Cozens, John Robert
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- Cozens, John Robert
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(1752 - 97), watercolourist, s. of Alexander Cozens; exh. SA 1767 - 71, RA 1776; nervous breakdown in 1794.
1776 - 9 Florence, Rome (by 27 Nov. 1776 - 8 Apr. 1779)
1782 - 3 [dep. Dover 16 May 1782] Verona (10 Jun.), Padua (11 Jun.), Venice (13 - 16 Jun.), Padua ( - 20 Jun.), Bologna, Rome (25 Jun. - ), Naples (6 Jul. - 9 Dec.) with visit to Paestum (Nov.); Rome (11 Dec. 1782 - 15 Sep. 1783), Terni, Florence ( - by 24 Sep.), Bologna, Isola Bella (Oct.) [London by 19 Nov.]
'Of a silent, hesitating disposition, and of grave manners',1 John Cozens set out with Richard Payne Knight in August 1776 to make a brief tour of the Swiss Alps before proceeding to Italy.2 Both were in Rome in November, and on the 27th Cozens was one of a large party of English artists met by Thomas Jones in the English Coffee House.3 It was presumably while on his way to Rome that he was able to acquire his father's lost drawings in Florence (see Alexander Cozens).
Cozens's drawings of Rome and the Campagna are dated from April 1777 to 1778 and, particularly in a series of views of grottos, they displayed an original and dramatic sensibility. But he was also engaged in working up earlier compositions. He began the finished watercolours from the Swiss expedition and he was commissioned by Payne Knight to make large watercolours of Sicily from sketches made by Charles Gore and Philipp Hackert in 1777. By 1 June 1778 Cozens, not in good health, was staying in a villa outside the Porta Pia 'for the benefit of the Air', as Thomas Jones recorded. He explored the surrounding countryside riding 'on a jackAss which he had purchased for that purpose', while Jones, 'with
a nice Poney', frequently accompanied him.4 On 8 April 1779 Jones noted that 'Little Cousins set off this day [from Rome] for England'.5
Cozens began his second expedition as draughtsman for William Beckford, his father's friend, for whom he had already executed some Italian views in 1780.6 Beckford's demanding nature and melancholy sensibility helped to bring out the deepest poetry in Cozens's work, as in his Storm over Padua (Tate Gallery) and Monte della Madonna with Petrarch's Residence (YCBA). The tour was brisk; within six weeks they went from Venice, via Padua, Bologna and Rome to Naples. There they were afflicted by malaria. On 14 July 1782 Thomas Jones found 'poor little Cousins' ill in bed with a fever, but he was recovered by 3 August.7 On 10 September Beckford departed 'leaving behind his Draughtsman Cousins Once more a free Agent and loosed from the Shackles of fantastic folly and Caprice'.8 Beckford was later to call Cozens an ungrateful scoundrel, though his reason for doing so remains obscure.9 Cozens made several excursions from Naples, including visits to Salerno and Paestum, where he was in November. In October he had spent a day with Sir William Hamilton who told Beckford 'the vermin plays a good stick on the violioncello', adding that 'he has made some charming sketches but I see by his book that he is indolent as usual'.(10) His last Naples drawing is dated 9 December; on the 11th he paid the first of several visits to Allan and John Ramsay in Rome.(11) He also saw Angelica Kauffman, Gavin Hamilton and Sir George Beaumont (whose drawings began to imitate the Cozens style). He finally left Rome on 15 September 1783, and he was talking to Thomas Jones in London on 19 November.
Two of Cozens's grand tour sketchbooks of 1782 - 3 are now in the Whitworth AG, Manchester.(12)
1. Farington Diary (2 Jul. 1794). 2. See Sloan, Cozens, 109 - 37. A.P. Opp?, Cozens, 109 - 10. 3. Jones Memoirs, 53. 4. Ibid., 73. 5. Ibid., 87. 6. Sloan, Cozens, 138; see 138 - 57, and Opp?, Cozens, 111 - 14. 7. Jones Memoirs, 113. 8. Ibid., 114. 9. Farington Diary (17 Jun. 1797). 10. Opp?, Cozens, 112. 11. Ramsay jnl.MSS (11 Dec. 1782; also 19 Dec. 1782 and 21, 25 Feb. 1783). 12. See Knight 1982, 162 - 3.