4
Just as John Constable is closely associated with
the landscape of the Stour Valley, so the name
of Samuel Palmer is indelibly linked to the Darent
Valley, and in particular the village of Shoreham.
For a period of ten years, from about 1824 onwards,
he found inspiration in this remarkably unspoilt
corner of the English countryside, where he made
his most intensely visionary work. In the intervening
years, the valley has obviously changed; but it is still
recognisably Palmer's. To preserve it and to share
it with a wider public was the main impetus for the
Darent Valley Landscape Partnership Scheme, with
which I have been involved from the outset.
Making the Samuel Palmer Trail, it was heartening
to rediscover the sites he knew, from the great
trees in Lullingstone Park to the surviving barns in
the fields round Shoreham. It was also enormously
encouraging that so many contemporary artists
responded to the call to produce work in the Darent
Valley which showed, however loosely, affinities
with Palmer. They have responded magnificently to
the challenge of looking afresh at the landscapes
immortalised almost 200 years ago by Samuel
Palmer.
Colin Harrison – Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
Foreword
