John Atkinson Grimshaw (6 September 1836 – 13 October 1893) was an English Victorian-era artist best known for his nocturnal scenes of urban landscapes.Alexander Robertson, ''Atkinson Grimshaw'', London, Phaidon Press, 1996

H. J. Dyos Harold James Dyos (1921–1978) was a British historian, known for his contributions to urban history. He wrote many essays addressing the issue of urbanization. Career He graduated B.A. from the London School of Economics in 1949, and gai ...

and Michael Wolff, eds., ''The Victorian City: Images and Realities'', 2 Volumes, London, Routledge, 1973. He was called a "remarkable and imaginative painter" by the critic and historian Christopher Wood in ''Victorian Painting'' (1999).Christopher Wood, ''Victorian Painting'', Boston, Little, Brown & Co., 1999; p. 173 Grimshaw's love for realism stemmed from a passion for photography, which would eventually lend itself to the creative process. Though entirely self-taught, he is known to have used a camera obscura or lenses to project scenes onto canvas, which made up for his shortcomings as a draughtsman and his imperfect knowledge of perspective. This technique, which

Caravaggio Michelangelo Merisi (Michele Angelo Merigi or Amerighi) da Caravaggio, known as simply Caravaggio (, , ; 29 September 1571 – 18 July 1610), was an Italian painter active in Rome for most of his artistic life. During the final four years of hi ...

and Vermeer may also have used, was condemned by a number of his contemporaries who believed it demonstrated less skill than painting by eye, with some claiming that his paintings appeared to "show no marks of handling or brushwork", while others "were doubtful whether they could be accepted as paintings at all". However, many recognised his mastery of colour, lighting and shadow, as well as his unique ability to provoke strong emotional responses in the viewer.

James McNeill Whistler James Abbott McNeill Whistler (; July 10, 1834July 17, 1903) was an American painter active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He eschewed sentimentality and moral allusion in painting and was a leading pr ...

, who Grimshaw worked with in his Chelsea studios, stated, "I considered myself the inventor of nocturnes until I saw Grimmy's moonlit pictures." His early paintings were signed "JAG", "J. A. Grimshaw", or "John Atkinson Grimshaw", though he finally settled on "Atkinson Grimshaw".

Life

He was born on 6 September 1836 in a

back-to-back house Back-to-backs are a form of terraced houses in the United Kingdom, built from the late 18th century through to the early 20th century in various guises. Many thousands of these dwellings were built during the Industrial Revolution for the rapidly ...

in Park Street, Leeds to Mary and David Grimshaw. In 1856 he married his cousin Frances Hubbard (1835–1917). In 1861, at the age of 24, to the dismay of his parents, he left his job as a clerk for the Great Northern Railway to become a painter. He first exhibited in 1862, mostly paintings of birds, fruit, and blossom, under the patronage of the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society. He and his wife moved in 1866 to a semi-detached villa, which is now numbered 56 Cliff Road in Headingley and has a Leeds Civic Trust

blue plaque A blue plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place in the United Kingdom and elsewhere to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person, event, or former building on the site, serving as a historical marker. The term i ...

, and in 1870 to Knostrop Old Hall. Grid Reference: SE 32125 32100. He became successful in the 1870s and rented a second home, Castle-by-the-Sea in Scarborough. Scarborough became a favourite subject. He died on 13 October 1893 of tuberculosis and is buried in Woodhouse Cemetery, now called St George's Fields, in Leeds. Four of his children,

Arthur E. Grimshaw Arthur Edmund Grimshaw (1864 – July 1913)General Register ...

(1864–1913), Louis H. Grimshaw (1870–1944), Wilfred Grimshaw (1871–1937), and Elaine Grimshaw (1877–1970) also became painters.

Work

John Atkinson Grimshaw - Glasgow, Saturday Night

Grimshaw's primary influence was the

Pre-Raphaelites The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (later known as the Pre-Raphaelites) was a group of English painters, poets, and art critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, James ...

. True to the Pre-Raphaelite style, he created landscapes of accurate colour and lighting, vivid detail and realism, often typifying seasons or a type of weather. Moonlit views of city and suburban streets and of the docks in London, Hull, Liverpool, and Glasgow also figured largely in his art. His careful painting and his skill in lighting effects meant that he captured both the appearance and the mood of a scene in minute detail. His "paintings of dampened gas-lit streets and misty waterfronts conveyed an eerie warmth as well as alienation in the urban scene." ''Dulce Domum'' (1885), on whose reverse Grimshaw wrote, "mostly painted under great difficulties", captures the music portrayed in the piano-player, entices the eye to meander through the richly decorated room, and to consider the still and silent young lady who is listening. Grimshaw painted more interior scenes, especially in the 1870s, when he worked under the influence of James Tissot and the

Aesthetic Movement Aestheticism (also the Aesthetic movement) was an art movement in the late 19th century which privileged the aesthetic value of literature, music and the arts over their socio-political functions. According to Aestheticism, art should be prod ...

. ''On Hampstead Hill'' is considered one of Grimshaw's finest works, exemplifying his skill with a variety of light sources, in capturing the mood of the passing of twilight into night. In his later career his urban scenes under twilight or yellow streetlighting were popular with his middle-class patrons. His later work included imagined scenes from the Greek and Roman empires, and he painted literary subjects from Longfellow and Tennyson — pictures including ''Elaine'' and ''The Lady of Shalott''. Grimshaw named his children after characters in Tennyson's poems. In the 1880s, Grimshaw maintained a London studio in Chelsea, not far from the studio of James Abbott McNeill Whistler. After visiting Grimshaw, Whistler remarked that "I considered myself the inventor of Nocturnes until I saw Grimmy's moonlit pictures."Lionel Lambourne, ''Victorian Painting'', London, Phaidon Press, 1999; p. 112. Unlike Whistler's Impressionistic night scenes, Grimshaw worked in a realistic vein: "sharply focused, almost photographic", his pictures innovated in applying the tradition of rural moonlight images to the Victorian city, recording "the rain and mist, the puddles and smoky fog of late Victorian industrial England with great poetry." Grimshaw's paintings depicted the contemporary world but eschewed the dirty and depressing aspects of industrial towns. ''Shipping on the Clyde'', a depiction of Glasgow's Victorian docks, is a lyrically beautiful evocation of the industrial era. Grimshaw transcribed the fog and mist so accurately as to capture the chill in the damp air, and the moisture penetrating the heavy clothes of the few figures awake in the misty early morning. John_Atkinson_Grimshaw_(1836-1893)_-_'The_Ironbound_Shore'_-_622747_-_National_Trust

John_Atkinson_Grimshaw_(1836-1893)_-_'The_Ironbound_Shore'_-_622747_-_National_Trust

Reputation and legacy

Grimshaw left behind no letters, journals, or papers. His reputation rested on, and his legacy is based on, his townscapes. There was a revival of interest in Grimshaw's work in the second half of the 20th century, with several important exhibitions devoted to it. A

retrospective A retrospective (from Latin ''retrospectare'', "look back"), generally, is a look back at events that took place, or works that were produced, in the past. As a noun, ''retrospective'' has specific meanings in medicine, software development, popu ...

exhibition "Atkinson Grimshaw – Painter of Moonlight" ran from 16 April – 4 September 2011 at Mercer Art Gallery in Harrogate and subsequently in the Guildhall Art Gallery, London.

Gallery

File:John_Atkinson_Grimshaw_-_Spirit_of_the_Night.jpg, ''Spirit of the Night'', 1879. File:Reflections on the Thames, Westminster - Grimshaw, John Atkinson.jpg, ''Reflections on the Thames'', 1880. File:Grimshaw-NightfallThames.jpg, ''Nightfall on the Thames'', 1880. File:John_Atkinson_Grimshaw_-_Shipping_on_the_Clyde_(1881).jpg, ''Shipping on the Clyde'', 1881. File:Grimshaw - Late October.jpg, ''Late October'', 1882. File:John Atkinson Grimshaw - Boar Lane, Leeds.jpg, ''Boar Lane'', n.d. File:John Atkinson Grimshaw - Canny Glasgow.jpg, ''Canny Glasgow'', 1887.

References

External links