Samuel Palmer (1805-1881) is one of the best-loved but least understood figures in British art. A romantic at heart, he lived through most of the Victorian age, increasingly at odds with the world around him, yet sustained by his belief in the abiding values of beauty, poetry, and landscape. This book is the first to critically examine Palmer's career, and to present his work within the artistic and cultural context of his times. It explores the visual and literary sources of his early pastoral drawings and reveals how Palmer's later work engaged with the burning controversies of the day.
Succinct overview of Samuel Palmer's life and art ... beautifully illustrated ... interestingly, the author links Palmer, a visionary and artist of the imagination, with another Anglican of equally deceptive simplicity, George Herbert ...