Shepherd boy playing a flute
Linnell, John, the elder (1792-1882)
- Yale Center for British Art
Paul Mellon Collection[Museum inv. no.: B1981.25.420]
Item location
Description
The central figure in the painting is a shepherd boy wearing a hat, standing, holding a staff, looking toward the viewer and playing a recorder; around him are sheep and a dog; in the background are trees, a cottage and hills. Image related to poetry of the time. COMMENTARY FROM MUSEUM WEBSITE:John Linnell purchased a copy of Robert Bloomfield’s “The Farmer's Boy: A Rural Poem” (1800) around 1815 (Story, 1982, p. 79). A self-taught “Peasant Poet,” Bloomfield was also known as “The Suffolk Poet” for his commemoration of agricultural life in that area. He acknowledged the tedium and anxiety of living off the land in the story of Giles, the farmer’s boy, and his various labors throughout the seasons. In summer, for example, “The Farmer’s life displays in every part A moral lesson to the sensual heart Though in the lap of Plenty, thoughtful still, He looks beyond the present good or ill”. (Wickett and Duval, 1971, p. 80) The poem cycle celebrates a rural community and the sense of the divine spirit that pervaded its pursuits. As Linnell turned away from organized religion and toward a sacred conception of landscape, he would have appreciated this sentiment. His 1830 painting “The Farmer Boy”, exhibited at the Royal Academy, commemorates this connection to Bloomfield. “The Shepherd Boy” is thought to be a smaller replica of this earlier work, likewise inspired by Bloomfield and the motto of “The Farmer's Boy”, taken from Alexander Pope’s poem “Summer—The Second Pastoral; or Alexis” (1709): “a Shepherd's boy, he seeks no better name.” The child gently engages the viewer, looking up as he plays the fipple flute, an instrument similar to a recorder. The humble origins of the shepherd boy and his humility parallel the pastoral identity of Christ as a “shepherd of men.” Linnell’s close relationship with Samuel Palmer in this period motivated this exploration. In 1828 and 1829, Linnell and George Richmond visited Palmer at Shoreham in Kent, where the younger artist was engaged in his own visionary experiments with landscape painting. Linnell maintained this symbiotic relationship among landscape study, artistic practice, and religious belief throughout his career.
--Morna O'Neill,2007-01
Iconclass
47I221herding, herdsman, herdswoman, shepherd, shepherdess, cowherd, etc.
41D221(HAT)
head-gear: hat
41D463
walking-stick, staff, cane
47I2211
herd, flock
34B11
dog
48CC73511
recorder (musical instrument) - CC - out of doors
25HH
landscapes - HH - ideal landscapes
25HH211
stream, source of river or stream - HH - ideal landscapes
25G3
trees
41A163
cottage
Instruments [MIMO Code] (notes)
Recorder [4039]RIdIM images
Image URLs
image link 1Bibliographic references
Baskett, John. Paul Mellon's legacy, a passion for British art: Masterpieces from the Yale Center for British Art (New Haven: Yale Center for British Art, 2007) 291, no. 105, pl. 105.Crouan, Katharine. John Linnell: A centennial exhibition (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982) 25, no. 68, pl. 68.
Lister, Raymond. British romantic painting (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989) no. 47.
Payne, Christiana. Toil and plenty: Images of the agricultural landscape in England, 1780-1890 (New Haven: Yale Center for British Art, 1993) 101, cat. 19, pl. 12.
Painting in England 1700-1850: Collection of Mr. & Mrs. Paul Mellon (Richmond, VA: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 1963) vol. 1, 154, no. 294.