author
Washington Allston
1779–1843
An early American Romantic artist and writer, he became known for moody, imaginative paintings filled with drama, light, and atmosphere. His work helped shape the course of American landscape painting while his poetry and prose added to his reputation as a creative force of the early 1800s.
2 Audiobooks
Lectures on Art
by Washington Allston
The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems
by Washington Allston
About the author
Born in South Carolina in 1779 and educated at Harvard, Washington Allston built a rare career as both a painter and a man of letters. He spent important years in Europe, especially in England and Italy, where he absorbed Old Master traditions and formed connections with leading writers and artists of his day.
Allston is often remembered as one of the first major American Romantic painters. He was admired for the emotional tone of his work, his dramatic subjects, and his rich handling of light and color. Although he did not produce a huge body of work, paintings such as Belshazzar's Feast helped secure his influence on later American artists.
He also wrote poetry and prose, and his novel Monaldi showed that his imagination ranged well beyond the canvas. By the time of his death in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1843, he had earned a reputation as an artist whose dreamy, literary style gave American art a more inward and expressive voice.