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Lucy Willis (1954 - today) is a contemporary English artist who works as a painter and printmaker. She is best known for her watercolors. She uses somewhat subdued colors and captures the play of light and shadow. She has travelled through southern Europe, the Middle East, and India and frequently portrays scenes from them.
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| Lucy Willis self-portrait |
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Eric Ravilious (1903 – 1942) was an English artist and designer. Although he worked in a variety of medium, he is best known for his watercolors. He painted landscapes and scenes of everyday life. He was also a British war artist, and he was lost in 1942 on a search and rescue flight out of Iceland.
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| Eric Ravilious by Phyllis Dodd |
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Naval battle of Gondelour, June 20, 1783 by Auguste Jugelet (click image to enlarge) |
If asked, most Americans would think that Yorktown was the last battle of the Revolutionary War. However, in the years before Yorktown, what had been an English civil war expended to a global war as France, Spain and the Netherlands took advantage of England's problems to declare war on therm.
That war continued well after Yorktown and even after peace negotiations had begun. As pointed out in the article India: The Last Battle of the American Revolutionary War:
A preliminary treaty finally came on November 30, 1782, a year after Yorktown… but there was still no formal treaty. Washington remembered what Ben Franklin had said, “The British Nation seems… unable to carry on the War and too proud to make peace.” The politicians were all still talking in Paris. Washington instinctively didn’t trust the British and knew it could be a mistake to lower his guard of them, even while talks were going on. As late as January 1783, from Newburgh, New York, he wrote to Maj. John Armstrong that he suspected Parliament would still “provide vigorously for the prosecution of the war.”
But in the meantime, between Yorktown and the preliminary peace treaty, there were at least forty-four more documented world-wide battles, sieges, actions, incidents, and skirmishes of the American Revolutionary War.
The last Revolutionary War battle, the Naval Battle of Cuddalore, took place off the coast of India. It occurred after the treaty ending the war had been signed, but before news of it could reach the distant combatants.
The French were occupying the city of Cuddalore and the British were besieging it. English naval forces were bombarding the city in support of the siege, so the French sent a naval squadron to intervene. For a few days light and variable winds kept the two forces apart, but on June 20th the French closed with the English ships for combat.
The battle that followed was rather desultory, with little damage on either side. The battle lasted 3 hours and the British withdrew. There was still a bit of back and forth with the siege, but that naval battle counts as the last battle fought in the American Revolutionary War.
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Dominic Serres (1722–1793) was born in France. After studying at a seminary, he moved to Spain where he became a merchant sailor. Eventually, in the Caribbean, he was captured by the British and imprisoned. While in prison he took up painting. Upon release he moved to England and began his career as a painter of maritime subjects, most generally warships of the time.
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| Dominic Serres |
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George du Maurier (1834-1896) was a French novelist and artist who settled in London. He was a caricaturist whose illustrations appeared primarily in the satirical Punch weekly magazine. His subjects were the upper class of the Victorian era.
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| George du Maurier' |
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Philip Norman (1842–1931) was an English artist who focused on old London, to document it before it disappeared. His paintings were frequently accompanied by historical information about the buildings. His palette is rather muted as he is primarily interested in detailing the old buildings.
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| Philip Norman |
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Carl Randall is a contemporary English figurative painter. He lived in Japan for 10 years where his first main body of work, Japan Portraits, was created. Later he was to return to London, England where he continued where he created his London Portraits series.
The images are taken from his website Carl Randall where there are many more examples of his work. You can also buy signed, limited editions of his works at that site.
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| Carl Randall |
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Philip Wilson Steer (1860-1942) was an English artist. He primarily painted landscapes and figure studies. His early work was heavily influenced by French impressionism. Later he evolved into a more naturalistic style, although the play of light was still a feature of his paintings. In his later years he became more minimal in his work, at times so simple they almost seemed abstract.
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| Philip Wilson Steer |
I previously posted a video about a fellow who built and then rode a jet powered scooter. Today we have a video about an English gent who has a coal powered steam motorcycle. He gives a very detailed explanation of how it works. I can't say that, even with all the redundant safety valves and features, sitting atop a boiler so I can chug down a street sounds all that appealing to me. I will say that it looks nice.
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Queen Victoria was the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and also the Empress of India in the mid to late 19th Century. I confess to not knowing much about her -- I just have a caricature of her as a humorless battle-axe of a ruler. What she was really like, I don't know.
She liked to illustrate her journals with drawings and watercolors. This is a small sampling of her doodling. These images are taken from Flashbak's Queen Victoria’s Little-Known Art. There are more at that link.
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| Queen Victoria |
