William Callow - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

William Callow was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

landscape painter

Landscape art

Landscape art is a term that covers the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, and especially art where the main subject is a wide view, with its elements arranged into a coherent composition. In other works landscape backgrounds for figures can still...

, engraver

Engraving

Engraving is the practice of incising a design on to a hard, usually flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing...

and water colourist

Watercolor painting

Watercolor or watercolour , also aquarelle from French, is a painting method. A watercolor is the medium or the resulting artwork in which the paints are made of pigments suspended in a water-soluble vehicle...

Career

Callow was apprenticed to the artist Copley Fielding

Copley Fielding

Anthony Vandyke Copley Fielding , commonly called Copley Fielding, was an English painter born in Sowerby, near Halifax and famous for his watercolour landscapes. At an early age Fielding became a pupil of John Varley...

, where he learnt the technique of plein air
En plein air
En plein air is a French expression which means "in the open air", and is particularly used to describe the act of painting outdoors.Artists have long painted outdoors, but in the mid-19th century working in natural light became particularly important to the Barbizon school and Impressionism...

sketching. He went on to study under Theodore and Thales Fielding

Thales Fielding

Thales Fielding was an English water-colour painter.-Life:Fielding was the third son of Nathan Theodore Fielding, and like his brothers is mainly known as a painter in water-colours. He was an associate exhibitor of the Royal Society of Painters in Water-colours, and for some years teacher of...

, where he learnt to colour prints and conduct aquatint

Aquatint

Aquatint is an intaglio printmaking technique, a variant of etching.Intaglio printmaking makes marks on the matrix that are capable of holding ink. The inked plate is passed through a printing press together with a sheet of paper, resulting in a transfer of the ink to the paper...

engraving, and was taught water colour painting

Watercolor painting

between 1825-7. He travelled to Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, where he acquired a job as an engraver, working alongside his friend Charles Bentley

Charles Bentley (painter)

Charles Bentley, a painter of coast and river scenery, in water-colours, and engraver, was born in 1806. He was elected an associate of the Water-Colour Society in 1834, and a full member in 1844, and constantly contributed to their annual exhibitions. His subjects are views in France, Holland, and...

, before being encouraged by Thomas Shotter Boys to take up water colour work once again. Callow acquired a job teaching the family of Louis Philippe I, the ruler of France, whilst his own works rapidly acquired favour in England.

Elected a member of the Old Water-Colour Society

Royal Watercolour Society

The Royal Watercolour Society is an English institution of painters working in watercolours...

, he returned to London in 1841 and began to paint larger pictures, moving away from the smaller, more "dashing" style of his earlier pieces. He travelled extensively in France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, Holland, Belgium

Belgium

Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

and Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

Career

Further reading