Samuel Colman, also Samuel Coleman, (1780 – 21 January 1845) was an English painter, based 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 ...

for most of his career. Samuel Colman - The Rock of Salvation - Google Art Project

Brooklyn Museum - The Edge of Doom - Samuel Colman

Life

In about 1815 Colman moved from

Yeovil Yeovil () is a town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in Somerset, England. It is close to Somerset's southern border with Dorset, west of London, south of Bristol, west of Sherborne and east of Taunton. The population of the bui ...

to Bristol, where he lived until around 1840. He worked as a portrait painter and drawing-master in the city, as well as painting minutely detailed Romantic, Biblical and

genre Genre () is any style or form of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other fo ...

scenes. He was loosely associated with the grouping of artists known as the

Bristol School The Bristol School (or Bristol School of Artists) is a term applied retrospectively to describe the informal association and works of a group of artists working in Bristol, England, in the early 19th century. It was mainly active in the 182 ...

which flourished from the

Regency era The Regency era of British history is commonly understood as the years between and 1837, although the official regency for which it is named only spanned the years 1811 to 1820. King George III first suffered debilitating illness in the lat ...

onwards but had little involvement, although his work nonetheless reflects the

genre painting Genre painting (or petit genre) is the painting of genre art, which depicts aspects of everyday life by portraying ordinary people engaged in common activities. One common definition of a genre scene is that it shows figures to whom no identity ca ...

s of

Edward Villiers Rippingille Edward Villiers Rippingille (c. 1790–1859) was an English oil painter and watercolourist who was a member of the informal group of artists which has come to be known as the Bristol School. In that group he was a particularly close ...

and Edward Bird.Carter p.34 He was a religious Nonconformist who worshipped at the Castle Green Independent Chapel and the Zion Chapel in Bedminster, and his faith was central to his work; some of his paintings, such as his ''The Destruction of the Temple'' (Tate Gallery), which shows the ruination of a Gothic cathedral, being criticisms of the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...

. His apocalyptic paintings have drawn comparisons to those of John Martin. He signed works as ''Colman'' and alternatively ''Coleman''.

Gallery

File:Samuel Colman (1780-1845) - St James's Fair, Bristol - K353 - Bristol City Museum ^ Art Gallery.jpg, '' St James's Fair'', 1824 File:Samuel Colman (1780-1845) - Sunday Morning, Going to Church - K4968 - Bristol City Museum ^ Art Gallery.jpg, ''Going to Church'', 1832

External links and references

Bibliography

* Carter, Julia. ''Bristol Museum and Art Gallery: Guide to the Art Collection''. Bristol Books, 2017. 1780 births 1845 deaths 19th-century English painters English male painters 19th-century English male artists Painters from Bristol People from Yeovil {{England-painter-stub