George Cooke

It is difficult to name a single "most famous" work by George Cooke, as his notability rests on a lifetime of diverse artistic output. George Cooke (1796-1872) trained as a lawyer before turning to portrait painting. He spent years living among native American Indians, creating portraits and advocating for the preservation of Indian tribes. In 1841, he published "Manners...of the North American Indians", which contained around 300 of his engravings. His painting "Ambush for Flamingoes" (circa 1857) is in the collection of the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh. It depicts a hunter and servant waiting behind a bush, poised to shoot a flock of flamingoes. The painting uses the hunter as a reminder of how the beauty of nature can be swiftly destroyed by man. Catlin presented the flamingoes in different poses, to express variety and movement.

Many museums hold works by George Cooke. In the United States, these include the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art (Winter Park, Florida), the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angeles), the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, the Museum of Modern Art (New York), and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (Richmond). In Canada, his work can be seen at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. In the United Kingdom, Cooke's art is held at the Bakelite Museum (Williton), the Brighton Museum & Art Gallery, the Geffrye Museum (London), the Manchester Art Gallery, the National Museums of Scotland (Edinburgh), Towneley Hall Art Gallery (Burnley, Lancashire), the Fitzwilliam Museum (Cambridge), the National Museum of Wales (Cardiff), the National Gallery of Scotland (Edinburgh), the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (Edinburgh), the Burrell Collection (Glasgow), Jersey Museum and Art Gallery (St Helier), and the Leeds City Art Gallery.

George Cooke drew lessons from the works of such artists as Jacob Ruisdael, Jan Wijnants, and Albert Cuyp. Cooke's drawing after Ruisdael's *La Forêt* provided a foundation for his later works, *Drinkstone Park* and probably also inspiration for *Cornard Wood*. This influence can be seen in the meticulous rendering of foliage and grass, in the effects of chiaroscuro, and in the overall conception of the painting. This makes use of the compositional schemata of Ruisdael's wooded views, with the suggestion of depth achieved by a break in the dense trees, opening up a view towards the horizon, with a rural road turning into the forest, and with the figures of a traveller and peasants at work. *Wooded View with Shepherd and Sheep* is a reworking of the Ruisdael/Wijnants model as well. Among the imitators of Ruisdael in Germany was Christian Dietrich, followed by many German artists before 1800. Meindert Hobbema was copied by Johann Christian Reinhart, Friedrich Mueller (known as Teufelsmueller), and Ferdinand Kobell.

George Cooke's artistic development involved various influences. Claude Lorraine Nursey, a pupil of David Wilkie, instructed Cooke on Wilkie's painting methods. This involved finishing each section of a painting in a single session, without dead-colouring. Cooke applied this method, analysing paintings to see if they had been executed in this way. He also tried to emulate the purity of work seen in the quattrocento artists, linking this to the discipline of fresco painting. Cooke also gained knowledge from Henry Rogers, a portrait painter in the City and a pupil of Beechey, who was, in turn, a pupil of Reynolds. Rogers shared secrets of pigments and oil mediums. Cooke received lessons from Rogers that instilled habits which he later had to correct. Cooke's exposure to various techniques and masters shaped his artistic approach, leading him to experiment and refine his own style.