George Lambert (1700 – 30 November 1765) was an English
landscape artist
Landscape painting, also known as landscape art, is the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, especially where the main subject is a wide view—with its elements arranged into a coherent composi ...
and theatre scene painter. With Richard Wilson he is recognised as a pioneer of British landscape in art, for its own sake.
Life and work
Lambert was born in
Kent
Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...
John Wootton
John Wootton (c.1686– 13 November 1764)Deuchar, S. (2003). "Wootton, John". Grove Art Online. was an English painter of sporting subjects, battle scenes and landscapes, and illustrator.
Life
Born in Snitterfield, Warwickshire (near Stratfo ...
, soon attracting attention by the quality of his landscape painting. He painted many large and fine landscapes in the style of
Gaspar Poussin
Gaspard Dughet (15 June 1615 – 25 May 1675), also known as Gaspard Poussin, was a French painter born in Rome.
Life
Dughet was born in Rome, the son of a French pastry-cook
and his Italian wife. He has always generally been considered as a Fr ...
and
Salvator Rosa
Salvator Rosa (1615 –1673) is best known today as an Italian Baroque painter, whose romanticized landscapes and history paintings, often set in dark and untamed nature, exerted considerable influence from the 17th century into the early 19th ...
. Many of his landscapes were finely engraved by
François Vivares
François Vivares (Saint-Jean-du-Bruel 11 July 1709 – 28 November 1780 London) was a French landscape-engraver, active in England.
Life
He was born in France at Saint-Jean-du-Bruel, near Montpellier, on 11 July 1709, and brought up in Ge ...
,
James Mason
James Neville Mason (; 15 May 190927 July 1984) was an English actor. He achieved considerable success in British cinema before becoming a star in Hollywood. He was the top box-office attraction in the UK in 1944 and 1945; his British films inc ...
(1710–1785), and others, including a set of views of
Plymouth
Plymouth () is a port city and unitary authority in South West England. It is located on the south coast of Devon, approximately south-west of Exeter and south-west of London. It is bordered by Cornwall to the west and south-west.
Plymouth ...
and
Mount Edgcumbe Mount Edgcumbe may refer to:
; Places
* Mount Edgcumbe Country Park, in Cornwall, United Kingdom
* Mount Edgcumbe House, located within Mount Edgcumbe Country Park
* Mount Edgecombe, KwaZulu-Natal, a sugar-growing town in KwaZulu-Natal, South Afric ...
Saltwood Castle
Saltwood Castle is a castle in Saltwood village, one mile (2 km) north of Hythe, Kent, England. Of 11th century origin, the castle was expanded in the 13th and 14th centuries. After the Norman Conquest, the castle was appropriated by the Arc ...
in Kent, another of
Dover
Dover () is a town and major ferry port in Kent, South East England. It faces France across the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel at from Cap Gris Nez in France. It lies south-east of Canterbury and east of Maidstone ...
, and a landscape presented to the
Foundling Hospital
The Foundling Hospital in London, England, was founded in 1739 by the philanthropic sea captain Thomas Coram. It was a children's home established for the "education and maintenance of exposed and deserted young children." The word "hospital" w ...
in
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
.
Lambert also obtained a great reputation as a scene-painter, working at first for the
Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre
Lisle's Tennis Court was a building off Portugal Street in Lincoln's Inn Fields in London. Originally built as a real tennis court, it was used as a playhouse during two periods, 1661–1674 and 1695–1705. During the early period, ...
, in London, under
John Rich
John Rich (born January 7, 1974) is an American country music singer-songwriter. From 1992 to 1998, he was a member of the country music band Lonestar, in which he played bass guitar and alternated with Richie McDonald as lead vocalist. After d ...
. When Rich moved to
Covent Garden Theatre
The Royal Opera House (ROH) is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply Covent Garden, after a previous use of the site. It is the home of The Royal Op ...
, Lambert secured the assistance of Amigoni, and together they produced scenery of far higher quality than any previously executed.
Lambert was a man of jovial temperament and shrewd wit, and frequently spent his evenings at work in his painting-loft at Covent Garden Theatre, to which men of note in the fashionable or theatrical world resorted to share his supper of a beef-steak, freshly cooked on the spot. Out of these meetings arose the well-known "
Beefsteak Club
Beefsteak Club is the name or nickname of several 18th- and 19th-century male dining clubs in Britain and Australia that celebrated the beefsteak as a symbol of patriotic and often Whig concepts of liberty and prosperity.
The first beefsteak clu ...
" which long maintained a high social reputation. Most of Lambert's scene-paintings unfortunately perished when Covent Garden Theatre was destroyed by fire in 1808.
Lambert was a friend of
William Hogarth
William Hogarth (; 10 November 1697 – 26 October 1764) was an English painter, engraver, pictorial satirist, social critic, editorial cartoonist and occasional writer on art. His work ranges from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like s ...
and a member of the jovial society that met at 'Old Slaughter's' Tavern in
St Martin's Lane
St Martin's Lane is a street in the City of Westminster, which runs from the church of St Martin-in-the-Fields, after which it is named, near Trafalgar Square northwards to Long Acre. At its northern end, it becomes Monmouth Street. St Martin ...
. In 1755 he was one of the committee of artists who proposed a
royal academy of arts
The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its purpo ...
in London. He was a member of the
Society of Artists of Great Britain
The Society of Artists of Great Britain was founded in London in May 1761 by an association of artists in order to provide a venue for the public exhibition of recent work by living artists, such as was having success in the long-established P ...
, exhibited with them in 1761 and the three following years, and during the same period contributed to the Academy exhibitions. In 1765 he and other members seceded and formed the Incorporated Society of Artists of Great Britain, of which he was elected the first president.
In conjunction with Samuel Scott, Lambert painted a series of Indian views for the old East India House in
Leadenhall Street
__NOTOC__
Leadenhall Street () is a street in the City of London. It is about and links Cornhill, London, Cornhill in the west to Aldgate in the east. It was formerly the start of the A11 road (England), A11 road from London to Norwich, but th ...
. He also etched two prints after Salvator Rosa. Lambert was associated in 1735 with
George Vertue
George Vertue (1684 – 24 July 1756) was an English engraver and antiquary, whose notebooks on British art of the first half of the 18th century are a valuable source for the period.
Life
Vertue was born in 1684 in St Martin-in-the-Fields, ...
, Hogarth, and
John Pine
John Pine (1690–1756) was an English designer, engraver, and cartographer notable for his artistic contribution to the Augustan style and Newtonian scientific paradigm that flourished during the British Enlightenment.
Early life and apprenti ...
(engraver, 1660–1756) in obtaining a bill from parliament securing artists a copyright on their works. Lambert's portraits were painted by Thomas Hudson,
John Vanderbank
John Vanderbank (9 September 1694 – 23 December 1739)Waterhouse, Ellis. ''Painting in Britain 1530–1790'' (Penguin Books, 1957). was a leading English portrait painter who enjoyed a high reputation during the last decade of George I of Gr ...
in 1727, and in line by H. Robinson and others), and Hogarth.
Lambert's most famous painting is "A view of Box Hill, Surrey" (1733) which depicts a well-known beauty spot south of London. Hogarth considered Lambert a rival to the famous French landscape painter
Claude Lorrain
Claude Lorrain (; born Claude Gellée , called ''le Lorrain'' in French; traditionally just Claude in English; c. 1600 – 23 November 1682) was a French painter, draughtsman and etcher of the Baroque era. He spent most of his life in It ...
(1600–1682) with respect to his use of soft light to unify the scene in this painting. Though he never visited Italy he was inspired by the classical tradition of landscape painting.
Lambert died on 30 November 1765 at his home on the Piazza in
Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist si ...
.
His pupils included
John Inigo Richards
John Inigo Richards (1731– 18 December 1810) was a British landscapist who became one of the founding members of the Royal Academy in 1768, and was secretary to the Academy from 1788 until his death.
Life
He studied art at the St Martin' ...
A View of Box Hill, Surrey 1733.jpg, ''A view of Box Hill, Surrey'', 1733.
A Pastoral Landscape with Shepherds and their Flocks) by George Lambert.jpg, ''A Pastoral Landscape with Shepherds and their Flocks'' (1744).
George Lambert - View of Dunton Hall, Lincolnshire (1739).jpg, ''View of Dunton Hall, Lincolnshire'', 1739, possibly the earliest image of a Plot Elm (centre).Photograph of a Hertfordshire Plot Elm for comparison ('The Backs', River Lea, Ware, Herts., from Hammerton, ''Wonderful Britain'', 1920, vol.2): oreald.co /ref>
Government Art Collection
The Government Art Collection (GAC) is the collection of artworks owned by the UK government and administered by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). The GAC's artworks are used to decorate major government buildings in t ...