THOMSON, JOHN (1778-184o)

This article appears in Volume V26, Page 875 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: THE-TOO

THOMSON, JOHN (1778-184o) , Scottish landscape painterThomson of Duddingston, as he is commonly styledwas born on the 1st of September 1778 at Dailly, Ayrshire. His father, grandfather and

great

GREAT

-grandfather were clergymen of the Church of Scotland. He studied for the same vocation in the university of Edinburgh; and, residing with his elder brother,

Thomas

Thomson, afterwards celebrated as an antiquarian and feudal lawyer, he made the acquaintance of Francis Jeffrey and other

young

members of the Scottish bar afterwards notable. During the recess he sketched in the country, and, while attending his final college session, he studied art for a month under Alexander Nasmyth. After his father's death he became, in 'Soo, his successor as minister of Dailly; and in 18os he was translated to the parish of Duddingston, close to Edinburgh. He continued, however, to practise art as an

amateur

AMATEUR (Lat. amator, lover)

, apparently without any detriment to his

pastoral

PASTORAL (from Lat. pastor, a shepherd)

duties. Thomson's popularity as a painter increased with his increasing artistic skill; and, having mastered his initial scruples against receiving artistic fees, on being offered X15 for a landscape--reassured, by " Grecian " Williams's stout assertion that the

work

WORK

was" worth thrice the amount "the minister of Duddingston began to dispose of the productions of his brush in the usual manner. In 183o he was made an honorary member of the Royal Scottish

Academy

ACADEMY, GREEK
ACADEMY, ROYAL

. Thomson was also an accomplished performer`on violin and

flute

FLUTE

, an exact and well-read student of physical science, and one of the writers on optics in the early numbers of the Edinburgh

Review

REVIEW (Fr. revue, from revoir, to see again, Lat. re and videre)

. He enjoyed a singularly wide and eminent circle of friends, including, among artists,

Turner

and Wilkie, and among men of letters, Wilson and Scottthe latter of whom desired that Thomson, instead of

Turner

, should have illustrated the collected edition of his works. He died at Duddingston on the 27th of October 1840 (not the loth, as stated by some authorities). Thomson was twice married, and his second wife, the widow of Mr Dalrymple of Cleland, was herself also a skilful

amateur

AMATEUR (Lat. amator, lover)

artist.
Thomson is fairly represented in the Scottish National Gallery; and the " Aberlady Bay " of that collection, with the soft infinity of
its clouded grey sky, and its sea which leaps and falls again in waves of sparkling and of shadowed silver, is fit to rank among the triumphs of Scottish art.

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