Cotman, John Sell

▪ British painter

born May 16, 1782, Norwich, Norfolk, England

died July 24, 1842, London

      English landscape watercolourist (watercolour) and etcher of the Norwich school. He saw in nature the classic effect of precise, austere pattern and expressed this effect by eliminating detail through controlled, flat washes of cool colour.

      About 1798 Cotman went to study in London, where he met the painters J.M.W. Turner (Turner, J.M.W.) and Thomas Girtin (Girtin, Thomas). From 1800 to 1806 he exhibited watercolours at the Royal Academy, and some of his works of this period are considered among the finest English landscape paintings of the time. Greta Bridge (c. 1805), probably his best-known work, is typical of the work he produced while he lived at Greta in Yorkshire. It is composed almost entirely of broad planes of colour, avoiding chiaroscuro and linear design. Late in 1806 Cotman left London and returned to Norwich, where he worked as a drawing master and exhibited regularly with the Norwich Society of Artists. In 1812 he moved to Yarmouth and began a long period of work as an archaeological draftsman. He returned to Norwich in 1823 and to London in 1834. In his last years his style changed completely, and he mixed rice paste with his watercolours to get a rich impasto effect. Most of his etchings were soft-ground etchings that simulate chalk and pencil drawings.

Additional Reading

Andrew W. Moore, John Sell Cotman: 1782–1842 (1982); Miklós Rajnai (ed.), John Sell Cotman (1982).

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