Philip Gilbert Hamerton

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2023}} [[File:Picture of Philip Gilbert Hamerton.jpg|thumb|Philip Gilbert Hamerton, by A. H. Palmer.]]

'''Philip Gilbert Hamerton''' (10 September 1834 – 4 November 1894) was an English artist, [[art critic]] and author. He was a keen advocate of contemporary [[printmaking]] and most of his writings concern the graphic arts. He was an important theorist of the English [[Etching Revival]].

==Early life== Hamerton was born at Laneside, a hamlet near [[Shaw and Crompton]], [[Lancashire]], England. His mother died giving birth to him, and his father died ten years later. When he was about five, he was sent to live with his two aunts at an estate called the Hollins<ref>[http://www.jacknadin2.50megs.com/custom3.html Jack Nadin's Burnley history site] {{webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20120903182459/http://www.jacknadin2.50megs.com/custom3.html |date=3 September 2012 }} Accessed 2010</ref> on the edge of [[Burnley]], where he attended [[Burnley Grammar School]].<ref>Hamerton, Philip Gilbert (1897). [https://archive.org/stream/philipgilbertham00hameuoft#page/n9/mode/2up ''Philip Gilbert Hamerton, an Autobiography'']. London: Seeley & Co., p. 20.</ref>

==Career== [[File:Philip Gilbert Hamerton - The Lake - 1922.352 - Cleveland Museum of Art.jpg|thumb|''The Lake'', [[etching]], 1875]] Hamerton's first literary attempt, a volume of poems, was unsuccessful, leading him to devote himself for a time entirely to [[landscape painting]]; he camped out in the [[Scottish Highlands]], where he eventually rented the former island of Inistrynich in [[Loch Awe]], upon which he settled with his wife Eugénie Gindriez, the daughter of a French republican magistrate, in 1858.

Discovering after a time that he was more suited to [[art criticism]] than painting, he moved to [[Sens]] and later to [[Autun]],<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_7Y8GAQAAIAAJ|title=Meyers Konversations-lexikon. Eine Encyklopädie des allgemeinen Wissens|last=Meyer|first=Herrmann Julius|date=1885|publisher=Leipzig, Verlag des Bibliographischen Instituts|others=University of California}}</ref> where he produced his ''Painter's Camp in the Highlands'' (1863), which was very successful and prepared the way for his standard work on ''Etching and Etchers'' (1866). In the following year he published ''Contemporary French Painters'', and in 1868 a continuation, ''Painting in France after the Decline of Classicism''.

He had by now become art critic to the ''[[Saturday Review (London)|Saturday Review]]'', which necessitated frequent visits to England, forcing him to give it up. He proceeded in 1870 to establish and edit an art journal of his own, ''[[The Portfolio]]'', a monthly periodical, each number of which included of a monograph upon some artist or group of artists, often written by him. The journal championed printmaking, especially [[etching]]. He selected and wrote the accompanying text for ''Etchings by French and English Artists'' (London: Seeley, 1874) which included work by [[Alphonse Legros]] and [[Léon Gaucherel]]. The discontinuation of his painting gave him time for writing, and he successively produced ''The Intellectual Life'' (1873), perhaps the best known and most valuable of his writings; ''Round my House'' (1876), notes on French society by a resident; and ''Modern Frenchmen'' (1879), admirable short biographies. He also wrote two novels, ''Wenderholme'' (1870) and ''Marmorne'' (1878).

In 1884 ''Human Intercourse'', another volume of essays, was published, and shortly afterwards Hamerton began his autobiography, which he brought down to 1858. In 1882 he issued a finely illustrated work on the technique of the great masters of various arts, under the title of ''The Graphic Arts'', and three years later another splendidly illustrated volume, ''Landscape'', which traces the influence of landscape upon the mind of man. His last books were: ''Portfolio Papers'' (1889) and ''French and English'' (1889).

In 1891 he removed to Villa Clématis in the Parc des Princes, district of [[Boulogne-Billancourt]] in the southwest suburbs of Paris. He died there suddenly on 4 November 1894, aged sixty, occupied to the last with his labours on ''The Portfolio'' and other writings on art. In 1897 'Philip Gilbert Hamerton: an ''Autobiography'', 1834–1858; and a ''Memoir'' by his wife, 1858–1894' was published.

==Notes== {{Reflist}}

==References== *{{EB1911|wstitle=Hamerton, Philip Gilbert}} * Marie Czach (1985). ''Philip Gilbert Hamerton: Victorian Art Critic'', unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. *[https://www.amazon.fr/AUTUN-monuments-maison-Pr%C3%A9face-Postface/dp/107470102X/ref=sr_1_2?__mk_fr_FR=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&keywords=Autun&qid=1561192917&s=gateway&sr=8-2 Autun], ''Philip Gilbert Hamerton, Préface et postface Coline Béry, illustrations Anne Vanier, Collection Corde Raide 2019.''

== External links == {{commons category}} * {{Wikisource author-inline}} * {{Gutenberg author |id=2787| name=Philip Gilbert Hamerton}} * {{Internet Archive author |sname=Philip Gilbert Hamerton}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hamerton, Philip Gilbert}} [[Category:1834 births]] [[Category:1894 deaths]] [[Category:19th-century English journalists]] [[Category:19th-century English male journalists]] [[Category:19th-century English male artists]] [[Category:19th-century English memoirists]] [[Category:19th-century English novelists]] [[Category:19th-century English painters]] [[Category:19th-century English poets]] [[Category:19th-century English essayists]] [[Category:English male essayists]] [[Category:People from Burnley]] [[Category:People from Shaw and Crompton]] [[Category:People educated at Burnley Grammar School]] [[Category:English male painters]] [[Category:English art critics]] [[Category:English art historians]] [[Category:English male novelists]]