Toronto ou York capitale du Haut Canada août 1829

James Pattison Cockburn (18 March 1779 – 18 March 1847) was an artist, author and military officer. He was born into a military family and received his military training at the

Royal Military Academy, Woolwich The Royal Military Academy (RMA) at Woolwich, in south-east London, was a British Army military academy for the training of commissioned officers of the Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers. It later also trained officers of the Royal Corps of Sig ...

where he received training in drawing which was related to the skills required for topography.

Life

Cockburn had a long military career and retired with the rank of

Major-General Major general (abbreviated MG, maj. gen. and similar) is a military rank used in many countries. It is derived from the older rank of sergeant major general. The disappearance of the "sergeant" in the title explains the apparent confusion of a ...

. Throughout his time in the army, which took him to many parts of the world, he sketched and produced a steady flow of

travel books The genre of travel literature encompasses outdoor literature, guide books, nature writing, and travel memoirs. One early travel memoirist in Western literature was Pausanias, a Greek geographer of the 2nd century CE. In the early modern period ...

which he illustrated himself. They include ''A Voyage to Cadiz and

Gibraltar ) , anthem = " God Save the King" , song = " Gibraltar Anthem" , image_map = Gibraltar location in Europe.svg , map_alt = Location of Gibraltar in Europe , map_caption = United Kingdom shown in pale green , mapsize = , image_map2 = Gib ...

'', with 30 coloured plates, published in 1815; ''Swiss Scenery'', with 62 plates, in 1820; ''The Route of the Simplon'', in 1822; ''The Valley of

Aosta Aosta (, , ; french: Aoste , formerly ; frp, Aoûta , ''Veulla'' or ''Ouhta'' ; lat, Augusta Praetoria Salassorum; wae, Augschtal; pms, Osta) is the principal city of Aosta Valley, a bilingual region in the Italian Alps, north-northwest of ...

'', in 1823 and ''

Pompeii Pompeii (, ) was an ancient city located in what is now the ''comune'' of Pompei near Naples in the Campania region of Italy. Pompeii, along with Herculaneum and many villas in the surrounding area (e.g. at Boscoreale, Stabiae), was buried ...

Illustrated'', in

folio The term "folio" (), has three interconnected but distinct meanings in the world of books and printing: first, it is a term for a common method of arranging sheets of paper into book form, folding the sheet only once, and a term for a book ma ...

, in 1827. Cockburn spent two periods in Canada during his military career. The first, from November 1822 to June 1823, produced little work that has survived, but his second posting, lasting from April 1826 to August 1832, proved artistically productive. Many works from this "mature" period cover subjects from both

Upper Canada The Province of Upper Canada (french: link=no, province du Haut-Canada) was a part of British Canada established in 1791 by the Kingdom of Great Britain, to govern the central third of the lands in British North America, formerly part of the ...

and

Lower Canada The Province of Lower Canada (french: province du Bas-Canada) was a British colony on the lower Saint Lawrence River and the shores of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence (1791–1841). It covered the southern portion of the current Province of Quebec an ...

with Niagara Falls producing some of the finest work. Cockburn finished his career as the director of the laboratory of the

Royal Arsenal The Royal Arsenal, Woolwich is an establishment on the south bank of the River Thames in Woolwich in south-east London, England, that was used for the manufacture of armaments and ammunition, proofing, and explosives research for the Britis ...

Woolwich Woolwich () is a district in southeast London, England, within the Royal Borough of Greenwich. The district's location on the River Thames led to its status as an important naval, military and industrial area; a role that was maintained throu ...

where he died. His body of work is large and has yet to be reconstructed in a comprehensive manner for more in-depth study. Tête-de-pont barracks

Notes

References

* * Attribution: *

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Cockburn, James Pattison 1779 births 1847 deaths 19th-century British painters British male painters British travel writers Royal Artillery officers British Army major generals People from Woolwich Place of birth missing 19th-century British male artists