Art Institute of Chicago

A Woodland Study

Samuel Palmer

Date

c. 1856

Medium

Brush and black and brown washes, with white gouache and scraping, ruled in graphite, on ivory paperboard

Culture

England

Department

Prints and Drawings

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

An English Romantic painter who was best known for his visionary landscapes, Palmer may have created this monochromatic watercolor as a preparatory study for a print. It can be related to 13 delicate etchings made by the artist in the early 1850s. The watercolor was created with graphite underdrawing, over which several brown and black washes were laid down and then heightened by opaque white paint. To emphasize the contrast between light and dark, Palmer scraped pigment off the drawing as the final phase in this considered and complex artistic process.

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