Richard Parkes Bonington (25 October 1801 - 23 September 1828), English Romantic painter. He specialized in coastal landscapes.
Born near Nottingham. In 1817 his family moved to Calais, France, and one year later Bonington left for Paris, where he met Eugene Delacroix, who would become his fried and later had a strong influence on his style. During his sparetime Bonington worked at the Louvre, where he painted watercolour copies Dutch and Flemish landscapes, which he deeply admired.
Till 1822 he enrolled at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, where he studied under Antoine-Jean Gros. He first participated at the Parisian Salon in 1822, shoeing several of his early works, mainly sketches of Le Havre and Lillebonne. He produces a series of litographs and in 1824 won a gold medal at the Salon.
He started travelling extensively throughout France, especially in Normandy, and painted a great number of landscapes and seaport compositions. Later he also travelled to England and Scotland, accompanied sometimes by Delacroix. In 1826 he arrived in Venice, where he would be influenced by the style of Veronese and Canaletto. He became intersted also in historical subjects, painting a few compositions of the genre.
He was, like John Constable, an English artist whose landscapes were very popular and in demand in France, being maybe the first painter in France who decided to paint watercolors outdoors than in his studio. This new approach to nature would later inspire the Barbizon painters and made Bonington a forerunner of Impressionism.
Unfortunatelly his brilliant carier was cut short by his untimely death, as Bonington succombed to tuberculosis in London. He was only 26 years old, but his style would atract and inspire numerous artists and collectors, and Bonington would have a great posthumous influence.
