Thomas Rowlandsonborn July 1756, Old Jewry, London, Eng.
died April 22, 1827, London
English painter and caricaturist who illustrated the life of 18th-century
England and created comic images of familiar social types of his day, such as
the antiquarian, the old maid, the blowsy barmaid, and the Grub Street hack. His
characters ranged from the ridiculously pretentious, with their elaborate
coiffures, widely frogged uniforms, and enormous bosoms and bottoms, to the
merely pathetic, whose trailing handkerchiefs expressed their dejected
attitudes.
The son of a tradesman, Rowlandson became a student in the Royal Academy. At age
16 he went to study in Paris. After establishing a studio as a portrait painter,
he began to draw caricatures to supplement his income, and this soon became his
major interest.
His series of drawings “The Schoolmaster's Tour,” accompanied by verses of
William Combe, was published in the new Poetical Magazine (1809–11) launched by
the art publisher Rudolph Ackermann, who was Rowlandson's chief employer. The
same collaboration of designer, author, and publisher resulted in the popular
Dr. Syntax series—Tourof Dr. Syntax in Search of the Picturesque (1812), The
Second Tour of Dr. Syntax in Search of Consolation (1820), and The Third Tour of
Dr. Syntax in Search of a Wife (1821). They also produced The English Dance of
Death (1815–16) and The Dance of Life (1816–17). Rowlandson illustrated editions
of novels by Tobias Smollett, Oliver Goldsmith, and Laurence Sterne.
Rowlandson's designs were usually executed in outline with a reed pen and
delicately washed with colour. They werethen etched by the artist on copper and
afterward aquatinted—usually by a professional engraver, the impressions being
finally coloured by hand. Rowlandson compromised his reputation in his later
years by producing a mass of inferior drawings. The works of his prime, however,
are outstanding in the vitality of their outline and the gusto of their comment
on human weaknesses.
