1853

The Storm (The Refuge)

English, 1792 - 1882

Linnell disapproved of organized religion but believed that God was reflected in the sublimity of nature. Here, he conveys the shivering leaves and eerie light just before a storm, capturing the instant when lightning strikes a distant church steeple. In the foreground a family of farmers, dwarfed by the towering thunderclouds, rushes for shelter as their dog leaps ahead.

Linnell was a patron of William Blake and a close associate of "The Ancients," a group of younger painters and engravers (including Linnell’s son-in-law Samuel Palmer) who drew inspiration from Blake’s mystic interpretations of the British landscape. By the 1840s Linnell had gained a reputation as one of Britain’s leading landscape artists. Though his works depict an idyllic countryside untouched by urbanization or industry, many of his most important patrons were industrialists. This work, for example, was originally owned by Joseph Fenton, who built and owned a cotton mill outside Manchester.