Richard Parkes Bonington

Richard Parkes Bonington , 1802-28, English painter. Moving to Calais at the age of 15, his first art study was with Louis Francia, who taught him watercolor and lithography. Bonington studied in Paris at the École des Beaux-Arts and in 1820 entered the studio of Gros. At that time he formed a close friendship with Delacroix, with whom he traveled to England. He won early recognition from the Salon, but died of tuberculosis at a young age. Best known for his sparkling watercolors painted rapidly, directly from nature, Bonington also brought to his oil painting an immediacy and dexterity unusual in his day. Bonington was the embodiment of the close link between the English landscape painters Constable and Turner and the budding school of French landscape painters. He was a masterly lithographer as well. Represented in the Louvre and in most important British galleries, Bonington's work is best seen in the Wallace Collection, London.

Bibliography: See study by R. P. Dubuisson (tr. 1924).

Bonington, Richard Parkes (1802–28). English painter, active mainly in France (his family settled in Calais for business reasons when he was 15). In 1818 he moved to Paris, where he studied with Gros and became a friend of Delacroix. Their Romanticism is reflected in his fondness for historical ‘costume’ pictures, but it was as a landscapist that he established his reputation, particularly with works he exhibited at the ‘English’ Salon of 1824, at which his own paintings (which won him a gold medal) and those of Constable were the star attractions. Bonington travelled a good deal in France in search of subjects. He also spent time with Delacroix in England in 1825, and in 1826 he visited Italy, producing some of his finest work in Venice. He was overloaded with work and his delicate health suffered; he died of consumption in London a month before his 26th birthday. Although his career was so brief, he was highly influential, the freshness and spontaneity of his fluid style in both oil and watercolours attracting many imitators. Delacroix wrote of him: ‘Other artists were perhaps more powerful or more accurate than Bonington, but no one in the modern school, perhaps no earlier artist, possessed the lightness of execution which makes his works, in a certain sense, diamonds, by which the eye is enticed and charmed independently of the subject or of imitative appeal.’ Most of his work is on a small scale and the qualities Delacroix admired are particularly evident in his pochades (oil sketches done rapidly on the spot as records of transitory effects in nature); with Constable and Turner he was instrumental in establishing a fashion for such sketches. The best collection of Bonington's work is in the Wallace Collection, London, and he is also well represented in the City Museum and Art Gallery at Nottingham, his home town.

Bonington, Richard Parkes (b Arnold, nr. Nottingham, 25 Oct. 1802; d London, 23 Sept. 1828). English painter, active mainly in France (his family settled in Calais for business reasons when he was 15). In 1818 he moved to Paris, where he studied with Gros and became a friend of Delacroix. Their Romanticism is reflected in his fondness for historical ‘costume’ pictures, but it was as a landscapist that he established his reputation, particularly with works he exhibited at the ‘English’ Salon of 1824, at which his own paintings (which won him a gold medal) and those of Constable were the star attractions. Bonington travelled a good deal in France in search of subjects. He also spent time with Delacroix in England in 1825, and in 1826 he visited Italy, producing some of his finest work in Venice. He was overloaded with work and his delicate health suffered; he died of consumption a month before his 26th birthday. Although his career was so brief, he was highly influential, the freshness and spontaneity of his fluid style in both oil and watercolours attracting many imitators. Delacroix wrote of him: ‘Other artists were perhaps more powerful or more accurate than Bonington, but no one in the modern school, perhaps no earlier artist, possessed the lightness of execution which makes his works, in a certain sense, diamonds, by which the eye is enticed and charmed independently of the subject or of imitative appeal.’ Most of his work is on a small scale and the qualities Delacroix admired are particularly evident in his pochades (oil sketches done rapidly on the spot as records of transitory effects in nature); with Constable and Turner he was instrumental in establishing a fashion for such sketches. The best collection of Bonington's work is in the Wallace Collection, London, and he is also well represented in the City Museum and Art Gallery, Nottingham.