Inspiration (II): David Roberts

 

In this second delivery I’ll talk about David Roberts, a romantic scotish painter of nineteenth century.

David Roberts (1796-1864) was born in Edinburgh in a modest family (his father was a shoemaker and when he was ten years old apprenticed him). In 1815 got a job as a house painter and as a decorator the following year, it allowed him to work in theaters as Pantheon Theatre in Edinburgh (1816), Royal Theatre in Glasgow (1819) or Coburhg Theatre (1822).

It’s from this point he begins focusing in oil painting and creates works that portray several english and scottish landscapes and other places in Europe (among others Amiens, Dieppe, Brussels and Seville).



 

In 1838 begins a trip to Egypt and Middle East, following  time’s fad, that will allow him to paint a grat number of drawings and watercolor sketches and, on his return to Edinburgh in 1840, gave rise to various series of litographs of grat success: The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt and Nubia (London 1842-49, 3 volumes), Egypt and Nubia (London 1846-49, 3 volumes and later printing: London 1856, 6 volumes) and Cities of North Africa (London 1852), Queen Victoria being the main subscriber.

In last years of his life travelled de Italy (gaving rise to anther series of paintings) and joined Royal Academy, his last works being diverse landscapes of London seen from the Thames.

Roberts’ works corresponding to his travels to Egypt and Holy Land will show you an exotic and colorful world coinciding with european fascination of the rediscovery of Pharaonic Egypt and Middle East that can be used just to acclimate stories that occur in these places or that need an arabic atmosphere or ones in which the players discover the remains of ancient civilizations.

To finish I can remark that La Factoria de Ideas used the painting of Temple of Isis at Philae island made by Roberts in 1838 for the cover of 2001 spanish edition of The Cairo Guidebook.

From left to right: Original cover, Roberts’ temple of Isis painting and cover of the 2001 spanish edition

To obtain more information you can visit the following links:

David Roberts’ biography in english wikipedia
David Roberts’ biography in spanish wikipedia
Paintings of David Roberts at Commons
The Cairo Guidebook review of spanish edition at Leyenda.net

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