page_title: George Barret Sr.
section_title: Later views of the Lake District
hierarchical_section_title: George Barret Sr. / Life / Later views of the Lake District
caption_attribution_description: This view of Ullswater was made on a tour of the Lake District; at least one other picture from this trip is recorded. In 1781 Barret exhibited a painting at the Royal Academy of a View of Windermere Lake, in Westmoreland, the effect, the sun beginning to appear in the morning, with the mists breaking and dispersing (no.40). A gouache of a similar view of Ullswater, in the National Gallery of Ireland, was the source for an engraving by Samuel Middiman for Select views in Great Britain.
context_page_description: George Barret Sr. RA was an Irish landscape artist who is best known for his oil paintings, but also sometimes produced watercolours. He left Ireland in 1762 to establish himself as an artist in London and rapidly gained recognition as a leading artist of the period. He exhibited at the Society of Artists of Great Britain and was able to gain patronage from many leading art collectors. Barrett with other leading members left the Society in 1768 to found the Royal Academy, where he continued to exhibit until 1782. Barrett appears to have travelled extensively in England including the Lake District and the Isle of Wight, Wales, and Scotland to undertake commissions for his patrons. Barret suffered from asthma and this caused him to move in 1772 to Westbourne Green, at the time a country village to the west of Paddington. While he earned considerable quantities of money from his paintings, he has been described as being ‘‘feckless’’ with money. He was helped in 1782 by Edmund Burke, with whom he had become friends when Burke attended Trinity College, Dublin.
context_section_description: In 1781 Barret exhibited a painting at the Royal Academy of a View of Windermere Lake in Westmoreland, the effect, the sun beginning to appear in the morning, with the mists breaking and dispersing. This may be the same painting as the painting which is signed in brown paint G. Barret / 1781 that is now in the National Gallery of Victoria, Australia Barret appears to visited the Lake District in 1781, and not only produced other versions of this painting, which shows Belle Island, but also other views of Windermere and Ullswater, both as paintings and gouache. The Belle Isle view was also published as an engraving. 
  During the 1770s the scenery of Lake District became a popular attraction for tourists, aesthetes and painters and particularly after Thomas West's Guide to the Lakes of 1778, which commended the noble scenes of Poussin exhibited on Windermere-Water. Lake Windermere, with Belle Isle, its largest island, was one of the principal attractions.   Barret would appear to be selling these views to tourists who had visited the Lakes.  The island in Lake Windermere, formerly Longholme, was bought by Thomas English in 1772. The architect John Plaw built a three-story rotunda house (just discernable in the painting) with a massive classical portico.  In 1781 he sold the site to Isabella Curwen, whose husband, John Christian Curwen, renamed the island Belle Isle.
caption: Barret Goauche of Lake Ullswater 1781
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