Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1981.25.178
Gallery Label:
St. Michael’s Mount is a small island off the coast of Cornwall crowned by a church and castle. This jewel-like painting captures the castle’s romantic setting, where twice a day, the tide recedes to allow access to the island via a cobblestone causeway. In legend, the archangel Michael guards England from a stone seat atop the mount; John Milton embraced that imagery in his famous poem from 1637, “Lycidas.” The artist, Thomas Creswick, was a member of the Birmingham School of landscape artists, which distinguished itself by a fascination with minute and accurate depictions of nature. Gallery label for Art in Focus: The British Castle - A Symbol in Stone (Yale Center for British Art, 2017-04-07 - 2017-08-06)