As we progress with this little sequence of posts I realise that I am quickly going to run out of superlatives to describe the artists we like so much. So I feel I need to clear the air before I progress. There is a word I loath unless it’s applied to an ancient temple of one creed or another and that’s ‘spiritual’! We are all entitled to express our beliefs and mine is profoundly aetheist. So let me say now, when I experience something like a great painting I am prepared to say (in the words of Richard Ford) that ‘the unseen exists and has qualities’. What those qualities are I can’t express so clearly but I’m not going to resort to the dubious and banal use of the word spiritual in this context.

So, John Sell Cotman.1782-1842 from Norwich, painter and printmaker principally of landscapes and marine scenes. We love in particular his watercolours. The technique (dry watercolour), the accuracy or precision and his palett. I would love to own one and each day marvel at his process, his medium specificity.