Richard Parkes Bonington

Only twenty-five at the time of his death in 1828, young Richard Parkes Bonington nevertheless was a seminal figure in the development of modernism in nineteenth-century French painting. By birth he was Anglo-French, and he epitomized the new spirit of internationalism in which Constable was honoured by the Academy in Paris in 1824; Bonington was there to witness the event. Mediating between the two traditions he explored the potential of watercolour for fresh transient landscapes, and drew inspiration not only from Delacroix, but also from the work of Walter Scott and Byron in his history paintings. This catalogue raisonne of his oil and watercolour paintings represents the first attempt to establish and present the artist's complete known oeuvre. Drawing on twenty-five years of research, Patrick Noon catalogues, analyzes, and reproduces 400 artworks now indisputably attributed to Bonington. Many of these paintings have never before been published. The book sets Bonington's achievement in the context of the intellectual, social, and artistic ferment of high romanticism in Paris and London, and it shows the profound effect of his style on his friend and contemporary, Eugene Delacroix, and many others. Noon's detailed and accurate study will inform all future discourse on Bonington and his remarkable legacy.