Thomas Girtin (1775 - 1802) England. Watercolor on Paper. Measure 12 1/4"in H x 18 3/4"in W and 22 1/2" H x 26 1/2"in W with frame. Thomas Girtin, along with his exact contemporary JMW Turner (1775-1851), raised the status of watercolour painting from a minor genre to a powerful medium that could rival works in oil. He was born in Southwark on 18th February 1775, the son of a brush- and rope-maker of Huguenot descent. In 1788 he was apprenticed to the topographical watercolourist Edward Dayes, who taught him the traditional method of watercolour painting: making a light pencil outline, laying in the shadows with grey wash, and adding local colours, generally in pastel tones of blue, green and pink. In 1797 Girtin toured Somerset, Dorset and Devon, lightening his palette and using some Chinese white (gouache) to express the strong West Country light. Lyme Regis, Dorset (Yale Center for British Art, New Haven), probably sketched on the spot, abandons the repoussoirs of typical pictures watercolours in favour of a panoramic, high viewpoint, with broad, horizontal washes of pure watercolour creating a luminous coastal view. In November 1801 Girtin, taking advantage of the temporary cessation of the French Revolutionary Wars during the Peace of Amiens, travelled to Paris, probably to investigate the possibility of making a panorama of the city and of exhibiting the Eidometropolis there. His son, Thomas Calvert Girtin, was born in London on 10th December. No panorama proved practical, but Girtin made a series of detailed, panoramic pencil drawings of views in Paris (British Museum, London), which he etched in soft-ground upon his return to London in May 1802. Aquatint was added by specialist engravers and the set of Twenty Views in Paris and its Environs was published by Girtin engraver brother John on 22nd March 1803. Girtin died of an asthma in his painting room in the Strand on 9th November 1802 and was buried in St Pauls, Covent Garden.

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