1830 Documents
Documents, Dated Watercolours and Early Accounts of the Artist
June 1830
‘A Gossip about Arts and Artists’, Fraser’s Magazine, vol.1 (June), p.535
These gentlemen were members of the original confederation of water-colour painters. But none of that confederation were actually originators of the existing art. Sandby, Rooker, Hearne, and Cozens, preceded them; the last of whom must be considered as the first who ventured upon those broad effects in water-colour, which Turner and Girtin afterwards carried to perfection. What Girtin would have produced had he lived, can, of course, be but matter of speculation; but his drawings were decidedly grander than those even of Turner at the same period; and his effects have never, to this moment, been surpassed by any artist in the same line. The man who comes-nearest to him in this respect is Dewint, and who, on the whole, must be allowed to be a more perfect artist.