Page:An Elementary History of Art.djvu/657

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Painting in England. 627 In these works daring composition and brilliant effect are carried to their utmost pitch. In the pictures of his last years, the artist, either through a failure of his eyesight or from some other cause, devoted himself to attempts to depict effects of extreme light, such as the means at a painter's command are quite unable to imitate; and his latest works are from this cause by no means his finest. In addition to two hundred and seventy-five large pictures, he published numerous and important series of landscapes and designs as illustrations of books, which were repro- duced by the best engravers of the day. His Liber Studiorum, or book of landscape studies, produced in rivalry of the Liber Veritatis of Claude, would alone have made the reputation of any other artist : it was followed by the series of Southern Coast Scenery, the Rivers of England, the Rivers of France, etc. Turner's influence is very distinctly noticeable in the works of Callcott, Collins, Creswick, Roberts, and other distinguished landscape painters, whilst many of his immediate successors may be said to have formed their style on his. At the head of these stands John Crome (1768 — 1821), an oil painter who founded an important school at Norwich, and was chiefly remark- able for grand effects produced by simple means — a clump of trees or a bit of heath becoming full of poetry in his hands. As typical examples of his manner we may name Household Heath , and Chapel Field, Norwich, in the National Gallery. A fine collection of his works was shown at the Exhibition of " Old Masters " in 1878. His son John Bernay Crome (1793 — 1842) was also a painter. Other prominent members of the Norwich School of landscape painters were — S S 2