HARVEY, SIR GEORGE (1806-1876)

This article appears in Volume V13, Page 42 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: HAN-HEG

HARVEY, SIR GEORGE (1806-1876) , Scottish painter, the son of a watchmaker, was born at St Ninians, near Stirling, in February 18o6. Soon after his

birth

BIRTH (a word common in various forms to Teutonic languages from the root of the verb " to bear ")

his parents removed to Stirling, where George was apprenticed to a bookseller. His love for art having, however, become very decided, in hiseighteenth year he entered the Trustees'

Academy

ACADEMY, GREEK
ACADEMY, ROYAL

at Edinburgh. Here he so distinguished himself that in 1826 he was invited by the Scottish artists, who had resolved to found a Scottish

academy

ACADEMY, GREEK
ACADEMY, ROYAL

, to join it as an associate. Harvey's first picture, " A

Village

VILLAGE

School," was exhibited in 1826 at the Edinburgh Institution; and from the time of the opening of the Academy in the following year he continued annually to exhibit. His best-known pictures are those depicting historical episodes in religious history from a puritan or evangelical point of view, such as "

Covenanters

COVENANTERS

Preaching,' "

Covenanters

COVENANTERS

' Communion," " John Bunyan and his Blind Daughter," " Sabbath Evening," and the " Quitting of the Manse." He was, however, equally popular in

Scotland

for subjects not directly religious; and " The Bowlers," " A Highland Funeral," " The Curlers," "A Schule Skailin'," and " Children Blowing Bubbles in the Church-yard of Greyfriars', Edinburgh," manifest the same close observation of character, artistic conception and conscientious elaboration of details. In "The Night Mail" and " Dawn Revealing the New World to Columbus " the aspects of nature are, made use of in different ways, but with equal happiness, to lend impressiveness and solemnity to human concerns. He also painted landscapes and portraits. In 1829 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Scottish Academy; in 1864 he succeeded Sir J. W. Gordon as president; and he was knighted in 1867. He died at Edinburgh on the 22nd of January 1876.
Sir George Harvey was the author of a

paper

PAPER
PAPER (Fr. papier, from Lat. papyrus)

on the " Colour of the Atmosphere," read before the Edinburgh Royal Society, and afterwards published with illustrations in Good Words; and in 187o he published a small volume entitled Notes of the Early History of the Royal Scottish Academy. Selections from the Works of Sir George Harvey, P.R.S.A., described by the Rev. A. L.

Simpson

, F.S.A. Scot., and photographed by Thomas Annan, appeared at Edinburgh in 1869.

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