British artist who at the turn of the 19th century firmly established the aesthetic autonomy of watercolour (formerly used mainly to colour engravings) by employing its transparent washes to evoke a new sense of atmospheric space.

While still boys, Girtin and his friend J.M.W. Turner were employed to wash in skies for architectural drawings and in colouring prints for a printseller. Girtin made copies and sketches from the works of a number of artists, and in 1794 he began to exhibit at the Royal Academy. He went on numerous sketching tours, chiefly in the north of England, and founded a sketching club for young artists. During 1801–02 he visited Paris and produced a series of etchings of that city. His gigantic panorama of London, the “Eidometropolis,” was exhibited in 1802, shortly before his premature death.