John Atkinson Grimshaw: a painter of the night

The Daily Mail ran a story recently about John Atkinson Grimshaw, a nineteenth century English painter.

His paintings appeal to me, perhaps because they express a poetic feeling for nature. He seems to have particularly mastered night time scenes:

Including urban scenes:

He left behind little in the way of letters or diaries so not much is known about his approach to life or art.

Quite of few of his paintings are of ships or of the docklands:

This is art which captures a heightened response to our surroundings. I can't help but prefer it to art which merely sets out to shock.