Ruined House
John Sell Cotman
between 1807 and 1810
Cotman was fond of ruined houses-in Gorleston, Yarmouth, and St. Albans, for example, none very far from his home base in Norwich. The mast near the right margin suggests that this one was in Yarmouth. Disused farm buildings, such as The Old Pigeon House, Downham Market (Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide), intrigued him as well. These and other equally picturesque but quiet, occasionally melancholy, and always unpretentious subjects help to define what we now remember as the Norwich School, and Cotman's crucial position at its center.
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven · Image: Yale Center for British Art, Public domain · Text: Yale Center for British Art, CC0