Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
The American marine painter James Hamilton (1819-1878)
travelled to London in 1854-5 and 1869, where he studied the
work of Turner, Clarkson Stanfield and Samuel Prout. Returning
home to Philadelphia in 1855 to paint subjects such as Hamp-
stead Heath and the Welsh coast, he also produced the extraor-
dinary
Last Days of Pompeii
(1864) in which Turnerian elements
of vortices, massed classical buildings and flaming explosion
are mixed with the gestural impressionistic manner that led to
Hamilton being known as the 'Romantic Impressionist'.²³ The
central column is more a memory of Nelson's Column in Traf-
algar Square, which Hamilton would have remembered from
his visits to London, than anything he might have imagined in
Italy.²4 Hamilton is a transitional figure, highly competent and
well-regarded, but falling between early nineteenth-century
traditions, with their roots in British art, and the staunchly
American Hudson River School of the middle and later years
of the century. A perceptive reviewer suggested in 1847 that if
Hamilton 'could continue to throw in a little more nature -
American nature - and a greater air of reality . . . he might make
magnificent pictures'.²5
The year after Hamilton exhibited his
Last Days of Pompeii
in Philadelphia, back in London Edward Poynter ra (1836-1919)
showed how universal was Bulwer Lytton's story of natural cata-
clysm, destruction and courage in his painting
Faithful unto
Death
(1865). Its brave Roman subject, an example of true hero-
ism such as was expected of British soldiers in the face of the
enemy, was introduced in the Royal Academy exhibition's cata-
logue, thus:
In carrying out the excavations near the Herculaneum gate
of Pompeii, the skeleton of a soldier in full armour was dis-
covered. Forgotten in the terror and confusion that reigned
during the destruction of the city, the sentinel had received
no order to quit his post, and while all sought their safety in
flight, he remained faithful to his duty, notwithstanding the
certain doom which awaited him.²6
