author
J. Beavington Atkinson
1822–1886
A lively Victorian art critic and travel writer, he brought European painting, sculpture, and architecture to English readers with energy and curiosity. His books mix sharp judgment with the feeling of traveling beside a passionate guide.
1 Audiobook
Overbeck
by J. Beavington Atkinson
About the author
Writing as J. Beavington Atkinson, Joseph Beavington Atkinson was an English author and critic born in Manchester in 1822 and dead in Kensington in 1886. Contemporary library and reference records describe him as a writer and critic, and he is especially remembered as an art critic for the Saturday Review.
He wrote widely about European art. Among his books are An Art Tour to Northern Capitals of Europe, The Schools of Modern Art in Germany, and Overbeck, showing a strong interest in artists, museums, and the changing art world of the nineteenth century. He also contributed articles to the ninth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica.
His work is a good match for readers who enjoy older nonfiction that still feels personal: learned, opinionated, and full of firsthand looking. Even when discussing schools of painting or the career of a single artist, he wrote in a way that aimed to make art history readable for a general audience.