Cozens, Alexander definition of Cozens, Alexander in the Free Online Encyclopedia.

Cozens, Alexander (kŭz`ənz), c.1717–1786, English draftsman and writer, b. Russia. Cozens is thought to have been the first principal English master to work entirely with landscape subjects. He invented a system of "blot" drawings using accidental blots on drawing paper to aid his imagination by suggesting a landscape that could be further developed. In the 1950s his work was exhibited as that of a precursor of the abstract expressionists abstract expressionism, movement of abstract painting that emerged in New York City during the mid-1940s and attained singular prominence in American art in the following decade; also called action painting and the New York school.
..... Click the link for more information. . He expounded his blot system in his treatise, A New Method of Assisting the Invention in Drawing Original Compositions of Landscape (c.1785). His son,

John Robert Cozens, 1752–97, English watercolor landscape artist, is best known for his poetic paintings of the Alps and Italy. His work had an influence on both Turner and Girtin. Examples of his watercolors are in the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Tate Gallery, and the British Museum (all: London).

Bibliography

See A. P. Oppé, Alexander and John Robert Cozens (1953).