A Stream, with Rocks and Trees

Windus was chiefly a painter of literary and historical subjects, with some portraits and landscape sketches. Windus was a friend of Liverpool school artist, Daniel Alexander Williamson (1823 - 1903) and they made landscape painting trips together. He married Mary Tonge, a sister of another fellow artist, Robert Tonge (1823 - 1856), in 1858. She died in 1862 leaving a daughter, Isabella. Their son Robert had died in 1860. The combined effects of their loss, and Ruskin's adverse criticism of 'Too Late', are said to have been the cause of his ceasing to paint any major finished works after the early 1860s. He eventually became a recluse, producing only sketches and landscape studies, many of which he destroyed.