Samuel Palmer

Samuel Palmer (1805-1881), British landscape painter, etcher and print maker. Had a quick look of his paintings. I think I quick like his style.

His etching work is quite different from Rembrandt's I looked last week. Both of their works have landscape and figures, I think Samuel Palmer's work feels more exciting. Maybe because he was in the Romanticism period, much later than Rembrandt was.

Here is his The Sleeping Shepherd- Early Morning

A very pleasant image to me, a boy sitting on the ground, half leaning on something like hay in a shelter with vines around, falling asleep in the sunshine in the early morning( according to the title). A walking stick maybe using for rounding the sheep, a book maybe a Bible lying in front of him. A blanket hanging on a wall. Sheep are gathering near him. Not very far away, up the hill, a man with two cows working in the field. Birds are flying in the sky. The warm sunshine shine through the field, shine into the shelter. 

I like the details of the vines and leaves. I like the light effect, make the whole image very warm. Etching is black and white, the bright light can make the whole image very exciting. 

Here is a very detailed image of the boy.

I really like the way how Samuel used white dots through out to form the person, even the sheep and trees. The size of the etching is 500cm*602cm, I am guessing , when you standing in front of the real work, all these white dots must make the whole image brighter. They are also defined the sunlight fall onto the boy and the ground through the top of the shelter.