The Art of John Charles Dollman RWS, ROI, RI, RBC, FRES.

This research argues the relevance of John Charles Dollman Jnr (1851 – 1934) to late Victorian and early 20th-century British art. Dollman was a Royal Academy trained artist who painted for fifty years, primarily from his large home in London but also from a country studio in rural Sussex. Little has been written on Dollman in the context of his art, time or place. This is despite the popularity of a number of his significant paintings that remain on permanent display throughout the Anglo-world. A high level objective of this thesis is to remedy this paucity of knowledge surrounding Dollman, and so provide the “primary context” to any appreciation of his works. Studying Dollman reveals a number of aspects to his art that make him special. His abundant output and his equal competence in both oils and water colours are two. But it is his brilliance as an animalier that makes him distinctive. It is a contention of this thesis that Dollman was the natural late 19th–century successor to Edwin Landseer. Dollman was also competent in all the traditional genres. He could paint history, dramatic narrative, war, social realism, animalia, mythology, allegory, genre, neoclassicism, sport, portrait, still life and landscape. Apart from this versatility, what made him singular was how he applied his skills as a painter of animals across all these styles. It is also argued that this versatility is the very reason that he has been largely forgotten. Dollman was financially secure and personal interests informed much of his work. He was sensitive to social issues and their consequences, and passionate about natural history, entomology, anthropology and sport. His scientific and objective studies were widely published. Dollman continued painting in the traditional genres, especially the classical revival style, well after the golden period of Victorian painting. He was amongst the remaining few traditional artists to resist the inroads of modernism, his paintings being regularly selected for exhibition by the Royal Academy up until his death in 1934.Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Humanities, 2016