Edward Lear

Lear lived in Corfu from 1855 to 1858, and depicted the island's topography in some of his finest landscapes. Corfu from the village of Ascension (i.) depicts one of the artist's favourite views. Lear described the landmarks visualised in the painting in the text of his illustrated book Views in the Ionian Islands, published in 1863.

'Above [the village of Ascension], is a small chapel, near which the drawing was taken. Those who have frequented the "other side" (as the mainland is called on Corfu) will recognise the forms of the snowy Albanian hills: Mount Lykurski  on the left and the pass of Gardiki between it and the long range dividing the village of Arghyrokastro from Pelvino and Butrino. In front of these higher hills are those nearer Santa Quaranta and the still nearer and lower line of Butrino heights; while, quite to the left of the drawing, the last slope of Mount San Salvador forms the narrow passage known as the North Channel. Immediately below this is the fortified island of Vido; and yet nearer the eye, a part of the city of Corfu, the Palace and Esplanade and the road town Kastrides. Then comes the Citadel, a more picturesque object can hardly exist - and the quiet bay of Kastrades. Thence, upward to the highest point over the foreground from which this beautiful scene is taken are the thick olives groves and the cypresses of the hill of Ascension. Few prospects can be more truly exquisite than this.'

The panorama of coast, sea and distant mountains that comes to view from that point occurs in various paintings as well as one of the plates in Views in the Seven Ionian Islands. 

The second work of the present pair, Corfu from Gastouri, shows another one of Lear's preferred viewpoints of Corfu, just off the Benitza road, near Gastouri. Lear stated in the text from Views in the Seven Ionian Islands: `This is one of the loveliest views in the Island, and is distant about six miles from the City. The beautiful slopes of olive-wood seem to end in the church-crowned Promontory of Ascension, but this is not the case... the Citadel, the town of Corfu, Vido... the Santa Quaranta Hills, and those of Butrinto, are all beyond... The landscape is finished by many-pointed Mount Lykurski, the Pass of Gardiki, and the long chain of heights...' (quoted in Philip Hofer, Edward Lear as a Landscape Draughtsman, Cambridge, 1967, p. 31).