Background
He was born in Musselburgh in 1788, the fourth son of George Burnet, general surveyor of excise in Scotland, and his wife Anne Cruikshank.
He was born in Musselburgh in 1788, the fourth son of George Burnet, general surveyor of excise in Scotland, and his wife Anne Cruikshank.
While apprenticed to a wood carver named Liddel he also studied art at John Graham"s evening classes at the Trustees" Academy in Edinburgh.
He had a studio in Chelsea, – his address is given in the Royal Academy catalogues as 26, Saint George"s Row – and based his landscapes on sketches made in the area around Fulham and Battersea, which was then still largely rural. He exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1812 and 1814. Many of his paintings feature cattle.
Allan Cunningham wrote:
Some of our cattle-painters, imagining that the more flesh cows have the more milk they will give, have plumped them up into a condition for the butcher, but not for the milk-pail.
Burnet knew that a moderately lean cow produced most milk, and in this way he drew them. But in all that he did he desired to tell a story.
Nor did he confine his studies to the fields alone: he made himself familiar with the indoor as well as outdoor economy of a farmer"s household during seed-time, summer, harvest, and winter. He left no implement of husbandry unsketched, and scarcely any employment of the husbandman without delineation.
While sketching in the fields he also made detailed notes about the effects of light and cloud formations.
Burnet died of tuberculosis at Lee (then in Kent) on 27 July 1816, at the age of 28, and was buried in Lewisham churchyard. Two paintings, once belonging John Sheepshanks are in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum.
