Life

Alfred Elmore was born in Clonakilty, Ireland, the son of John Richard Elmore, a surgeon who retired from the British Army to

Clonakilty Clonakilty (; ), sometimes shortened to Clon, is a town in County Cork, Ireland. The town is located at the head of the tidal Clonakilty Bay. The rural hinterland is used mainly for dairy farming. The town's population as of 2016 was 4,592. Th ...

. His family moved to London, where Elmore studied at the Royal Academy of Arts. His early works were in the ''troubadour'' style of

Richard Parkes Bonington Richard Parkes Bonington (25 October 1802 – 23 September 1828) was an English Romantic landscape painter, who moved to France at the age of 14 and can also be considered as a French artist, and an intermediary bringing aspects of English sty ...

, but he soon graduated to religious work, notably ''The Martyrdom of Thomas à Becket'', commissioned by

Daniel O'Connell Daniel O'Connell (I) ( ga, Dónall Ó Conaill; 6 August 1775 – 15 May 1847), hailed in his time as The Liberator, was the acknowledged political leader of Ireland's Roman Catholic majority in the first half of the 19th century. His mobilizat ...

for Westland Row Church in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...

. Between 1840 and 1844 Elmore travelled across Europe, visiting Munich, Venice, Bologna, and Florence. Elmore seems to have been associated with

The Clique A clique is a close social group. Clique or The Clique may also refer to: Math and computing * Clique (graph theory) ** Clique problem in computer science Business and brands * Clique (vodka), a Latvian vodka sold in the United States Entertai ...

, a group of young artists who saw themselves as followers of Hogarth and

David Wilkie David Wilkie may refer to: * David Wilkie (artist) (1785–1841), Scottish painter * David Wilkie (surgeon) (1882–1938), British surgeon, scientist and philanthropist * David Wilkie (footballer) (1914–2011), Australian rules footballer * David ...

. According to his friend

William Powell Frith William Powell Frith (9 January 1819 – 2 November 1909) was an English painter specialising in genre subjects and panoramic narrative works of life in the Victorian era. He was elected to the Royal Academy in 1853, presenting ''The Sleep ...

he was member of the group, but since it was most active while he was in continental Europe, his involvement was probably short-lived. Most of Elmore's later works were historical narrative paintings. ''Religious Controversy'' and ''The Novice'' were implicitly anti-Catholic in character. Other paintings set episodes from Shakespeare, or the history of the French Revolution. They often contained subtle explorations of the process of creation, most importantly his two paintings about technological innovation, ''The Invention of the Stocking Loom'' (1847, Nottingham Castle Museum) and ''The Invention of the Combing Machine'' (1862,

Cartwright Hall Cartwright Hall is the civic art gallery in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, situated about a mile from the city centre in the Manningham district. It was built on the former site of Manningham Hall using a gift of £40,000 donated by Samuel ...

, Bradford). Both portray the process of industrialisation by depicting

picturesque Picturesque is an aesthetic ideal introduced into English cultural debate in 1782 by William Gilpin in ''Observations on the River Wye, and Several Parts of South Wales, etc. Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty; made in the Summer of the Year ...

pre-industrial handicrafts. The inventor is supposed to be pondering these manual skills while he forms in his mind a mechanism to replace them. Elmore's best-known work is ''On the Brink'' (1865;

Fitzwilliam Museum The Fitzwilliam Museum is the art and antiquities museum of the University of Cambridge. It is located on Trumpington Street opposite Fitzwilliam Street in central Cambridge. It was founded in 1816 under the will of Richard FitzWilliam, 7th Vis ...

, Cambridge), a moral genre painting depicting a young woman who has lost her money gambling, and is 'on the brink' of responding to the blandishments of a seducer, who is depicted as a satan-like figure, luridly bathed in red light, and whispering corrupting thoughts in her ear. By the late 1860s Elmore was moving away from such Hogarthian subjects towards a more classical style influenced by

Edward Poynter Sir Edward John Poynter, 1st Baronet (20 March 183626 July 1919) was an English painter, designer, and draughtsman, who served as President of the Royal Academy. Life Poynter was the son of architect Ambrose Poynter. He was born in Paris, F ...

and

Lawrence Alma-Tadema Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, (; born Lourens Alma Tadema ; 8 January 1836 – 25 June 1912) was a Dutch painter who later settled in the United Kingdom becoming the last officially recognised denizen in 1873. Born in Dronryp, the Netherlands, ...

. He also painted Arabic figures, in line with the vogue for Orientalism in art. Elmore suffered from

neuralgia Neuralgia (Greek ''neuron'', "nerve" + ''algos'', "pain") is pain in the distribution of one or more nerves, as in intercostal neuralgia, trigeminal neuralgia, and glossopharyngeal neuralgia. Classification Under the general heading of neural ...

through much of his life, and in his later years he became lame following a bad fall from his horse. He died of cancer in January 1881 and was buried in Kensal Green cemetery in London.

Gallery

References

* * de Bhailís, Caoimhín, ''Alfred Elmore's Religious Paintings'', Clonakilty Historical and Archaeological Journal, Vol.1, 2015. Available at: https://cora.ucc.ie/handle/10468/2215

External links

*
Alfred Elmore online
(ArtCyclopedia)
A. Elmore biography
(Artist of the month, July 2009 - RA Collections, London)
Alfred Elmore
(Art Renewal Center) {{DEFAULTSORT:Elmore, Alfred 1815 births 1881 deaths Anglo-Irish artists 19th-century English painters English male painters Irish genre painters 19th-century Irish painters Irish male painters History painters People from County Cork Royal Academicians 19th-century English male artists 19th-century Irish male artists