Washington Allston Biography

Washington Allston (November 5, 1779 – July 9, 1843) was an American poet and influential painter, born in Waccamaw Parish, South Carolina. Allston pioneered America's Romantic movement of landscape painting. He was well known during his lifetime for his experiments with dramatic subject matter and his bold use of light and atmospheric color.

Named in honor of the leading American general of the Revolution, Washington Allston graduated from Harvard College in 1800 and moved to Charleston, South Carolina for a short time before sailing to England in May 1801. He was admitted to the Royal Academy in London in September, when painter Benjamin West was then the president.

From 1803 to 1808 he visited the great museums of Paris and then for several years those of Italy, where he met Washington Irving in Rome, and Coleridge, his lifelong friend. In 1809 Allston married Ann Channing, sister of William Ellery Channing.[2] Samuel F. B. Morse was one of Allston's art pupils and accompanied Allston to Europe in 1811. After traveling throughout western Europe, Allston finally settled in London, where he won fame and prizes for his pictures.

Allston was also a published writer. In London in 1813, he published The Sylphs of the Seasons, with Other Poems, republished in Boston, Massachusetts later that year. His wife died in February 1815, leaving him saddened, lonely, and homesick for America.

In 1818 he returned to the United States and lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts for 25 years. He was the uncle of the artists George Whiting Flagg and Jared Bradley Flagg, both of whom studied painting under him.

In 1841 he published Monaldi, a romance illustrating Italian life, and in 1850, a volume of his Lectures on Art, and Poems.

Allston was buried in the Dana family plot in the Old Burying Ground.Allston died on July 9, 1843, at age 64. Allston is buried in Harvard Square, in "the Old Burying Ground" between the First Parish Church and Christ Church.