The New International Encyclopædia/Harding, James Duffield

HARDING, (1798-1863). An English landscape painter and teacher, born in Deptford. He first studied painting and engraving, and then took up water-colors and became a member of the Water-Color Society (1821). He was one of the first after Turner to use body-color in this medium, and obtained excellent results with it. His paintings treat European scenes in a rather studied manner. He was the inventor of &lsquo;Harding's papers&rsquo; (paper in different tints and textures for sketching), which were used until recently. He gave much attention to lithography, and obtained two gold medals from the Academic des Beaux-Arts for his plates. Among his works in it are Home and Abroad (1836, fifty plates), Park and Forest (1841), and Picturesque Selections (1861). Harding was a successful teacher, and published a number of text-books of no great importance.