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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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John Robert Cozens
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(1752–1797) English watercolourist, son of Alexander Cozens. Taught by his father, and beginning in monochrome, he soon developed great subtlety in his use of colour. He was able to capture, as no one else before him, the romantic mystery and grandeur of the landscape encountered in the two foreign journeys which shaped his art. In the first (1776-9) he accompanied the collector Richard Payne Knight to the Swiss Alps and then spent eighteen months travelling in Italy, often with Thomas *Jones. On the second, through the Tirol to Italy (1782-3), his patron was the eccentric William *Beckford. Back in London Cozens worked up his continental sketches into finished watercolours, but also painted the local scenery. In the last four years of his life he fell victim to severe mental illness.
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