Traveler in a Woodland Landscape (1806): Art, History and Details

Traveler in a Woodland Landscape (1806) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is John Sell Cotman (British, 1782–1842).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

John Sell Cotman left his native Norfolk at the young age of 16 and traveled to London with the aspiration to be an artist. His work evolved at a rapid pace as he developed a highly original style remarkable for its simple elegance and schematic treatment of the natural world. This landscape was made soon after a trip to Yorkshire. Cotman largely ignored the noteworthy landmarks of the area, preferring obscure views—trees, crumbling stone walls, and dilapidated fences. Inspired by the Greta woods, the straining bows of the trees form a beautifully balanced structure of geometric and amorphous shapes.

Object facts

• Title: Traveler in a Woodland Landscape
• Date: 1806
• Creator attribution: John Sell Cotman (British, 1782–1842)
• Culture: England, 19th century
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: graphite and gray wash
• Dimensions: Sheet: 30.3 x 21 cm (11 15/16 x 8 1/4 in.)
• Collection: DR - British
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 1991.22

A detail from the museum

This drawing is closely related to one in the collection of the Norwich Castle Museum, in which a similarly abstracted figure retreats beneath embowering trees twisted in fantastic shapes.

Collection credit

Delia E. Holden Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Rajnai, Miklós and Marjorie Allthorpe-Guyton. John Sell Cotman, 1782-1842: Early Drawings (1798-1812) in Norwich Castle Museum. Norwich, UK: Norfolk Museums Service, 1979.
• Turner, Evan H. et al. "Notable Acquisitions." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 78, no. 3 (June 1991): 63-147.
• Hill, David. Cotman in the North: Watercolours of Durham and Yorkshire. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.