Physical description
View of the Isle of Wight across a cornfield with figures.
Place of Origin
Great Britain, UK (probably, made)
Date
1850s (made)
Artist/maker
Burchett, Richard, born 1815 - died 1875 (painter (artist))
Materials and Techniques
oil on canvas
Dimensions
Height: 34.3 cm estimate, Width: 57.1 cm estimate
Object history note
Purchased, 1863
Descriptive line
Oil painting, 'View across Sandown Bay, Isle of Wight', Richard Burchett, 1850s
[Frame dimensions 55 x 77 cm]
Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)
Parkinson, R., Victoria and Albert Museum, Catalogue of British Oil Paintings 1820-1860, London: HMSO, 1990, pp. 13-14
The following is the full text of the entry:
"BURCHETT, Richard (1815-1875)
Born Brighton, Sussex, 30 January 1815; studied art at Birkbeck Mechanics Institute in Chancery Lane, London. In about 1841, he joined the Government School of Design at Somerset House, becoming an Assistant Master 1845. In 1851, after the School's move to South Kensington, he was appointed Headmaster of the Department of Practical Art for training art teachers. Exhibited five works at the RA between 1847 and 1873, and one at the BI in 1855. Worked on the decorations of the Palace of Westminster 1855-9, the dome of the 1862 Great Exhibition building, and painted a window for Greenwich Hospital. Primarily a teacher and administrator; Reynolds sees him as having led 'in a minor key the same sort of career as that of Red grave'. Published Practical Geometry (1855), and Linear Perspective (1856). Converted to Roman Catholicism in about 1855, in which year he was living with the painter James Collinson. Died on a visit to Dublin, 27 May 1875. There is a portrait bust and tablet to his memory, erected by his pupils, in the Royal College of Art; his portrait also appears in Val Prinsep's painting 'Distribution of Art Prizes', in the centre next to Lord Leighton.
LIT: Athenaeum 5 June 1875, p758 (obit); Art Journal 1875, pp232 (obit), 254; Graphic 26 June 1875, pp606 (obit), 621 (engr portrait): W B Scott Autobiographical Notes 1892, II, pp272-5; G Reynolds Victorian Painting 1966, pp152-3; A Staley The Pre-Raphaelite Landscape 1973, p80; C Frayling The Royal College of Art: One hundred and fifty years of art and design 1987, p25 etc
View Across Sandown Bay, Isle of Wight
9108-1863 Neg S683, CT13228
Canvas, 34.3 x 57.2 cm (13½ x 22½ ins)
Purchased 1863
Presumably purchased from the artist. The view is from above Shanklin Down, behind the church of St Blasius, looking across Sandown Bay to Culver Cliff. On the down above the cliff, the memorial obelisk to the Earl of Yarborough is visible.
The evident influence of Pre-Raphaelite painting, and the style of the women's costume, suggest a date in the 1850s. Grigson connects the picture with those of almost the same view, in watercolour, by Burchett's ex-teacher and colleague at South Kensington William Dyce (c1855, private collection) and in oil by James Collinson, with whom Burchett lived in 1855 ('Mother and Child' c1855, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, USA). He suggests that the three artists may have made a visit together to the Isle of Wight.
The work is, as Staley comments, the artist's 'one memorable landscape'; Staley finds the treatment of detail 'daintily precise', but the whole lacking Pre-Raphaelite brilliance and vibrancy.
EXH: Victorian Paintings Art Council 1962 (4)
LIT: Staley p60; G Grigson Britain Observed 1975, pp134, 136, 137 (repr)."
100 Great Paintings in The Victoria & Albert Museum. London: V&A, 1985, p.150
The following is the full text of the entry:
"Richard Burchett 1815-1875
British School
ISLE OF WIGHT
Oil on canvas, 34.3 x 57.1 cm
9108-1863
The Isle of Wight is one of those minor masterpieces by an otherwise forgotten painter in which the history of Victorian painting abounds. Burchett's activities as an educationalist and art administrator are much better documented than his work as a painter, even though he exhibited often at the Royal Academy annual exhibitions from 1847. After studying at the Birkbeck Institute, Burchett entered, in 1841, the Government School of Design, then at Somerset House staying on to become an Assistant Master. On the formation of the Department of Practical Art in 1852 he was appointed Head Master of the Normal School for Training Teachers. In addition he found time to write and published two books on Practical Geometry and Linear Perspective.
Burchett's career as painter and pedagogue is oddly paralleled by that of William Bell Scott, another pillar of the Government Schools, whose quirky genius was touched by the influence of Rossetti and Ford Madox Brown. In Burchett's Isle of Wight it is tempting to identify elements such as the use of clear bright colour and the beautifully observed detail as Pre-Raphaelite. Certainly it would seem that Burchett had seen and understood Ford Madox Brown's experiments in informal landscape of the late 1840s, but perhaps the most important influence on Burchett's style is to be found in the still under-rated landscapes painted by that great luminary of the Schools, Richard Redgrave.
Sadly almost no other canvases by Burchett are known to survive. He died in Dublin in 1875 and was commemorated by a tablet erected in the School of Art at South Kensington.
Stephen Calloway"
Materials
Oil paint; Canvas
Techniques
Oil painting
Subjects depicted
Farms; Isle of Wight; Landscape, Cornfields
Categories
Paintings
Collection code
PDP
