Samuel Palmer and the English Pastoral

This lecture takes an opening look at the English pastoral tradition in verse and painting, and then concentrates on Palmer’s development of the genre, in the moonlit valleys of Kent’s Shoreham village and then more broadly in his later life in drawings and paintings. He created some of the most beautiful pastoral idylls in English painting and was a passionate lover of England’s landscapes. Writing from Italy he dreamt of the return home: ‘we shall together thread the garden’d labyrinths of Kent, and on the thymy downs, by twilight, listen to the distant shepherd’s pipes or village bells.’

The lecture will be fully illustrated with examples from Palmer’s work.