Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg,
Smugglers Landing in a Storm, 1791
1740-1812
Trained in France, Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg started his
career in England as a scenery painter for the famous actor David
Garrick’s theatre. He gained an international reputation for his
innovation. He experimented with artificial light and painted
transparencies, where a scene is painted on glass and has a light
shone behind it. This inspired artists like Gainsborough and
Reynolds.
De Loutherbourg became a successful landscape painter, but his
style remained theatrical. His flamboyant pictures influenced the
Romantic movement.