Samuel James Ainsley

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Samuel James Ainsley
Born22 February 1806
Cripplegate, London
Died1874
NationalityBritish
Known forItalian landscapes
MovementRomantism
Tomb of the Reliefs by Ainsley.

Samuel James Ainsley (1806–1874) was a British sketch artist, watercolourist, and printmaker, known for his Romantic sketches and watercolours of tombs, monuments, and landscapes in Italy.

Biography[]

He exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1836 and 1844.[1]

From 1842 to 1844 Ainsley, on three separate trips, accompanied George Dennis in investigating tombs and monuments from ancient Etruria, the Etruscan civilization.[2] From 1844 to 1847 Dennis, unaccompanied by Ainsley, continued to travel in Italy and investigate the ruins and cemeteries of Etruria. In 1848 the British Museum published a 1,085 page treatise Cities and cemeteries of Etruria, with text by Dennis (partly based upon notes by Ainsley) and sketches by Dennis and Ainsley.[3]

In 1842 Ainsley accompanied the artist Thomas Cole on a six-week trip to Sicily, where they made many sketches. They visited the ruins at Selinus and Agrigento[4] and made a nocturnal ascent of Mount Etna.[5]

According to Massimo Pallottino, the fundamental note of Ainsley's works is often that of "depopulated solitude".[6]

He bequeathed his drawings, prints and sketchbooks (comprising over 200 items) to the British Museum.[7] Some of Ainsley's drawings and watercolours have been of lasting value to Italian field-workers studying the rock cemeteries of Middle Etruria.[2]

Further reading[]

  • Massimo Pallottino: Etruria unveiled: the drawings of Samuel James Ainsley in the British museum / Etruria svelata. i disegni di Samuel James Ainsley nel British Museum, Roma Elefante, 1984 (reproductions with English and Italian text)
  • 1846-1848 - Letters to Thomas Cole from artists Jasper F. Cropsey, William A. Adams, Samuel James Ainsley, Robert Walter Weir, Asher B. Durand, and Daniel Huntington; W. Spencer; and others
  • Citation by D. H. Lawrence in his Letters

References[]

  1. ^ Graves, Algernon. The Royal Academy of Arts: a complete dictionary of contributors and their work from its foundation in 1769 to 1904. vol. 1. p. 15. |volume= has extra text (help)
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b Ridgway, David (2015). "Ainsley, Samuel James". In De Grummond, Nancy Thomson (ed.). Encyclopedia of the History of Classical Archaeology. Routledge. p. 14. ISBN 9781134268542.
  3. ^ Dennis, George (1883). The Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria (3rd ed.). London: John Murray. p. vii.
  4. ^ McConnell, Brian Evans. "Thomas Cole e Samuel James Ainsley a Girgenti, 27 aprile-1 maggio, 1842." Sicilia antiqua 10, no. 10 (2013): 273–282.
  5. ^ Parry, Elwood (1988). The Art of Thomas Cole: Ambition and Imagination. University of Delaware Press. pp. 270–272. ISBN 9780874132144.
  6. ^ Massimo Pallottino, L'Étrurie de S. J. Ainsley, paysagiste romantique, Comptes-rendus des séances de l'Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres, 1984, vol. 128, No. 3, pp. 497-505
  7. ^ "Samuel James Ainsley (Biographical details)". British Museum.

External links[]

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