Clarkson Frederick Stanfield - Wikipedia
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Clarkson Stanfield
English painter (1793–1867)
Clarkson Frederick Stanfield
RA
RBA
Portrait of Clarkson Stanfield
by
John Simpson
, 1829
Born
1793-12-03
3 December 1793
Sunderland
, England
Died
18 May 1867
(1867-05-18)
(aged 73)
London
, England
Resting place
Kensal Green Catholic Cemetery
Spouse(s)
(1) Mary Hutchinson;
(2) Rebecca Adcock
Children
George Clarkson Stanfield
Francis Stanfield
Relatives
James Field Stanfield
(father)
Military career
Allegiance
United Kingdom
Branch
Royal Navy
Service years
1808–1814
Clarkson Frederick Stanfield
RA
RBA
(3 December 1793 – 18 May 1867) was an English painter best known for his large-scale paintings of
marine art
and
landscapes
. He was the father of the painter
George Clarkson Stanfield
and the composer
Francis Stanfield
Early life
edit
Stanfield was born in
Sunderland, Tyne and Wear
, the son of
James Field Stanfield
(1749–1824) an Irish-born author, actor and former seaman, and Mary Hoad, an artist and actress. Stanfield was likely to have inherited artistic talent from his mother, who is said to have been an accomplished artist, but died in 1801. His father remarried, to Maria Kell, a year later.
Stanfield was named after
Thomas Clarkson
, the slave trade
abolitionist
, whom his father knew, and this was the only forename he used, although there is reason to believe Frederick was a second one.
He was briefly apprenticed to a coach decorator in 1806, but left owing to the drunkenness of his master's wife and joined a
South Shields
collier to become a sailor. In 1808 he was
pressed
into the
Royal Navy
, serving in the guardship
HMS
Namur
at
Sheerness
. Discharged on health grounds in 1814, he then made a voyage to China in 1815 on the
East Indiaman
Warley
and returned with many sketches.
Scenery
edit
An accident forced Stanfield to leave active service, but during his voyages he had acquired considerable skill as a draughtsman.
In August 1816 Stanfield was engaged as a decorator and scene-painter at the Royalty Theatre in Wellclose Square, London. Along with
David Roberts
he was afterwards employed at the
Coburg Theatre
in
Lambeth
, and in 1823 he became a resident scene-painter at the
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
, where he rose rapidly to fame through the huge quantity of spectacular scenery and (moving)
dioramas
which he produced for that house until 1834.
Stanfield abandoned scenery painting after Christmas 1834, though he made exceptions for two personal friends: he designed scenery for the stage productions of
William Charles Macready
, and for the amateur theatricals of
Charles Dickens
Spectacles
edit
Mount St Michael, Cornwall
, 1830
Stanfield partnered with David Roberts in several large-scale
diorama
and
panorama
projects in the 1820s and 1830s. The newest development in these popular entertainments was the "moving diorama" or "
moving panorama
." These consisted of huge paintings that unfolded upon rollers like giant scrolls; they were supplemented with sound and lighting effects to create a nineteenth-century anticipation of cinema. Stanfield and Roberts produced eight of these entertainments; in light of their later accomplishments as marine painters, their panoramas of two important naval engagements,
the Bombardment of Algiers
and
The Battle of Navarino,
are worth noting.
An 1830 tour through Germany and Italy furnished Stanfield with material for two more moving panoramas,
The Military Pass of the Simplon
(1830) and
Venice and Its Adjacent Islands
(1831). Stanfield executed the first in only eleven days; it earned him a fee of £300. The Venetian panorama of the next year was 300 feet long and 20 high; gas lit, it unrolled through 15 or 20 minutes. The show included stage props and even singing gondoliers. After the show closed, portions of the work were re-used in productions of
Shakespeare's
The Merchant of Venice
and
Otway's
Venice Preserved
The moving panoramas of Stanfield and other artists became highlights of the traditional
Christmas
pantomimes
Mature career
edit
Mountainous landscape with a hunter and travellers
View on the Scheldt
(1826)
Meanwhile, Stanfield developed his skills as an
easel
painter, especially of marine subjects; he first exhibited at the
Royal Academy
at the
1820 Exhibition
and continued, with only a few early interruptions, to his death. He was also a founder member of the
Society of British Artists
(from 1824) and its president for 1829, and exhibited there and at the British Institution, where in 1828 his picture
Wreckers off Fort Rouge
gained a premium of 50
guineas
He was elected Associate Member of the Royal Academy in 1832, and became a full Academician in February 1835. His elevation was in part a result of the interest of
William IV
who, having admired his
St. Michael's Mount
at the
Academy Exhibition of 1831
(now in the National Gallery of Victoria, Australia), commissioned two works from him of
The Opening of New London Bridge
(1832) and
Portsmouth Harbour
Both were displayed at the
1832 Academy Exhibition
and remain in the
Royal Collection
The Battle of Trafalgar
, 1836
Until his death he contributed a long series of powerful and highly popular works to the Academy, both of marine subjects and landscapes from his travels at home and in France, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Ireland. Notable works include:
The Battle of Trafalgar
(1836), executed for the
United Service Club
the
Castle of Ischia
(1841), now in Sunderland Museum and Art Gallery
Isola Bella
(1841), among the results of a visit to Italy in 1839
French troops Fording the Magra
(1847)
HMS The Victory Bearing the Body of Nelson Towed into Gibraltar after the Battle of Trafalgar
(1853), painted for Sir Samuel Morton Peto at
Somerleyton Hall
, Suffolk (which is today open to the public)
The Abandoned
(1856; untraced since 1930)
He also executed two notable series of Venetian subjects, one for the former dining room at Bowood House,
Wiltshire
, for the
3rd Marquess of Lansdowne
, the other for the
Duchess of Sutherland
at Trentham Park,
Staffordshire
Neither house survives but some of Stanfield's work for Bowood can still be seen there (the present Bowood House and park, open to the public, is a conversion of the old stable block).
He illustrated Heath's
Picturesque Annuals
for the years 1832–1834, and in 1838 published a collection of
lithographic
views on the
Rhine
Moselle
and
Meuse
; forty subjects from both sides of the
English Channel
were also steel-engraved under the title of
Stanfield's Coast Scenery
(1836). Among literary works for which he provided illustrations were Captain Marryat's
The Pirate and the Three Cutters
(1836),
Poor Jack
(1840) and the lives and works of
Lord Byron
George Crabbe
, and
Samuel Johnson
, mainly in editions by
John Murray
Assessment
edit
Tilbury Fort - Wind Against Tide
by Clarkson Stansfield, 1849
Stanfield's art was powerfully influenced by his early practice as a scene-painter. But, though there is always a touch of the spectacular and the scenic in his works, and though their colour is apt to be rather dry and hard, they are large and effective in handling, powerful in their treatment of broad atmospheric effects and telling in composition, and they evince the most complete knowledge of the artistic materials with which their painter deals.
The art critic
John Ruskin
considered his treatment of the sea and clouds of a very high order and called him the "leader of our English Realists." Wishing him to be sometimes "less wonderful and more terrible," Ruskin also pointed out the superior merits of his sketched work, especially in watercolour, to the often contrived picturesque qualities of many of his exhibited oils and the watercolours on which published engravings were based.
Death and legacy
edit
In his last 10 years, Stanfield's health deteriorated. He died in
Hampstead
, London, on 18 May 1867; there was an unfinished painting on his easel and a previous work,
A Skirmish off Heligoland,
hanging in a
Royal Academy
exhibition. He was buried in
Kensal Green Catholic Cemetery
Lifelong friend of Stanfield, the writer
Charles Dickens
, was one of the last visitors that Stanfield saw on the day he died. After Stanfield's death, Dickens wrote: "He was the soul of frankness, generosity and simplicity. The most genial, the most affectionate, the most loving and the most lovable of men. Success had never for an instant spoiled him . . . He had been a sailor once; and all the best characteristics that are popularly attributed to sailors, being his, and being in him refined by the influence of his Art, formed a whole not likely to be often seen."
In 1870, three years after his death, Stanfield was awarded a major
retrospective
of his work at the inaugural
Royal Academy Winter Exhibition of 1870
. In its appraisal of the show,
The Times
wrote: "There are no English painters whose works have won wider and warmer popularity outside the artistic pale. Stanfield's practiced command of the artist of composition, his unerring sense of the agreeable and picturesque in subject and effect, his pleasant and cheerful color and last, not least, the large use to which he turned his knowledge and love of the sea and shipping… (all) added to the widespread admiration he had won by his consummately skillful scene painting, (and) combined to make him one of the most popular, if not the most popular, of landscape painters."
Personal life
edit
Stanfield was admired not only for his art but his personal simplicity and a modesty. He was born a
Catholic
and became increasingly devout in middle life, after the loss in 1838 of his eldest son by his second marriage (to Rebecca Adcock) and then, in the 1850s, both the children of his first marriage (to Mary Hutchinson, who had died in childbirth).
His eldest surviving son,
George Clarkson Stanfield
(1828–1878) was also a painter of similar subjects, largely trained by his father. Another son,
Francis Stanfield
(1835–1914) was an English Catholic priest who is noted for having composed several notable hymns. His daughter Harriet married W. H. G. Bagshawe, son of
Henry Bagshawe
, and was mother of
Joseph Ridgard Bagshawe
, also a marine painter.
Gallery
edit
Bligh Sands, Sheerness
, Indianapolis Museum of Art
Lake Como
(1825)
A Market Boat on the Scheldt
(1826)
On the Rhine, near Cologne
, 1829
A View Near Devizes
(1829)
Portsmouth Harbour
(1831), Royal Collection
The Opening of New London Bridge
(1832), Royal Collection
The Anchor Brewery
, 1832
Orford
(1833)
Venice from the Dogana
(1833)
The Canal of the Guidecca, and the Church of the Gesuati, Venice
(1836)
Beilstein on the Moselle
(1837)
The Coast of Normandy near Gonville, France
(1837)
On the Scheldt near Leiskenshoeck
(1837)
Sands near Boulogne
(1838)
A View of Vietri in the Gulf of Salerno
(1840)
Ships at Sea
(1841)
The Castle of Ischia from the Mole, Italy
(1841)
The Morning after the Wreck
(1844)
Oude Scheld – Texel Island
(1844)
The Capture of the El Gamo
(1845)
On the Dogger Bank
(1846)
The Battle of Roveredo
(1846)
Coast Scene Near Genoa (1846)
The Royal Yacht Passing St Michael's Mount
(1846)
French Troops Fording the Margra
(1847)
In the Gulf of Venice
(1848)
Macbeth and the Witches
(1850)
Trajan's Arch, Ancona
(1851)
Oxwich Bay
(1851)
The Harbour of La Rochelle
(1852)
The Last of the Crew
(1853)
View of the Pic du Midi d'Ossau in the Pyrenees
(1854)
A Dutch Barge and Merchantmen Running out of Rotterdam
(1856)
The Fortress of Savona
(1858)
Stack Rock, County Antrim
(1861)
Shakespeare Cliff, Dover, 1849
(1862), Royal Museums Greenwich
The Morning after Trafalgar
(1863)
References
edit
Citations
edit
"Clarkson Stanfield, artist, 1793-1867"
www.rideau-info.com
. Retrieved
7 February
2019
Chisholm 1911
Lambourne 1999
, p. 159.
Lambourne 1999
, pp. 156–157.
Lambourne 1999
, pp. 157–159.
Williamson 1912
Burnand 1908
, p. 13.
van der Merwe
"Bagshawe, His Honour Judge William Henry Gunning"
Who's Who
. A & C Black
. Retrieved
26 September
2022
(Subscription or
UK public library membership
required.)
Sources
edit
Burnand, F.C.
, ed. (1908).
The Catholic Who's Who
. London: Burns & Oats.
Chisholm, Hugh
, ed. (1911).
"Stanfield, William Clarkson"
Encyclopædia Britannica
. Vol. 25 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 773.
Lambourne, Lionel (1999).
Victorian Painting
. London: Phaidon Press.
Williamson, George Charles (1912).
"William Clarkson Stanfield"
. In Herbermann, Charles (ed.).
Catholic Encyclopedia
. Vol. 14. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
van der Merwe, Pieter. "Stanfield, Clarkson (1793–1867)".
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
(online ed.). Oxford University Press.
doi
10.1093/ref:odnb/26234
(Subscription,
Wikipedia Library
access or
UK public library membership
required.)
Wikimedia Commons has media related to
Clarkson Frederick Stanfield
External links
edit
103 artworks by or after Clarkson Frederick Stanfield
at the
Art UK
site
Works by Clarkson Stanfield
at
Project Gutenberg
Works by or about Clarkson Frederick Stanfield
at the
Internet Archive
Paintings engraved for Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Books with poetical illustrations by
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
1832, engraved by
Edward Goodall
Tiger Island
. with
The Pirate's Song off Tiger Island.
1832, engraved by
Edward Goodall
El Wuish
1835, engraved by Edward Smith,
Scene in Kattiawar, Travellers & Escort
1836, engraved by
Edward Goodall
Bombay Harbour—Fishing Boats in the Monsoon
1839, engraved by J Tingle,
Crossing the Choor Mountains
Venice. The Embarkation
., the painting engraved by
Edward Goodall
and accompanied by a poem on Venice by
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
in The Amulet annual for 1832.
Clarkson Frederick Stanfield
Paintings
Lake Como
(1825)
A Market Boat on the Scheldt
(1826)
Mount St Michael, Cornwall
(1830)
Portsmouth Harbour
(1831)
The Opening of New London Bridge
(1832)
Orford
(1833)
Venice from the Dogana
(1833)
The Battle of Trafalgar
(1836)
The Canal of the Guidecca, and the Church of the Gesuati, Venice
(1836)
Beilstein on the Moselle
(1837)
On the Scheldt near Leiskenshoeck
(1837)
Sands near Boulogne
(1838)
A View of Vietri in the Gulf of Salerno
(1840)
The Castle of Ischia from the Mole, Italy
(1841)
The Morning after the Wreck
(1844)
Oude Scheld – Texel Island
(1844)
The Capture of the El Gamo
(1845)
The Battle of Roveredo
(1846)
On the Dogger Bank
(1846)
The Royal Yacht Passing St Michael's Mount
(1846)
French Troops Fording the Magra
(1847)
In the Gulf of Venice
(1848)
Tilbury Fort - Wind Against Tide
(1849)
Macbeth and the Witches
(1850)
Oxwich Bay
(1851)
Trajan's Arch, Ancona
(1851)
The Harbour of La Rochelle
(1852)
The Last of the Crew
(1853)
The Victory Towed into Gibraltar
(1853)
View of the Pic du Midi d'Ossau in the Pyrenees
(1854)
Stack Rock, County Antrim
(1861)
Shakespeare Cliff, Dover
(1862)
Other
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
Portrait of Clarkson Stanfield
Family
George Clarkson Stanfield
(son)
Francis Stanfield
(son)
Joseph Ridgard Bagshawe
(grandson)
James Field Stanfield
(father)
Professional and academic associations
Preceded by
Henry Hoppner Meyer
President of the
Royal Society of British Artists
1829–30
Succeeded by
James Holmes
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Categories
1793 births
1867 deaths
19th-century English painters
British marine artists
Burials at St Mary's Catholic Cemetery, Kensal Green
English male painters
English Roman Catholics
Artists from Sunderland
Royal Academicians
Members of the Royal Society of British Artists
19th-century English male artists
English romantic painters
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