PAUL

See also:

• FALCONER, HUGH (18o8–1865)
• FALCONER, WILLIAM (1732–1769)

FALCONER

See also:

• POOLE
• POOLE, MATTHEW (1624-1699)
• PAUL FALCONER POOLE (1806-1879)
• POOLE, REGINALD STUART (1832-1895)

POOLE (1806-1879)  , English painter, was born at Bristol in 18o6 . Though self-taught his fine feeling for colour, poetic sympathy and dramatic power gained for him a high position among British artists . He exhibited his first work in the Royal Academy at the age of twenty-five, the subject being " The Well," a scene in Naples . There was an interval of seven years before he next exhibited his " Farewell, Farewell " in 1837, which was followed by the " Emigrant's Departure," " Hermann and Dorothea " and " By the Waters of Babylon." In 1843 his position was made secure by his " Solomon Eagle," and by his success in the Cartoon Exhibition, in which he received from the Fine Art Commissioners a prize of £300 sterling . After his exhibition of the " Surrender of Syon House " he was elected an associate of the Royal Academy in 1846, and was made an academician in 1861 . He died in 1879 . Poole's subjects divide themselves into two orders—one idyllic, the other dramatic . Of the former his " May Day " (1852) is a typical example . Of both styles there were excellent examples to be seen in the small collection of his works shown at Burlington House in the Winter Exhibition of 1883-1884 . Among his early dramatic pictures was " Solomon Eagle exhorting the People to Repentance during the Plague of 1665," painted in 1843 . To this class belongs also the " Messenger announcing to Job the Irruption of the Sabeans and the Slaughter of the Servants " (exhibited in 1850), and " Robert, Duke of Normandy.and Arletta " (1848) . Finer examples of his more mature power in this direction are to be found in his " Prodigal Son," painted in 1869; the " Escape of Glaucus and Ione with the blind girl Nydia from Pompeii" (186o); and " Cunstaunce sent adrift by the Constable of Alla, King of Northumberland," painted in 1868 .

More peaceful than these are the "

Song of Troubadours " (painted in 1854) and the " Goths in Italy" (1851), the latter an important historical work of great. power and beauty . Of a less lofty strain, but still more beautiful in its workmanship, is the " Seventh Day of the Decameron," painted in 1857 . In this picture Poole rises to his full height as a colourist . In. his pastorals he is soft and tender, as in the" Mountain Path " (1853), the " Water-cress Gatherers " (187o), the " Shepston Maiden " (1872) . But when he turns to the grander and more sublime views of nature his work is bold and vigorous . Fine examples of this style may be seen in the " Vision of Ezekiel " of the National Gallery, " Solitude " (1876), the " Entrance to the Cave of Mammon " (1895), the "Dragon's Cavern" (1877), and perhaps best of all in the "Lion in the Path " (1873), a great representation of mountain and cloud form .