Watercolour and gum arabic on paper on mahogany
Tate Britain
Tate Collection
Works with images
Works on display
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>
A Hilly Scene
Purchased 1948
architecture
astronomy
church
corn
emotions, concepts and ideas
England
England, South East
England, Southern
farmland
features
fertility
fertility - harvest moon
gate
hill
idyll
Kent
landscape
moon
mysticism
nature
night
places
plants and flowers
religion and belief
religious
seasons
Shoreham
spire
spirituality
star
summer
symbols and personifications
times of the day
townscapes / man-made features
tree
UK cities, towns and villages
UK counties
UK countries and regions
universal concepts
<p>William Blake's 1821 wood engravings illustrating Robert Thornton's 'Virgil' greatly inspired Palmer. He wrote 'they are visions of little dells, and nooks, and corners of Paradise [with] such a mystic and dreamy glimmer as penetrates... the inmost soul'. For a few years after Palmer moved to the Kent village of Shoreham in 1826, he found the local landscape perfectly matched these Blakean visions. Blake, too, in a rare trip out of London once briefly stayed in Shoreham. This work is partly painted in tempera, as were some of Palmer's other Shoreham works. It was also a medium used by Blake.</p><p><em>Gallery label, September 2004</em></p>
paper unique watercolour gum arabic mahogany
15 October 2001 – 7 July 2002
2002-07-07
15 October 2001 – 7 July 2002
2002-07-07
2001-10-15
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2001-10-15
William Blake and His Followers
Collection based display
21 October 2005 – 28 May 2006
2006-05-28
21 October 2005 – 22 January 2006
2006-01-22
2005-10-21
British Museum (London, UK)
http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk
7 March 2006 – 28 May 2006
2006-05-28
2006-03-07
Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, USA)
http://www.metmuseum.org
2005-10-21
Samuel Palmer, 1805-1881; Vison and Landscape
Loan-out
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
13 February 2009 – 30 October 2010
2010-10-30
13 February 2009 – 30 October 2010
2010-10-30
2009-02-13
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2009-02-13
Visionary Landscapes
Collection based display
16 February 2011 – 21 August 2011
2011-08-21
16 February 2011 – 21 August 2011
2011-08-21
2011-02-16
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2011-02-16
Watercolour
Exhibition
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
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
26 September 2022
26 September 2022
2022-09-26
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2022-09-26
Gallery 10
Collection based display
29 October 2024 – 30 September 2025
2025-09-30
30 October 2024 – 2 February 2025
2025-02-02
2024-10-30
Reggia di Venaria Reale (Turin, Italy)
2024-10-29
William Blake and the Age of Romantic Fantasy: British Art & Imagination
Loan-out
A Hilly Scene
support: 206 × 137 mm
frame: 298 × 226 × 32 mm
Purchased 1948
<p>This is one of Palmer's finest works, painted shortly after he settled in <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> in Kent. The Darent valley appeared to Palmer a perfect, neo-Platonic world and he called it the 'Valley of Vision'.  In this picture he creates an ideal image of pastoral contentment, unaffected by the outside world.  The unseasonal combination of flowering horse-chestnut and huge ripe heads of wheat symbolise fertility and the richness of the soil, and Palmer may have been inspired by Edmund Spenser's lines from the <i>Faërie Queene </i>(1596), Book iii, Canto VI, beginning 'There is continuall spring, and harvest there'. The prominent church spire signifies a divine presence within 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/l/landscape" title="Glossary definition for 'Landscape'"><span>landscape</span></a>. This is emphasised by the gothic arch created by the branches at the top of 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>, which relates closely to <i>Coming from Evening Church </i>(1830, Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/palmer-coming-from-evening-church-n03697" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N03697</span></a>). In the background, the characteristic rounded hills of Shoreham and the crescent moon, here shown on its back, were later adopted as motifs by artists of the mid-twentieth century.  Inspired by John Milton's poetic evocations, the moon in its various phases became a recurring feature in Palmer's work.

</p><p>Palmer's pictures of this period are intensely personal, but often have a mystical, even visionary quality comparable to the work of William Blake (1757-1827). Palmer was greatly inspired by Blake's illustrations to Ambrose Philips' imitation of Virgil's <i>First Eclogue</i> (1821), and 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' (A.H. Palmer, <i>The Life and Letters of Samuel Palmer</i>, 1892, pp.15-16). In <i>A Hilly Scene </i>Palmer adopts 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/f/fresco" title="Glossary definition for 'Fresco'"><span>fresco</span></a> technique (really a form of <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>) which is comparable to Blake's 'fresco' <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/panel" title="Glossary definition for 'Panel'"><span>panels</span></a> such as <i>The Ghost of a Flea</i> (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/blake-the-ghost-of-a-flea-n05889" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05889</span></a>), and to which the brilliant star shining through the branches at the top right appears to refer.

</p><p>The Shoreham works are characterised by a deliberate medievalism and stylistically they were influenced by the work of such Northern European artists as Breughel, Dürer, Lucas Van Leyden and Giulio Bonasone. This particular picture is packed with detail, reminiscent of 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/m/miniature" title="Glossary definition for 'Miniature'"><span>miniatures</span></a> found in illuminated manuscripts. Palmer may also have been inspired by works such as Mantegna's <i>The Agony in the Garden</i> (1460, National Gallery, London).

</p><p><b>Further reading:</b> <br/>Raymond Lister, <i>Samuel Palmer and 'The Ancients'</i>, exhibition catalogue, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge 1984, pp.10-11, reproduced no.11.<br/>Raymond Lister, <i>Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of Samuel Palmer</i>, Cambridge 1988, pp.56-7, no.66, reproduced p.56.<i> <br/></i>Leslie Parris, <i>Landscape in Britain c.1750-1850</i>, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1973, pp.120-1, no.293, reproduced p.121.

</p><p>Frances Fowle<br/>December 2000<br/></p>
Summary
2005-09-15T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
<p>William Blake's 1821 <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/w/wood-engraving" title="Glossary definition for 'Wood engraving'"><span>wood engravings</span></a> illustrating Robert Thornton's 'Virgil' greatly inspired Palmer. He wrote 'they are visions of little dells, and nooks, and corners of Paradise [with] such a mystic and dreamy glimmer as penetrates...  the inmost soul'. For a few years after Palmer moved to the Kent village of <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> in 1826, he found the local landscape perfectly matched these Blakean visions. Blake, too, in a rare  trip out of London once briefly stayed in Shoreham. This work is partly painted in <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>, as were some of Palmer's other Shoreham works. It was also 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/m/medium" title="Glossary definition for 'Medium'"><span>medium</span></a> used by Blake.</p>
Display caption
2004-09-08T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
architecture astronomy church corn emotions, concepts and ideas England England, South East England, Southern farmland features fertility fertility - harvest moon gate hill idyll Kent landscape moon mysticism nature night places plants and flowers religion and belief religious seasons Shoreham spire spirituality star summer symbols and personifications times of the day townscapes / man-made features tree UK cities, towns and villages UK counties UK countries and regions universal concepts