The Hermit

Philip James de Loutherbourg painted The Hermit in the tradition of Salvator Rosa's wild, atmospheric landscapes inhabited by contemplative solitary figures — a type he had encountered through his training in Paris under Casanova before emigrating to England in 1771. De Loutherbourg was the leading practitioner of the Sublime in British landscape painting before Turner and Constable, and figures of hermits, anchorites, and wandering scholars in rugged terrain were central to his visual vocabulary. The hermit in a rocky landscape offered a combination of moral elevation and atmospheric drama that appealed to late eighteenth-century taste.

Rocky terrain and overhanging trees create the chiaroscuro contrasts of de Loutherbourg's Sublime landscapes — dark masses frame a lighter central space where the hermit sits in meditative isolation. Earth tones of sienna, umber, and ochre dominate, with green-grey foliage and a lighter sky.