John Robert Cozens

John Robert Cozens worked almost entirely in watercolour, and his landscapes of the Alps and Italy are quiet, misty and poetic, built from soft blues, greens and greys rather than bright colour. They are more about mood and distance than detail.

He was born in London in 1752, the son of the drawing master Alexander Cozens. He made two long trips abroad: in 1776 to 1779 with the collector Richard Payne Knight through Switzerland and Italy, and in 1782 to 1783 with William Beckford to Naples and the south. Views like Isola Bella on Lago Maggiore and the lakes and hills near Rome came from these journeys. His drawings were later copied by the young Turner and Thomas Girtin, and John Constable called him the greatest genius that ever touched landscape.

Painted in oil, his compositions keep their simple structure: a calm lake or valley, soft hills and a great open sky.