Bonington, << BON ihng tuhn, >> Richard Parkes (1801-1828), an English landscape painter, might have won fame during his lifetime had he not died so young. He worked in both oil and water color. Bonington’s landscapes are luminous and rich in color, and brilliantly executed.
Bonington was born on Oct. 25, 1801, in Arnold, a suburb of Nottingham, but he spent his adult life in France. He studied under Baron Antoine Jean Gros, a painter. Bonington also studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He was a close friend of Theodore Gericault and Eugene Delacroix. He helped acquaint the French romantic artists with the quality of English landscape painting. His work is a connecting link between the English romantic landscapes of Thomas Girtin and John Constable and those of the later French Fontainebleau or Barbizon movements. He died on Sept. 23, 1828.
