Artwork Page for The Skylark

Details / Information for The Skylark

The Skylark

1850

Samuel Palmer

(British, 1805–1881)
Culture
England, 19th century
Medium
etching
Credit Line
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Lewis B. Williams, presented in honor of Henry Sayles Francis, Curator of Prints 1966.181
Catalogue raisonné
Lister 2
State
VI/VIII
Public Domain
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Location
Not on view
Print

Description

Palmer came to printmaking relatively late in his career in 1850 when he was elected to the Etching Club in London. He created a significant number of landscape etchings, intricate in detail and sonorous in chiaroscuro. In The Skylark, one of Palmer’s earliest compositions, a solitary figure in a rural landscape contemplates the flight of a songbird. Palmer has been compared to the German Romantic artist Caspar David Friedrich (also in this exhibition), who produced images infused with a similarly indefinable atmosphere of calm, mystery, and breathless silence.
A vertically oriented etching with dense, swirling contours in black ink on cream paper depicts a man with light skin leaning against a gate beside a thatched cottage. Holding a walking stick, he looks toward a lone bird high in the sky. A small, dark dog stands at his feet. A towering tree with intricate branches frames our right. In the distance, short, intersecting lines create texture across rolling hills and a sunlit meadow.

The Skylark

1850

Samuel Palmer

(British, 1805–1881)
England, 19th century

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