Dorothy among the Painters: Dorothy Wordsworth's Friendship with Lady Beaumont

Описание: This online event took place on 7 July 2022.

Readers have long admired Dorothy’s striking ability to describe the idiosyncrasies she observes in the landscape. In 1805, the amateur painter and prominent patron of the arts Sir George Beaumont noted that ‘Miss W’s observations … are worthy of an experienced artist’. In 1804, describing a trip to Wasdale in a letter to Lady Beaumont, Dorothy ‘longed for a small share of the powers of Sir George Beaumont, to have brought away a sketch of some of the scenes we saw’.

Dorothy claimed not to know anything of painting but the friendship with Lady Beaumont opened up for her a particular awareness of the innovative work of a circle of artists around Sir George including William Collins, John Constable, William Green, and William Havell.

This online event introduces Lady Beaumont’s interests and influence, and explores the encouragement she gave to Dorothy as a writer. It considers some of the painters and paintings that the Beaumonts discussed with the Wordsworths, and it considers what Dorothy herself had to offer in her uniquely pictorial writing style.

About the speakers

Dr Jessica Fay is a Teaching Fellow in Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth-Century English Literature at the University of Birmingham. She is author of various work on William and Dorothy Wordsworth including The Collected Letters of Sir George and Lady Beaumont to the Wordsworth Family, 1803-1829 (Liverpool University Press, 2021) and Wordsworth’s Monastic Inheritance: Poetry, Place, and the Sense of Community (Oxford University Press, 2018).

Dean Hines has a BA in Art History & English Literature and a MSc in Heritage & Museum Studies. He has lectured on JMW Turner for the WEA and has presented talks at the Wordsworth Trust including Sir George Beaumont (2015), The Romantics & Portraiture (2015), and The Romantics and Ancient Art (2019). He appeared on the BBC Arty Show (2019), discussing Turner in the Lake District. Dean is Retail Supervisor at Wordsworth Grasmere.

Jeff Cowton is Principal Curator & Head of Learning at Wordsworth Grasmere.

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