|
(4) Arthur William Devis
(b London, 10 Aug 1762; d London, 11 Feb 1822). Son of (1) Arthur Devis. He entered the Royal Academy Schools in 1774 and soon attracted the attention of Sir Joshua Reynolds. He exhibited various drawings at the Free Society between 1775 and 1780 and at the Royal Academy in 1781–2. In 1782 he joined an expedition to the East Indies as a draughtsman. When the ship foundered he seized the opportunity to live and work in Canton for a year. In November 1784 he sailed to India, where he painted a portrait of Warren Hastings (New Delhi, Rashtrapati Bhavan). Works such as Colin Shakespear (c. 1785; see Waterhouse, 18th-C., p. 109) suggest the influence of Johan Zoffany, who was in India at the same time. The relaxed pose of the youthful Shakespear, depicted against a landscape background, differs dramatically from the stiff sitters of Devis’s father, but the attention to detail and treatment of drapery shows parental influence.
Part of the Devis family
|
|
There are more than 45,000 articles in The Grove Dictionary of Art.
To access the rest of this article, including the bibliography, subscribe to
www.groveart.com.
To find out more about this subject, click on a related article below and
subscribe to www.groveart.com
|
