Samuel Palmer had one pocket in his coat for a sketchbook and one for Milton. He recalled the years he was living in Shoreham, the decade from 1825 to 1835, as spent 'cultivating, among good books, a fastidious and unpopular taste'. During that time he made the pictures for which he is now famous: shepherds and flocks by moonlight, bright clouds, foaming blossom, cornfields heavy with a dream of late summer. None of the Shoreham pictures was shown, sold, or even known to more than a few people in his lifetime (although it's possible that some of the group of six sepia pen and wash drawings now in the Ashmolean were exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1825 - whatever he did show that year was strange enough to have one reviewer suggest that the artist exhibit himself as a curiosity).

LRB 17 November 2005 | PDF Download