Norwich school of painters

The Norwich school of painters was the first provincial art movement in Britain, centered on the Norwich Society of Artists founded in 1803 by John Crome and Robert Ladbrooke. Its largely self-taught, working-class members drew on Dutch Golden Age landscape painters such as Hobbema and Ruisdael and on the Norfolk countryside around them, exhibiting annually from 1805. Crome was the school's driving force until his death in 1821; John Sell Cotman, a member from 1807, then held the society together until he left for London in 1834, after which it faded. Modest local patronage sustained the group, and Cotman's broad watercolour washes anticipate Impressionism. Much of the school's output was collected by the industrialist J. J. Colman and stayed in Norwich Castle Museum for a century, keeping the movement little known elsewhere.

Defining characteristics

• Intimate East Anglian subjects: rivers, heaths, mills, barns and quiet country lanes
• Dutch Golden Age influence - low horizons, cloud-filled skies, weathered trees and buildings
• Broad, transparent watercolour washes handled with confident economy
• Warm naturalistic light and muted local color
• Small-scale, unsentimental topographical views rather than grand historical subjects
• Crisp etching and line work recording local scenery

Key figures

• John Crome (1768-1821) — Founder and leading light of the school; painter and etcher of Norfolk scenes in the Dutch manner
• John Sell Cotman (1782-1842) — Watercolourist of broad, luminous washes; led the society after Crome's death
• Joseph Stannard (1797-1830) — Marine and landscape painter, the school's most talented younger member

Example works

• Greta Bridge — John Sell Cotman (1805)
• The Poringland Oak — John Crome (c. 1819)
• Thorpe Water Frolic, Afternoon — Joseph Stannard (1824)

Sources

• Norwich school of painters - Wikipedia encyclopedia

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