Edward Dayes

{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2019}} '''Edward Dayes''' (1763 in London – May 1804 in London) was an English watercolour painter and engraver in mezzotint.

thumb|Edward Dayes, self-portrait from 1801.

==Life== [[File:Salisbury Publ 1798 JUKES, Francis (1745-1812) after Edward DAYES (1763-1804) edited.jpg|thumb|Salisbury Cathedral, 1798 engraving by Francis Jukes, after Dayes.]] He studied under William Pether,<ref name="dnb"/> and began to exhibit at the Royal Academy in 1786, when he showed a portrait and views of Waltham Cross and Canterbury.<ref name="graves">{{cite book|last1=Graves|first1=Algernon |title=The Royal Academy: A Complete Dictionary of Contributors from its Foundations in 1769 to 1904 |volume=2 |year= 1905 |publisher= Henry Graves|location=London|page=227}}</ref> In the three following years he exhibited both miniatures and landscapes. He continued to exhibit at the Academy regularly until the year of his death, contributing a total of 64 works. He also was an exhibitor at the Society of Artists.<ref name="dnb"/>

Dayes drew from nature in various parts of England, including the Lake District and Wales.<ref name="dnb"/> Much of his topographical work depicted ruins, painted in a palette dominated by blues and greens, which had an influence on the early work of J. M. W. Turner.<ref name="reynolds72">{{cite book|last=Reynolds|first=Graham|title=Watercolours: A Concise History|publisher=Thames and Hudson|location=London|year=1998|page=72|isbn=0500201099}}</ref> He laid out detailed rules for the correct method of laying down the colours in landscape in his ''Instructions for Drawing and Colouring Landscapes'', published posthumously.<ref>{{cite book|last=Redgrave|first=Gilbert R.|title=Water-colour Painting in England|url=https://archive.org/details/ahistorywaterco00redggoog|publisher=Sampson, Low, Marston & Co.|location=London|year=1892}}</ref> The art historian Graham Reynolds sees Dayes' work as "mark[ing] the transition from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century".<ref name="reynolds72"/>

Many of his drawings were crowded with figures; among these were two views of the interior of St. Paul's Cathedral on the occasion of the thanksgiving for the king's recovery in 1789, ''The Trial of Warren Hastings in Westminster Abbey'', and ''Buckingham House, St. James's Park'' (1780), later hung in the South Kensington Museum. All these works were engraved.<ref name="dnb"/> In 1798 Dayes began to show scriptural subjects, such as ''The Fall of the Angels'' (1798), ''John preaching in the Wilderness'' (1799), the ''Triumph of Beauty'' (1800), and ''Elisha causing Iron to swim'' (1801).<ref name="dnb"/>

He was draughtsman to the Duke of York and Albany. Thomas Girtin, was his pupil.<ref name="dnb"/>

Dayes engraved at least four mezzotints, one after George Morland, another after John Raphael Smith, and two humorous scenes called ''Rustic Courtship'' and ''Polite Courtship''. He wrote an ''Excursion through Derbyshire and Yorkshire'', ''Essays on Painting'', ''Instructions for Drawing and Colouring Landscapes'', and ''Professional Sketches of Modern Artists''. He committed suicide at the end of May 1804. After his death his works were collected and edited by E. W. Bradley, and published for the benefit of his widow in 1805.<ref name="dnb"/>

His wife painted miniatures and exhibited four works at the Royal Academy between 1797 and 1800.<ref name="dnb">{{cite DNB|wstitle=Dayes, Edward |last=Monkhouse|first=William Cosmo}}</ref>

==References== {{reflist}}

==Sources== *{{DNB|wstitle=Dayes, Edward|volume=14}}

==External links== {{commons}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dayes, Edward}} Category:1763 births Category:1804 deaths Category:18th-century English painters Category:English male painters Category:19th-century English painters Category:18th-century English engravers Category:Suicides in Westminster Category:Artists who died by suicide Category:Place of birth missing Category:19th-century English male artists Category:1800s suicides Category:18th-century English male artists