Francis Danby and the first paint outs?

[Tony Robinson]

  I am trying to do a little research into the artist Francis Danby (1793 - 1861) who was born in Killinick, just a couple of miles south of Wexford and who left Ireland for Bristol, England in 1813. There he fell in with a group later known as 'The Bristol School' of amateur and professional artists who enjoyed regular sketching and painting excursions to the Avon Gorge and other local beauty spots. The group also held evening gatherings to draw and discuss painting and where imaginative, fantasy landscapes based upon observation en plein air helped develop the huge apocalyptic Romantic era landscape paintings and the style for which Danby later became famous.

    Several members of the group depicted these outings, as in Danby's 'View of the Avon Gorge' (1822). One of the most important events of the Bristol School was its first exhibition held at the new Bristol Institute in 1824.

   Of course, other artists had drawn and painted outdoors prior to this but could these organised group outings by the Bristol artists be the first examples of what we now call a Paint Out?

If anyone has come across earlier examples, I'd be very interested and glad of your help. 

[Patrick T Daly]

Hi Tony,

This relates to your comment on my blog post. I recall that I did read this post when you

put it up and found it informative. Unfortunately my knowledge of Irish painters is limited so

I had'nt much info to offer. Perhaps an amalgamation of your quest for info and my blog could

be combined as a feature on the site. The idea would be to encourage members to share their

knowledge and or information and build up a body of knowledge. I always find it interesting

to see what artistic influences other people have. What do you think?

Kind Regards

Patrick

[Tony Robinson]

Sure.

I really enjoyed the Hone catalogue.

I think your thread is self-explanatory although sometimes it is like pulling teeth to get members to be responsive. On Plein Eire, as many such websites, I think 95% of the posting is done by 5% of the members. That is why I quickly added the Danby piece to try to generate some momentum behind yours. We'll see what happens. Nevertheless, Google Analytics shows that there are thousands who visit the site, from all over the world each month, so we keep trying and one shouldn't judge the influence and value of a posting simply by the number of replies it gets.

If there were another couple of active, noisy groups like PEBV, I'd be delighted. Please keep it up.

Kind regards,

Tony.