Nathaniel Everett Green FRAS (21 August 1823 – 10 November 1899) was an English

painter Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...

, art teacher and

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. Astronomers observe astronomical objects, such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, galax ...

. He professionally painted landscapes and portraits, and also gained fame with his drawings of

planets A planet is a large, rounded astronomical body that is generally required to be in orbit around a star, stellar remnant, or brown dwarf, and is not one itself. The Solar System has eight planets by the most restrictive definition of the te ...

Born in

Bristol Bristol () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, the most populous city in the region. Built around the River Avon, Bristol, River Avon, it is bordered by t ...

, the son of Benjamin Holder Green (1793–1865), then a haberdasher, and Elizabeth ‘Betsey’ née Everett (1795–1837); his interest in

astronomy Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects and the phenomena that occur in the cosmos. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and their overall evolution. Objects of interest includ ...

dated from 1859 when he built a telescope for himself. He produced "soft-pencil" drawings of

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide () atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmosph ...

in 1877, which were widely known. Shortly after drawing them, he was the first to suggest that canals on Mars were an

optical illusion In visual perception, an optical illusion (also called a visual illusion) is an illusion caused by the visual system and characterized by a visual perception, percept that arguably appears to differ from reality. Illusions come in a wide varie ...

. In 1880 he was called to Balmoral and taught art to some members of the royal family, including

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in January 1901. Her reign of 63 year ...

. He was founding member of the

British Astronomical Association The British Astronomical Association (BAA) was formed in 1890 as a national body to support the UK's amateur astronomers. Throughout its history, the BAA has encouraged observers to make scientifically valuable observations, often in collaborat ...

(BAA) and its president from 1896 to 1898. Green married Elizabeth Goold in 1847. Their daughter, Anne Goold Green, married English landscape painter Laurence George Bomford. A crater on Mars was named in his honor.

References

External links

N.E. Green biography at BAA
*"Observations of Mars, at Madeira, in August and September 1877", ''Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical Society'', Vol. 44,
123

Obituaries

1823 births 1899 deaths 19th-century English astronomers 19th-century English painters English male painters Painters from Bristol 19th-century English male artists {{England-painter-stub