George Cole Cross Stitch Kits & Patterns (2)
George Cole (1810–1883) was a self-taught English landscape painter whose love for the British countryside was so genuine, so deeply felt, and so consistently expressed across five decades of work that his paintings feel less like pictures and more like acts of devotion to the land itself. Born in Portsmouth and largely self-educated as an artist, Cole developed a style of warm, atmospheric landscape painting that owed something to the Dutch masters he admired and something to the English countryside he never tired of painting — cattle in meadows, rivers catching the last light of afternoon, farmyards in the golden hour, and the particular quality of an English sky that changes its mind every twenty minutes and is magnificent for it.
What makes Cole especially interesting is his story. He taught himself to paint by copying works in collections and studying the old masters with the focused determination of someone who knew exactly what he wanted and was going to figure out how to get there with or without formal instruction. He succeeded admirably — he exhibited at the Royal Academy for decades, built a devoted following of collectors, and produced a body of work of genuine quality and consistent beauty. He was also the father of the painter Vicat Cole, and the two worked side by side for years, painting the same landscapes from different angles with what must have been either a beautifully productive or quietly competitive relationship — possibly both simultaneously, as father-son working relationships in the arts tend to be.
His cattle paintings in particular are exceptional — the animals observed with a patience and accuracy that suggests Cole spent a great deal of time in fields, which he did, and was entirely comfortable doing so. There are worse ways to spend an afternoon. In counted cross stitch, Cole's warm, luminous landscapes and beautifully observed rural English scenes translate into designs of real atmospheric beauty and pastoral calm. Browse our George Cole cross stitch kit collection and choose a premium Cole cross stitch kit or download a George Cole cross stitch pattern instantly.
