Robert Seymour

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Robert Seymour (* 1798 in Somerset , England , † April 20, 1836 in Islington ), was an illustrator of the works of Charles Dickens and a cartoonist .

Robert Seymour; Self portrait

family

Robert Seymour was born in Somerset , England in 1798, the second son of Henry Seymour and Elizabeth Bishop. Soon after moving to London , Henry Seymour died, leaving his wife, two sons and a daughter impoverished. In 1827 Robert's mother also died. He married his cousin Jane Holmes, with whom he had two children, Robert and Jane. Robert Seymour died on April 20, 1836.

First training

After the death of his father, Robert Seymour began an apprenticeship as a pattern maker with a Mr. Vaughan in Duke Street, Smithfield, London. Influenced by the painter Joseph Severn , he developed the ambition to become a professional painter during frequent visits to his uncle Thomas Holmes von Hoxton. He achieved this in 1822 at the age of 24 when his painting of a scene from Torquato Tasso's The Liberated Jerusalem with over 100 figures was exhibited at the Royal Academy .

He was commissioned to illustrate the works of Shakespeare , Milton , Cervantes and Wordsworth . He also produced numerous portraits, miniatures, landscapes, etc., as can be seen in two sketchbooks on display in the Victoria and Albert Museum . Even after the Royal Academy rejected the second work he had submitted, he continued to paint in oils. He learned the technique of copperplate engraving and began making a living with illustrations for books.

Early illustrations

From 1822 to 1827 Seymour created drawings on a wide range of subjects; this included poetry, melodramas, children's books, topographical and scientific works. Regular replenishment of such orders enabled him to live comfortably. In 1827, when his mother died and he married, his publishers Knight and Lacey went bankrupt, who still owed him a substantial amount of money.

Etching and engraving

Seymour got permanent employment in 1827 when his etchings and engravings were accepted by publisher Thomas McLean. He learned to make etchings on the newfangled steel plates and then specialized in caricatures and other humorous subjects. After mastering the art of etching, Seymour created lithographs as single prints and book illustrations from 1830 . He was invited by McLean to produce Looking Glass , a cartoon magazine that had previously been engraved throughout by William Heath. For the following six years until his death, Seymour lithographed four large sheets each month for this magazine, each of which usually contained several drawings.

Conflicts with the Figaro

From 1831 Seymour worked for a new magazine called Figaro in London (a forerunner of Punch ) and created 300 humorous drawings and political caricatures to complement the texts of the owner and editor Gilbert Abbott à Beckett (1811-1856) on current events and political topics of the day. À Beckett was a friend of Charles Dickens and publisher of George Cruikshank . The partnership ended in 1834 when à Beckett suffered severe financial losses, refused to pay Seymour outstanding payments, and started a public campaign of gruesome slander. Seymour gave up and only returned when Henry replaced Mayhew à Beckett as Figaro editor. These humiliating public slanders led the coroner to view suicide as the cause of Seymour's death.

Popular outstanding illustrator

Still, Seymour was now considered as an excellent illustrator as George Cruikshank and one of the greatest artists since William Hogarth . At the height of his prosperity, Seymour began independently publishing a new series of lithographs in 1834. These drawings depict expeditions from Cockneys with too much equipment and too little experience, following cats, birds and stray pigs on foot and on horseback, just as he had seen them on his 1827 fishing and shooting expeditions with his friend Cruikshank.

The Pickwickier

Seymour continued these popular themes, creating etchings for Edward Chapman of Chapman and Hall depicting the activities of a sports club. Chapman agreed that the work should be published monthly with descriptive texts by Charles Dickens . The first part of the new work Die Pickwickier (original title The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club , also known as Pickwick Papers or Pickwick ) appeared, but before the second edition, Seymour died on April 20, 1836 at the age of 38. It was officially reported that Robert Seymour was shot with a hunting rifle in his summer home behind his apartment on Liverpool Road in Islington. According to the coroner's examination, which took place two days later on April 22, 1836, the cause of Seymour's death was "Temporary insanity", a glossing over expression for suicide. Because of the cruel laws of the time, Robert Seymour was not given a religious burial. In addition, his family lost all property rights and his widow lost his rights to his authors' fees as a result.

When Chapman republished the Pickwickies , which had become a bestseller, in book form, he added a statement from Dickens: “ Mr. Seymour never originated or suggested an incident, a phrase, or a word to be found in this book. Mr. Seymour died when only twenty-four pages of this book were published, and when assuredly not forty-eight were written. [...] All of the input from the artist was in response to the words that had already been written. ”(German:“ Mr. Seymour did not invent or suggest a single event, not a sentence and not a word in this book. Mr. Seymour died when only 24 pages of this book were published and less than 48 were definitely written. [...] All of the artist's contributions were an answer to the words that were already written. ”) Robert Seymour's drawing The Pickwickiers in Wardle's Kitchen , which illustrates an episode on page 50, three months after his death, however, provides the obvious counter-evidence to Dickens ' Presentation.

Obituaries

“The success of the Pickwick Papers owes more to the artist's pen than to the author's pen. It is not widely known that poor Seymour invented the characters Sam Weller and Pickwick before a single line of the work was written. "

- The Sun

“Seymour provided the first ideas for the Pickwick Papers. Mr. Dickens wrote the first chapters from his engravings. [...] Seymour was one of the most important artists since the days of Hogarth. "

- Franklin's Miscellany

literature

Web links

Commons : Engravings by R. Seymour  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Pictorial Pickwickiania
personal data
SURNAME Seymour, Robert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Illustrator of the works of Charles Dickens and caricaturist
DATE OF BIRTH 1798
PLACE OF BIRTH Somerset , England
DATE OF DEATH April 20, 1836
Place of death Islington