While the artists of French Impressionism are familiar to anyone interested in art, the question of an English Impressionist named Elizabeth Adela Forbes elicits a rather cautious frown. English Impressionists? Was there such a thing at all and then also a woman?
Born in Canada as Elizabeth Adela Armstrong, Forbes completed and expanded her artistic training and education in London. This was done in close proximity to the Pre-Raphaelite painter William Michael Rosetti. An influence or contact cannot be directly proven, but also cannot be ruled out, however, in later years she produced fairy tale scenes in the style of the Pre-Raphaelites, with which she illustrated her book "King Arthur's Wood". She continued her artistic studies in New York, where she became enthusiastic about European open-air painting, while a subsequent attempt to further her education in Munich came to an abrupt end, presumably due to resentment towards her as a female artist. She felt better off in France and later in Holland, where she created one of her strongest works, the painting "Zandfoort Fischermädchen." Back in London, her wanderlust was unbroken, so that she chose as her next destination an artists' colony in Cornwall, which was to become known as the "Newlyn School". Here she met her later Irish-born husband Stanhope Forbes, who was also a painter of the Impressionist school. Together with him, she became influential in this English school of late Impressionist painting, which lasted from the 1880s until Forbes' death. She managed to exhibit more paintings than her husband and produced light and pointed paintings, which she executed in an impasto watercolor technique, in pastels or in oils. The Newlyn members looked to the French Barbizon School, which propagated and popularized open-air painting in France, as a model. In Newlyn, too, the motifs were sought outdoors. Here all subjects around the harbor, fishing, boats and the poor but idyllic villages offered themselves. The whole range of a carefree simple life and the equally ubiquitous dangers of the same, which was so completely designed for the sea and its rhythm. At the height of the colony, 120 male and female artists worked their way through the landscape, putting their details on paper and canvas.
Forbes also picked up on the themes of the coast. Invariably, her subjects were people moving about in nature, allowing glimpses of the domestic environment, or showing how they went about their work. Children stood out particularly often. This was possibly due to the fact that Forbes herself was granted only one son, whose early death she fortunately did not have to witness, as she died at the age of 52.
While the artists of French Impressionism are familiar to anyone interested in art, the question of an English Impressionist named Elizabeth Adela Forbes elicits a rather cautious frown. English Impressionists? Was there such a thing at all and then also a woman?
Born in Canada as Elizabeth Adela Armstrong, Forbes completed and expanded her artistic training and education in London. This was done in close proximity to the Pre-Raphaelite painter William Michael Rosetti. An influence or contact cannot be directly proven, but also cannot be ruled out, however, in later years she produced fairy tale scenes in the style of the Pre-Raphaelites, with which she illustrated her book "King Arthur's Wood". She continued her artistic studies in New York, where she became enthusiastic about European open-air painting, while a subsequent attempt to further her education in Munich came to an abrupt end, presumably due to resentment towards her as a female artist. She felt better off in France and later in Holland, where she created one of her strongest works, the painting "Zandfoort Fischermädchen." Back in London, her wanderlust was unbroken, so that she chose as her next destination an artists' colony in Cornwall, which was to become known as the "Newlyn School". Here she met her later Irish-born husband Stanhope Forbes, who was also a painter of the Impressionist school. Together with him, she became influential in this English school of late Impressionist painting, which lasted from the 1880s until Forbes' death. She managed to exhibit more paintings than her husband and produced light and pointed paintings, which she executed in an impasto watercolor technique, in pastels or in oils. The Newlyn members looked to the French Barbizon School, which propagated and popularized open-air painting in France, as a model. In Newlyn, too, the motifs were sought outdoors. Here all subjects around the harbor, fishing, boats and the poor but idyllic villages offered themselves. The whole range of a carefree simple life and the equally ubiquitous dangers of the same, which was so completely designed for the sea and its rhythm. At the height of the colony, 120 male and female artists worked their way through the landscape, putting their details on paper and canvas.
Forbes also picked up on the themes of the coast. Invariably, her subjects were people moving about in nature, allowing glimpses of the domestic environment, or showing how they went about their work. Children stood out particularly often. This was possibly due to the fact that Forbes herself was granted only one son, whose early death she fortunately did not have to witness, as she died at the age of 52.
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