Storbritannien, England · 1812–1888
Edward Lear var en britisk forfatter, billedkunstner og illustrator.
Edward Lear (født 12. maj 1812 i Highgate i London, død 29. januar 1888 i San Remo i Italien) var en britisk forfatter, billedkunstner og illustrator. Lear er i dag mest kendt for sine mange limericks og nonsensvers, men han var også tegner og skrev flere rejseskildringer.
Fødsel · 12. maj 1812
Highgate
Familie · aged four (1816 – 1817)
The father’s ruin: Edward and his sister Ann leave the family home
Their father, Jeremiah Lear, defaulted on the London Stock Exchange in the economic upheaval after the Napoleonic Wars; because of the family’s limited means, four-year-old Edward and his sister Ann had to leave the family home, Bowmans Lodge, and live together. Ann went on acting as a mother to him until her death.
Helbred · from age six (c. 1818) · Highgate
From the age of six: frequent epileptic seizures
From the age of six Lear had frequent tonic-clonic seizures, later joined by bronchitis, asthma and, in later life, partial blindness. His first seizure came at a fair near Highgate when he was with his father; the fright and shame stayed with him for life.
Karriere · 1830s
Ornithological draughtsman for the Zoological Society
Lear worked for the Zoological Society and became one of the greatest ornithological artists of his era: he was the first major bird artist to draw birds from life rather than from the skins of specimens. He taught Elizabeth Gould and contributed to John Gould’s works; some compared him to Audubon.
Rejse
A journey through Italy, from Lazio to Sicily
In 1842 Lear began a journey through the Italian peninsula, travelling through Lazio, Rome, Abruzzo, Molise, Apulia, Basilicata, Calabria and Sicily; in notes and drawings he gathered his impressions of the Italian way of life, folk traditions and the beauty of the ancient monuments.
Rejse
Abruzzo along the old shepherds’ track
In 1843 Lear visited Abruzzo: along an old sheep track of the shepherds he went through the Marsica (Celano, Avezzano, Alba Fucens, Trasacco) and the plateau of Cinque Miglia (Castel di Sangro, Alfedena). He sketched the medieval village of Albe with Mount Sirente, described Celano with the Piccolomini castle dominating the plain of Lake Fucino, and noted the winter stillness of the mountains at Castel di Sangro.
Rejse
A journey through Calabria
In 1847 Lear travelled to southern Italy, to Calabria; he described his itinerary among breathtaking landscapes and often surreal characters in Journals of a Landscape Painter in Southern Calabria, whose Calabria section is thought to be among the best of his travel literature.
Rejse · 1848–1849 · Albania, Greece, Egypt
Albania, Macedonia, Egypt and Greece
In 1848–49 Lear visited Albania, Vardar Macedonia, Egypt (all then part of the Ottoman Empire) and Greece. On the way he produced large quantities of coloured wash drawings, which he later converted in his studio into oil and watercolour paintings and into prints for his books.
Familie
Meets Franklin Lushington on Malta
In 1849 on Malta Lear met the young barrister Franklin Lushington and toured southern Greece with him. It was the most fervent and painful friendship of his life and lasted almost forty years, until Lear’s death; Lushington did not wholly reciprocate his feelings.
Begivenhed · Sanremo
A lonely funeral and a headstone with lines by Tennyson
Lear’s funeral was described by the wife of Dr Hassall, his physician, as a sad, lonely affair, none of his many lifelong friends being able to attend. He is buried in the Foce cemetery in San Remo; his headstone is inscribed with lines about Mount Tomohrit in Albania from Tennyson’s poem “To E. L., On His Travels in Greece”.
Død · 29. januar 1888
Sanremo
