Cotmania. Vol. III. 1928-9

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The Times, 22.9.28
THE BONINGTON CENTENARY.
Our Art Critic writes :-
Richard Parkes Bonington, who was born at Arnold near Nottingham, on October 25, 1802, and died in London on September 23, 1828, may be classed with Girtin - who also died of consumption at about the same age - as an artist whose highest promise and untimely death leave us full of speculation about what he might have achieved. His influence and bearings were out of all proportion to the shortness of his career and, though he produced a good many pictures of high quality in both oil and watercolour, his actual accomplishment. He is related to both the English and the French schools of painting, his direct influence here being most evident in the works of such artists as William Callow, while in France he both gave to and took from Delacroix and was one of the precursors of the French Romantic school - the Italic textgenreItalic text subjects of Isabey, in particular, bearing a remarkable resemblance to his, though not to be compared with them in quality. Bonington was presented in the Salon of 1824, at which Constable's "Hay Wain" made such a profound sensation among the French painters, and to this day there are those who would claim him as French rather than as an English artist.
The work of Bonington is distinguished by a sparkling quality, due to quick gradiations and sharp contrasts of tone, brilliant colour, and clean, direct brushwork, which is unmistakeable. It is not fanciful to see in it a hint of the sanguine temperament - the acquiescence in "a short and merry one" - which often goes with consumption. He was an eminently "witty" painter - in the sense of being full of Italic textespritItalic text . Some years ago there was at the Paterson Gallery a joint exhibition of works by Cotman and Bonington, and the slow gravity of one and the vivacity of the other made a more interesting contrast. But in addition to his technical qualities Bonington had a sense of design, a command of the picture as a whole, which is rare in English art, and it has been said that his powers in this respect were hindered in development by his early popularity.
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{handwritten note by Kitson}
Sept: 27.1928 Mr Percy Moore Tuner lunched here + saw my Cotman drawings. He was most appreciative and interesting. He doubted the 'Study of Trees' but passed the 'Castle Acre'. He thought the sepia view of the Broads an undoubted Cotman, also the little oil sketch of a gate. He mentioned that he had bought from E. H. Marsh two oil seascapes by Cotman, exh[ibite]d at the Tate Gallery in 1922.
He sent me a photograph of the 'Normandy River'.