3-011-425 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"Summer," by T. [sic] W. Keyl, in the exhibition of the British Institution, 1864. Engraving of a painting. 'It is not merely that the picture has a careful and precise truth to nature which, though accompanied by a little hardness, is one of the best characteristics of a comparatively young or rising painter; but it has a feeling for general character in the animals and effect in the landscape which are of still happier augury. The scene of the picture is some elevated down of a pastoral district, which conceals a part of the middle distance, but allows the eye to wander over a long reach of flat remoter scenery. The rough foreground is dotted over with clumps of furze, long grasses, thyme, and other wild shrubs or flowers which perfume the bracing and health-giving air of our noble undulating downs. The sky is dappled with light, fleecy, sun-illumined cirrus and cirro-cumulus clouds, giving that endless variety to what may be called the "skyscape," and moderating the heat of the fair English summer season. One of the sheep, it will be observed, is a large black wether, and, like its companions, is - as any one might say who had something of the gourmet as well as the artist in his character - in splendid condition'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.