retribution
- Edward Armitage RA (May 20, 1817 – May 24, 1896) was an English Victorian era painter whose work focussed on historical, classical and biblical subjects.
- just south of Leeds, Yorkshire.
His great-grandfather James (1730–1803) bought Farnley Hall from Sir
Thomas Danby in 1799 and in 1844 four Armitage brothers, including his
father James, founded the Farnley Ironworks, utilising the coal, iron
and fireclay on their estate. His brother Thomas Rhodes Armitage (1824–1890) founded the Royal National Institute of the Blind.
Armitage was the uncle of Robert Armitage (MP), the great-uncle of Robert Selby Armitage, and first cousin twice removed of Edward Leathley Armitage.
- who at that time was at the height of his fame. Armitage was one of four students selected to assist Delaroche with the fresco Hemicycle in the amphitheatre of the Palais des Beaux-Arts, when he reputedly modelled for the head of Masaccio. Whilst still in Paris, he exhibited Prometheus Bound in 1842, which a contemporary critic described as 'well drawn but brutally energetic'.
- which was subsequently purchased by Queen Victoria. In this battle,
General Sir Charles Napier brought the provinces of Sindh under the
dominion of Great Britain, an account of which was written by his
brother, Sir William Napier. Armitage consulted both brothers for
detailed information on the battle and he used sketches of the locality
lent by Sir Charles. However, the painting was the subject of much
controversy, with doubts expressed that the war had been justified. The
1847 Art-Union review concluded with the following:
"Notwithstanding the great ability displayed by Mr. Armitage in this
production, which of its class, has never been excelled in England, we
cannot but regret that he did not select a theme more purely historical -
one more honourable to our nation than the slaughter of thousands - of
whom, after all, we were the oppressors". Thackeray, writing in Punch under the pseudonym of Professor Byles, also disapproved of the subject-matter: "With respect to the third prize - a Battle of Meeanee
- in this extraordinary piece they are stabbing, kicking, cutting,
slashing, and poking each other about all over the picture. A horrid
sight! I like to see the British lion mild and good-humoured ... not
fierce, as Mr. Armitage has shown him."
- sent Armitage to the Crimea in 1855 to make on-the-spot sketches for battle pictures including The Stand of the Guards at Inkerman and The Heavy Cavalry Charge at Balaclava, which were shown at Gambart's French gallery in London in the spring of 1856, along with a drawing The Bottom of the Ravine at Inkerman
which was also exhibited at the Royal Academy. This was from a sketch
made on the spot in March 1855, four months after the battle. It shows
the corpses of soldiers revealed by the melting snow, still lying where
they fell the previous November but now surrounded by spring flowers. The Athenaeum
of 24 May 1856 considered Armitage's drawing 'speaks to us in a more
dreadful whisper of the horrors of war than all the peace speeches ever
made'.
Armitage returned home from the Crimea in September 1855, having taken an extended tour that included stops at Scutari and Bursa, where he made a number of sketches. From one of these, he painted Souvenir of Scutari which he exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1857 (now in Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle)
- and which shows a group of veiled Turkish women at leisure in public gardens on the Asian side of the Bosporus.
A number of Armitage's sketches from the Crimea were reproduced in the Illustrated London News and The Graphic, including Lord Raglan and Sir Edmund Lyons, General Bosquet, Captor of Malakoff Tower, General Trochu and Before Sebastopol, Zouaves Making Gabions.
- modelled for the head of an apostle. Armitage also did frescos at St.
Marylebone Parish Church and St. Mark's Church, London, and a monochrome
fresco at University College Hall, Bloomsbury, commemorating Henry Crabb Robinson
- and other figures eminent at that time (later painted over). Other decorative work includes part of the terracotta frieze, The Triumph of Art and Letters, at the Royal Albert Hall, where Armitage contributed two of the sixteen sections (Princes, Art Patrons and Artists and A Group of Philosophers, Sages and Students).
He also contributed to what was referred to as the Kensington Valhalla
at South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert Museum), when he
was responsible for depicting Benozzo Gozzali.
- The Return of Ulysses (1840, retouched 1853; Leeds Art Gallery)
- The Battle of Meanee (1847; Royal Collection, St. James's Palace)
- The Death of Nelson (1848; Britannia Museum Trust, Dartmouth)
- Henry the Eighth and Catherine Parr (1848; Private collection)
- The Socialists (1850)
- Aholibah (1850)
- Hagar (1852)
- The Thames and its Tributaries (1852; Upper Waiting Hall, Palace of Westminster)
- The Death of Marmion (c.1853; Atkinson Art Gallery, Southport)
- The Death of Marmion (1854; Upper Waiting Hall, Palace of Westminster)
- The Pontoon on Virginia Water 5 July 1853 (1854; Royal Collection, Windsor Castle)
- The Lotus Eater (1854)
- The Heavy Cavalry Charge at Balaclava (1855)
- The Stand of the Guards at Inkerman (1855)
- After the Battle of Inkerman (c.1855)
- Souvenir of Scutari (1857; Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle)
- Retribution (1858; Leeds Art Gallery)
- Blind Beggar of Assisi (c.1859; Auckland Art Gallery, New Zealand)
- Head of an Apostle (St Simon) (1862; Victoria and Albert Museum)
- Burial of a Christian Martyr (1863; Glasgow Museums Resource Centre)
- Benozzo Gozzoli (1864; Victoria and Albert Museum)
- Ahab and Jezebel (1864)
- W. Brinton, Esq., M.D. (1864; Royal College of Physicians, London)
- Festival of Esther (1865; Royal Academy of Arts, London)
- The Remorse of Judas (1866; Tate, London)
- Savonarola and Lorenzo the Magnificent (1867)
- Christus Consolator (1867)
- Herod's Birthday Feast (1868; Guildhall Art Gallery, London)
- Hero Lighting the Beacon (1869; Glasgow Museums Resource Centre)
- Christ Calling the Apostles James and John (1869; Sheffield Galleries and Museums)
- Gethsemane (1870)
- Peace: Twenty Years After the War (1871; University of Limerick Armitage Collection, with title Sleeping Plough Boy)
- A Deputation to Faraday (1871; Royal Society, London)
- Dawn of the First Easter Sunday (1872; Auckland Art Gallery, New Zealand)
- In Memory of the Great Fire at Chicago (1872)
- A Dream of Fair Women (1872 and 1874; Hastings Public Library)
- Julian the Apostate Presiding at a Conference of Sectarians (1875; Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool)
- Serf Emancipation (1877; Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool)
- The Cities of the Plain (1878; Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle)
- After an Entomological Sale (1878)
- The Mother of Moses (1878; Private collection)
- Pygmalion's Galatea (1878; Private collection)
- Woman Taken in Adultery (undated; Dundee Art Gallery and Museums)
- Samson and the Lion (1881; Brighton & Hove Museums)
- Self-portrait (1882; Aberdeen Art Gallery)
- Meeting of St Francis and St Dominic (1882; Church of St John the Evangelist, Islington, London)
- Sea Urchins (1882; Auckland Art Gallery, New Zealand)
- Faith (1884; Private collection)
- Institution of the Franciscan Order (1887; Church of St. John the Evangelist, Islington, London) (replacing original 1859 fresco of St Francis before Pope Innocent III)
- A Siren (1888; Leeds Art Gallery)
- Miss A. S. Armitage (1891; University of Limerick Armitage Collection)
- A Moslem Doctrinaire (1893; Private collection)
- The Late T. R. Armitage Esq M.D., the Friend of the Blind (1893)
After retiring from the Royal Academy in May 1894, Armitage spent some time in Tunbridge Wells, where he died on 24 May 1896 of apoplexy and exhaustion following pneumonia. He is buried in Hove Cemetery.
No comments:
Post a Comment