Thomas Rowlandson

Rowlandson, Thomas (1756/7–1827). Artist. Social commentator rather than caricaturist, sardonic rather than angry, Rowlandson’s eye for life’s comedies and absurdities led him to favour types rather than individuals, burlesque rather than biting satire. A Royal Academy student and fascinated by physiognomy, his prodigious output of pen-drawings, water-colours, and prints, demonstrating mastery of line and billowing rococo shapes, were so full of gusto that he has been seen as a personification of his age. If inclined to the characteristic excesses of the period (hard drinking, gambling, promiscuity), his view of the world depicted its manners, vices, politics, and incidents, but without censoriousness. A friend of Gillray, he worked for the publisher Ackermann, creating ‘Dr Syntax’, but technique and vision suffered after 1800 in consequence of his productivity, and he founded no school.