Jr Cozens (1752-99)

Cozens's subjects, unlike those of most of his contemporaries, are usually continental and represent scenes in France, Italy, Switzerland, Sicily, and other countries. His colour is entirely conventional, but he has a largeness and poetry of vision and a sense of the 'genius loci' which make his drawings much more than topographical records. His journeys abroad were mostly made in the company of travellers who wished to have a record made of places which impressed them, and so we may assume that his work was topographically accurate, and that his subjects were sometimes chosen for him, but these cramping limitations have left no mark on his work which is as free and unhampered as if he never worked but to please himself. No one, not even Turner, has ever given the grandeur and vastness of mountain scenery better than Cozens. No one, not even Girtin, had a larger and more simple vision or extracted more beauty from the character of his medium.

Cozens's life ended in tragedy, for in 1794 he went out of his mind. From then till his death he remained in the care of a Dr. Monro, whose name is in other ways closely bound up with the history of English watercolour painting.

At about the same date JMW Turner and Thomas Girtin were just beginning to attract attention as promising young water-colourists, and they were destined to enlarge the boundaries of water-colour far beyond anything of which Co7ens had dreamed, though not to surpass him within his own limits.

Topographical Landscapes

Before Richard Wilson, there had been no English landscape-painter of much note, and accordingly there was a further prejudice in favour of the works of foreigners against which he had to fight. It was a losing battle against the forces of prejudice and good taste, and the frontal attack of Wilson and Thomas Gainsborough might well have failed if it had not been for the flanking movement of the topographical draughtsmen, whom a vogue for the publication of books of engravings of 'gentlemen's seats' brought into existence. The books were, as a rule, published by subscription, and for the payment of a few guineas a country gentleman could have an engraving of his own place included. Here was a genuine demand firmly based on the bedrock of human vanity, and it provided a livelihood for a school of water-colourists which could not otherwise have existed. Their drawings were modest in aim, and at first were intended to have no independent existence apart from the engravings done from them. Little but accuracy was asked of the artists, and consequently they were freer than the oil-painter from the conventions of 'taste', and able to learn from the direct study of nature instead of con­structing ideal landscapes according to rule. Their early work is full of the stereotyped tricks and conventions of the time, but these gradually gave way to a fresher and more natural vision as the artists learned in the school of nature.

Early Watercolour Methods

The method of these early water-colourists was to make a careful drawing of their subject in precise and delicate pen-line, upon which the main masses of light and shade were washed either in Indian ink or in a very limited scheme consisting of blues and greys for distance and sky, and brown and brownish yellows for the foreground. Occasionally artists used a fuller colour-scheme - Francis Towne (1740-1816) was one - but these are the exception. It must be remembered in this connection that these drawings were intended in the first instance simply as preparatory studies for the engraver to work from, and that his task would have been made much more difficult if he had had to translate the tone values of a full colour-scheme into black and white. Yet despite their modest aim, quiet colour, and timid draughtsmanship, these artists have a reticent charm which is worth looking for.