Portrait of Robert Southey

Robert Southey, later Poet Laureate of Britain (1813–1843), was at the centre of the Romantic literary movement as a close friend of Coleridge and Wordsworth and a prolific poet, biographer, and prose writer. His portrait by Opie at Keswick Museum and Art Gallery places both painter and poet in the Lake District, the heartland of the Romantic movement where Southey spent much of his adult life at Greta Hall. Keswick is Southey's town — he lived there for nearly forty years — and the museum's holding of this portrait maintains the connection between poet and place. Opie moved in overlapping literary circles through his wife Amelia, who knew many of the same figures; the portrait may therefore represent a social connection as much as a formal commission. Southey's expressive face, framed by the abundant hair typical of Romantic-era men, would have suited Opie's bold, characterful style.

Opie's portraits of literary men show his technique at its most psychologically engaged — he was himself a writer and lecturer, delivering the famous Royal Academy lectures on painting that were published after his death. The face of a poet required capturing intellectual energy and emotional sensitivity, qualities Opie's bold chiaroscuro could convey through the treatment of the eyes and expression.