The comparison with two poets is significant, as in his art Palmer responded to the landscape like a poet, and indeed poetry was often his inspiration, Milton especially. It was not his intention to record the appearance of the landscape but to convey the experience of it, and a sense of how it affected him. Thus his paintings and etchings were highly original, a departure from the landscape tradition.
For a man who was a devoted member of the Church of England and conservative in many of his views, it is interesting that he so admired the radical William Blake, who held many contrary opinions. It seems equally contradictory that Palmer should have founded The Ancients in 1824, pursuing an ‘alternative’ lifestyle in the rural village of Shoreham in Kent. It was one of the earliest of the artistic groups which grew up in the nineteenth century: the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood followed in 1848.
The contradictions in Palmer’s views and actions may explain, as well as his works themselves, his continued relevance. He was both modern and traditional, innovative and inspired by the past. He in turn has inspired many artists who followed him, including Paul Nash, John Piper and Graham Sutherland, who described him as ‘a sort of English Van Gogh.’ In fact in 1949 Kenneth Clark was moved to say that Palmer had been ‘almost too influential.’