Ink and gouache on card
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/samuel-palmer-411" aria-label="More by Samuel Palmer" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Samuel Palmer</a>
Harvest Moon Drawing A Pastoral Scene
Purchased 1922
adults
agriculture and fishing
agriculture, gardening & fishing
animals: mammals
astronomy
figure
harvesting
herdsman / herdswoman
herdsman / herdswoman, shepherd / shepherdess
hill
landscape
moon
objects
people
rocky
sheaf
sheep
tree
work and occupations
<p>This work is a study for A Pastoral Scene 1835, a painting in oil and tempera, now in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. A shepherd and shepherdess tend their flock of sheep in the foreground, while harvesters gather ripe corn in the fields and a crescent moon rises in the distance. The image suggests fertility and pastoral contentment, unaffected by the outside world.</p><p>Like Blake, Palmer particularly admired the poetry of Virgil and Milton. Palmer was drawn to Milton’s evocations of nature, especially the effects of the moon, in which both he and Blake saw a spiritual message.</p><p><em>Gallery label, September 2004</em></p>
paper unique ink gouache card
24 March 2003 – 17 November 2003
2003-11-17
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2003-03-24
Blake and Illustration
Collection based display
1 April 2006 – 16 April 2007
2007-04-16
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2006-04-01
Blake in the 1940s
Collection based display
19 October 2007 – 11 January 2009
2009-01-11
19 October 2007
2007-10-19
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2007-10-19
Visionary Landscapes
Collection based display
1 November 2011 – 21 October 2012
2012-10-21
1 November 2011 – 19 February 2012
2012-02-19
2011-11-01
State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts (Moscow, Russia)
3 July 2012 – 21 October 2012
2012-10-21
2012-07-03
Fundació “la Caixa” (Madrid, Spain)
2011-11-01
Blake Exhibition
Loan-out
13 May 2013 – 6 October 2013
2013-10-06
13 May 2013 – 6 October 2013
2013-10-06
2013-05-13
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2013-05-13
Landscape in Blake
Collection based display
30 March 2018 – 17 June 2018
2018-06-17
2 April 2018 – 17 June 2018
2018-06-17
2018-04-02
Tate Liverpool (Liverpool, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/liverpool/
2018-03-30
Ken's Show: Exploring the Unseen
Collection based display
12 August 2019 – 17 March 2020
2020-03-17
12 August 2019
2019-08-12
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2019-08-12
Blake Followers
Collection based display
The Harvest Moon: Drawing for ‘A Pastoral Scene’
support: 152 × 184 mm
Purchased 1922
<p>This work is a study for a <i>A Pastoral Scene</i>, 1835, a work in oil and <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/t/tempera" title="Glossary definition for 'Tempera'"><span>tempera</span></a>, now in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Typical of this period in Palmer's oeuvre, it represents a pastoral <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/l/landscape" title="Glossary definition for 'Landscape'"><span>landscape</span></a>: a shepherd and shepherdess tend their flock of sheep in the foreground, while harvesters gather up the glowing ripe corn in the fields and a crescent moon rises in the distance. The <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/composition" title="Glossary definition for 'Composition'"><span>composition</span></a> combines elements from the landscape around <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/t/the-ancients" title="Glossary definition for 'The Ancients'"><span>Shoreham</span></a>, where Palmer was living, and the craggy shoreline of North Devon, which he had visited in 1834.  The Devon scenery made an important impact on him, and, as his son, A.H. Palmer, later recalled, 'even before he had explored it, [it] seems to have commended itself to my father's affections, and afterwards became his ideal of English Scenery' (A.H. Palmer, <i>The Life and Letters of Samuel Palmer</i>, 1892, p.55.)

</p><p>Shoreham and the Darent valley also appealed to Palmer and seemed to represent a perfect, neo-Platonic world.  In his pictures he attempted to create an image of fertility and pastoral contentment, unaffected by the outside world. These works were partly inspired by William Blake's (1757-1827) illustrations to Ambrose Philips' imitation of Virgil's <i>First Eclogue</i> (1821). Palmer could have been describing his own work when he wrote of the Blake <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/e/engraving" title="Glossary definition for 'Engraving'"><span>engravings</span></a>: 'They are visions of little dells, and nooks, and corners of Paradise; models of the exquisitist pitch of intense poetryThere is in all such a mystic and dreamy glimmer as penetrates and kindles the inmost soul' (Palmer, pp.15-16). 

</p><p>The profile of the hill closely resembles that of the hill in <i>Landscape in the Roman Campagna</i> by Gaspard Poussin in the Dulwich Gallery, which Palmer often visited. The characteristic rounded hills of Shoreham and the crescent moon were later adopted as motifs by artists of the mid-twentieth century.  Often inspired by Milton's poetic evocations, moonlight was a recurring feature in Palmer's work, representing a divine presence in nature.

</p><p>Palmer's works of this period are characterised by a deliberate archaism or <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/primitivism" title="Glossary definition for 'Primitivism'"><span>primitivism</span></a> and stylistically they were influenced by the work of such fifteenth and sixteenth century Northern European artists as Dürer, Breughel, Lucas Van Leyden and Giulio Bonasone, as well as Blake.

</p><p><b>Further reading:</b> <br/>Robert C. Cafritz, Lawrence Gowing and David Rosand, <i>Places of Delight: The Pastoral Landscape</i>, exhibition catalogue, The Philips Collection, Washington DC, 1988, no.99, reproduced p.193.<br/>Raymond Lister, <i>Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of Samuel Palmer</i>, Cambridge 1988, p.102, no.214, reproduced p.102.<i> <br/></i>James Sellars, <i>Samuel Palmer</i>, London 1974, reproduced pl.101.

</p><p>Frances Fowle<br/>December 2000<br/></p>
Summary
2005-09-15T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
<div>
    This work is a study for A      Pastoral Scene 1835, a <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a> in oil and      <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/t/tempera" title="Glossary definition for 'Tempera'"><span>tempera</span></a>, now in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. A      shepherd and shepherdess tend their flock of sheep in the foreground, while harvesters gather ripe corn in the fields      and a crescent moon rises  in the distance. The image suggests fertility and pastoral contentment, unaffected by the outside world.   </div>
<div>
<br/> </div>
<div>
    Like Blake, Palmer particularly admired the poetry of Virgil and Milton. Palmer was drawn to Milton’s evocations of nature, especially the effects of the moon, in which both he and Blake saw a      spiritual message.  </div>

Display caption
2004-09-08T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
adults agriculture and fishing agriculture, gardening & fishing animals: mammals astronomy figure harvesting herdsman / herdswoman herdsman / herdswoman, shepherd / shepherdess hill landscape moon objects people rocky sheaf sheep tree work and occupations