Henry Wallis. Henry Wallis was a British Pre-Raphaelite painter, writer and collector.
Wallis was born in London on 21 February 1830, but his father's name and occupation are unknown. When in 1845 his mother, Mary Anne Thomas, married Andrew Wallis, a prosperous London architect, Henry took his stepfather's surname.
His artistic training was thorough and influential. He was admitted as a probationer to the RA and enrolled in the Painting School in March 1848.
He also studied in Paris at Charles Gleyre's atelier and at the Academie des Beaux Arts, sometime between 1849 and 1853. Wallis is best remembered for his first great success, The Death of Chatterton, which he exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1856.
The painting depicted the impoverished late 18th-century poet Thomas Chatterton, who poisoned himself in despair at the age of seventeen, and was considered a Romantic hero for many young and struggling artists in Wallis's day. His method and style in Chatterton reveal the importance of his connection to the Pre-Raphaelite movement, seen in the vibrant colours and careful build-up of symbolic detail. He used a bold colour scheme with a contrasting palette and he exploited the fall of the natural light through the window of the garret to implement his much loved style at the time, chiaroscuro. The size of Chatterton's garret was only fractionally larger than the scope of the painting, with ro
Wallis was born in London on 21 February 1830, but his father's name and occupation are unknown. When in 1845 his mother, Mary Anne Thomas, married Andrew Wallis, a prosperous London architect, Henry took his stepfather's surname.
His artistic training was thorough and influential. He was admitted as a probationer to the RA and enrolled in the Painting School in March 1848.
He also studied in Paris at Charles Gleyre's atelier and at the Academie des Beaux Arts, sometime between 1849 and 1853. Wallis is best remembered for his first great success, The Death of Chatterton, which he exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1856.
The painting depicted the impoverished late 18th-century poet Thomas Chatterton, who poisoned himself in despair at the age of seventeen, and was considered a Romantic hero for many young and struggling artists in Wallis's day. His method and style in Chatterton reveal the importance of his connection to the Pre-Raphaelite movement, seen in the vibrant colours and careful build-up of symbolic detail. He used a bold colour scheme with a contrasting palette and he exploited the fall of the natural light through the window of the garret to implement his much loved style at the time, chiaroscuro. The size of Chatterton's garret was only fractionally larger than the scope of the painting, with ro
Wikipedia ...