‘The Lonely Tower’, Samuel Palmer, watercolour, gouache and gum arabic, 1868.Introducing our A4 board print of Samuel Palmer’s ‘Lonely Tower’. This is one of a number of versions of this scene completed by the artist to illustrate a passage from Milton’s poem Il Penseroso:“Or let my Lamp at midnight hour, Be seen in som high lonely Towr, Where I may oft out-watch the Bear, With thrice great Hermes, or unsphear The spirit of Plato to unfold What Worlds, or what vast Regions hold The immortal mind that hath forsook Her mansion in this fleshly nook:”Palmer himself describes the work:“Here poetic loneliness has been attempted; not the loneliness of a desert, but a secluded spot in a genial, pastoral country, enriched also by antique relics, such as those so-called ‘Druidic’ stones upon the distant hill. The constellation of the ‘Bear’ may help explain the the building is the tower of ‘Il Penseroso’. Two shepherds, watching their flocks, speak together of the mysterious light above them.”Dimensions: 8-1/4 inches by 11-3/4 inches, 210 x 297 mm.Materials: 350gsm Invercote board, FSC Approved. Archive quality inks.
