Francis Danby - Bristol School

Bristol School

From around 1818/19, Danby was a member of the informal group of artists which has become known as the Bristol School, taking part in their evening sketching meetings and sketching excursions visiting local scenery. His View of the Avon Gorge (1822) depicts figures sketching in a location favoured by the group. He remained connected with members of the Bristol School for around a decade, even after leaving Bristol in 1824.

The group had initially formed around Edward Bird, and Danby would eventually succeed Bird as its central figure. Bird's genre painting had a naturalistic style and fresh colours, and his influence has been seen on Danby's style. Examples are Danby's treatment of figures in Boys Sailing a Little Boat (c. 1821) and The Delivery of Israel out of Egypt (1825). Danby was also close to Edward Villiers Rippingille, whose style developed alongside that of Danby under the influence of Bird.

The Bristol artists, particularly the amateur Francis Gold, were also important in influencing Danby towards a more imaginative and poetical style. George Cumberland, another of the amateurs, had influential London connections. In 1820 when Francis Danby exhibited The Upas Tree of Java at the British Institution, Cumberland used his influence to promote its favourable reception. There is also evidence from their correspondence that Cumberland suggested subjects for Danby to paint. Cumberland was a close friend of William Blake, and it has been suggested that Blake's work may also have had some influence on Danby, for example in Danby's second exhibited painting, Disappointed Love, shown at the Royal Academy in 1821.

Danby's atmospheric work An Enchanted Island, successfully exhibited in 1825 at the British Institution and then back in Bristol at the Bristol Institution, was in turn particularly influential on other Bristol School artists.