Artist
Lear was already drawing "for bread and cheese" by the time he was aged 16 and soon developed into a serious "ornithological draughtsman" employed by the Zoological Society and then from 1832 to 1836 by the Earl of Derby, who had a private menagerie. His first publication, published when he was 19, was Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae, or Parrots in 1830. His paintings were well received and he was favourably compared with Audubon.
Among other trips, he visited Greece and Egypt in 1848–49, and toured the length of India and Ceylon (Sri Lanka) in 1873–75. While travelling he produced large quantities of coloured wash drawings in a distinctive style, which he worked up back in his studio into oils and watercolours, as well as prints for his books. His landscape style often shows views with strong sunlight, with intense contrasts of colour.
Throughout his life he continued to paint seriously. He had a lifelong ambition to illustrate Tennyson's poems; near the end of his life a volume with a small number of illustrations was published, but his vision for the work was never realised.
Read more about this topic: Edward Lear
Famous quotes containing the word artist:
“The saddest thing the thinker can say to the artist is this: “So, could you not watch with me one hour?””
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“It is very important not to become hard. The artist must always have one skin too few in comparison to other people, so you feel the slightest wind.”
—Shusha Guppy (b. 1938)
“When I say artist I don’t mean in the narrow sense of the word—but the man who is building things—creating molding the earth—whether it be the plains of the west—or the iron ore of Penn. It’s all a big game of construction—some with a brush—some with a shovel—some choose a pen.”
—Jackson Pollock (1912–1956)