Thomas Moore’s works influenced visual artists throughout Europe and beyond, writes Julian Campbell
Thomas Moore, 1779-1852, was precociously talented and was a prolific writer in a range of genres: poetry, history, biography, satire and translation. He is best known for his Irish Melodies and his orientalist poem, Lalla Rookh. An important but less well-known part of Moore’s legacy was his relationship with and influence on visual artists; he inspired figures as diverse as Turner and Francis Danby, Edward Lear and Holman Hunt, John Hogan, Marie d’Orléans in France and Ryder in America.