John William North 'The visions of a city tree', from Wayside Posies, edited by Robert Buchanan (1867)
C.194.b.17      18.5 x 14.5 cm

Wood-engraved by Dalziel Brothers

John William North (1842-1924) is unusual among the Idyllic School artists in that his few designs are almost exclusively concerned with landscape. He drew with a particular intensity that marks him out from his better-known contemporary, Birket Foster. While the latter rendered landscape in a competent but essentially formulaic manner, North's understated draughtsmanship was often remarkably evocative.