The Day’s Decline on the Arun

Location

Country: UK
City: England
Place: Wiston House, Foreign Office, Wilton Park

This view of a bend in the River Arun is lit by a soft, warm evening light and has an air of peaceful tranquillity. It was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1876, accompanied by the following passage from the poem 'Paradise Lost' (1667) by John Milton: ‘And sweet the coming on of grateful evening mild’.

George Vicat Cole was born in Portsmouth, the son of the landscape painter, George Cole (1810-1883). He was taught to paint by his father and, as a child, travelled on tours of England, Wales and Moselle (in eastern France), acting as his father’s assistant. He left home in 1855, following a quarrel with his father and later moved to Albury in Surrey, where he painted numerous landscapes. In 1861, he moved back to London, eventually settling at Little Campden House in Kensington. Cole purchased a steam launch named ‘The Blanche’, which he used for entertaining friends and from which he sketched many views of the River Thames. He died in Kensington in 1893 and is buried at Kensal Green Cemetery, London.

Places

England, Sussex, West Sussex, River Arun

Subjects

horseback, landscape C19th, genre, tree, evening, sunset, horse, autumn, river, hill, man, fence, path, gate, cottage

Materials & Techniques

canvas, oil, oil painting

Artist

George Vicat Cole (1833 - 1893)

Title

The Day’s Decline on the Arun

Date

1876

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

height: 136.50 cm, width: 210.00 cm

Acquisition

Origin uncertain

Provenance

Collection of James Taylor, 1878;

GAC number

10644