Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows: the Rainbow
1834
Medium
Mezzotint with etching, in black, on cream wove paper
Dimensions
Image: 55.2 × 68.9 cm (21 3/4 × 27 3/16 in.); Sheet: 61.6 × 71.2 cm (24 5/16 × 28 1/16 in.)
Classification
mezzotint
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
2171
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
The landscape painter John Constable owned an edition of J. M. W. Turner’s Liber Studiorum, which he famously referred to as the “liber stupidorum,” a critical remark directed at the ambitious size of the undertaking (of which only 71 of the planned 100 plates were finally printed), rather than its artistry. Constable nonetheless employed David Lucas’s considerable printmaking talents to immortalize 22 of his own paintings in mezzotint for a similarly scaled portfolio, English Landscape Scenery....
About the Artist
David Lucas · 1802–1881
**David Lucas (1802–1881)** David Lucas was born in 1802 in Geddington Chase, Northamptonshire, the son of a farmer.) A chance encounter in 1820 led him to become a pupil of the renowned engraver Samuel William Reynolds, under whom he apprenticed in London until 1827, mastering the art of mezzotint engraving.) By 1827, Lucas had published his first mezzotints, showcasing his precocious talent for...