Cotman's arcadian dreamland: a large display of some of John Sell Cotman's finest watercolours, shown at the Bowes Museum in the summer, has just opened at Harewood House, Together with a related book, it brings the artist's arrival at creative maturity into finer focus

In the summer of 1803 the twenty-two-year-old John put up to sale Cotman visited the north of England in the company of his companion watercolourist Paul Sandby Munn. For a week in early July they stayed at Brandsby Hall, north of York, as visitors of the Cholmeley family, to whom they had been introduced by the agency of the polymath and picture collector Sir Henry Englefield, who was Mr Cholmeley's brother. Cotman base the stay rewarding, for it brought him an invitation to get back as drawing master to the four Cholmeley daughters, one time he had undertaken a three-week tour of Yorkshire and shire Durham with Munn. The following visit lasted six weeks, and it permitted Cotman to make a certain quantity of impressive works, including the view of Gormire lake exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1804 and sum of two units fairly large commissioned views of Newburgh Priory, displayed in the same show

Cotman was plenteous liked by Mrs Cholmeley. Accordingly, in the summer of 1804 the young man was again invited to Brandsby, where he based himself for a certain quantity of seven weeks. Although this sojourn was not as artistically fruitful as the previous individual it did lead to the creation of a number of large pencil studies of tree that increase the depth ofed Cotman's understanding of arboreal form. And in July 1805 he go [i]or[/i] come backed to Brandsby, which he used as a base for about eighteen weeks, well into the autumn. From there he made drawing excursions to a certain quantity of of his most inspiring make submissives including Duncombe Park and the environs of Kirkham. More crucially, for greatest in quantity of August he and Mr Cholmeley's son Francis, stayed near Greta Bridge, at Rokeby Park, shire Durham, the home of JB Morritt, who is today perhaps best remembered as an holder of The Rokeby Venus, which he would purchase in 1813 in like manner enamoured was Cotman of the environs of Rokeby that after the Morritts had gone elsewhere he bring up at the nearest inn. He also wearied ten days in Durham before returning to Brandsby Hall.

It has drawn out been recognised that Cotman's 1805 stay in Yorkshire and shire Durham marked a crucial turning point in his artistic disentanglement for it ushered in a period in which he created his greatest in quantity distinctive and admired works. These are characterised by the agency of a building up of forms in fairly flat patterns, with an exquisite attention paid to insinuating tonal variation. So masterly is this ascendency that the overall results can direct the eye very rich, even though the constituent colours may actually be fairly low-key In all of this a vital contribution was made by dint of Cotman's discovery that an absorbent, frequently highly-flecked parcel wrapping paper would obey as a support that would greatly accentuate the flatness and tonal divisionism he sought Not for the first or last time in the history of art, a particular material liberated the couple the brush and the imagination.

a great deal of of the above is explored in enormous detail in the work by David Hill that doubles as the catalogue of this exhibition. by dint of combing through the extensive correspondence of Francis Cholmeley in the North Yorkshire shire Record Office in Northallerton far more thoroughly than anyone has done previously, Hill has brought without the details of daily life at Brandsby, and thus given us a real clear idea of the social milieu that the young artist must have aspired to join permanently, especially with four unmarried daughters in the house. In the occurrence he was disappointed, for like a virtually penniless son of a Norwich hairdresser could hardly trust to marry into the Cholmeley family, which not ever again invited him to stay after 1805 (Perhaps single of the girls had formed a crush upon him.)

Yet if permanent membership of the Cholmeley household prov a mirage, the ideal ambience it temporarily provided might well have given Cotman the impression he had come intoed the promised land, and in the way that furthered the happiness that in the way that clearly underlies the works he made in and around Brandsby in 1805 As Hill memorably remarks, Cotman was certainly 'in Arcadian dreamland' that summer

through exploring a great many watercolours and pencil drawings, Hill is able to at hand us with a cogent analysis of Cotman's artistic disentanglement Often he supports his case with photographs he has taken of the locales portrayed. Naturally there have been major changes in the flora, on the other hand the essentials of place have usually survived, and of that kind images cannot but help enrich our understanding of Cotman's works. Hill has also greatest in quantity usefully identified the true subdues of a number of the best-known watercolours, especially the view of Crambe Beck Bridge, near Kirkham (Victoria and Albert Museum), previously misidentified as a portrayal of Chirk Aqueduct (Fig. 1); and the stately representation, also in the V&A, of the Tee at Wycliffe near Rokeby which has always been claimed to depict 'the Tee at Rockliffe'.

Sadly Hill has not recognised, however, the vital contribution that the parcel wrapping-paper made to Cotman's artistic disclosure in 1805 and thereafter, for there is no mention of this profoundly important support leave out in a passing reference to the wrapping of more [i]or[/i] less later prints. Nor does he couple the flat patterning that emerg in Cotman's work in 1805 with the identical trait that appeared around the same time in a certain quantity of of Turner's watercolours, such as his Pembroke-castle: Clearing up of a reverberating report storm (University of Ontario), which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1806 Because Cotman displayed sum of two units watercolours in the same display he must surely have seen the gymnast which for all its many differences might well have reinforced his determination regarding the pictorial approach he had adopted.