392
Hobbema (1638–1709)
8
and Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788),
9
both of whom
he venerated, and the work of John Constable (1776–1837).
10
While J.M.W. Turner (1775–1851) had captured tumult, incandescence, great
fires, industrial steam, and every gale of the sublime, Crome assayed to chronicle
those very tangible aspects of any given day that stand; a connection at the heart of
Samuel Johnson’s very critique of Milton’s Paradise Lost, in whose penultimate
grasp that link was perceived to be equally banished: “The man and woman who act
and suffer [Adam and Eve] are in a state which no other man or woman can ever
know. The reader finds no transaction in which he can be engaged; beholds no condition in which he can by any effort of imagination place himself;…The good and
evil of eternity are too ponderous…the mind sinks under them in passive helplessness, content with calm belief and humble adoration.”
11
In Crome, that lost paradise
is fully regained.
It was during 1804 in Wales, where the Pen-y-Darren, the world’s first steamautomated train, hauled ten tons of iron, that Crome embarked with his friend and
fellow artist, Robert Ladbrooke, on “sketching expeditions” throughout the region.
He would produce watercolor drawings of Tintern Abbey, of the Welch and Wye
Valley, but no train belching smoke into the pure air.
12
Unlike a Thomas Cole who
not infrequently juxtaposed the ever-present destructive powers of humanity within
his otherwise Arcadian landscapes (e.g., “The Course of Empire: Desolation,” 1836,
New York Historical Society), Crome followed the purity of purpose exemplified by
the work of his two great natural history Norwich contemporaries, botanist William
Jackson Hooker (1785–1865) and Sir James Edward Smith (1759–1828), a natural
historian who founded in 1788 “The Linnean Society of London [which] is the
world’s oldest active biological society,” having acquired the entire literary and scientific estate of Carl Linnaeus.
13
But by 1867, as Joel Sternfeld writes in his essay “The Calamitous Sublime,”
Matthew Arnold, on his honeymoon, wrote that the world “Hath really neither joy,
nor love, nor light,/Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain.” This poem, “Dover
8 Masters of 17th-century Dutch Landscape Painting, Exhibition Catalogue, Ed. P. C. Sutton;
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, Boston, MA, Museum of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA, 1987–8.
9 See Gainsborough’s Landscapes: Themes and Variations, by Susan Sloman, Bloomsbury,
New York, 2011.
10 See English Landscape Scenery: A Series Of Forty Mezzotinto Engravings On Steel, by David
Lucas, From Pictures Painted By John Constable, R.A. Henry G. Bohn, London, 1855.
11 Samuel Johnson, Lives of the Poets, ‘Milton’ (1779), cited in Turner And The Sublime, by
Andrew Wilton, British Museum Publications, 1981, p. 23.
12 op.cit., Goldberg, Volume 1, p. 75.
13 https://www.linnean.org/; Of great interest, Dr. Giorgia Bottinelli, curator of historic art at
Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery, points out that William Hooker “was the son-in-law of
Crome’s patron Dawson Turner (he married Turner’s eldest daughter Maria). Dawson Turner was
a botanist himself and was elected a Fellow of the Linnean Society in 1797. Another interesting
link with Crome is Dr Rigby, Crome’s first employer: as well as a physician, Dr Rigby was also a
member of the Linnean Society and an early arboriculturalist.” Personal Correspondence with Dr.
Bottinelli, who points to the link, https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/5949767.
43 The Paradox of Solace
Hobbema (1638–1709)
8
and Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788),
9
both of whom
he venerated, and the work of John Constable (1776–1837).
10
While J.M.W. Turner (1775–1851) had captured tumult, incandescence, great
fires, industrial steam, and every gale of the sublime, Crome assayed to chronicle
those very tangible aspects of any given day that stand; a connection at the heart of
Samuel Johnson’s very critique of Milton’s Paradise Lost, in whose penultimate
grasp that link was perceived to be equally banished: “The man and woman who act
and suffer [Adam and Eve] are in a state which no other man or woman can ever
know. The reader finds no transaction in which he can be engaged; beholds no condition in which he can by any effort of imagination place himself;…The good and
evil of eternity are too ponderous…the mind sinks under them in passive helplessness, content with calm belief and humble adoration.”
11
In Crome, that lost paradise
is fully regained.
It was during 1804 in Wales, where the Pen-y-Darren, the world’s first steamautomated train, hauled ten tons of iron, that Crome embarked with his friend and
fellow artist, Robert Ladbrooke, on “sketching expeditions” throughout the region.
He would produce watercolor drawings of Tintern Abbey, of the Welch and Wye
Valley, but no train belching smoke into the pure air.
12
Unlike a Thomas Cole who
not infrequently juxtaposed the ever-present destructive powers of humanity within
his otherwise Arcadian landscapes (e.g., “The Course of Empire: Desolation,” 1836,
New York Historical Society), Crome followed the purity of purpose exemplified by
the work of his two great natural history Norwich contemporaries, botanist William
Jackson Hooker (1785–1865) and Sir James Edward Smith (1759–1828), a natural
historian who founded in 1788 “The Linnean Society of London [which] is the
world’s oldest active biological society,” having acquired the entire literary and scientific estate of Carl Linnaeus.
13
But by 1867, as Joel Sternfeld writes in his essay “The Calamitous Sublime,”
Matthew Arnold, on his honeymoon, wrote that the world “Hath really neither joy,
nor love, nor light,/Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain.” This poem, “Dover
8 Masters of 17th-century Dutch Landscape Painting, Exhibition Catalogue, Ed. P. C. Sutton;
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, Boston, MA, Museum of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA, 1987–8.
9 See Gainsborough’s Landscapes: Themes and Variations, by Susan Sloman, Bloomsbury,
New York, 2011.
10 See English Landscape Scenery: A Series Of Forty Mezzotinto Engravings On Steel, by David
Lucas, From Pictures Painted By John Constable, R.A. Henry G. Bohn, London, 1855.
11 Samuel Johnson, Lives of the Poets, ‘Milton’ (1779), cited in Turner And The Sublime, by
Andrew Wilton, British Museum Publications, 1981, p. 23.
12 op.cit., Goldberg, Volume 1, p. 75.
13 https://www.linnean.org/; Of great interest, Dr. Giorgia Bottinelli, curator of historic art at
Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery, points out that William Hooker “was the son-in-law of
Crome’s patron Dawson Turner (he married Turner’s eldest daughter Maria). Dawson Turner was
a botanist himself and was elected a Fellow of the Linnean Society in 1797. Another interesting
link with Crome is Dr Rigby, Crome’s first employer: as well as a physician, Dr Rigby was also a
member of the Linnean Society and an early arboriculturalist.” Personal Correspondence with Dr.
Bottinelli, who points to the link, https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/5949767.
43 The Paradox of Solace