Richard Parkes Bonington - Reputation

Reputation

Delacroix paid tribute to Bonington's work in a letter to Théophile Thoré in 1861. It reads, in part:

When I met him for the first time, I too was very young and was making studies in the Louvre: this was around 1816 or 1817...Already in this genre (watercolor), which was an English novelty at that time, he had an astonishing ability...To my mind, one can find in other modern artists qualities of strength and of precision in rendering that are superior to those in Bonington's pictures, but no one in this modern school, and perhaps even before, has possessed that lightness of touch which, especially in watercolours, makes his works a type of diamond which flatters and ravishes the eye, independently of any subject and any imitation.

To Laurence Binyon however, "Bonington's extraordinary technical gift was also his enemy. There is none of the interest of struggle in his painting."

Bonington had a number of close followers, such as Roqueplan and Isabey in France, and Thomas Shotter Boys, James Holland, William Callow and John Scarlett Davis in England. In addition, there were many copies and forgeries of his work made in the period immediately after his death.

A statue to him was erected outside the Nottingham School of Art by Fothergill Watson, and a primary school in his home town of Arnold is named after him. The Wallace Collection has an especially large group of 35 works, representing both his landscapes and history paintings.

• Rouen

• Normandy, c. 1823

• View of the Lagoon Near Venice, 1827. Louvre

• Venice Grand Canal

• Charles V visits François Ier after the Battle of Pavia, c. 1827