* COX, DAVID, was born at Birmingham in 1793. About the commencement of the present century the representations of land scapes in water-colours from feeble and ineffective tinted drawings had been raised, chiefly by the genius of Girtin and Turner, almost to rivalry with paintings in oil. Among the many young artists who devoted themselves to this new art, David Cox soon distinguished himself by decided originality of style and familiarity with nature under many of her most striking aspects; and for some forty years he continued, amid the manifold fluctuations of artistic fashion, to pursue his own quiet course, at times neglected or depreciated, at others eagerly praised and patronised by the critics and connoisseurs, but always finding a goodly number of admires-a. The common notion respecting his pictures is that they are mere rough sketches intended only to suggest, somewhat rudely and coarsely, certain natural effects' as they are designated. But however coarse and rude they may seem in execution, the works of Mr. Cox are the results not only of a close observance of natural phenomena, but of a well-considered method of conveying his own impressions. Ye paints on the roughest paper, and entirely disregards all minute details, and what is commonly called ' finish.' Yet though often seemingly mere hasty blots—the smaller drawings at least—his pictures convey to an that has observed scenes and circumstances such as are there under similar conditions of season and weather, the broad general appear ance—the poetic glance—of tho whole view, with singular directness, fidelity, and vividness. Often indeed Mr. Cox seems to fail in realising
his intention, but his successes are very striking. Rain and wind, bursts of sunshine over dark and lonely moors, long stretches of flat moist sands, dank herbage by the skirts of a marsh, the harvest or the hay-field with the brooding or the passing storm, and a score other of what had been regarded as among the scenes and phenomena to be rather avoided than sought after by the landscape-sketcher, he showed to bo not merely full of poetry but also of singular pictorial capability. Of late years Mr. Cox has, it must he confessed, become more loose and rough in style, and his works have shown a more decided man nerism than ever; • yet the old vigour is there, and not a little of the old truth and poetry. Some of his recent sunsets and more sombre effects have been equal to almost anything he ever painted.
Mr. Cox was one of the early members of the Society of Painters in Water-Colours, and in the gallery of that society his pictures have in London been almost exclusively exhibited. Many years hack Mr. Cox published a series of very suggestive lessons on water-colour painting, but they have long been out of print. He has for some years resided in the vicinity of Birmingham. Mr. Cox has a son, David, who is an associate of the Society of Painters in Water-Colours, and an able painter, but he appears inclined to imitate somewhat too directly his father's peculiar manner.