English Painters, with a Chapter on American Painters
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Title: English Painters, with a Chapter on American Painters
Author: H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
S. R. Koehler
Release date: March 25, 2012 [eBook #39265]
Language: English
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_ILLUSTRATED HANDBOOKS OF ART HISTORY._
ENGLISH PAINTERS
BY H. J. WILMOT-BUXTON, M.A.
WITH A CHAPTER ON
AMERICAN PAINTERS
BY S. R. KOEHLER.
ILLUSTRATED HANDBOOKS OF ART HISTORY OF ALL AGES.
_Crown 8vo, cloth extra, per volume, 5s._
=Architecture: Classic and Early Christian=. By Professor T. ROGER SMITH
and JOHN SLATER, B.A. Comprising the Egyptian, Assyrian, Greek, Roman,
Byzantine, and Early Christian. Illustrated with 212 Engravings,
including the Parthenon, the Erechtheum at Athens, the Temple of Zeus at
Olympia, the Colosseum, the Baths of Diocletian at Rome, Saint Sophia at
Constantinople, the Sakhra Mosque at Jerusalem, &c.
=Architecture: Gothic and Renaissance=. By Professor T. ROGER SMITH and
EDWARD J. POYNTER, R.A. Showing the Progress of Gothic Architecture in
England, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, and of Renaissance
Architecture in the same Countries. Illustrated with more than 100
Engravings, including many of the principal Cathedrals, Palaces, and
Domestic Buildings on the Continent.
=Sculpture=: A Manual of Egyptian, Assyrian, Greek, and Roman. By GEORGE
REDFORD, F.R.C.S. With 160 Illustrations of the most celebrated Statues
and Bas-reliefs of Greece and Rome, a Map of Ancient Greece,
Descriptions of the Statues, and a Chronological List of Ancient
Sculptors and their Works.
=Painting: Classic and Italian=. By EDWARD J. POYNTER, R.A., and PERCY R.
HEAD, B.A. Including Painting in Egypt, Greece, Rome, and Pompeii; the
Renaissance in Italy; Schools of Florence, Siena, Rome, Padua, Venice,
Perugia, Ferrara, Parma, Naples, and Bologna. Illustrated with 80
Engravings of many of the finest Pictures of Italy.
=Painting: German, Flemish, and Dutch=. By H. J. WILMOT-BUXTON, M.A., and
EDWARD J. POYNTER, R.A. Including an Account of the Works of Albrecht
Duerer, Cranach, and Holbein; Van Eyck, Van der Weyden, and Memline;
Rubens, Snyders, and Van Dyck; Rembrandt, Hals, and Jan Steen; Wynants,
Ruisdael, and Hobbema; Cuyp, Potter, and Berchem; Bakhuisen, Van de
Velde, Van Huysum, and many other celebrated Painters. Illustrated with
100 Engravings.
=Painting: English and American=. By H. J. WILMOT-BUXTON, M.A. Including
an Account of the Earliest Paintings known in England; the Works of
Holbein, Antonis More, Lucas de Heere, Zuccaro and Marc Gheeraedts; the
Hilliards and Olivers; Van Dyck, Lely, and Kneller; Hogarth, Reynolds,
and Gainsborough; West, Romney, and Lawrence; Constable, Turner, and
Wilkie; Maclise, Mulready, and Landseer; and many other celebrated
Painters. With 80 Illustrations.
=Painting: French and Spanish=. By GERARD SMITH, Exeter Coll., Oxon.
Including the Lives of Ribera, Zurbaran, Velazquez, and Murillo;
Poussin, Claude Lorrain, Le Sueur, Chardin, Greuze, David, and Prud'hon;
Ingres, Vernet, Delaroche, and Delacroix; Corot, Diaz, Rousseau, and
Millet; Courbet, Regnault, Troyon; and many other celebrated Artists.
With 80 Illustrations. Nearly ready.
[Illustration: THE VALLEY FARM. _By_ CONSTABLE. A.D. 1835.
_In the National Gallery._]
_ILLUSTRATED HANDBOOKS OF ART HISTORY_
ENGLISH PAINTERS
BY H. J. WILMOT-BUXTON, M.A.
WITH A CHAPTER ON
AMERICAN PAINTERS
BY S. R. KOEHLER
[Illustration]
LONDON
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON
CROWN BUILDINGS, FLEET STREET
1883
(_All rights reserved_.)
[Illustration]
PREFACE.
This brief sketch of the rise and progress of Painting in England has
been drawn from a variety of sources. The little that can be traced of
artistic work previous to the end of the fifteenth century does not fill
many pages. Ignorance, carelessness, and "iconoclastic rage" all
contributed to the defacement of paintings which we have every reason to
believe at one time abounded in our churches and public buildings, as
they did at the same period in Italy; and there is good evidence that
some of our early English artists are not to be despised.
Our forefathers were too much engaged in the rough contests of war to
care much for the arts of peace. In the sixteenth century several
foreign artists of more or less celebrity were induced to visit and stay
in England. Foremost of these was Holbein, and to his example English
artists are deeply indebted. In the next century there were a few
excellent miniature painters, whose work is not to be surpassed at the
present day, and then came a succession of foreigners--Rubens and Van
Dyck from Flanders, Lely and Kneller from Germany, and a host of lesser
men, who seem to have in a great measure monopolized portrait
painting--then in vogue among the nobility--for more than a hundred
years.
Early in the eighteenth century came Hogarth, followed by Reynolds,
Gainsborough and Romney, and from that time to the present, Art has year
by year progressed, till now English Painters have become a recognised
power in the state, and contribute, in no small degree, to the
enlightenment, pleasure and refinement of the age.
H.J.W.-B.
_November_, 1882.
[Illustration]
CONTENTS.
PAINTING IN ENGLAND.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
Early English Art 1
CHAPTER II.
English Art in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries 9
CHAPTER III.
English Art in the Eighteenth Century--William Hogarth 36
CHAPTER IV.
The Royal Academy and its influence 44
CHAPTER V.
The Progress of English Art in the Eighteenth Century 60
CHAPTER VI.
Book Illustrators--Miniature Painters 85
CHAPTER VII.
Painters in Water Colours 100
CHAPTER VIII.
English Art in the Nineteenth Century--Sir Thomas Lawrence
and his contemporaries 116
CHAPTER IX.
Landscape Painters 127
CHAPTER X.
Historic Painters 148
CHAPTER XI.
Subject Painters 163
PAINTING IN AMERICA.
Introduction 187
First, or Colonial Period 190
Second, or Revolutionary Period 195
Third Period, or Period of Inner Development 201
Fourth, or Present Period 217
INDEX OF NAMES 223
[Illustration]
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
1. THE VALLEY FARM _Constable_ _Frontispiece_
PAGE
2. AGE OF INNOCENCE _Reynolds_ xiv
3. FROM ST. ETHELWOLD'S BENEDICTIONAL _Godeman_ 3
4. ARTHUR, PRINCE OF WALES (_Miniature_) 7
5. HENRY, PRINCE OF WALES (_Miniature_) 10
6. NICOLAS KRATZER _Holbein_ 12
7. EDWARD, PRINCE OF WALES (_Miniature_) _Holbein_ 14
8. A DUTCH GENTLEMAN _More_ 18
9. COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE _Hilliard(?)_ 21
10. SIR PHILIP SIDNEY (_Miniature_) _Isaac Oliver_ 23
11. JAMES I. (_Miniature_) _Hoskins_ 24
12. COUNTESS OF DEVONSHIRE _Van Dyck_ 27
13. OLIVER CROMWELL _Lely_ 29
14. GRINLING GIBBONS _Kneller_ 33
15. WILLIAM HOGARTH AND HIS DOG TRUMP _Hogarth_ 39
16. MORNING _Wilson_ 49
17. MRS. BRADYLL _Reynolds_ 53
18. MRS. SIDDONS _Gainsborough_ 57
19. TITANIA AND BOTTOM _Fuseli_ 63
20. DEATH OF WOLFE _West_ 65
21. DEATH OF MAJOR PEIRSON _Copley_ 68
22. MERCURY INVENTING THE LYRE _Barry_ 70
23. MARQUIS OF STAFFORD _Romney_ 73
24. CHARITY _Northcote_ 77
25. THE WATERING-PLACE _Morland_ 82
26. FROM DANTE'S INFERNO _Blake_ 86
27. THE DREAM _Stothard_ 88
28. THE PORTRAIT _Smirke_ 90
29. THE WOODCOCK _Bewick_ 92
30. TAIL-PIECE _Bewick_ 93
31. MORNING WALK _Chalon_ 98
32. EVENING _Turner_ 106
33. THE TOMB OF THE SCALIGERS AT VERONA _Prout_ 109
34. BERNCASTLE, ON THE MOSELLE _Harding_ 111
35. THE VIEW FROM RICHMOND HILL _De Wint_ 113
36. OLD ENGLISH HOSPITALITY _Cattermole_ 115
37. MASTER LAMBTON _Lawrence_ 118
38. TRIAL OF QUEEN CATHERINE _Harlow_ 122
39. SWISS PEASANT GIRL _Howard_ 124
40. THE GRAND CANAL, VENICE _Turner_ 128
41. TRENT IN TYROL _Callcott_ 132
42. THE FISHERMAN'S DEPARTURE _Collins_ 134
43. ST. GOMER, BRUSSELS _Roberts_ 136
44. FRANCIS I. AND HIS SISTER _Bonington_ 138
45. BELSHAZZAR'S FEAST _Martin_ 140
46. TERMINATI MARINA _Stanfield_ 144
47. THE PLEASANT WAY HOME _Creswick_ 146
48. THE RAPE OF EUROPA _Hilton_ 149
49. THE DANGEROUS PLAYMATE _Etty_ 153
50. GREEK FUGITIVES _Eastlake_ 155
51. JOASH SHOOTING THE ARROWS OF
DELIVERANCE _Dyce_ 157
52. HAROLD PRESENTS HIMSELF TO EDWARD
THE CONFESSOR _Maclise_ 159
53. THE MAID OF SARAGOSSA _Wilkie_ 165
54. CHOOSING THE WEDDING GOWN _Mulready_ 168
55. SANCHO PANZA AND THE DUCHESS _Leslie_ 171
56. CAPTAIN MACHEATH _Newton_ 174
57. PEACE _Landseer_ 177
58. THE ARAB SCRIBE _Lewis_ 181
59. OUR VILLAGE _Walker_ 183
60. DEATH ON THE PALE HORSE _West_ 194
61. GENERAL KNOX _Stuart_ 196
62. DEATH OF MONTGOMERY IN THE ATTACK
OF QUEBEC _Trumbull_ 198
63. JEREMIAH AND THE SCRIBE _Allston_ 203
64. A SURPRISE _Mount_ 210
65. DESOLATION _Cole_ 214
66. NOON BY THE SEA-SHORE--BEVERLY
BEACH _Kensett_ 216
67. SUNSET ON THE HUDSON _Gifford_ 218
68. LAMBS ON THE MOUNTAIN-SIDE _Hunt_ 220
[Illustration: AGE OF INNOCENCE. _By_ SIR J. REYNOLDS.
_In the National Gallery_.]
PAINTING IN ENGLAND.
BY H. J. WILMOT-BUXTON.
[Illustration]
ENGLISH PAINTERS.
CHAPTER I.
EARLY ENGLISH ART.
The current English school of art is a creation of a comparatively
modern date. It is a mistake, however, to assume that there were no
native painters in England under the Plantagenets, and that we were
entirely dependent on foreigners for such art as we possessed. The
little care which has been taken of early English pictures and their
destruction, sometimes accidental, sometimes wilful, have led many to
imagine that ancient England had no art of her own. It has been
customary to imagine that in Italy alone, in the thirteenth century,
existed the Renaissance and growth of modern design. Later research has,
however, shown that the Renaissance in painting was not the sudden
creation of Giotto, nor that of sculpture the work of Niccola Pisano.
The Renaissance in Italy was a gradual growth, and there was in England
and in other countries a similar Renaissance, which was overlooked by
those whose eyes were fixed on Italy. It has been shown that there were
English artists, contemporaries of Giotto and Pisano, whose works were
as good as any paintings or sculptures which the Italians produced in
the thirteenth century. It is quite true that we know very little of
these Englishmen. Some gave themselves to illumination, and produced
delicate representations of human beings, as well as of animals, leaves,
and flowers. In the British Museum there are several manuscripts of a
very early date, which are ornamented with paintings undoubtedly by
English artists. The Duke of Devonshire possesses a manuscript, the
_Benedictional of St. Ethelwold_, written between A.D. 963 and 970, and
illuminated, with thirty drawings, by a monk of Hyde Abbey, named
GODEMAN, for Ethelwold, Bishop of Winchester. It is a folio of 119
leaves of vellum, 11-1/2 inches in height by 8-1/2 in width. Other
artists painted and gilded the images of wood or stone by their brother
craftsmen, and were classed in the humble category of _Steyners_. They
devoted much of their time to heraldic devices, and by degrees passed
from the grotesque to the natural, and produced what were styled
_portraits on board_. Painting on glass was a favourite art in this
early period, and, although the artists had no more noble title than
that of _Glaziers_, some of their works survive to prove their merits.
Many of these craftsmen combined the arts of the painter, sculptor, or
"marbler," and architect. Among these obscure pioneers of English art
was WILLIAM TORELL, a goldsmith and citizen of London, supposed to be
descended from an English family whose name occurs in Domesday Book.
Torell modelled and cast the effigy of Henry III. for his tomb in
Westminster Abbey, as well as three effigies of Eleanor of Castile,
about A.D. 1291. These latter works were placed in Westminster Abbey,
Blackfriars' Monastery, and Lincoln Cathedral. The figures in
Westminster Abbey show the dignity and beauty of the human form, and are
masterpieces of a noble style. The comparison between the effigy of
Margaret of Richmond, executed for Henry VII.'s Chapel by the Florentine
Torrigiano, and the figures by Torell, is decidedly in favour of the
latter. No work in Italy of the thirteenth century excels in beauty
these effigies by the English sculptor. At an earlier period than this,
during the life of Henry III., some English artists, as well as
foreigners, were employed to embellish the cathedrals and palaces of the
King. These native craftsmen, who seem to have been at once artists,
masons, carvers, upholsterers, or sometimes tailors,[A] are mostly
forgotten, but we can trace the names of MASTER EDWARD of Westminster,
or Edward Fitz Odo--probably the son of Odo, goldsmith to Henry
III.--MASTER WALTER, who received twenty marks "for pictures in our
Great Chamber at Westminster," and MASTER JOHN of Gloucester, who was
plasterer to the King. The names of the "imaginators" of Queen Eleanor's
Crosses are also well known. The early pictorial art of England has been
so neglected or forgotten, that it is commonly said to have commenced
with the portrait painters of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
[Illustration: FROM ST. ETHELWOLD'S BENEDICTIONAL. _By_ GODEMAN, A MONK
OF HYDE ABBEY. A.D. 970.
_An Illuminated MS. in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire_.]
Ignorance, indifference, and bigotry have destroyed, or suffered to
perish, the paintings which adorned the walls of almost every church,
and the panels of nearly every rood-screen, hundreds of years before the
date assigned to the English school. In Kempley Church, Gloucestershire,
the walls appear to have been painted early in the twelfth century with
large figure subjects. Those in the chancel are in a good state of
preservation, and represent the vision in the Apocalypse, and Christ in
majesty, attended by the twelve apostles and the saints, painted in life
size. In Chaldon Church, Surrey, the chancel walls are ornamented with
subjects illustrating the _Scala humanae Salvationis_, works apparently
of the twelfth century, which, though necessarily rude, are as good as
any Italian examples of the same period. In Westminster Abbey there is
an important series of small paintings by an English artist contemporary
with Cimabue. These pictures once formed the chief ornaments of a
frontal, and belonged to the high altar.[B] The work in question
consists of a rectangular piece of framed and richly panelled wood-work,
about eleven feet long by three feet high. The general design consists
of three central figures painted under canopies. On each side are four
star-shaped panels filled with painted groups of figures; beyond these
on each side is another single figure under a canopy. The wood is
covered with fine stucco, or _gesso_, to the thickness of cardboard, as
is always the case with old paintings on panels, and generally when on
stone. The pictures still extant on the frontal comprise, in the centre,
a figure of Christ in the act of benediction, holding an orb in His left
hand. At the right hand is the Virgin Mary, bearing her emblem of the
lily; on our left is St. John, with a book; on our right is St. Peter,
with the keys. In the star-shaped panels we find the miracles of the
raising of Jairus's daughter, the loaves and fishes, and the restoration
of the blind man. These figures, though somewhat like those of the early
Florentine school, possess a character of their own, and are undoubtedly
English. The well-known portrait of _Richard II_. (died 1400), now in
the Abbey at Westminster, is believed to have been painted by an English
artist of the fourteenth century. The figure of the King is of large
life size, seated in a coronation chair. He is in royal robes, with the
globe in one hand and sceptre in the other. This picture for many years
hung near the altar.
The history of art in England during the reigns of Edward I. and Edward
II. is a blank; probably men were too busy with swords and bucklers to
turn to the gentle arts of painting and sculpture. The reign of Edward
III. shows a revival in art and letters, and the patron of Chaucer
adorned the Chapel of St. Stephen, Westminster, with the best works of
native artists. The fire of 1834, which destroyed the old Houses of
Parliament, almost obliterated these interesting relics. The walls of
the chapel were painted in oil colours with scriptural and historic
episodes on the prepared surface of the stonework. There seems to have
been at this period a method, peculiar to London, of producing a blue
colour, which is mentioned in a German MS. of the fourteenth century as
"the London practice." It is noticeable that a blue colour can still be
traced in the relics saved from St. Stephen's. The Society of
Antiquaries has published coloured copies of the paintings which adorned
the chapel. When we recall the state of England at the period which
succeeded the death of Edward III., the turbulence of the feudal barons,
the constant lawlessness and blood-shedding, and the ignorance which
prevailed even among the upper classes, we cannot wonder that art made
little progress. Some advance doubtless took place, but we look in vain
for originality among the artists who were alternately employed to
decorate a baron's pageant, or adorn an altar.
There is a good portrait of _Henry IV._, removed from Hampton Court,
Herefordshire, and now at Cassiobury.
To the reign of Henry V., or at latest to the early days of Henry VI.,
belongs the earliest authentic specimen of historical portraiture in
England. It represents _Henry V. and his Relations_, painted on wood,
less than life size, and was at one time the altar-piece of Shene
Church. The portraits which were attempted in the troublous period of
the Wars of the Roses, though unlovely and ghastly to look upon, show
that art was gradually emerging from the fetters of monastic teaching,
where bad pupils copied bad masters, and reproduced saints and angels,
whose want of form and symmetry was atoned for by a liberal allowance of
gilding. A fairly expressive portrait of _Richard III._, which must have
been painted about this time by a very capable artist, is among the
treasures of Knowsley. In the well-known tapestry in St. Mary's Hall,
Coventry, there is a representation of King Henry VI. kneeling before
the altar, attended by Cardinal Beaufort, the Duke of Gloucester, and
many courtiers, in which the drawing will bear comparison with similar
work executed in Italy or Flanders at the same time. This tapestry was
probably made at Arras, from English designs.
[Illustration: ARTHUR, PRINCE OF WALES. [B. 1486. D. 1502.]
_From a Miniature at Windsor Castle_.]
The gradual spread of knowledge at this period induced the English
nobility to promote the adornment of manuscripts, chiefly Missals and
Romances of Chivalry. These pictures comprise the best specimens of
English later mediaeval art, and in richness and delicacy of colour they
closely approach oil paintings. With the discovery of printing came a
check to the art of illuminating manuscripts, and the wild fanaticism of
the first Reformers led them to burn at once the religious manuals of
Rome, and the wit and wisdom of poet or philosopher. To these ruthless
iconoclasts we owe the obscurity in which early English pictorial art
remains. It must have been during the later years of the reign of Henry
VII. that two miniatures, now at Windsor Castle, were painted, probably
for the King. One represents _Arthur, Prince of Wales_, who, at the age
of fifteen, married Catherine of Aragon; the other is his brother, who
became Henry VIII. (_See Engravings_.)
In the reign of Henry VI. there was an artist of note, undoubtedly an
Englishman, who may not be passed in silence. This was William Austen,
sculptor, to whom we owe the monument ("in fine latten," _i.e._ brass)
of Richard, Earl of Warwick, in the Church of St. Mary, Warwick, a work
which Flaxman somewhat courageously considered equal to the productions
of Austen's Italian contemporaries, Ghiberti and Donatello.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER II.
ENGLISH ART IN THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES.
The period of the Renaissance found all eyes directed to Italy, and
presently England welcomed a number of foreign artists who became the
teachers, more or less worthy, of our countrymen. Henry VII. was fonder
of money than of art, yet he invited several of these strangers to
England; but there are no grounds for supposing, though it is frequently
stated, that Mabuse was among the number. Among the foreign artists of
this period who visited England, were GERRARD LUCAS HOREBOUT, or
HORNEBOLT, of Ghent (1475--1558), who was employed by Henry VIII., and
probably by his predecessor; and SUSANNAH HOREBOUT, daughter of Gerrard
Lucas, a miniature painter, is said to have married an English sculptor
named Whorstley. Duerer, in his journal, says of her, "it is a great
wonder a woman should do so well." Henry VIII. was as lavish as his
father had been careful of money; naturally fond of display, and jealous
of the magnificence of Francis I. and Charles V., the King became a
liberal patron of artists. He is said to have invited Raphael,
Primaticcio, and Titian to visit England, but if so, the invitations
were declined. Among lesser names, however, we find that of ANTONIO
TOTO, who came here in 1531, and was appointed Serjeant-Painter to the
King. None of his works is now recognised. GIROLAMO DA TREVISO is
supposed to have designed the historic painting of the _Field of the
Cloth of Gold_, formerly at Windsor, and now in the possession of the
Society of Antiquaries at Burlington House.
[Illustration: HENRY, PRINCE OF WALES. [B. 1491. D. 1547.] AFTERWARDS
KING HENRY VIII.
_From a Miniature at Windsor Castle_.]
LUCAS CORNELISZ of Leyden (1493--1552), son of Cornelis Engelbrechtsen,
came to England and entered the service of the King. It is said that he
taught Holbein in some branches of art, and, as he survived the great
painter of Augsburg for nine years, it is _possible_ that some of the
works attributed to Holbein after 1543 were painted by him.
Henry VIII. seems to have had two other Serjeant-Painters besides
Antonio Toto, and previous to the coming of Holbein. These were ANDREW
WRIGHT and JOHN BROWN, whose names proclaim them to be natives. These
artists or craftsmen had positions of trust and honour, wore a special
dress, and received a weekly wage. Jan van Eyck had a similar post as
_varlet de chambre_ to Philippe le Bon. It was the age of pageants, and
one great duty of the King's artists was to adorn these singular
spectacles. Among the archives of the Church of St. Mary Redcliffe,
Bristol, is the following curious notice of a religious pageant held at
a somewhat earlier date:--
"Memorandum: That Master Cumings hath delivered, the 4th day of
July, in the year of Our Lord 1470, to Mr. Nicholas Bettes, Vicar
of Radcliffe, Moses Couteryn, Philip Bartholomew, and John Brown,
procurators of Radcliffe, beforesaid, a new sepulchre, well gilt,
and cover thereto; an image of God rising out of the same
sepulchre, with all the ordinance that longeth thereto: that is to
say--Item, a lath, made of timber, and iron work thereto. Item,
thereto longeth Heaven, made of timber and stained cloth. Item,
Hell, made of timber and iron work, with devils in number thirteen.
Item, Four knights, armed, keeping the sepulchre, with their
weapons in their hands, that is to say, two axes, and two spears.
Item, Three pair of angels' wings; four angels, made of timber, and
well painted. Item, the Father, the crown, and visage; the ball,
with a cross upon it, well gilt with fine gold. Item, the Holy
Ghost coming out of heaven into the sepulchre. Item, Longeth to the
angels four chevelers."
[Illustration: NICOLAS KRATZER: ASTRONOMER TO HENRY VIII. _By_ HANS
HOLBEIN. DATED 1528.
_In the Louvre_.]
It is not surprising that art made little progress whilst it was mainly
directed to the painting and gilding of timber angels and of solid
devils for a hell of iron and wood-work. Things were not much better in
the reign of Henry VIII. His love of ostentation made him fond of
pageants, and the instructions which he left for his own monument are
curious. "The King shall appear on horseback, of the stature of a goodly
man while over him shall appear the image of God the Father holding
the King's soul in his left hand, and his right hand extended in the act
of benediction." This work was to have been executed in bronze, but was
never finished. Elizabeth stopped the necessary payments, and the
uncompleted figure was sold by an unsentimental and Puritan Parliament
for L600. The influence of the Reformation was decidedly antagonistic to
art in England and elsewhere. In attempting to reform, the leaders
tolerated destruction, and whilst pretending to purify the church they
carried away not only the "idols," but much that was beautiful. They
literally "broke down the carved work thereof with axes and hammers."
Pictures and altar-pieces were ruthlessly destroyed. Fortunately a
considerable number of old paintings still exist in our churches. A
little work on "Wall Paintings in England," recently published by the
Science and Art Department, mentions five hundred and sixty-eight
churches and other public buildings in England in which wall paintings
and other decorations have been found, all dating from an earlier period
than the Reformation, and there are doubtless many not noticed. The
branch of art which suffered least from the iconoclastic Reformers was
that of portrait-painting, and this received a great impetus in England
by the opportune arrival of--
HANS HOLBEIN, the younger, of Augsburg (1497--1543), who came, in 1526,
with a recommendation from Erasmus to Sir Thomas More, by whom he was
welcomed and entertained at Chelsea. Unlike Albrecht Duerer, the other
great German painter of the Reformation epoch, Holbein was a literal
painter of men, not a dreamer haunted by visions of saints and angels.
His ideas of heaven were probably modelled far more on the plan of the
Bristol pageant, than on that of the Italian masters. Such an artist
came exactly at the right moment to England, where Protestantism was
becoming popular. Holbein's wonderful power as a colourist and the
fidelity of his likenesses exercised a lasting effect on English art. He
founded no school, however, though he had many imitators among the
foreign artists whom Henry had invited.[C]
[Illustration: EDWARD, PRINCE OF WALES, AFTERWARDS KING EDWARD VI.
_By_ HOLBEIN.
_From a Miniature in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire._]
In 1532 Holbein was made Painter to the King, with a salary of L34 a
year, in addition to the payment given for his works. The chief
pictures painted by Holbein in England are portraits; and tradition says
that Henry specially employed him to delineate the features of any fair
lady on whom he had cast a favourable eye. Among the portraits we may
mention those of _Nicolas Kratzer_, _Erasmus_, _Anne of Cleves_, and
_Sir Richard Southwel_ (in the Louvre); _Archbishop Warham_ (Lambeth
Palace); _Sir Henry Guildford_, a _Merchant of the Steelyard_, and _Lady
Rich_ (Windsor); _Lady Vaux_ and _John Reskimer_ (Hampton Court); _Henry
VIII._; the _Duchess of Milan_[D] (Arundel Castle); _Sir William_ and
_Lady Butts_ (Mr. W. H. Pole Carew); _The Ambassadors_, a most important
work, and _Erasmus_ (Lord Radnor, Longford Castle). There is at Windsor
a series of eighty portraits of the English nobility, drawn by Holbein
in black and red chalks, which are of infinite value as works of art;
and at Windsor likewise, and in other galleries, are many carefully
painted miniatures ascribed to him, of the greatest artistic and
historic value.
Hans Holbein, like most artists of his age, could do more than paint
portraits. At Basle are noble subject pictures by him. He was an
architect, a modeller, and a carver. He was specially gifted in
designing wood-blocks for illustrating books, and in the ornamentation
of sword-hilts, plate, and the like. A book of designs for jewels, by
Holbein, once the property of Sir Hans Sloane, is now in the British
Museum. Holbein died of the plague, in London, between October 7th and
November 29th, 1543.
Another painter in the service of King Henry VIII. at this time was the
above-named GIROLAMO PENNACCHI, who was born at Treviso, in 1497. He was
an imitator of Raphael, and painted portraits--chiefly at Genoa, Faenza,
Bologna, and Venice, and in 1542 came to England. He was killed by a
cannon-ball while acting as a military engineer in the King's service
near Boulogne, in 1544. There is an altar-piece by him, signed IERONIMVS
TREVISIVS P (No. 623 in the National Gallery.) In the "Old Masters"
Exhibition of 1880, was a portrait of _Sir T. Gresham_ (No. 165), a fine
whole-length, standing, life-size picture of the famous merchant, with a
skull on the pavement at our left. This work is dated 1544, the year of
Sir Thomas's marriage, in his twenty-sixth year, and, as we have seen
above, of Treviso's death. It is the property of the Gresham Committee
of London, and every expert has accepted it as a work of the Italian
painter, engineer, and architect, who was important enough to be
honoured with a separate biography by Vasari in his "Lives of the
Painters." Girolamo's salary from the English King was 400 scudi per
annum. Much likeness exists between the art of Gresham's portrait and
that of the masterly life-size, whole-length picture of the _Earl of
Surrey_, with his motto, _Sat super est_, which is one of the chief
ornaments of Knole, and almost worthy of Velasquez himself. This picture
(which is dated 1546) is attributed to the undermentioned GWILLIM
STRETES (or STREET). It is much more like an Italian production than a
Dutch one, and so fine that Da Treviso might have painted it at his best
time. It is not like the beautiful portraits of _Edward VI._ at Windsor
and Petworth, which are exactly such as we attribute to a man in
Stretes's position, and which, while differing from the productions of
Holbein, are, technically speaking, by no means unworthy of him. The
charming Windsor portrait of _Edward VI._ was No. 172 in the National
Portrait Exhibition of 1866. In the same collection were more works of
the same period, including the portrait of _Henry VIII._, No. 124, lent
by the Queen.
The following are among the painters who flourished at this time of whom
records exist and are more or less confused, yet are so valuable that
they deserve to be sifted in comparison with the large numbers of
pictures. The artists' names are important because they prove how many
of the owners were Englishmen. These persons were all employed by Henry
VIII. They were JOHN BROWN, who received a pension of L10 a year; ANDREW
WRIGHT, died 1543; VINCENT VOLPE, who translated his name into "Fox" and
died 1529. He, _c._ 1529, was paid at the rate of L20 a year, a great
sum in those days, when Holbein himself had but L30 a year. ANTONIO TOTO
succeeded Wright as Sergeant-Painter to the King, a dignity which
afterwards fell to Sir James Thornhill and Hogarth successively. GERRARD
LUCAS HOREBOUT, or HORNEBOLT (1475--1558), and LUCAS HOREBOUT (died
1544), his son, Flemings, were painters of distinction here and abroad,
whose works have been added to those of Holbein. Their wages were more
than L30 per annum each. SUSANNA HOREBOUT was a painter of miniatures,
much employed by the King and his courtiers. A picture of _Henry VIII._
at Warwick Castle has for centuries borne the name of Lucas of this
family. It is doubtless rightly named, and may some day furnish a key to
the style of the distinguished owner himself. It was No. 99 in the
National Portrait Exhibition of 1866, and No. 471 of the Manchester Art
Treasures of 1857. A somewhat similar picture is now in the National
Portrait Gallery. We may, in future, recognise in some of the beautiful
miniatures of this period, which are now ascribed to Holbein, the
much-praised works of Susanna Horebout. Doubtless some of the works of
Lucas have been bestowed on Lucas de Heere, who is mentioned below.
BARTHOLOMEW PENNI, and ALICE CARMILLION succeeded in honour. LAVINIA
TERLING (born Benich), "paintrix," as they called her, had for quarterly
wages L10, and was mentioned by Vasari as of Bruges.
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF A DUTCH GENTLEMAN. _By_ SIR ANTONIS MORE.]
In the reign of Edward VI. GWILLIM STRETES was made Painter to the King.
Strype records that he was paid fifty marks for two pictures of the
King, and one of _Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey_, who was beheaded in
1547. KATHERINE MAYNORS and GERBACH FLICK--evidently a Dutchman, one of
whose drawings belonged to Richardson and is dated 1547--were here at
this time; Flick's likeness of _Cranmer_ (signed GERBARUS FLICIUS),
painted in 1546, is now in the National Portrait Gallery. They
continued the practice of art in this country. At Irnham is a fine
full-length portrait of _Lord Darcy of Chirke_, dated 1551. NICHOLAS
LYZARDI was second painter to King Edward, and succeeded TOTO, as
Sergeant-Painter to Elizabeth. JOHANNES CORVUS painted the likeness of
_Fox, Bishop of Winchester_, which belongs to Corpus Christi College,
Oxford, and which was at the National Portrait Exhibition, 1866, No. 46.
Corvus has been identified by Mr. Scharf as the artist of a fine
portrait, dated 1532, of _Mary Tudor_, wife of Louis XII., and the Duke
of Suffolk. WILLIAM KEY, or CAIUS, as he called himself, was born at
Breda in 1520 and died 1568. Some of his pictures were, as Mr. Scharf
has noticed, in the collections of Charles I., and the Duke of
Buckingham. A carver, and probably painter, well known at this period in
England, whose works are, however, no longer to be identified, was
NICHOLAS OF MODENA, who made _pictures_, possibly small coloured
statues, of Henry VIII. and Francis I. It is worth while to mention that
one P. OUDRY, apparently a Frenchman, was busily employed in this
country about 1578, and painted various portraits of _Mary, Queen of
Scots_, one of which is in the National Portrait Gallery, while others
are at Cobham, Hardwick, Hatfield, and Welbeck.
In the reign of Mary I. we find art represented by SIR ANTONIS MOR,
MORO, or MORE (1512--1576--78), a native of Utrecht, who had painted and
studied in Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Philip II. was his especial
patron, and gave him a gold chain for the portrait of his gloomy Queen.
He came to England in 1553, was made painter to the Court, and received
very large prices for his pictures. He remained till the Queen's death,
in 1558, when he returned to Madrid. He afterwards established himself
at Brussels, under the protection of the Duke of Alva, but in 1572
removed to Antwerp, where he died. His portraits of _Jeanne d'Archel_,
in the National Gallery, and of _Sir T. Gresham_, in the National
Portrait Gallery, are excellent examples of his skill. JOOST VAN CLEEF
(15001536?), a native of Antwerp, also painted portraits at this time
with considerable success. From his overweening conceit, which led him
into furious quarrels, he was called Zotte (foolish) Cleef. His
portrait, by himself, is in the Althorp Gallery.
It has been said of Elizabeth, that although she had not much taste for
painting, she loved pictures of herself. Her court painter was a
Fleming, LUCAS DE HEERE (1534?--1584), who had also been employed by
Queen Mary, whose portrait (dated 1554) by him belongs to the Society of
Antiquaries, and was at the "Old Masters," in 1880, No. 202. He painted,
in 1570, the gallery of the Earl of Lincoln, describing the
characteristics of different nations. With a sarcastic wit, which
Elizabeth doubtless appreciated, he represented the typical Englishman
as naked, with a pair of shears, and different kinds of clothes beside
him, unable to decide on the best fashion. DE HEERE painted Elizabeth in
full state, as she loved to be depicted, attended by Juno, Minerva and
Venus. This picture remains at Hampton Court (No. 635), and is dated
1569. Mr. Wynne Finch has a capital picture of small figures,
representing _Frances Brandon, Duchess of Suffolk, and her second
husband Adrian Stokes_, dated 1559, by this able painter. Many other
works by him exist in English seats. Other foreign artists of this reign
were CORNELIUS VROOM, who drew designs for tapestry, representing the
victory of Lord Howard over the famous "Armada" of the Spaniards (these
tapestries were burnt with the Houses of Parliament in 1834); FEDERIGO
ZUCCHERO (1643--1609), whose portrait of the Queen in a fantastic dress
is in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire, and was No. 229 in the
National Portrait Exhibition, 1866; and MARC GHEERAEDTS, or GARRARD
(1561--1635), of Bruges. There are three portraits ascribed to
Gheeraedts in the collection of the Marquis of Exeter, and others were
exhibited in the first (1866) National Portrait Exhibition. The most
important of all the works attributed to Gheeraedts is the group of
eleven _English and Spanish Statesmen_ assembled at Somerset House,
which has been recently acquired for the National Portrait Gallery at
the Hamilton Palace sale.[E] A very fine little example, signed "M.G.,"
is a full-length portrait of _Queen Elizabeth_, standing, holding a
branch of olive, with a sword and a little shock dog at her feet. It
belongs to the Duke of Portland, and was long lent to the South
Kensington Museum. A head of _Camden_, in the Bodleian, is signed with
the artist's name in full. A very fine full-length portrait is at Woburn
Abbey; other signed specimens are at Barron Hill and Penshurst.
[Illustration: COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE. "SIDNEY'S SISTER, PEMBROKE'S
MOTHER." _By_ NICHOLAS HILLIARD (?). _From a rare Engraving._]
More interesting than these foreign artists is the name of NICHOLAS
HILLIARD (1547--1619), an Englishman, and the first native artist of
importance, whose fame remains to the present time. The "Old Masters"
Exhibition of 1879 contained many likenesses said to have been painted
by Hilliard; among these was one of _Queen Elizabeth_. Hilliard's skill
was specially shown in his miniatures, of which that of Jane Seymour, at
Windsor, is a crowning piece. The Duke of Buccleuch has a noble series
of Hilliard's and Oliver's paintings of this kind. Dr. Donne says of the
former--
"An hand or eye
By Hilliard drawn is worth a historye
By a worse painter made."
The influence of Holbein is traceable in the works of Hilliard, and in
those of his successor, and, probably, pupil, Isaac Oliver. One of the
most able painters of this age was SIR NATHANIEL BACON, half-brother to
the great Sir Francis Bacon, whose life-size portrait of himself,
belonging to the Earl of Verulam, has been engraved in Walpole's
"Anecdotes." Sir N. Bacon died in 1615.
[Illustration: SIR PHILIP SIDNEY AT PENSHURST. _By_ ISAAC OLIVER. _From
a Miniature in Windsor Castle._]
The miniatures of ISAAC OLIVER (1556--1617) are considered by some
critics to rival those of Holbein. Both Isaac and his son PETER OLIVER
(1601--1660) painted in the reign of James I., who, if not a great
patron of Art, yet encouraged foreign portrait painters to work in
England. Most famous among these were DANIEL MYTENS, PAUL VAN SOMER, and
CORNELIS JONSON. Van Somer, a Fleming, is specially noted for his
fidelity, Mytens for the spirit and dignity of his likenesses and his
landscape backgrounds, and Jonson for the accuracy of his portraits.
JEAN PETITOT (1607--1691), of Geneva, also came to England and painted
portraits in enamel for Charles I. But native art was not altogether
unrepresented. _Nicholas Stone_, the sculptor, flourished; and JOHN
HOSKINS, who died in 1664, was celebrated as a miniature painter. The
special art of miniature painting was at this time lucrative to its
professors, as it was the fashion to wear pictures of friends, set in
gold and precious stones. There were symptoms of a growing taste for art
in England, and men were learning that it was possible to paint a good
picture without living on the Continent.
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF KING JAMES I. _By_ HOSKINS, AFTER VAN SOMER.
_From a Miniature in Windsor Castle._]
The first Englishman of high degree who collected works of art in the
manner to which we apply the phrase, was the Earl of Arundel, who was
followed by Prince Henry, son of James I. The accession of Charles I.
marks a new and bright period in the history of English painting.
Walpole, in his "Anecdotes of Painting," speaking of Charles I., says,
not very accurately, "The accession of this Prince was the first era of
real taste in England. As his temper was not profuse, the money he
expended on his collections, and the rewards he bestowed on men of true
genius, are proofs of his judgment. He knew how and where to bestow."
The King was not only a patron of art, but an artist. We are told by
Gilpin that Charles "had singular skill in limning, and was a good judge
of pictures." Another authority states that he often amused himself by
drawing and designing. Charles inherited pictures which had been
collected by Henry VIII. and Prince Henry, all of which were scattered
in the different royal palaces. To these works, one hundred and fifty in
all, the King added a vast number of valuable examples. The manuscript
catalogue, left incomplete by Vanderdoort, the keeper of the royal
galleries, mentions 497 pictures at Whitehall, including 28 by Titian, 9
by Raphael, 11 by Correggio, 11 by Holbein, 16 by Giulio Romano, 7 by
Parmigiano, 7 by Rubens, 7 by Tintoretto, 3 by Rembrandt, 16 by Van
Dyck, 4 by Paolo Veronese, and 2 by Leonardo da Vinci.[F] Charles
bought, in 1627, the collection of paintings belonging to the Duke of
Mantua for L18,280 12s. 8d.; and many foreign courts made presents of
rare and valuable pictures to the King of England. The good example of
their master was followed by some of the nobility, and the Duke of
Buckingham, the Earl of Somerset, the Earl of Pembroke, and the Earl of
Arundel were liberal patrons of art. The last made a noble collection of
statues and drawings; some of the latter are in the British Museum; many
of the sculptures are at Oxford. Charles vainly invited Albani to visit
England, but in 1629 RUBENS arrived as a confidential diplomatic
representative of the Archduchess Isabella, Infanta of Spain, and was
induced to remain for about nine months. The King delighted to honour
the great painter, and made him a knight. During his stay in England,
Rubens, among other works, painted his allegoric picture of _Peace and
War_ (National Gallery); _St. George_ (Buckingham Palace); the
_Assumption of the Blessed Virgin_, for the Earl of Arundel; and the
designs for the ceiling of Whitehall. The influence from this brief
sojourn was very marked, and it was followed by that of--
ANTHONY VAN DYCK (1599--1641), a native of Antwerp, after a brief and
unsatisfactory visit to England, returned here and was created Court
Painter in 1632. Charles I. knighted him in 1632. His influence affected
the portrait painters who lived a century after him, and survived till
the advent of Reynolds. The best of Van Dyck's pictures are in the
possession of the Crown and private collectors in England. There is one
famous _Portrait of Charles I._ in the Louvre, and another in the
Hermitage at St. Petersburg. The _Three Children of Charles I._ is among
his pictures in Windsor Castle. In the National Gallery the best
specimen of Van Dyck's art is the _Emperor Theodosius and St. Ambrose_,
No. 50. The _Gevartius_, No. 52, is probably by Rubens. There are
magnificent portraits by Van Dyck in many private galleries.
GERARD VAN HONTHORST (1590--1656), a native of Utrecht, passed some
years in England, painting portraits for Charles I. and his courtiers,
and giving lessons to his daughter Elizabeth, afterwards Queen of
Bohemia.
WILLIAM DOBSON (1610--1646), a dwarf, was apprenticed to Sir Robert
Peake, an obscure painter and picture dealer, and learnt to copy Van
Dyck so accurately, that he attracted the notice of the great master,
who introduced him to the King. He became, after his patron's death,
Serjeant-Painter, and Groom of the Privy Chamber. His career, like
himself, was brief. When the Civil War broke out, Dobson was a prisoner
for debt, and he died three years before the execution of his royal
master. His portraits are often mistaken for those of Van Dyck. At
Hampton Court is a fine picture of the painter himself with his wife.
The _Beheading of St. John the Baptist_, which resembles a Honthorst, is
at Wilton House; and a portrait of _Cleveland_, the poet, is in the
Ellesmere collection. Several of Dobson's portraits have been exhibited
in the National Portrait Exhibition, and in the collections of works by
the "Old Masters" at Burlington House.
[Illustration: THE COUNTESS OF DEVONSHIRE. _By_ VAN DYCK. _From the
Engraving by P. Lombart._]
GEORGE JAMESONE (1586--1644), the son of an Aberdeen architect, is
styled by Cunningham "the Scottish Van Dyck." He studied abroad under
Rubens, in the company of Van Dyck, and in 1628 commenced a prosperous
career in Scotland. He painted the portrait of Charles I., in 1633, when
the King visited that country. Jamesone also painted historic pictures,
landscapes, and subjects from the Bible. During the contest of the King
with his Parliament, the arts could not but languish. Some of the great
collectors fled to the Continent, where more than one of them existed by
the sale of portable works of art, such as medals. The Parliament
ordered the furniture of the royal palaces and the contents of the
picture galleries to be sold by auction, and the proceeds to be applied
to the expenses of the war in Ireland and the North. By an order of the
House of Commons, 1645, all such pictures and statues at York House as
bore the image of the Virgin Mary were to be forthwith destroyed as
gendering superstition. Although art, as represented in England at this
time, had been devoted to any but religious purposes--and many of its
manifestations were grossly indecent and infamous, or, at best, shocking
to unaccustomed eyes--these orders were not obeyed universally. Many
pictures were bought by foreign princes, some by Cavaliers, others by
the Puritans, among whom Colonel Hutchinson was an extensive purchaser.
Cromwell, on becoming Protector, stopped all the sales of royal
paintings and property. To him we owe the preservation of Raphael's
cartoons. They were valued by the Commissioners at L300 and ordered to
be sold, but Cromwell stopped the sale. In the reign of Charles II.,
these cartoons would have been lost to England; the King had offered to
sell them to Barillon, minister of Louis XIV., and it was only by Lord
Danby's means that the sale was prevented. Cromwell employed as his
portrait painter--
[Illustration: OLIVER CROMWELL. _By_ SIR PETER LELY. _In the Pitti
Palace, Florence._]
ROBERT WALKER, who died in 1658. The Protector insisted upon having the
warts and pimples on his face faithfully portrayed, and gave strict
injunctions both to Walker and Sir Peter Lely not to flatter him. One of
Walker's portraits of _Cromwell_ is at Warwick Castle. Some capital
examples of his skill are in the National Portrait Gallery. The
Restoration was not favourable to design. Charles II. had neither taste
for art, nor money to encourage painters. The unbridled license of the
Court defiled the studio as it did the stage; and the most popular
pictures were the portraits of the rakes and wantons who clustered round
the King.
Sir PETER LELY (1618--1680), originally named Van der Faes, was the very
accomplished painter of the Court, some of whose better works may be
compared with Van Dyck's. He came to England in 1643, and profited by
his art under Charles I., the Protectorate, and Charles II. Walpole said
of Lely's nymphs that they are "generally reposed on the turf, and are
too wanton and too magnificent to be taken for anything but Maids of
Honour."
The well-known collection of Lely's portraits at Hampton Court includes,
among others, those of the _Duchess of Richmond_; the _Countess of
Rochester_; _Mrs. Middleton_ the celebrated beauty; the _Countess of
Northumberland_; the _Duchess of Cleveland, as Minerva_; the _Countess
de Grammont_, and _Jane Kellaway, as Diana_ (misnamed Princess Mary).
_Mrs. Middleton_, in the National Portrait Gallery, by Lely, is
remarkably good. Lely fell dead before his easel, while painting a
portrait of the _Dowager Duchess of Somerset_, November 30th, 1680.
Several English artists practised in this reign.
HENRY ANDERTON (1630--after 1665) was a portrait painter employed at
Court. ISAAC FULLER (1606--1672) painted portraits and allegoric pieces.
He is described as extravagant and burlesque in his tastes and manners,
and his works bear the mark of this character. An epigram on a "Drunken
Sot" is to this effect:--
"His head doth on his shoulder lean,
His eyes are sunk, and hardly seen;
Who sees this sot in his own colour
Is apt to say, ''twas done by Fuller.'"
JOHN GREENHILL (1649--1676) was the most celebrated of Lely's pupils.
ROBERT STREATER (1624--1680) was made Serjeant-Painter to Charles II.,
and painted landscapes and historic works. His work still survives in
the Theatre at Oxford, but we cannot echo the praise accorded to it by a
rhymester who says--
"That future ages must confess they owe
To Streater more than Michael Angelo."
That most delightful of gossips, Samuel Pepys, has much to say about
art, of which he was no mean critic. Writing on February 1st, 1688,
Pepys said: "I was carried to Mr. Streater's, the famous
history-painter, whom I have often heard of, but did never see him
before; and there I found him and Dr. Wren and several virtuosos,
looking upon the paintings which he is making for the new Theatre at
Oxford; and indeed they look as if they would be very fine, and the rest
think better than those of Rubens in the Banqueting-house at Whitehall,
but I do not fully think so. But they will certainly be very noble; and
I am mightily pleased to have the fortune to see this man and his work,
which is very famous, and he is a very civil little man, and lame, but
lives very handsomely."
SAMUEL COOPER (1609--1672) was a miniature painter of a high order,
whose art attested the influence of Van Dyck; the Duke of Buccleuch has
the two famous unfinished portraits of the Protector by him, and a
galaxy of other works of this class. Pepys, speaking of a
portrait-painter named JOHN HAYLS, of whom he thought highly, said: "He
has also persuaded me to have Cooper draw my wife's picture, which
though it cost over L30, yet I will have it done." He called Cooper "a
limner in little," and referred to him several times in his Diary. On
the death of Sir Peter Lely, another foreigner became the popular
painter of the Court. This was--
Sir GODFREY KNELLER (1648--1723), a native of Luebeck, who came to the
Court of Charles II. in 1674, and maintaining his popularity during the
reign of James II., William III., and Anne, lived to paint the portrait
of _George I._ Kneller's works are chiefly portraits. Of these the
famous Kit-Kat series of likenesses of distinguished men is invaluable.
His portrait of his fellow-countryman, _Grinling Gibbons_, is one of his
best paintings. He was the fashionable painter of the age, and kings and
fine ladies, wits and statesmen, are embodied in his art. Dryden was
amongst his sitters, and the poet has left the following praises of the
painter:--
"Such are thy pictures, Kneller! such thy skill,
That nature seems obedient to thy will;
Comes out and meets thy pencil in the draught,
Lives there, and wants but words to speak the thought."
[Illustration: GRINLING GIBBONS, THE SCULPTOR. _By_ GODFREY KNELLER.]
The popularity of allegoric painting did much to hinder the progress of
English art. Nature gave place to naked gods and impossible
shepherdesses, who were painted on walls and ceilings at so much a
square foot. Charles II. had probably acquired a taste for such painting
abroad, and it retained its popularity for a considerable period. Fuseli
said: "Charles II., with the Cartoons in his possession and the
magnificence of Whitehall before his eyes, suffered Verrio to
contaminate the walls of his palaces, or degraded Lely to paint the
Cymons and Iphigenias of his Court, while the manner of Kneller swept
completely away what might be left of taste among his successors. It was
reserved for the German Lely and his successor Kneller to lay the
foundation of a manner which, by pretending to unite portrait with
history, gave a retrograde direction for nearly a century to both; a mob
of shepherds and shepherdesses in flowing wigs and dressed curls,
ruffled Endymions, humble Junos, withered Hebes, surly Allegros, and
smirking Pensierosos usurp the place of propriety and character." We can
see the triumphs of allegory over nature fully illustrated in Hampton
Court Palace. Chief among painters of this class of art was ANTONIO
VERRIO (1634--1707), who received from Charles II. L10,000 for the
decoration of Windsor Castle. LOUIS LAGUERRE (1663--1721) was associated
with Verrio, and carried on similar work after Verrio's death. His best
works are at Blenheim. In his later years Laguerre found a coadjutor in
SIR JAMES THORNHILL (1676--1734), whose decorations are superior to
those of Verrio or Laguerre. His chief productions are in the cupola of
St. Paul's Cathedral, the Great Hall of Greenwich Hospital, an apartment
at Hampton Court, and a saloon in Blenheim Palace. Thornhill was
knighted by George I., being the first English artist who received that
honour, and he sat in Parliament for his native place, Melcombe Regis.
Perhaps the most enduring fact about him is that he was the
father-in-law of Hogarth. Walpole said of the reign of George I.:--"No
reign since the arts have been in any estimation produced fewer works
that will deserve the attention of posterity." It was not only in
England that art slumbered. The Flemish, Dutch, and Spanish schools had
passed from the brilliance of their seventeenth-century period. In Italy
art had shrivelled with the last of the Bolognese school. France
possessed some original painters, but not of the highest order.
Before passing on to the period of Hogarth and the creation of the
English school, we may mention a few names of painters in England.
These were JOHN RILEY (1646--1691); JAMES PARMENTIER (1658--1730);
WILLIAM AIKMAN (1682--1731); MARY BEALE (1632--1697); JOHN CLOSTERMANN
(1656--1713); MICHAEL DAHL (1656--1743); GERARD VON SOEST (1637--1681);
JOHN VANDERBANK (1694?--1739); WILLIAM WISSING (1656--1687); JOSEPH
MICHAEL WRIGHT (1625?--1700?), a pupil of Jamesone; JONATHAN RICHARDSON
(1665--1745), a pupil of Riley; CHARLES JERVAS (1675--1739), a follower
of Kneller, and the friend of Pope, who, with the fulsome flattery of
the day, compared him to Zeuxis. GEORGE KNAPTON (1698--1778) was famous
for crayon portraits; a large group, in oils, representing the Princess
of Wales and her family, by his hand, is at Hampton Court.
In the middle of the eighteenth century, THOMAS HUDSON (1701--1779)
became the fashionable portrait painter. His chief remaining claim to
fame is that he was the first master of Joshua Reynolds. FRANCIS HAYMAN
(1708--1776) lived long enough to write himself R.A. among the earliest
members. His _Finding of Moses_ may be seen at the Foundling Hospital;
and his own portrait in the National Portrait Gallery. He seems to have
been highly esteemed, and, among other works, executed some for Vauxhall
Gardens. His fame is now almost as extinct as the lamps of that once
famous place of entertainment.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER III.
ENGLISH ART IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY--WILLIAM HOGARTH.
Hitherto we have seen painting in England confined to foreign artists,
or to natives who more or less slavishly copied them. We have seen,
likewise, that many of the English painters of the latter days of the
seventeenth century were decorators rather than artists, who, forsaking
all truth and nature, covered the walls and ceilings of houses with
simpering shepherdesses and impossible deities. The time of change came,
however, and with it the man who was to be the first original painter of
his country. It is to plain William Hogarth, the son of the Cumberland
schoolmaster, the apprentice of the silver-plate engraver, Ellis Gamble,
that we owe the origin of the English school of painting. The term
"school of painting" is, however, hardly correct, as Hogarth founded no
school, nor has there existed one in England till very recently. We
should rather say that Hogarth was the first English artist who forsook
exhausted conventionalities for large truthfulness and original thought,
and thus paved the way to a new life in art. A man who laughed at the
"black masters," as he called the painters of the most popular works of
the period; and who declared that copying other men's pictures was like
pouring wine from one vessel to another, a process which did not
increase the quality, and allowed the flavour to evaporate, was
naturally regarded as an innovator of a monstrous order. Like all
reformers, Hogarth had to defeat opposition and ridicule. But he dared
to think for himself, and in that courage lay the secret of success.
[Illustration: WILLIAM HOGARTH AND HIS DOG TRUMP. _By_ HOGARTH.
_In the National Gallery._]
WILLIAM HOGARTH was born in 1697 in Ship Court, Old Bailey, hard by
Ludgate Hill, in a house which was pulled down in 1862. His father, who
had received a good education at St. Bees, kept a school in Ship Court,
and sought work from booksellers. But, like many another poor scholar,
he could not make a living, and died disappointed. After spending some
time at school, William Hogarth, warned by the example of his father,
determined to pursue a craft in preference to literature, and was
apprenticed, probably in 1711, to Ellis Gamble, a silversmith in
Cranbourne Alley. Here, though his drawings and engravings were mostly
confined to heraldic devices and the like, the young artist gained
accuracy of touch, to which he added truthfulness of design, and
prepared himself to delineate that London life which was to furnish him
with models for his art. He tells us how he determined to enter a wider
field than that of mere silver-plate engraving, though at the age of
twenty to engrave his own designs on copper was the height of his
ambition. The men and women who jostled him in London streets, or rolled
by him in their coaches, were his models. Besides the keenest powers of
observation, and a sardonic, sympathizing, and pitying humour, he
possessed a wonderfully accurate and retentive memory, which enabled him
to impress a face or form on his mind, and reproduce it at leisure.
Occasionally, if some very attractive or singular face struck his fancy,
he would sketch it on his thumb-nail, and thence transfer it. Hogarth
tells us that "instead of burdening the memory with musty rules, or
tiring the eye with copying dry or damaged pictures, I have ever found
studying from nature the shortest and safest way of obtaining knowledge
of my art." Thus, whether he was watching "society" on its way to court,
or mingling in the midnight orgies of a tavern, Hogarth was storing
portraits which were to appear, some in silks and satins, as in the
_Marriage a la Mode_, others among the humours of _Beer Street_ and the
misery of _Gin Lane_. Hogarth's apprenticeship ended probably in 1718;
we find him studying drawing from the life in the Academy in St.
Martin's Lane. In 1721 he published _An Emblematical Print on the South
Sea (Scheme)_, which was sold at one shilling a copy, and though
defective in the sardonic humour which marked his later works, shows
promise of what was to come. In the same year _The Lottery_ was
published. In 1724 he engraved _Masquerades and Operas_, a satire, which
represents "society" crowding to a masquerade, and led by a figure
wearing a cap and bells on his head, and the Garter on his leg. This
engraving delighted the public whom it satirised, and Hogarth lost much
through piracies of his work. He was employed by the booksellers to
illustrate books with engravings and frontispieces. In "Mottraye's
Travels" (1723) there are eighteen illustrations by Hogarth, seven in
the "Golden Ass of Apuleius" (1724), and five frontispieces in
"Cassandra" (1725). Walpole says, somewhat too severely, that "no
symptoms of genius dawned in those early plates." In 1726 was published,
besides his twelve large prints, which are well known, an edition of
"Hudibras," illustrated by Hogarth in seventeen smaller plates. Of this
Walpole says, "This was among the first of his works that marked him as
a man above the common; yet in what made him then noticed it surprises
me now to find so little humour in an undertaking so congenial to his
talents." The designs of Hogarth are not so witty as the verses of
Butler, but we must remember that the painter had never seen men living
and acting as they are described in the poem; they were not like the
men of whom he made his daily studies. At this period he who dared to be
original, and to satirise his neighbours, had much trouble. The value
set upon his work in those early days may be estimated when we read that
J. Bowles, of the Black Horse, in Cornhill, patronised Hogarth to the
extent of offering him half-a-crown a pound weight for a copperplate
just executed. In 1727, we find a certain upholsterer named Morris
refusing to pay thirty pounds to the artist, because he had failed, in
Morris's opinion, to execute a representation of the _Element of Earth_,
as a design for tapestry, "in a workmanlike manner." It is on record
that the verdict was in favour of Hogarth, who was paid L20 for his work
and L10 for materials. In 1730, Hogarth made a secret marriage at old
Paddington Church, with Jane, only daughter of Sir James Thornhill,
Serjeant-Painter to the King. He had frequented Thornhill's studio, but
whether the art of the court painter, or the face of his daughter was
the greater attraction we know not. There is no doubt that Hogarth's
technique was studied from Thornhill's pictures, and not from those of
Watteau or Chardin, as has been supposed. Hogarth was painting portraits
years before 1730. Mr. Redgrave, in his "Century of Painters," describes
some wall pictures in the house No. 75, Dean Street, Soho, which is said
to have been a residence of Sir James Thornhill. Some of the figures
here are thoroughly of the Hogarth type, especially that of a black man
in a turban, a familiar form in the _Marriage a la Mode_. For a time
after his marriage Hogarth confined himself to painting portraits and
conversation pieces, for which he was well paid, although Walpole
declares that this "was the most ill-suited employment to a man whose
turn was certainly not flattery." Truthfulness, however, is more
valuable in a portrait than flattery, and we surely find it in Hogarth's
portraits of himself, one in the National Gallery, and in that of
_Captain Coram_, at the Foundling. In 1734, Hogarth published the first
of those wonderful unspoken sermons against vice and folly, _A Harlot's
Progress_, which was followed immediately by _A Rake's Progress_, issued
in 1735. _A Harlot's Progress_, in six plates, met with an enthusiastic
reception; it was a bold innovation on the cold stilted style of the
day, and its terrible _reality_ stirred the hearts of all beholders. _A
Rake's Progress_, in eight plates, was scarcely so popular, and the
professors of the kind of art which Hogarth had satirised found many
faults with the reformer. Hogarth was now a person of consequence, and
the once unknown and struggling artist was the talk of the town. _The
Sleeping Congregation_ is a satire on the heavy preachers and
indifferent church-goers of that period. _The Distressed Poet_ and _A
Midnight Modern Conversation_ soon followed. The latter, in which most
of the figures are actual portraits, is considered in France and Germany
the best of this master's single works. In due course appeared _The
Enraged Musician_, of which a wit of the day observed that "it deafens
one to look at it," and _The Strolling Actresses_, which Allan
Cunningham describes as "one of the most imaginative and amusing of all
the works of Hogarth."[G]
One of the best of Hogarth's life stories is the _Marriage a la Mode_,
the original paintings of which are in the National Gallery; they
appeared in prints in 1745. These well-known pictures illustrate the
story of a loveless marriage, where parents sacrifice their children,
the one for rank the other for money. Mr. Redgrave ("A Century of
Painters") tells us that "the novelty of Hogarth's work consisted in the
painter being the inventor of his own drama, as well as painter, and in
the way in which all the parts are made to tend to a dramatic whole;
each picture dependent on the other, and all the details illustrative of
the complete work. The same characters recur again and again, moved in
different tableaux with varied passions, one moral running through all,
the beginning finding its natural climax in the end." Some of the most
striking points in the satire of Hogarth's picture are brought out in
the background, as in the first picture of _Marriage a la Mode_, where
the works of "the black masters" are represented ludicrously, and the
ceiling of the room is adorned with an unnatural picture of the
destruction of the Egyptians in the Red Sea. In 1750 appeared _The March
of the Guards to Finchley_, which is "steeped in humour and strewn with
absurdities." It was originally dedicated to George II., but, so the
story goes, the King was offended by a satire on his Guards, and he
declared "I hate boetry and bainting; neither one nor the other ever did
any good." Certain it is that Hogarth was disappointed by the reception
of his work, and dedicated it to the King of Prussia. The painting of
_The March to Finchley_, on publication of the print, was disposed of by
lottery, and won by the Foundling Hospital. We cannot do more than
mention some of the remaining works by which the satirist continued "to
shoot Folly as she flies." _Beer Street_, and _Gin Lane_, illustrate the
advantages of drinking the national beverage, and the miseries following
the use of gin. _The Cockpit_ represents a scene very common in those
days, and contains many portraits. _The Election_ is a series of four
scenes, published between 1755 and 1758, in which all the varied vices,
humours, and passions of a contested election are admirably represented.
The pictures of this series are in Sir John Soane's Museum, Lincoln's
Inn Fields.
Hogarth's last years were embittered by quarrels, those with Churchill
and Wilkes being the most memorable. The publication in 1753 of his
admirable book, called "The Analysis of Beauty," in which Hogarth tried
to prove that a winding line is the Line of Beauty, produced much
adverse criticism and many fierce attacks, which the painter could not
take quietly. He was further annoyed by the censures passed on his
picture of _Sigismunda_, now in the National Gallery, which he had
painted in 1759 for Sir Richard Grosvenor, and which was returned on his
hands. Two years previously Hogarth had been made Serjeant-Painter to
the King. He did not live to hold this office long; on October 26th,
1764, the hand which had exposed the vices and follies of the day so
truly, and yet with such humour, had ceased to move. Hogarth died in his
house at Leicester Fields; he was buried in Chiswick Churchyard, where
on his monument stands this epitaph by Garrick;--
"Farewel, great Painter of Mankind!
Who reached the noblest point of Art;
Whose _pictured Morals_ charm the Mind,
And through the Eye correct the Heart.
If Genius fire thee, Reader, stay;
If _Nature_ touch thee, drop a Tear;
If neither move thee, turn away,
For HOGARTH'S honour'd dust lies here."
And yet it is of this man that Walpole says, that "as a painter he has
slender merit." Charles Lamb remarks wisely, in his fine essay on "The
Genius and Character of Hogarth, that his chief design was by no means
to raise a laugh." Of his prints, he says, "A set of severer satires
(for they are not so much comedies, which they have been likened to, as
they are strong and masculine satires), less mingled with anything of
mere fun, were never written upon paper, or graven upon copper. They
resemble Juvenal, or the satiric touches in _Timon of Athens_."
[Illustration]
CHAPTER IV.
THE ROYAL ACADEMY AND ITS INFLUENCE.
Hogarth was the first original painter of England, and he was too
original either to copy or to be copied; but he founded no school. What
he did was to draw aside the curtain and show the light of nature to
those who had been hitherto content to grope amid the extravagances of
allegory, or the dreams of mythology. Two circumstances specially stood
in the way of the progress of English art--the absence of a recognised
academy, where a system of art-study could be pursued, and where rewards
were offered for success; and the want of a public exhibition where
painters could display their works, or learn from one another. There
were no masters, properly speaking, in England, and therefore no pupils.
Instead of gathering around them students on the atelier system of the
Continent, painters in England had apprentices, who were employed to
grind their colours, clean their brushes, and prepare their canvas. Such
apprentices might become mechanical copyists of their employers.
Nevertheless, such was the system under which all the pupils of all the
great Italian Masters, some of whom became great masters in their turns,
were trained. Several attempts to supply the want of a recognised system
of art-teaching in London had been made from time to time. Sir
Balthasar Gerbier had a drawing school in Whitefriars so long ago as the
days of Charles I.; Van Dyck promoted studies of this kind at his house
in Blackfriars; the Duke of Richmond in 1758 endeavoured to form a
school at the Priory Garden, Westminster; Sir Godfrey Kneller supported
an academy for drawing and painting at his house in Great Queen Street,
till his death in 1723; another society existed in Greyhound Court,
Arundel Street, Strand, till 1738, when the members joined the St.
Martin's Lane Academy. These, like the following, were drawing and
painting schools, under recognised teachers, but neither
honour-bestowing, benevolent, nor representative bodies. Each pupil paid
for the use of the models and premises, except those which were supplied
by the Duke of Richmond to his guests. In 1724 Sir James Thornhill had
opened an art academy at his house in James Street, Covent Garden; it
existed till his death in 1734; he suggested to the Prime Minister, Lord
Halifax, the idea of a Royal Academy. Vanderbank for a time had a school
with living models in a disused Presbyterian chapel. William Shipley
maintained an art academy in St. Martin's Lane for thirty years, and we
know that Hogarth studied there. But none of these schools had a
prescribed system of teaching. The absence of a public exhibition was
felt as a great misfortune by the artists of this period. Hogarth,
however, who regarded the painters of his country from a gloomy point of
view, had no belief in the regenerating power of academies or paid
professors.
Apart from the Exhibitions of the Society of Artists in 1760 and 1761,
for which Hogarth designed the frontispiece and tailpiece to the
catalogue, the first public exhibition of pictures was that of sign
boards, promoted by Hogarth and B. Thornton in 1762. The impetus which
Hogarth's success gave to native art, however, was soon visible; and the
Society of Arts and the Dilettanti Society encouraged young painters by
giving prizes, and by suggesting the formation of a guild or
confraternity of artists. The first private exhibitions of pictures were
held in the Foundling and St. Bartholomew's Hospitals, to which Hogarth
and some of the leading painters of the day presented their works. This
happened in 1746. In 1761 the Society of Artists was rent in two, and a
new body, the Free Society, remained in the Adelphi. The Society of
Artists removed to Spring Gardens, and in 1765 obtained a charter of
incorporation: it was thenceforward called the Incorporated Society.
Owing to the mismanagement and consequent dissensions in this body arose
the Royal Academy of Arts, established by George III. on December 10th,
1768, though without a royal charter of incorporation. This institution,
which was to exercise so marked an influence on the art of England,
supplied two wants--a definite system of teaching, and an exhibition of
meritorious works.
Before noticing the three eminent painters who mark a new era in English
painting, and who became members of the new Academy, we must speak of
others who were not without their influence on the world of art. ALLAN
RAMSAY (1713--1784) was considered one of the best portrait painters of
his time. He was the son of Allan Ramsay, the poet, and was born at
Edinburgh. After studying in Italy he came to London and established
himself there, frequently visiting Edinburgh. Walpole specially praises
his portraits of women, even preferring some of them to those of
Reynolds. In 1767 Ramsay was made painter to George III., and his
portraits of the King and _Queen Charlotte_ are still at Kensington. As
a man of literary tastes and great accomplishments, Allan Ramsay
received the praises of Dr. Johnson and Sir Joshua Reynolds. In the
Exhibition of 1862 was exhibited a portrait of the _Duke of Argyll_, by
Ramsay. Portrait painting was still the popular branch of art in
England, and the influence of Hogarth had produced no advance towards
the study of landscape. Among those, however, who attempted it was
GEORGE LAMBERT (1710--1765), a scene-painter, and founder of the
"Beefsteak Club." This latter distinction makes him remembered, whilst
his landscapes, after the manner of Poussin, are forgotten. WILLIAM
SMITH (1707--1764), GEORGE SMITH (1714--1776), JOHN SMITH (1717--1764),
usually known as the SMITHS OF CHICHESTER, were very popular in their
day. They painted landscapes from the scenery round Chichester, but gave
it a foreign and unnatural air by copying Claude and Poussin. Though
they exercised considerable influence on English landscape-painting, we
cannot wonder at the popularity of these painters when we remember how
utterly barren this branch of art still remained in England. PETER
MONAMY(1670?--1749) was a marine painter of the school of the Van de
Veldes, whose pupil he may have been. A Sea piece by him at Hampton
Court (No. 915) shows that he was an artist of a high order. Portraits
of Monamy and his patron are in a picture by Hogarth at Knowsley. SAMUEL
SCOTT (1710?--1772) was a friend of Hogarth, and a marine painter after
the mode of the Van de Veldes. Walpole considered him "the first painter
of his age, one whose works will charm in any age." They have, however,
ceased to do so in this. Another marine painter was CHARLES BROOKING
(1723--1759), one of whose productions is at Hampton Court. He
occasionally worked in concert with DOMINIC SERRES (1722--1793), a Royal
Academician (a native of Gascony), whose four large pictures of _The
Naval Review at Portsmouth_, painted for George III., are likewise at
Hampton Court. The works of Dominic Serres have been confounded with
those of his son, JOHN THOMAS SERRES (1759--1825), who was a far
superior painter to his father.
We pass on to speak of three celebrated painters, who when already
famous became members of the Royal Academy--Wilson, Reynolds, and
Gainsborough. The story of RICHARD WILSON (1713--1782) is the story of a
disappointed man. Born at Pinegas, Montgomeryshire, the son of the
parson of that place. Wilson's early taste for drawing attracted the
attention of Sir George Wynne, by whom he was introduced to one Wright,
a portrait painter in London. Following the popular branch of art in his
day, Wilson in due course became a portrait painter, and although
nothing remarkable is known of his portraits, he managed to make a
living. In 1749 he visited Italy, and whilst waiting for an interview
with the landscape painter Zuccarelli he is said to have sketched the
view through the open window. The Italian advised the Englishman to
devote himself henceforth to landscapes, and Wilson followed his advice.
After six years' stay in Italy, during which period he became imbued
with the beauties of that country, Wilson returned to England in 1755,
and found Zuccarelli worshipped, whilst he himself was neglected. His
_Niobe_, one version of which is in the National Gallery, was exhibited
with the Society of Artists' Collection, in Spring Gardens, 1760, and
made a great impression, but, in general, his pictures, infinitely
superior to the mere decorations of the Italian, were criticised, and
compared unfavourably with those of Zuccarelli, and it was not till long
after Wilson's death that he was thoroughly appreciated. He was often
compelled to sell his pictures to pawnbrokers, who, so it is said, could
not sell them again. Poverty and neglect soured the painter's temper,
and made him irritable and reckless. He had many enemies, and even Sir
Joshua Reynolds treated him with injustice. Wilson was one of the
original thirty-six members of the Royal Academy, and in 1776 applied
for and obtained the post of Librarian to that body, the small salary
helping the struggling man to live. The last years of his life were
brightened by better fortune. A brother left him a legacy, and in 1780
Wilson retired to a pleasant home at Llanberis, Carnarvon, where he died
two years later. Mr. Redgrave says of him: "There is this praise due to
our countryman--that our landscape art, which had heretofore been
derived from the meaner school of Holland, following his great
example, looked thenceforth to Italy for its inspiration; that he proved
the power of native art to compete on this ground also with the art of
the foreigner, and prepared the way for the coming men, who, embracing
Nature as their mistress, were prepared to leave all and follow her."
Wilson frequently repeated his more successful pictures. _The Ruins of
the Villa of Maecenas, at Tivoli_ (National Gallery), was painted five
times by him. In the same Gallery are _The Destruction of Niobe's
Children_, _A Landscape with Figures_, three _Views in Italy_, _Lake
Avernus with the Bay of Naples in the distance_, &c. In the Duke of
Westminster's collection are _Apollo and the Seasons_ and _The River
Dee_. Wilson, like many another man of genius, lived before his time,
and was forced one day to ask Barry, the Royal Academician, if he knew
any one mad enough to employ a landscape painter, and if so, whether he
would recommend him.
[Illustration: MORNING. _By_ RICHARD WILSON.]
Singularly unlike Wilson in his fortunes was a painter of the same
school, named GEORGE BARRET (1728?--1784), an Irishman, who began life
by colouring prints for a Dublin publisher, and became the popular
landscape painter of the day, receiving vast sums for his pictures,
whilst Wilson could hardly buy bread. Patronised by Burke, who gained
him the appointment of Master-Painter to Chelsea Hospital, and receiving
for his works L2,000 a year, Barret died poor, and his pictures, once so
prized, are neglected, whilst the works of Wilson are now valued as they
deserve. Another artist who derived his inspiration from Wilson was
JULIUS CAESAR IBBETSON (1759--1817), who painted landscapes with cattle
and figures and rustic incidents with much success.
JOSHUA REYNOLDS (1723--1792) was born at Plympton, Devon, the son of a
clergyman who was a master in the grammar school. His father had
intended him for a doctor, but nature decided that Joshua Reynolds
should be a painter. He preferred to read Richardson's "Treatise on
Painting" to any other book, and when his taste for art became manifest
he was sent to London to study with Hudson, the popular portrait painter
of the day. Before this time, however, the young Reynolds had studied
"The Jesuit's Perspective" with such success that he astonished his
father by drawing Plympton school. There is at Plymouth a portrait of
the _Rev. Thomas Smart_, tutor in Lord Edgcumbe's household, which is
said to have been painted by Reynolds when twelve years old. It was in
1741 that Joshua Reynolds began his studies with Hudson, and as that
worthy could teach him little or nothing, it is fortunate for art that
the connection only lasted two years. On leaving Hudson's studio
Reynolds returned to Devonshire, but we know little about his life there
till the year 1746, when his father died, and the painter was
established at Plymouth Dock, now Devonport, and was painting portraits.
Many of these earlier works betray the stiffness and want of nature
which their author had probably learnt from Hudson. Having visited
London, and stayed for a time in St. Martin's Lane, the artists'
quarter, Reynolds was enabled, in 1749, to realise his great wish, and
go abroad. His friend Commodore Keppel carried him to Italy, and
Reynolds, unfettered and unspoilt by the mechanical arts of his
countrymen, studied the treasures of Italy, chiefly in Rome, and without
becoming a copyist, was imbued with the beauties of the Italian school.
Michelangelo was the object of his chief adoration, and his name was the
most frequently on his lips, and the last in his addresses to the Royal
Academy. A love of colour was the characteristic of Reynolds, and his
use of brilliant and fugitive pigments accounts for the decay of many of
his best works; he used to say jestingly that "he came off with _flying
colours_." Doubtless the wish to rival the colouring of the Venetians
led Reynolds to make numerous experiments which were often fatal to the
preservation of his pictures. It has been said of him that "he loved
his colours as other men love their children." In 1752 Reynolds returned
to England, and settled in London, first in St. Martin's Lane, then in
Newport Street, and finally in a grand house in Leicester Fields. His
course was one of brilliant success. At his house, wit and wisdom met
together, and the ponderous learning of Dr. Johnson, the eloquence of
Burke, and the fancy of Goldsmith, combined to do honour to the
courteous, gentle painter, whom all men loved, and of whom Goldsmith
wrote:--
"His pencil was striking, resistless, and grand;
His manners were gentle, complying, and bland.
Still, born to improve us in every part--
His pencil our faces, his manners our heart."
Most of the leaders of the rank and fashion of the day sat for their
portraits to the painter who "read souls in faces." In 1768 Joshua
Reynolds was chosen first President of the Royal Academy, and was
knighted by George III. He succeeded, on the death of Ramsay, to the
office of Court Painter. His "Discourses on Painting," delivered at the
Royal Academy, were remarkable for their excellent judgment and literary
skill. It was supposed by some that Johnson and Burke had assisted
Reynolds in the composition of these lectures, but the Doctor
indignantly disclaimed such aid, declaring that "Sir Joshua Reynolds
would as soon get me to paint for him as to write for him." A lesser
honour, though one which caused him the greatest pleasure, was conferred
on Reynolds in 1773, when he was elected Mayor of his native Plympton.
In the same year he exhibited his famous _Strawberry Girl_, of which he
said that it was "one of the half dozen original things" which no man
ever exceeded in his life's work. In 1789 the failure of his sight
warned Sir Joshua that "the night cometh when no man can work." He died,
full of years and honours, on February 23rd, 1792, and was buried near
Sir Christopher Wren in St. Paul's Cathedral.
[Illustration: MRS. BRADYLL. _By_ REYNOLDS. _In the possession of Sir
Richard Wallace, Bart._]
Reynolds was a most untiring worker. He exhibited two hundred and
forty-five pictures in the Royal Academy, on an average eleven every
year. In the National Gallery are twenty-three of his paintings. Amongst
them are _The Holy Family_ (No. 78), _The Graces decorating a Terminal
Figure of Hymen_ (79), _The Infant Samuel_ (162), _The Snake in the
Grass_ (885), _Robinetta_ (892), and portraits of himself, of _Admiral
Keppel_, _Dr. Johnson_, _Boswell_, _Lord Heathfield_, and _George IV. as
Prince of Wales_. Mr. Ruskin deems Reynolds "one of _the_ seven
colourists of the world," and places him with Titian, Giorgione,
Correggio, Tintoretto, Veronese, and Turner. He likewise says,
"considered as a painter of individuality in the human form and mind, I
think him, even as it is, the prince of portrait painters. Titian paints
nobler pictures, and Van Dyck had nobler subjects, but neither of them
entered so subtly as Sir Joshua did into the minor varieties of heart
and temper."[H]
It is as "the prince of portrait painters" that Sir Joshua will be
remembered, although he produced more than one hundred and thirty
historic or poetic pieces. Messrs. Redgrave, speaking of his powers as
an historic painter, declare that "notwithstanding the greatness of
Reynolds as a portrait painter, and the beauty of his fancy subjects, he
wholly fails as a painter of history. Allowing all that arises from
'colour harmony,' we must assert that, both as to form and character,
the characters introduced into these solemn dramas are wholly unworthy
to represent the persons of the actors therein." They argue that the
_Ugolino_ fails to represent the fierce Count shut up in the Tower of
Famine, on the banks of the Arno, and that the children of the _Holy
Family_ "for all there is of character and holiness, might change places
with the Cupid who fixes his arrow to transfix his nymph." The child
who represents _The Infant Samuel_, delightful as it is, in common with
all Sir Joshua Reynolds's children, has nothing to distinguish it as set
apart to high and holy offices. We may mention as among the best known
of the historic and poetic subjects of this master:--_Macbeth and the
Witches_, _Cardinal Beaufort_, _Hercules strangling the Serpents_,
painted for the Empress of Russia, and _The Death of Dido_. Famous, too,
as portraits, are _Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse_ (Duke of
Westminster's and Dulwich Gallery), _Garrick between Tragedy and
Comedy_, _The Strawberry Girl_, _The Shepherd Boy_, _The Little Girl in
a Mob Cap_ (Penelope Boothby), _The Little Duke_, and _The Little
Marchioness_; many others which are scattered in the galleries and
chambers of the English nobility and gentry, and which are now
frequently seen on the walls of Burlington House as each "Old Masters"
Exhibition passes by.
THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH (1727--1788), the son of a clothier, was born at
Sudbury, in Suffolk. He early showed taste for art, and would linger
among the woods and streams round Sudbury to sketch. Nature was his
model, and to this fact we owe the pictures which make him and Wilson
the founders of our school of landscape painting. The details of this
master's life are few and uneventful. When between fourteen and fifteen
years of age, his father sent Thomas Gainsborough to London to study
art. His first master was Gravelot, a French engraver of great ability,
to whose teaching Gainsborough probably owed much. From him he passed to
Hayman in the St. Martin's Lane Academy, a drawing school only.
Gainsborough began as a portrait and landscape painter in Hatton Garden,
but finding little patronage during four years of his sojourn there,
returned to his native town, and presently married Margaret Burr, who
had crossed his line of sight when he was sketching a wood. The lady's
figure was added to the picture, and in due course became the wife of
the artist. For a man so careless as Gainsborough, an early marriage
was good, and we owe the preservation of many of his works to the
thoughtfulness of his wife. Settling in Ipswich, he began to make a
name. Philip Thicknesse, Governor of Landguard Fort, opposite Harwich,
became his earliest patron, and officiously maintained a friendship
which was often trying to the painter. Gainsborough, at his suggestion,
painted a view of _Landguard Fort_ (the picture has perished), which
attracted considerable attention. In 1760 he removed to Bath, and found
a favourable field for portrait-painting, though landscape was not
neglected. Fourteen years later Gainsborough, no longer an unknown
artist, came to London and rented part of Schomberg House, Pall Mall. He
was now regarded as the rival of Reynolds in portraiture, and of Wilson
in landscape. Once, when Reynolds at an Academy Dinner proposed the
health of his rival as "the greatest landscape painter of the day,"
Wilson, who was present, exclaimed, "Yes, and the greatest portrait
painter, too." One of the original members of the Royal Academy,
Gainsborough exhibited ninety pictures in the Gallery, but refused to
contribute after 1783, because a portrait of his was not hung as he
wished. A quick-tempered, impulsive man, he had many disputes with
Reynolds, though none of them were of a very bitter kind. Gainsborough's
_Blue Boy_ is commonly said to have been painted in spite against
Reynolds, in order to disprove the President's statement that blue ought
not to be used in masses. But there were other and worthier reasons for
the production of this celebrated work, in respect to which Gainsborough
followed his favourite Van Dyck in displaying "a large breadth of cool
light supporting the flesh." It is pleasant to think of the kindly
minded painter enjoying music with his friends; and, rewarding some of
them more lavishly than wisely, he is said to have given _The Boy at the
Stile_ to Colonel Hamilton, in return for his performance on the violin.
It is pleasant, too, to know that whatever soreness of feeling existed
between him and Sir Joshua, passed away before he died. When the
President of the Royal Academy came to his dying bed, Gainsborough
declared his reconciliation, and said, "We are all going to heaven, and
Van Dyck is of the company." This was in 1788. Gainsborough was buried
at Kew. The Englishness of his landscapes makes Gainsborough popular.
Wilson had improved on the Dutch type by visiting Italy, but
Gainsborough sought no other subjects than his own land afforded. Nature
speaks in his portraits or from his landscapes, and his rustic children
excel those of Reynolds, because they are really sun-browned peasants,
not fine ladies and gentlemen masquerading in the dresses of villagers.
Mr. Ruskin says of Gainsborough, "His power of colour (it is mentioned
by Sir Joshua as his peculiar gift) is capable of taking rank beside
that of Rubens; he is the purest colourist--Sir Joshua himself not
excepted--of the whole English school; with him, in fact, the art of
painting did in great part die, and exists not now in Europe. I hesitate
not to say that in the management and quality of single and particular
tints, in the purely technical part of painting, Turner is a child to
Gainsborough."
[Illustration: MRS. SIDDONS. _By_ GAINSBOROUGH. A.D. 1784.
_In the National Gallery._]
Among the most popular pictures by this great master are _The Blue Boy_,
_The Shepherd Boy in the Shower_, _The Cottage Door_, _The Cottage Girl
with Dog and Pitcher_, _The Shepherd Boys with their Dogs fighting_,
_The Woodman and his Dog in the Storm_ (burnt at Eaton Park, engraved by
Simon, and copied in needlework by Miss Linwood). There are thirteen
pictures by Gainsborough in the National Gallery, including _The Market
Cart_, _The Watering Place_, _Musidora_, _Portraits of Mrs. Siddons_,
and _Orpin, the Parish Clerk of Bradford-on-Avon_. In the Royal
Collection at Windsor are seventeen life-size heads of the sons and
daughters of George III., of which, say the Messrs. Redgrave, "it is
hardly possible to speak too highly."
We may here fittingly mention a contemporary of Gainsborough, HUGH
ROBINSON (about 1760--1790), who only gained a tardy though well-merited
right to rank among England's portrait painters by the exhibition at the
"Old Masters," in 1881, of his _Portrait of Thomas Teesdale_, which was
followed in the next exhibition by the _Piping Boy_. The remainder of
the works of this talented young Yorkshireman--who exhibited but three
pictures at the Royal Academy (in 1780 and 1782), and who died on his
way home from Italy, whither he had gone to study art--are chiefly
family portraits. The two mentioned above best display his happy
blending of landscape and portraiture, and, though somewhat recalling
the manner of Gainsborough, are full of natural talent.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER V.
THE PROGRESS OF ENGLISH ART IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
It will here be convenient to notice briefly some foreign painters who
worked in England in the middle of the eighteenth century.
GIOVANNI BATTISTA CIPRIANI, R.A. (1727--1785), a Florentine, came to
London in 1755 and remained here, gaining a great reputation as an
historic painter at a time when foreign artists were specially popular.
He was one of the original members of the Royal Academy, and designed
the diploma of that body. To Cipriani the English school owes some
refinement tempering the rough originality of Hogarth, but his art, "the
worn-out and effete art of modern Italy," left few permanent traces on
that of England.
ANGELICA KAUFFMAN, R.A. (1740--1807), a native of Schwartzenberg, in
Austria, came to London in 1765, and, aided by fashion and the patronage
of Queen Charlotte, became prominent in the art world. Her romantic and
sad fortunes added to her popularity. "Her works were gay and pleasing
in colour, yet weak and faulty in drawing, her male figures particularly
wanting in bone and individuality." (_Redgrave_.) Her pictures were
often engraved in her own days, but they are now thought little of. A
specimen of Angelica Kauffman's work may be seen in the ceiling of the
Council Chamber of the Royal Academy, of which she was a member; another
is in the National Gallery.
JOHANN ZOFFANY, R.A. (1733--1810), was born at Frankfort, and on his
first arrival in England met with little success. He was, however, one
of the original Royal Academicians, and was patronised by George III.,
whose portrait he painted, together with those of many members of the
Royal family. As a portrait painter Zoffany was truthful, natural, and
unaffected, and his influence for good was not lost on the art of his
adopted country. In 1783 he went to India, where he remained fifteen
years, painting pictures of incident, of which _The Indian Tiger Hunt_
is an example; works produced after his return to England are less
interesting than these.
FRANCESCO ZUCCARELLI, R.A. (1702--1788), born in Tuscany, has already
been mentioned as advising Wilson to cultivate landscape-painting. After
becoming famous abroad, he came to London in 1752, and secured a
fortune, whilst Wilson, his superior, was too poor to buy a canvas to
paint on. Zuccarelli's landscapes and rural villages are of the stage
rather than nature. He was the last of that artificial school of
painters who tried to paint a beautiful world without looking out of
doors.
PHILIPPE JAMES DE LOUTHERBOURG, R.A. (1740--1812), a native of
Strasburg, studied in Paris, under Casanova, the battle-painter. He
acquired fame by delineating landscapes, battles, and marine subjects,
and was already a member of the French Academy when he came to England
in 1771. For a time De Loutherbourg was employed as a scene-painter at
Drury Lane, receiving a salary of L500 a year from Garrick. His scenery
was extremely meritorious, effective, and popular, but he too frequently
obtruded scenic characteristics into his other pictures. He was elected
an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1780, and a full member in the
following year. Becoming somewhat deranged in his latter days, he
assumed the gift of prophecy, and pretended to cure diseases. He was
buried at Chiswick, near Hogarth. De Loutherbourg was a clever
draughtsman, but neglected nature. Peter Pindar laughed at his "brass
skies, and golden hills," and his "marble bullocks in glass pastures
grazing." Nevertheless Turner owned great obligations to him, and he
succeeded in varying the aims of landscape painters, and gave what may
be called animation and dramatic expression to their art. His best-known
works are, _Lord Howe's Victory on the 1st of June_, _The Fire of
London_, _The Siege of Valenciennes_, _A Lake Scene in Cumberland_
(National Gallery), _Warley Common_ (Windsor Castle). The _Eidophusicon_
was a moving diorama in Spring Gardens, painted by De Loutherbourg,
which "all the world went to see."
HENRY FUSELI, or more correctly, _Fuessli_ (1741--1825), born at Zuerich,
exercised very considerable influence on English art by his pictures and
lectures. He was a scholar as well as a painter, and had been educated
for the church. On first coming to England Fuseli turned his attention
to literature, but was advised by Sir Joshua Reynolds, who had seen his
sketches, to cultivate art. When nearly thirty years old he went to
Italy, where, like Reynolds, his chief devotions were paid to the shrine
of Michelangelo. Returning to England after eight years' absence, Fuseli
made his first decided mark by _The Nightmare_, painted three years
after his return. It is said that fully to realise the horrors of this
subject the enthusiastic Swiss supped on raw pork! In 1786, Alderman
Boydell, a successful engraver and art publisher, proposed a Shakespeare
Gallery, with the view of proving that England contained really good
painters of history. Fuseli executed nine out of the eighty-six examples
in this gallery. His studies of the works of Michelangelo fitted him for
the just treatment of the subjects, including _Hamlet and the Ghost_,
and _Lear and Cordelia_. It has been objected that his men are all of
one race, whether in reality classic, mediaeval, or Scandinavian, and
that Shakespeare's women are, in his pictures, all alike, too masculine
and coarse. Shakespeare is thoroughly English in taste and character,
and his men and women, even if represented in Verona, or Prospero's
Isle, are still English in heart. Fuseli was scarcely able to enter into
this characteristic of our greatest poet. He was more at home with the
majestic creations of Milton, to which he next turned his thoughts. He
projected a Milton Gallery of forty-seven large pictures, which,
however, was not a financial success, therefore in 1780 Fuseli
complained that the public would feed him with honour, but leave him to
starve. He became a Royal Academician, and Professor of Painting, a post
which he held till his death.
[Illustration: TITANIA AND BOTTOM. _By_ _Fuseli_. _In the possession of
Mr. Carrick Moore._]
* * * * *
In proceeding to speak of artists of the English school, we must
remember that we have not to deal with men gathered round a great
master, as is the case with many foreign painters. Each English artist
has originality, and stands by himself. It will be most convenient
therefore to treat them according to the special branch of art which
they severally followed, _i.e._ Historic, Portrait, Landscape, or Animal
painting. HISTORICAL PAINTING had hitherto found little favour in
England, nor were the pictures produced in that line worthy of much
regard. Reynolds attempted it in _Ugolino_ and the _Infant Hercules_,
but it is not by means of such pictures he will be remembered. There
were others who devoted themselves to what they styled high art, with
earnestness worthy of greater success than they achieved.
[Illustration: DEATH OF WOLFE. _By_ WEST. _In the possession of the Duke
of Westminster._]
BENJAMIN WEST (1738--1820) was born at Springfield, Pennsylvania, and of
Quaker parents who descended from a Buckinghamshire family of the same
persuasion. He early showed signs of artistic genius, and strange
stories have been told of the precocity of the child. West received his
first colours from Indians, and made his first paint-brush from a cat's
tail. A box of colours, given by a merchant when he was nine years
old, encouraged him to persevere; and we know that the donor of the box
introduced him to a painter named Williams, of Philadelphia, from whom
he derived instruction. West started in life at eighteen as a portrait
painter; first at Philadelphia, then at New York. In 1760, he visited
Italy, and, after remaining there three years, proceeded to England. He
had intended to return to America, but became so successful that he
settled in London. In Rome the young American created a sensation, and
the blind Cardinal Albani, whose acquaintance with Americans must have
been limited, asked if he was black or white. In London West was greatly
sought after, and in 1766, three years after his arrival, he finished
_Orestes and Pylades_ (National Gallery); his house was besieged by the
fashionable world, eager for a glimpse of the picture. West now found
many patrons, among them the Bishops of Bristol and Worcester, and
Drummond, Archbishop of York. The Archbishop was so charmed by _Agrippa
with the Ashes of Germanicus_, that he introduced West to George III.,
who became a warm and faithful supporter of the artist. From 1767 to
1802 West was almost exclusively employed by the King, and received
large sums of money. He was one of the original members of the Royal
Academy, and on the death of Reynolds, became President. His inaugural
address, which, like all he did, was highly praised, had two
subjects--the excellence of British art and the gracious benevolence of
his Majesty. The illness of George III. put an end to West's attendance
at Court, and he proceeded into a wider field of art, choosing that of
religion. Here he was more successful than in many of his former
pictures, as in _Christ healing the Sick_ (National Gallery), _Christ
rejected_, and _Death on the Pale Horse_. He died on the 11th of March,
1820, aged eighty-two. West, so popular in the days of George III., is
utterly neglected now. If he aimed at being great, he succeeded only in
the size of his pictures. A cold, passionless mediocrity was the
highest point to which he attained, and of his pictures we may say as
the old Scotsman said of Rob Roy, that they are "too bad for blessing,
and too good for banning." Redgrave says: "His compositions were more
studied than natural, the action often conventional and dramatic; the
draperies, although learned, heavy and without truth. His colour often
wants freshness and variety of tint, and is hot and foxy." We owe to
West, however, the example of courage in attempting great religious
subjects, and in departing from the absurd custom of representing the
warriors of all nations clad like ancient Romans. In his _Death of
Wolfe_, West insisted, contrary to the advice of Reynolds, in painting
his soldiers in their proper dress.
JOHN SINGLETON COPLEY, R.A. (1737--1815), was born at Boston, America,
then one of our colonies, his father being English and his mother Irish.
Boston in those days could offer no facilities for art-education, but
Copley went to Nature--the best of teachers. He commenced with portraits
and domestic life, and between 1760 and 1767 sent pictures to London,
where they excited considerable interest. In 1774, he visited the Old
World, first England, then Italy, and finally settled in London in 1775.
In the following year he exhibited a "conversation" piece at the Royal
Academy, and was elected an Associate in 1777. In 1778, William Pitt,
Earl of Chatham, whilst speaking in the House of Lords against the
practice of taxing our colonists without their consent, was seized with
a fatal illness. This incident, specially interesting to an American,
suggested _The Death of the Earl of Chatham_ (National Gallery), which
at once raised the painter to a high place in the ranks of British
artists. The popularity of Copley was greatly owing to his choice of
subjects. Instead of dealing with ancient history or classic fables,
with which the general public was but imperfectly acquainted, he
selected events of the day, or of modern times, and contrived to combine
portraiture, ever popular in England, with the dramatic incidents of
his pictures. Copley was made a full member of the Royal Academy in
1779, and maintained his popularity by _The Death of Major Peirson_
(National Gallery)--which represents an attack of the French on St.
Helier's, Jersey, in 1781, and the fall of young Major Peirson in the
moment of his victory. Following the path thus wisely selected, Copley
produced _Charles I. ordering the Arrest of the Five Members_, _The
Repulse of the Spanish Floating Batteries at Gibraltar by Lord
Heathfield_ (painted for the City of London, now in the Guildhall), _The
Assassination of Buckingham_, _The Battle of the Boyne_, &c. He
exhibited only forty-two works in the Royal Academy, all of which were
portraits except _The Offer of the Crown to Lady Jane Grey_, and _The
Resurrection_. In sacred subjects, Copley was far less successful than
in the particular style of art to which he mainly adhered. His son
became famous as Lord Chancellor Lyndhurst.
[Illustration: DEATH OF MAJOR PEIRSON. _By_ COPLEY. A.D. 1783. _In the
National Gallery._]
[Illustration: MERCURY INVENTING THE LYRE. _By_ BARRY.]
JAMES BARRY, R.A. (1741--1806), who was a contemporary of Benjamin West,
and, like him, aimed at high art, formed a marked contrast to the
favourite painter of George III. Whilst West was well fed and well
clothed, rich, easy-tempered, and happy, Barry was often ragged,
sometimes starving, always poor, and seldom out of a passion. He was
born at Cork, the son of a small coasting trader who kept a tavern. From
such uncongenial surroundings Barry made his way to Dublin, and
exhibited _The Baptism of the King of Cashel by St. Patrick_. This work
attracted considerable notice, and secured for the artist the patronage
of Burke, who sent him to Italy. This was in 1765, but previously to
this date Barry had already visited London, and lived by copying in oil
the drawings of "Athenian Stuart," the Serjeant-Painter who succeeded
Hogarth. Barry's studies in Italy confirmed his ambitious design to
become a painter of high art subjects. With characteristic boldness he
entered the field against the greatest masters, and whilst at Rome
painted _Adam and Eve_, which he thought superior to Raphael's
masterpiece of the same subject. Returning to England in 1770, Barry
exhibited this picture, and began _Venus rising from the Sea_, which was
exhibited in 1772; he was elected a R.A. in the following year. His
undisciplined temper ensured him many enemies, and estranged his few
friends; he even quarrelled with Burke. His pride and courage were
indomitable, and he worked on through good and ill reports, never
swerving from the course he had marked out, and contemptuously
dismissing any chance sitter for a portrait to "the fellow in Leicester
Square," as he styled Sir Joshua Reynolds. In 1777, Barry undertook to
paint in the Great Room of the Society of Arts at the Adelphi a series
of pictures illustrating _Human Culture_. He had previously offered to
decorate the interior of St. Paul's. He began to work at the Adelphi
with sixteen shillings in his pocket, and toiled there during seven
years, being often in absolute want. The Society provided him with
models and materials only, and Barry was to receive the proceeds of
exhibiting his work in return for his unpaid labours. The hope of fame
enabled "the little ordinary man with the dirty shirt" to support
himself through the long years of want and semi-starvation, whilst he
was working for the glory which never came. Barry finished the pictures
at the Adelphi in 1783, and called them severally _The Story of Orpheus:
A Thanksgiving to Ceres and Bacchus_; _The Victors of Olympia_;
_Navigation, or the Triumph of the Thames_; _Distribution of Premiums in
the Society of Arts_; and _Elysium, or the State of Final Retribution_.
The luckless artist had been appointed Professor of Painting at the
Royal Academy in 1772, but outbursts of passion and furious attacks on
his brethren led to his removal from the post, and, in 1779, to his
expulsion from the Academy. He died miserably, in 1806, at the wretched
house he called a home, and the honours which had never blossomed for
the living man were bestowed on the corpse, which lay in state at the
Adelphi, surrounded by the work of his hands. He was buried in St.
Paul's. "There he rests side by side with the great ones of his
profession. Posterity had reversed the positions of West and his
competitor, the first is last, and the last first; but it was hardly to
be expected that the young would be anxious to follow Barry in a line of
art in which neither ability nor perseverance seemed to succeed, or to
start in a career for which not even princely patronage could obtain
public sympathy, nor innate genius, with life-long devotion, win
present fame, hardly indeed a bare subsistence." (_Redgrave._)
Returning for a moment to _Portrait Painters_, we find two of that class
who were contemporary with Sir Joshua Reynolds, and of whom the first
nearly equalled the president in popularity.
[Illustration: MARQUIS OF STAFFORD. _By_ ROMNEY.
_In the possession of the Duke of Sutherland._]
GEORGE ROMNEY (1734--1802) was born near Dalton-in-Furness, North
Lancashire, and for some years followed his father's craft of
cabinet-making. The story of his life is one of marked success and
singular selfishness. He first studied art with Edward Steele, of
Kendal, a portrait painter of some skill and reputation, who had painted
Sterne. Whilst assisting his master to elope with his future wife,
Romney fell ill, and was nursed by young Mary Abbot. He rewarded the
devotion of his nurse by marrying her, and when she was the mother of
two children, by leaving her at home poor and alone, whilst he was rich
and famous in London. During a long and successful career Romney only
visited his family twice, to find on the second occasion his daughter
dead, and his son grown up and in Holy Orders. The painter's strange,
selfish life ended in imbecility, and the patient wife who had nursed
the youth of twenty-three, soothed the last hours of the man of seventy,
whose fame she had never shared. Romney was as eccentric in life as in
his genius. Shunning the society of his fellow artists, he complained of
their neglect, and refused to enter the Royal Academy. It was said of
Sterne that "he would shed tears over a dead donkey whilst he left a
living mother to starve." In like manner Romney wrote gushing words of
sympathy for the widow of another man, whilst his own wife had been
practically widowed for more than thirty years. Of the intercourse of
Romney with the fair and frail Emma Lyon, who, as Lady Hamilton,
exercised an influence for evil over him and over Nelson, it is not our
province to speak. The fitful temper of the painter led him to begin
numerous pictures he never finished, cart-loads of which were removed
from his house at Hampstead. Romney's want of steadfastness often
compelled him to abandon works of which the conception was greater than
the power to carry it out. There was a want of _thoroughness_ about him,
and even the pictures which he finished seemed incomplete to those who
did not understand them. Noteworthy among these are _Ophelia_, _The
Infant Shakespeare_, and _The Shipwreck_, from "The Tempest." His
portraits, however, form the greater class of his productions. In the
National Gallery are _Study of Lady Hamilton as a Bacchante_, and _The
Parson's Daughter_. "We may sum up all that is to be said of Romney in
this: that whatever he did Reynolds had done much better; that his art
did not advance the taste of the age, or the reputation of the school,
and that it is quite clear, however fashion or faction may have upheld
him in his own day, the succeeding race of painters owed little or
nothing to his teaching." (_Redgrave._) A harsh and unsympathizing
judgment. Truer is it that he never offended the finest taste in art,
that he was a very fair draughtsman, a sound and accomplished painter,
who delineated ladies with the taste of a Greek, and children with
exemplary sweetness.
JOSEPH WRIGHT (1734--1797) is, from his birth-place, commonly known as
WRIGHT OF DERBY. Quitting his native town, where his father was an
attorney, he reached London in 1751 and became a pupil of Hudson, the
portrait painter. Wright aimed at historical painting, but his works are
chiefly single portraits, and conversation pieces. After revisiting
Derby, he returned to Hudson's studio for a while, and then settled in
his native town, where he practised his art with success. He often
represented candle-light and fire-light effects, as may be seen in _The
Orrery_, _The Iron Forge_, and _The Experiment with the Air-Pump_
(National Gallery). Marrying in 1773, Wright went with his wife to Italy
and remained there two years. He witnessed an eruption of Mount
Vesuvius, and painted that event with success, as well as the display of
fire-works at the Castle of St. Angelo, at Rome, which is known as the
_Girandola_. Returning to England, Wright painted at first at Bath; but
being unsuccessful, he returned to Derby, where he died in 1797. He
contributed a few works to the Royal Academy after quitting Italy;
_Vesuvius_, and the _Girandola_ were exhibited there in 1778. Wright was
elected an Associate in 1782, but removed his name from the Academy
books two years later. This step was taken either because Edmund Garvey,
a landscape painter, was elected a R.A. before him, or because Wright
had refused to comply with one of the Academy rules, and present works
to the society before receiving his diploma. He was said to be a shy,
irritable man, always ill, or fancying himself so, and ready to take
offence easily. Such are the unconfirmed statements of the advocates of
the Academy. He painted landscapes in his latter days, _The Head of
Ulleswater_ was his last picture. Best known among his works are _The
dead Soldier_, _Belshazzar's Feast_, _Hero and Leander_, _The Storm_
(from "Winter's Tale"), and _Cicero's Villa_. Wright's most remarkable
fire-light effects are _The Hermit_, _The Gladiator_, _The Indian
Widow_, _The Orrery_, and, already mentioned, the _Air-Pump_. Like
Hogarth and Copley, he painted in that solid old English method which
insured the preservation of his works. "On the whole it cannot be said
that Wright's pictures have added much to the reputation of the British
school. As a portrait painter he is hardly in the second rank." His
portraits have a heavy look; of his landscapes it has been averred that
"they are large and simple in manner, but heavy and empty."
THE SUCCESSORS OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.
Portrait-painting, always popular in England, continued to flourish
after the deaths of Reynolds and Gainsborough. Although the magic
touches of these masters cannot be found in the art of their immediate
followers, their influence produced several original and independent
artists, who, though successors, were not imitators.
NATHANIEL DANCE (1734--1811) studied art under Frank Hayman, R.A., and
visited Italy with Angelica Kauffman. Returning to England he achieved
success as a painter, both of portraits and historic pieces. He was one
of the original members of the Royal Academy, from which he retired in
1790, on marrying a wealthy widow: he took the name of Holland and was
made a baronet ten years later. His best-known works are the _Death of
Virginia_, _Garrick as Richard III._, _Timon of Athens_ (Royal
Collection) and _Captain Cook_ (Greenwich Hospital).
JAMES NORTHCOTE (1746--1831), the son of a watchmaker of Plymouth, spent
seven years as an apprentice to his father's craft, all the while
longing to be a painter. He was a man of indefatigable industry, who, in
spite of a defective education and few opportunities for improvement,
made his mark both as an artist and a writer on art. He was the
favourite pupil of Sir Joshua Reynolds and his first biographer. Leaving
Reynolds in 1775, Northcote returned to Devonshire, and for two years
successfully painted portraits. From 1777 to 1780 he was in Italy
studying the old masters, especially Titian. He settled in London on
returning home, and maintained himself by portrait-painting. He was,
however, ambitious to succeed with historic pictures, though compelled
to confine himself to more saleable subjects, such as _A Visit to
Grandmamma_, and similar domestic scenes. Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery
gave Northcote a new opening in the line he yearned to practise. Among
nine pictures produced for this series, that of the _Murder of the Young
Princes in the Tower_, painted in 1786, brought the artist prominently
into notice. The _Death of Wat Tyler_, now in Guildhall, London, is one
of his best works. His _Diligent and Dissipated Servants_, a series
suggested by Hogarth's _Idle and Industrious Apprentices_, falls very
far below the standard of the original series. Noteworthy facts in
Northcote's historic pictures are the incongruity of the dresses, and
frequent gross anachronisms. Thus we have Sisera lying on a feather bed
and attired like a trooper of Cromwell's Ironsides, and Jael dressed
like a modern maid-of-all-work. In the Shakespearian pictures Hubert of
the thirteenth century, and Richard III. of the fifteenth century, alike
wear the dress of Elizabeth's day. Wat Tyler and the murderers in the
Tower wear the same armour, which belongs to the Stuart period. Such
mistakes, however, were common among all painters of his time.
[Illustration: CHARITY. _By_ NORTHCOTE. A.D. 1783.]
JOHN OPIE (1761--1807), the rival and friend of Northcote, was like him
a West countryman, and like him rose from the ranks. Born at St. Agnes,
near Truro, the son of a carpenter, Opie early showed intelligence and
quickness in acquiring knowledge which marked him out for a higher
sphere than a carpenter's shop. After evincing taste for art, and
disgusting his father by decorating a saw-pit with chalk, he found
patrons in Lord Bateman and Dr. Wolcot, the famous _Peter Pindar_. Some
biographers have described Opie as becoming the doctor's footboy, but
this is a mistake. Walcot brought the young painter to London and
introduced him to Sir Joshua Reynolds, but the selfish patronage of the
doctor soon came to an end. Opie was at first vigorously advertised in
London as "the Cornish Wonder"--
"the Cornish boy, in tin-mines bred,
Whose native genius, like his diamonds, shone
In secret, till chance gave him to the sun."
Reynolds told Northcote that Opie was "like Caravaggio and Velasquez in
one." In 1782 the painter married his first wife, from whom he was
subsequently divorced owing to her misconduct. Although Opie was no
longer the wonder of the hour in fickle London, he was achieving more
enduring fame. His defective education, both in literature and art, left
much to be learned, and he set himself to supply his defects with a
laborious zeal which finally affected his brain and prematurely ended
his life. His earliest works in London were studies of heads and
portraits. In 1786, he produced the _Assassination of James I. of
Scotland_, a _Sleeping Nymph_, and _Cupid stealing a Kiss_. Next year
saw his _Murder of David Rizzio_. He was elected an Associate of the
Royal Academy in 1787, and a full member within a year. In the next
seven years he exhibited twenty pictures, all portraits. Opie was
engaged to paint for Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery, and contributed five
pictures, which improved as they progressed. Portrait-painting continued
to be, however, the most lucrative pursuit, and having been introduced
to some patrons at Norwich, Opie saw and married Amelia Alderson, who
afterwards wrote Memoirs of her husband, and described the hard
struggles which he had at times to encounter. His love for art and
untiring industry remained to the last. Even when dying, and at times
delirious, he gave advice about the finishing of pictures which he
wished to send to the Academy. It was said of him, that "whilst other
artists painted to live, he lived to paint." He was buried in St.
Paul's. Opie wrote several works on art, and was Professor of Painting
in the Royal Academy. His answer to a troublesome inquirer truly
expresses the character of his work. "What do I mix my colours with?
Why, with brains." Two of Opie's pictures are in the National Gallery--a
_Portrait of William Siddons_, and _Troilus, Cressida, and Pandarus_. Of
his art generally it may be said that he possessed considerable power
and breadth of treatment. His handling was often coarse, and his
colouring crude, especially in female portraits; in fact, coarseness was
the leading characteristic of works which were never tame or spiritless.
SIR WILLIAM BEECHEY (1753--1839) was a portrait painter who received a
considerable share of Court favour. He is variously stated to have begun
life as a house-painter, or as a solicitor's clerk. He devoted himself
to the study of art at the Royal Academy. He lived for a time at
Norwich, produced conversation pieces in the style of Hogarth, but
finally settled in London as a portrait painter, and practised with
considerable success. In 1793 Beechey was elected A.R.A., and executed a
portrait of _Queen Charlotte_, who was so well pleased with it that she
appointed him her Majesty's portrait painter. Thus introduced to Court,
Beechey trod "the primrose path" of success, and in 1798 painted an
equestrian portrait of George III., with likenesses of the Prince of
Wales and Duke of York at a review in Hyde Park. The painter was
knighted, and elected a Royal Academician. The picture of _George III.
Reviewing the 3rd and 10th Dragoons_ is at Hampton Court. His _Portrait
of Nollekens_, the sculptor, is in the National Gallery. Beechey's chief
merit is accuracy of likeness.
JOHN HOPPNER (1759--1810) was another portrait painter who prospered at
Court. At first a chorister in the Chapel Royal, he studied art at the
Academy schools, became an Associate in 1793, and was elected full
member in 1795. He enjoyed vast popularity as a portrait painter,
finding a rival only in Lawrence. Many of Hoppner's best works are at
St. James's Palace. Three of them are in the National Gallery--_William
Pitt_, _"Gentleman" Smith_, the actor, and the _Countess of Oxford_.
Three of his works are at Hampton Court; among them is _Mrs. Jordan as
the Comic Muse_.
Examples of the work of nearly all the above-mentioned portrait painters
may be consulted in the National Portrait Gallery at South Kensington.
ANIMAL PAINTERS.
The first animal painters in England were willing to win money, if not
fame, by taking the portraits of favourite race-horses and prize oxen
for the country squires, who loved to decorate their walls with pictures
of their ancestors, and their studs. The first to make a name in this
branch of art was JOHN WOOTTON, a pupil of John Wyck. He became famous
in the sporting circles of Newmarket for his likenesses of race-horses,
and received large sums for pictures of dogs and horses. Later, he
attempted landscapes, chiefly hunting scenes. His works are in country
mansions, especially at Blenheim, Longleat, and Dytchley. Wootton died
in 1765.
JAMES SEYMOUR (1702--1752) was famous also as a painter of race-horses
and hunting-pieces; he is best known by the engravings after his works.
GEORGE STUBBS (1724--1806) was the son of a Liverpool surgeon, from whom
he probably inherited his love for anatomy. He worked at painting and
conducted anatomic studies with equal zeal throughout his life, and is
said to have carried, on one occasion, a dead horse on his back to his
dissecting-room. This story is more than doubtful, though Stubbs was a
man of great physical strength. He was the first to give the poetry of
life and motion to pictures of animals, and to go beyond the mere
portrait of a Newmarket favourite or an over-fed ox. The Royal Academy
elected him an Associate in 1780, but as he declined to present one of
his works, he was never made a full member. Among his works are a _Lion
killing a Horse_, a _Tiger lying in his Den_, a noble life-size portrait
of the famous racing-horse _Whistle-jacket_, which is at Wentworth
Woodhouse, and _The Fall of Phaeton_. The last picture he repeated four
times. He published _The Anatomy of the Horse_, with etchings from his
own dissections.
SAWREY GILPIN (1733--1807) attained considerable success as an animal
painter. He was born at Carlisle, and was sent to London as a clerk.
Like many others he preferred the studio to the office, and having
obtained the favour of the Duke of Cumberland at Newmarket, Gilpin was
provided with a set of rooms, and soon became known as a painter of
horses. In 1770 he exhibited at Spring Gardens _Darius obtaining the
Persian Empire by the Neighing of his Horse_, and next year _Gulliver
taking Leave of the Houyhnhnms_. Gilpin was elected a R.A. in 1797.
[Illustration: THE WATERING PLACE. _By_ MORLAND.]
GEORGE MORLAND (1763--1804), though not exclusively an animal painter,
is best known in that branch of art. His life's story describes wasted
opportunities, reckless extravagance, and misused talents. Brought up
with unwise strictness by his father, HENRY ROBERT MORLAND (died 1797),
a portrait painter of note, George Morland no sooner escaped from home
discipline than he began that course of riotous living which ended in a
dishonoured grave, for which he prepared the epitaph:--"Here lies a
drunken dog." It is a mistake to suppose that Morland was a self-taught
genius, since, although his father objected to his entering the Academy
schools, he himself was his teacher, and so assiduously kept the boy at
his studies that he learned to hate the name of work.
As early as 1779 young Morland was an honorary exhibitor of sketches at
the Academy. At nineteen he had thrown off home ties, and was living a
reckless life of debauchery. Like most prodigals who think themselves
free, Morland became a slave. His task-master was a picture dealer, who
made money by the genius of the youth whose ruin he promoted. Leaving
him, the artist went to Margate, and painted miniatures for a time,
going thence to France. He would settle to no regular work, although his
necessities compelled him at times to labour lest he should starve. The
next scene in Morland's life is his sojourn with his friend William
Ward, the mezzotint-engraver, where an honourable attachment to Nancy
Ward for a time induced him to work. The pictures he painted at this
time were suggested by Hogarth's works, and had subjects with which
Morland was only too well acquainted. _The Idle and Industrious
Mechanic_, _The Idle Laundress and Industrious Cottager_, _Letitia_, or
_Seduction_ (a series), were studied from the life. In 1786 Morland
married Miss Ward, but there was no improvement in his manner of life.
Sometimes he was surrounded by eager purchasers, and using his
popularity as a means for greater extravagance. At one time we see him
keeping ten or twelve horses, and cheated right and left by profligates
who combined horse-racing, betting, and picture dealing. The luckless
Morland was the ready victim of these associates. His pictures were
copied as he painted them, during his temporary absence from the studio.
In 1790 Morland was at his best, _The Gipsies_ being painted two years
later. His last days were dark indeed. Loaded with debt, and dreading
arrest, he laboured like a slave, seldom leaving his studio, where his
pot-companions alternately rioted and acted as his models, and dogs,
pigs, and birds shared the disorderly room. In 1799, he was arrested,
and lived within the Rules of the Fleet, amid all the debaucheries of
that evil place and time. Freed by the Insolvent Act in 1802, the
painter, broken in health and ruined in character, was once again
arrested for a tavern score, and ended his life in a sponging-house on
October 29th, 1804. His wife died of grief three days later, and was
interred with her husband in the burial-ground of St. James's Chapel,
Hampstead Road.
Morland chiefly painted country scenes, the memories of happier days,
and introduced animals, such as pigs and asses, to his works. Produced
for existence, and in a fitful, uncertain manner, his pictures were
hastily conceived, and painted with little thought or study. He did much
to bring the simple beauty of English scenes before the eyes of the
public, and to teach Englishmen that they need not go to Italy in search
of subjects for their art. Morland loved low company, even in his
pictures, and was at home in a ruined stable, with a ragged jackass, and
"dirty Brookes," the cobbler. In the National Gallery are: _The Inside
of a Stable_, said to be the White Lion at Paddington, and _A Quarry
with Peasants_, by him. In the South Kensington Museum is an excellent
example of his art, called _The Reckoning_; and in the National Portrait
Gallery is his own portrait, painted by himself at an early age.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VI.
BOOK ILLUSTRATORS.
The earliest book illustrations in England were illuminations and
repetitions of them on wood. Frontispieces followed, in which a portrait
was surrounded by an allegory. Of this branch of art WILLIAM FAITHORNE
(1616--1691) and DAVID LOGGAN (about 1630--1693) were practitioners.
Topographical views, subjects from natural history, and botany followed.
Hogarth's designs for "Hudibras" were among the earlier illustrations of
a story. FRANCIS HAYMAN (1708--1776), his friend, illustrated Congreve's
plays, Milton, Hanmer's Shakespeare, and other works. He was followed by
SAMUEL WALE (died 1786), and JOSEPH HIGHMORE (1692--1780), who
illustrated "Pamela." Towards the close of the eighteenth century, book
illustrations had become a recognised class of art-works. Bell's
"British Poets," commenced in 1778, the British Theatre, and
Shakespeare, opened a wide field for artists of this order. Cipriani,
Angelica Kauffman, William Hamilton, and Francis Wheatley, all members
of the Royal Academy, were employed to illustrate Bell's publications.
Famous among book illustrators was--
[Illustration: FROM DANTE'S INFERNO. _By_ BLAKE.]
WILLIAM BLAKE (1757--1827).--Though born in no higher grade than that of
trade, and in no more romantic spot than Broad Street, Golden Square,
William Blake, a hosier's son, was a poet, a painter, an engraver, and
even a printer. His genius was of an original, eccentric kind, and
there were many who believed him crazed. During his long life he was "a
dreamer of dreams" and a poetic visionary. Now he was meeting "the grey,
luminous, majestic, colossal shadows" of Moses and Dante; now believing
that Lot occupied the vacant chair in his painting-room. Anon he fancied
that his dead brother had revealed to him a new process of drawing on
copper, which he practised with great success. Neglected and
misunderstood, Blake was always busy, always poor, and always happy. He
lived beyond the cares of every-day life, in a dream-world of his own,
occasionally "seeing fairies' funerals, or drawing the demon of a flea."
In spite of poverty and neglect, the poet-painter was contented. Rescued
from the hosier's business, for which he was intended, Blake at the age
of fourteen was apprenticed to the younger Basire, an engraver.
Throughout his life he worked not for money but for art, declaring that
his business was "not to gather gold, but to make glorious shapes,
expressing godlike sentiments." Hard work with the graver gave him
bread, and when the day's toil was over he could illustrate teeming
fancies in pictures and in verses. He worked at first chiefly at book
illustrations. Marrying in his twenty-fifth year, his wife, named
Katherine Boucher, proved a faithful and useful helpmeet, one who
considered her husband's excursions to be dictated by superior
knowledge. Blake's courtship was brief and characteristic. As he was
telling his future wife of his troubles, caused by the levity of another
damsel, she said, "I pity you." "Do you pity me?" answered the painter;
"then I love you for it!" And they were married. It is not wonderful
that Blake's contemporaries thought him mad, as he often did strange
things. In 1791 Blake designed and engraved six plates to illustrate
"Tales for Children" by Mary Wollstonecraft, and later, his "Book of
Job," Dante's "Inferno," Young's "Night's Thoughts," Blair's "Grave,"
and other series. Many of his designs show majestic and beautiful
thoughts, a bizarre, but frequently soaring and stupendous invention,
great beauty of colour, energy, sweetness, and even beauty of form; they
were rarely otherwise than poetic. Some are natural and simple, with
occasional flashes, such as belonged to all Blake's productions. The
process of drawing on, or rather excavating copper, which he declared
had been revealed to him by his brother's ghost, furnished a raised
surface, from which Blake was able to print both the design and the
verses he composed. By this process he produced his own "Songs of
Innocence and of Experience," sixty-eight lyrics, of which it has been
said that "they might have been written by an inspired child, and are
unapproached save by Wordsworth for exquisite tenderness or for
fervour." Then followed "America, a Prophecy," and "Europe, a Prophecy,"
irregularly versified, imaginative, and almost unintelligible
productions. He was illustrating Dante when he died, and, happy to the
last, passed away singing extemporaneous songs.
[Illustration: THE DREAM. _By_ STOTHARD.]
THOMAS STOTHARD (1755--1834) began life as a designer for brocaded
silks, but, on finding the true bent of his genius, he made designs for
the "Town and Country Magazine," and the "Novelist's Magazine,"
"Ossian," and Bell's "Poets." His works deal with the gentler and
sweeter side of human nature, and we can trace the quiet, simple
character of the man in them. His eleven illustrations of "Peregrine
Pickle" appeared in 1781, and are excellent examples of his truthfulness
and grace. He was essentially a quietist, and scenes of passion and
tumult were foreign to his genius. Trunnion and Pipes became living men
under his pencil, and "Clarissa" and others of Richardson's romances
gained from him an immortality which they would never have acquired by
their own merits. In 1788 Stothard produced illustrations of the
"Pilgrim's Progress," which, though possessing sweetness and beauty,
deal with subjects beyond his grasp. His designs for "Robinson Crusoe"
are among his best works. Stothard was made an A.R.A. in 1791, and a
full member of the Royal Academy in 1794. His best known painting is
_Intemperance_, on the staircase of Burghley House, in Northamptonshire.
There are eight works by him in the National Gallery, including the
original sketch of _Intemperance_. One of his most popular, though not
the best of his pictures, is the _Procession of the Canterbury
Pilgrims_. A collection of Stothard's designs is in the British Museum.
JOHN HAMILTON MORTIMER (1741--1779), a native of Eastbourne, came to
London, and made a promising beginning in the world of art. He gained
the Society of Arts's premium of a hundred guineas with _St. Paul
converting the Britons_, and painted other large historic pictures.
Mortimer, however, fell into extravagant habits, and neglected art. His
oil paintings are "heavy and disagreeable in colour;" his drawings are
better. He drew designs for Bell's "Poets," "Shakespeare," and other
works, choosing scenes in which bandits and monsters play conspicuous
parts.
THOMAS KIRK (died 1797), a pupil of Cosway, was an artist of much
promise. His best works were designs for Cooke's "Poets."
RICHARD WESTALL (1765--1836) was a designer for books as well as a
water-colour painter. He made designs for Bibles and Prayer-books, which
were very popular. His best-known works are illustrations of the
"Arabian Nights." His brother WILLIAM WESTALL (1781--1850), was a
designer of considerable note, especially of landscapes.
[Illustration: THE PORTRAIT. _By_ SMIRKE.]
ROBERT SMIRKE (1752--1845), a native of Wigton, in Cumberland, is
chiefly known by his illustrations of Shakespeare and Cervantes. He came
early to London, and, as an apprentice to an heraldic painter, decorated
coach panels. He studied at the Academy, and in 1786 exhibited
_Sabrina_, from "Comus," and _Narcissus_. When chosen a full member of
the Academy Smirke's diploma picture was _Don Quixote and Sancho_. In
the National Gallery are twelve illustrations of "Don Quixote," three
representing scenes of the same story, and a scene from the "Hypocrite,"
in which _Mawworm, Dr. Cantwell, and Lady Lambert_ appear.
THOMAS UWINS (1782--1857) began life as an apprentice to an engraver,
entered the Royal Academy schools, and became known as a designer for
books, as well as a portrait painter. His book designs were chiefly
frontispieces, vignettes, and title-page adornments. Uwins for a time
belonged to the Society of Water-colour Painters--from 1809 to 1818. In
1824 he visited Italy, and, after seven years' sojourn, returned to win
fame and honour by oil paintings. He was elected an A.R.A. in 1833; a
Royal Academician in 1839, and subsequently held the offices of
Librarian to the Academy, Surveyor of her Majesty's Pictures, and Keeper
of the National Gallery. Among his best pictures are _Le Chapeau de
Brigand_, and the _Vintage in the Claret Vineyards_ (National Gallery);
_The Italian Mother teaching her Child the Tarantella_, and a
_Neapolitan Boy decorating the Head of his Innamorata_ (South Kensington
Museum).
* * * * *
Before quitting this branch of art mention must be made of one who,
though an engraver and not a painter, occupies an important place among
book illustrators:--
THOMAS BEWICK (1753--1828), born at Cherryburn, near Newcastle-on-Tyne,
adopted a fine mode of wood-engraving. Hitherto many illustrations of
books had been engraved on copper, and were necessarily separate from
the letterpress. Bewick's process allowed the cut and the words it
illustrated to be printed at the same time. In this way he adorned
"Gay's Fables," a "General History of Quadrupeds," and his most famous
work, "The History of British Birds" (1797), in which he showed the
knowledge of a naturalist combined with the skill of an artist. His last
work was the illustrations of AEsop's Fables, upon which he was engaged
six years. He was assisted by his brother John Bewick, who founded a
school of wood-engravers, and by some of John's pupils, among whom were
Robert Johnson and Luke Clennell.
We have already seen that modern English art began with portraiture,
which always has been, and always will be, popular. We have noticed some
miniature painters, or "limners in little," who flourished in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when miniature painting had among
its greatest masters Samuel Cooper, who has never been surpassed.
[Illustration: THE WOODCOCK. _From "History of British Birds," by_
THOMAS BEWICK.]
THOMAS FLATMAN (1633--1688), an Oxford man and a barrister, who deserted
the Bar and became a painter, obtained great success in miniature.
ALEXANDER BROWNE, his contemporary, painted portraits of Charles II. and
other members of the Court. He was also an engraver and published, in
1699, a work entitled "Ars Pictoria," with thirty-one etchings.
LEWIS CROSSE (died 1724) was the chief miniature painter of Queen Anne's
reign.
[Illustration: _Tailpiece by_ BEWICK.]
CHARLES BOIT, a Swede by birth, practised at this period as a miniature
painter. Failing in his business as a jeweller, he left London in order
to teach drawing in the country. Here he is said to have induced a
pupil, daughter of an officer, to promise him marriage, and the intrigue
having been discovered, the expectant bridegroom was thrown into prison
for two years, where he employed himself in acquiring the art of
enamel-painting. Miniature painting is of two kinds--portraits in water
colour on ivory and in enamel on copper, the latter being the more
complicated mode. Boit on his release practised miniature-painting in
London, and gained high prices for his works, although his colouring is
by no means pleasant. He was in favour at Court, but, while attempting
to prepare a plate larger than ordinary to contain portraits of the
Royal family and chief courtiers, Queen Anne died, and Boit, having
borrowed money for the plate, was left without hope of being able to pay
his creditors. Escaping to France, he again succeeded in his art, and
died at Paris in 1726.
CHRISTIAN FREDERICK ZINCKE (1684--1767), though a native of Dresden,
identified himself with art in England. He was a pupil of Boit, but soon
outshone his master. His enamel painting was simple yet refined, his
drawing graceful, his colour pleasing. George II. was among his numerous
patrons. Several of Zincke's enamels are in the Royal Collection.
JAMES DEACON succeeded Zincke as a tenant of his house in Tavistock
Street, Covent Garden, and bid fair to succeed to his place as a
miniature painter, when he caught gaol fever at a trial at the Old
Bailey, and died in 1750.
JARVIS SPENCER, who had been a domestic servant, gained by his talent
and perseverance a high place among miniature painters of this period.
Indeed, after the death of Deacon, he was the fashionable painter of his
class. He died in 1763.
Other artists combined the skill of a jeweller and goldsmith with that
of an enameller. It was the fashion to decorate watches, brooches,
snuff-boxes, and other trinkets with portraits of friends and lovers of
the owner, and thus the work of the goldsmith and the miniature painter
were allied.
GEORGE MICHAEL MOSER, R.A. (1704--1783), the son of a sculptor at St.
Gall, in Switzerland, came to England in his early days, and first
gained notice as a chaser of brass-work, the favourite decoration of the
furniture of that period. As an enamel painter he was justly celebrated,
and employed to decorate the watch of George III. with portraits of the
two elder Princes. He designed the Great Seal. Moser was a member of the
St. Martin's Lane Academy, and in 1766 joined the Incorporated Society
of Artists. He was a founder of the Royal Academy, and its first Keeper.
NATHANIEL HONE (1718--1784) stands next to Zincke as a miniature
painter, although there is a wide gulf between them. He was self-taught,
and on quitting his native Dublin, spent some time in the provinces
practising as a portrait painter, and afterwards achieved great success
in London. He was one of the foundation members of the Royal Academy,
but brought himself into disgrace with that body by lampooning the
President in a picture which he sent for exhibition.
JEREMIAH MEYER (1735--1789) is said to have been a pupil of Zincke, but
this is probably an error. Passing from the St. Martin's Lane Academy,
Meyer, a native of Wuertemberg, became Enamel Painter to George III., and
Miniature Painter to the Queen. Careful study of Reynolds is apparent in
his works. He was one of the original members of the Royal Academy.
RICHARD COLLINS (1755--1831), a pupil of Meyer, held the post of
Miniature Painter to George III., and his works formed important
elements in the Academy exhibitions.
SAMUEL SHELLEY, though born in Whitechapel, surely an inartistic
locality, and having little art education, became a fashionable
miniature painter. He studied Reynolds with advantage, and treated
historic incidents in miniature. He was one of the founders of the
Water-Colour Society, and died in 1808.
JAMES NIXON, A.R.A. (about 1741--1812), was Limner to the Prince Regent,
and a clever designer of book illustrations.
OZIAS HUMPHREY (1742--1810) commenced miniature-painting at Bath, after
being a pupil in the Academy in St. Martin's Lane. He returned to London
at the invitation of Reynolds. A miniature exhibited by him in 1766
attracted universal notice, and gained for him patronage from the King.
Compelled by ill health to go abroad in 1772, Humphrey studied Italian
art, and came back in five years fired with a desire to attempt
historical painting. Here he failed, and neither by historic subjects
nor portraits in oil could he gain the success attending his miniatures.
Disappointed, he went to India in 1785, and painted illustrious natives
of that country. Three years later Humphrey was re-established as a
miniature painter in London, where he was elected a Royal Academician
in 1791. Six years later his eyesight entirely failed. It is said of his
miniatures that they are the nearest to the pictures of Reynolds.
Humphrey was also successful in crayons.
GEORGE ENGLEHEART, who exhibited miniature portraits at the Royal
Academy as early as 1773, was, in 1790, appointed Miniature Painter to
the King. He painted on both enamel and ivory. He exhibited until 1812.
RICHARD COSWAY (1740--1821) was famous for skill in miniature-painting,
in which no one of his day could approach him, and for vanity,
extravagance, and eccentricity. A _specialite_ of his was the
composition of small whole-lengths, the bodies of which were executed in
pencil, the faces in colour. No beauty of the day was happy unless her
charms had been delineated by Cosway; the fair companions of the Prince
Regent were among his warmest patrons, and the Prince was a frequent
visitor to the artist. Cosway's wife, Maria, was a clever miniature
painter, and worked for Boydell's Shakespeare and Macklin's "Poets." Of
the scandals concerning her and her husband we need not speak. In his
latter years Cosway professed to believe in Swedenborg, and in animal
magnetism, pretended to be conversing with people abroad, claimed to
have the power of raising the dead, and declared that the Virgin Mary
frequently sat to him for her portrait. He was elected Associate of the
Royal Academy in 1770, and full member in 1771.
HENRY BONE (1755--1834) commenced life as an apprentice to a porcelain
manufacturer at Plymouth, where he painted flowers and landscapes on
china, and secured success as an enameller. Passing from the
manufactory, Bone began work in London by enamelling small trinkets. He
first came into general notice in 1781, by means of a portrait of his
own wife. Bone's success was rapid. He was made an Academician in 1811,
and was Enamel Painter to George III., George IV., and William IV. His
most famous works were miniatures after Reynolds, Titian, Murillo and
Raphael. Remarkable also are his portraits of the Russell family from
Henry VII.'s reign, the famous royalists of the civil war, and
eighty-five likenesses of Elizabethan worthies.
HENRY EDRIDGE (1769--1821) was another miniature painter, who owed some
of his success to careful following of Reynolds. He painted miniatures
on ivory, and for a time on paper, using the lead pencil over Indian ink
washes. He was also highly successful as a landscape painter in water
colours.
ANDREW ROBERTSON (1777--1845), the son of a cabinet-maker at Aberdeen,
came to London on foot in 1801, and gained the patronage of Benjamin
West, the President, whose portrait he painted. Robertson became, in due
course, a very successful miniature painter, and practised his art for
more than thirty years. His likenesses are truthful, but do not stand in
the first rank of miniature-painting.
ALFRED EDWARD CHALON (1781--1860), born in Geneva, and of French
extraction, holds a high place in the history of English art as a
portrait painter in water colours; his miniatures on ivory are full of
life, vigour, and originality. He was elected R.A. in 1816. As a painter
in oils, Alfred Chalon achieved a high degree of success. _Hunt the
Slipper_, _Samson and Delilah_ (exhibited for the second time at the
International Exhibition in 1862), and _Sophia Western_ deserve notice
among his oil paintings. Chalon could not only paint with originality,
but could catch the manner of the old masters with such accuracy, that
some of his works were attributed even by the skilful to Rubens,
Watteau, and others. His elder brother, JOHN JAMES CHALON (1778--1854),
obtained celebrity as a landscape painter.
WILLIAM ESSEX (1784--1869) painted in enamel, and exhibited a portrait
of the _Empress Josephine_, after Isabey, at the Royal Academy in 1824.
In 1839 he was appointed painter in enamels to the Queen, and in 1841
to the Prince Consort. He was one of the last of the painters in enamel.
[Illustration: MORNING WALK. _By_ ALFRED E. CHALON.]
WILLIAM DERBY (1786--1847) was celebrated for his careful copies in
miniature of celebrated portraits. He was largely employed on Lodge's
"Portraits of Illustrious Persons."
With SIR WILLIAM CHARLES ROSS (1794--1860) ends the school of deceased
miniature painters. Ross was an artist even in the nursery. He became an
assistant to Andrew Robertson, and although his forte was
miniature-painting, he longed for the higher flight of historic art. His
_Judgment of Brutus_, _Christ casting out Devils_ (exhibited in 1825),
and _The Angel Raphael discoursing with Adam and Eve_ (to which an
additional premium of L100 was awarded at the Cartoon Exhibition in
1843), are specimens of his power in this branch of art, at different
periods. It is as a miniature painter that he will live in the history
of art. He was elected to the full rank of R.A. in 1839, and was
knighted in the same year. The Court smiled upon him. He painted
miniatures of the Queen and Royal Family, the Saxe-Gotha Family, and the
King and Queen of Portugal. The late Emperor of the French, when Prince
Louis Napoleon, was among his numerous sitters.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VII.
PAINTERS IN WATER COLOURS.
(1750--1875.)
Water-colour painting is in one sense the most ancient mode of pictorial
art. We find examples of it in the tombs of the Egyptians, in the Roman
catacombs, and in the houses of Pompeii. Oil painting is, in comparison,
a modern process, though the statement that it was only discovered by
the Van Eycks in the beginning of the fifteenth century, is now known to
be a mistake. The earliest pictures were produced with colours soluble
in water and mixed with certain ingredients necessary to fix them. In
this way wall paintings were executed in tempera, a process familiar to
us as _painting in distemper_. Raphael's cartoons are specimens of
tempera-painting on paper, and Mantegna's _Triumph of Caesar_ (Hampton
Court) furnish examples of the like process on canvas. The art of
water-colour painting was practised by the early Italian and German
artists, and by those of the Flemish and Dutch schools. In most of the
illuminations of missals, in this and other countries, water colours
were used, mixed extensively with body white. Such was the case with the
early miniature painters of England, who began by using opaque colours,
and gradually advanced to transparent pigments. Notwithstanding the
antiquity of painting in water colours, the creation of a School of
Water-Colour Art, in the sense in which that term is now understood,
belongs to this country. It was not to the tempera painter, nor to the
illuminator of missals, nor to the early miniaturist that we owe this
modern school. We must look for its germ in the practice of the
topographer, who drew ruins, buildings, and landscapes for the
antiquary. The earliest of such works were executed in outline with a
reed pen. Examples are to be seen in some small pictures by Albrecht
Duerer, in the British Museum. The pigments used were transparent, and
applied on paper. The earliest of these pictures are in monochrome,
black or grey; next, colour was added here and there, and the whole
effect was something like that of a coloured print. Such were "the
tinted," or "steyned" drawings in which our modern water-colour
paintings originated. The early method prevailed for a long time, as may
be seen in the historic collection of water-colour paintings at South
Kensington, but gradually the art developed, better pigments were used,
and, as early as 1790, a marked improvement accrued, which led to the
triumphs of Girtin and Turner, and the more brilliant examples of later
days. One great advantage belongs to the modern school of water
colours--it started from nature, untrammelled by conventional rules or
traditions. The early topographers were brought face to face with
nature; some of them, like Webber and Alexander, extended their
observations to foreign lands; others, finding out the beauties of their
own country, were content to copy nature. It remained to our artists
towards the end of the last, and early in the present century, to give a
new and higher character to water-colour art, which from obscure
beginnings has risen to be a purely national and original school.
Practised by a succession cf men of great genius, a distinct branch of
art has been created, taking rank with works in oil. More luminous, and
hardly less powerful than pictures in that medium, it has lent itself,
in skilled hands, to the fullest expression of nature, and perfect
rendering of the ideal.
PAUL SANDBY (1725--1809) has been called "the father of water-colour
art;" but as he never advanced beyond the tinted mode, and to the last
used Indian ink for shadows, and the pen for outlines, the title is
unmerited. Sandby was a native of Nottingham, and having served in the
Drawing Office in the Tower, he settled at Windsor in 1752, and became
instructor in drawing to the children of George III. He was one of the
original members of the Royal Academy in 1768, and at the same time was
made drawing master in the Military School at Woolwich. He painted many
scenes in the neighbourhood of Windsor, and for Sir Watkin W. Wynn and
Sir Joseph Banks landscapes in Wales. Specimens of his art in
body-colour and tinting are in the South Kensington collection,
including _An Ancient Beech Tree_, which is painted in body-colour; _The
Round Temple_ is in Indian ink, slightly tinted; _Landscape with Dog and
figures_, is in the fully tinted manner.
THOMAS HEARNE (1744--1817) came early from Wiltshire to London, and was
intended for trade. He was, however, apprenticed to Woollett, the
engraver. In 1771, he went to the Leeward Isles as draughtsman to the
Governor, and this new occupation induced him to abandon engraving for
topography. He tinted landscapes, with local colour largely used. His
_Village Alehouse_, _View of Richmond_, two shipping scenes after Van de
Velde, and _Caistor Castle_ are at South Kensington.
WILLIAM PAYNE, who at one time held a civil appointment in Plymouth
dockyard, came to London in 1790. He had previously exhibited tinted
pictures of Devonshire scenery, which attracted the notice of Reynolds.
He is best known as the introducer of a neutral colour, styled _Payne's
Grey_.
ALEXANDER COZENS (died 1786), a natural son of Peter the Great, was born
in Russia. After studying art in Italy he came to England in 1746, and
practised as a teacher of drawing. Gifted with a fine poetic feeling,
and having a noble sense of breadth, this artist made a deep impression
on those who followed him.
JOHN WEBBER (1752--1793) travelled in Italy, France, and Switzerland,
and made numerous drawings. He was draughtsman to Captain Cook in his
last voyage, and a witness of his death.
JOHN ROBERT COZENS (1752--1799), son of Alexander Cozens, was one of the
earliest who practised water-colour painting in the modern sense of the
term. His works in the tinted manner are full of poetic beauty, and
exhibit a marked improvement on those of his predecessors. At South
Kensington may be seen his _Chigi Palace near Albano_. Constable, who
was much impressed by Cozen's art, said that he was "the greatest genius
who ever touched landscape." He was the first to go beyond topography,
and to impart pathos to his pictures. Although he worked mainly in the
received method of tinting, there are signs in his pictures of a noble
progress, which was soon to become more marked.
JOHN SMITH (1749--1831), called "Warwick Smith," probably because he
travelled in Italy with the Earl of Warwick, or on his behalf. Six of
his Italian sketches are at South Kensington. Gainsborough said "he was
the first water-colour painter who carried his intention through." In
1816 he was President of the Society of Painters in Water Colours. We
must here briefly mention THOMAS ROWLANDSON (1756--1827), who is best
known by caricatures, including illustrations to "Doctor Syntax," "The
Dance of Death," and "Dance of Life."
WILLIAM ALEXANDER (1767--1816) accompanied Lord Macartney to China, in
1792, as draughtsman to the Mission. He was afterwards made Keeper of
Prints and Drawings in the British Museum. He illustrated many books of
travel.
JOSHUA CRISTALL (1767--1847), one of the foundation members of the
Water-Colour Society, of which he was more than once President. He
usually painted classic figures with landscape backgrounds, and genre
subjects. His _Young Fisher Boy_ and _Fish Market on Hastings Beach_ are
at South Kensington.
HENRY EDRIDGE, who made excellent drawings in Paris and in Normandy, we
have already mentioned among the miniature painters.
ROBERT HILLS (1769--1844) represented animal painting in water colours,
and may be styled the father of this branch of art. He frequently worked
in conjunction with other artists; as in _Deer in a Landscape_ (South
Kensington), where the deer are painted by Hills, and the landscape is
by Barret.
MICHAEL ANGELO ROOKER (1748--1801) originally practised as an engraver,
but, having been instructed in painting by Paul Sandby, forsook the
graver, and worked as a student at the Royal Academy. Subsequently, he
became principal scene-painter at the Haymarket Theatre. He used much
local colour in tinted drawings, as may be seen in _St. Botolph's
Priory_, and _Boxgrove Priory Church_ (South Kensington Collection).
Conspicuous among those artists who showed that the power and richness
which were supposed to belong to oil painting only, could be produced in
water colours, was--
THOMAS GIRTIN (1773--1802), who entirely revolutionised the technical
practice of his forerunners, by laying in a whole picture with the local
colours of its parts. Girtin found a friend and helper in Dr. Monro, who
possessed many fine drawings, and allowed the young painters of the day
free access to them. In the riverside scenery visible from the Doctor's
house at the Adelphi, Girtin found congenial subjects for his art, as
well as amid the old-world spots about Chelsea and Wandsworth. Later, he
extended his travels, choosing cathedral cities in England, and visiting
the Lake district, Scotland, and Wales. Girtin loved to depict scenes of
gloom and grandeur, such as the melancholy Cumberland hills, and the
sterner scenery of Scotland, whilst Turner, his friend and fellow-worker
at Dr. Monro's house, depicted light, even when treating similar
subjects to those which his friend affected. Girtin spent a great deal
of valuable time in painting a panorama of London, which was much
admired. He died at the age of twenty-nine, but he had lived long enough
to make a great advance in water-colour painting, and to add power of
effect, of colour, and of execution to the poetry with which Cozens had
invested it. Favourable specimens of Girtin's art may be seen in a _View
on the Wharfe_ and _Rievaulx Abbey_ (South Kensington).
GEORGE BARRET the younger (1774--1842) was one of the foundation members
of the Water-Colour Society. He especially delighted in sunset effects.
WILLIAM DE LA MOTTE (1780--1863) was originally a pupil of President
West, but abandoned oil for water colours. He painted landscapes in the
style of Girtin, but more chiefly architecture and marine pieces.
Of JOSEPH MALLORD WILLIAM TURNER (1775--1851), we shall speak hereafter
as a painter in oils; here we must describe his influence in
water-colour art, which was greater even than that of Girtin. "Many date
the perfect development of water-colour painting from Girtin, but it is
far more due to Turner, who, while he could paint in that medium with
the power and strength of Girtin, added to that strength, delicacy and
_quality_" (_Redgrave_). Turner is famous as a painter both in water
colour and in oil, and as the artist of "Southern Coast Scenery,"
"England and Wales," "Rivers of France," Roger's "Italy" and "Poems."
His _Liber Studiorum_ is a collection of valuable studies in monochrome,
now in the National Gallery. His etchings from them are very celebrated.
Mr. Redgrave says of him, "If ever writer dipt his pen in poetry, surely
Turner did his facile pencil, and was indeed one of nature's truest
poets." His water-colour drawings are well represented in the National
Gallery.
[Illustration: EVENING.--"_Datur hora quieti._" _From a Drawing by_
TURNER.]
In spite of the marked progress of water-colour painting, there was as
yet no adequate accommodation for the exhibition of drawings produced
in that mode. The room assigned to works in water colour at the Royal
Academy exhibitions was described as "a condemned cell." The general
public still believed in the superiority of oil painting, and worshipped
a big, indifferent picture in that mode, whilst they allowed gems of art
to hang unnoticed in the water-colour room. To remedy this the
Water-Colour Society was founded on November 30th, 1804, the originators
being Hills, Pyne, Shelley, Wills, Glover and Varley. William Sawrey
Gilpin was the first President. This society gave new and increased
vigour to water-colour art, and a second body, the Associated Artists in
Water Colours, was formed in 1808. The older society exhibited the works
of members only, the new association was less exclusive: the career of
the latter was brief. The Water-Colour Society also lost popularity
after a while, and in 1813 the members determined to dissolve it. Twelve
of their number, however, were averse to this course, and maintained the
annual exhibition during a few years, with small success. Meanwhile, the
other members, in 1814, opened an exhibition in New Bond Street, and
invited contributions from British water-colour artists who belonged to
no other society. This effort failed. The original body styled itself
"The Society of Painters in Oil and Water Colours," for a time admitted
oil paintings, and made other alterations in its rules, but in 1821
returned to its original constitution. In 1823 it was established in its
present premises in Pall Mall East, since which date it has flourished.
In 1881 it became The Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours.
In 1831 The New Water-Colour Society was formed, a body which two years
later changed its title to that of The New Society of Painters in Water
Colours. In 1863 it became the Institute of Painters in Water Colours, a
title it still retains. The great increase in the numbers of artists of
this class rendered the formation of the second society necessary. A
third exhibition of water colours was formed in the Dudley Gallery,
which has recently undergone a reorganization in its Committee of
Management.
JOHN VARLEY (1778--1842) was at first the assistant of a silversmith,
then of a portrait painter, and subsequently of an architectural
draughtsman. After a time he found his true vocation in
landscape-painting with water colours. He was as we have seen, one of
the founders of the Water-Colour Society. His works are noteworthy for
simplicity and pathos, but his later productions, owing to the necessity
of working against time, are very slight. Varley chiefly painted Welsh
scenes, many of which are at South Kensington, _e.g._ _Beddgellert
Bridge_ and _Harlech Castle_.
WILLIAM HAVELL (1782--1857), another of the foundation members of the
Water-Colour Society, was a constant exhibitor till 1817, when he
visited India. On his return he chiefly contributed oil paintings to the
Royal Academy. Havell was one of those who aided to carry water-colour
painting beyond mere topography, and in later works he adopted the
"sunny method" of Turner.
SAMUEL PROUT (1783--1852) is best known by his sketches of continental
scenery, _e.g._ _Wuerzburg_, the _Arch of Constantine at Rome_, and the
_Porch of Ratisbon Cathedral_ (South Kensington). He excelled as a
painter of cottages and ancient ruins, but rarely succeeded with
foliage. He published drawing-books, containing studies from nature.
DAVID COX (1783--1859), the son of a blacksmith, was born at Birmingham.
He was a weakly child, and amused himself with drawing instead of the
rougher sports of his companions. Instructed by a local artist, he found
employment in painting lockets, and as a scene-painter at the theatre at
Birmingham and at Astley's Amphitheatre in Lambeth. Devoting himself to
landscape, and assisted by John Varley, Cox soon became one of the most
eminent artists of his school, remarkable for the truthfulness of his
colouring, the purity and brilliancy of the light in his pictures. He
was elected a member of the Water-Colour Society in 1813. His style may
be studied at South Kensington. His works are now highly prized.
THOMAS MILES RICHARDSON (1784--1848), a native of Newcastle-on-Tyne, is
said to have been seized with a desire to become a painter on seeing a
landscape by Cox. He began as apprentice to a cabinet-maker. Exchanging
this vocation for that of a schoolmaster, he finally accepted art as
his calling, and became a distinguished landscape painter.
[Illustration: THE TOMB OF THE SCALIGERS AT VERONA. _By_ PROUT.]
ANTHONY VANDYKE COPLEY FIELDING (1787--1855) proved worthy of the names
he bore. He was a pupil of Varley, and contributed his first picture to
the Water-Colour exhibition of 1810. From that time his success was
assured. During his life his works commanded very high prices. He was
elected President of the Water-Colour Society in 1831, and held that
office till his death. Fielding executed some excellent oil paintings.
"He delights in distances, extensive flats, and rolling downs. It is
true that while space is often obtained, the result is emptiness." An
example of this is _The South Downs, Devon_, at South Kensington. Marine
pieces are among Fielding's best works, but even these are mannered.
PETER DE WINT (1784--1849) was born in Staffordshire, and of Dutch
origin. A constant contributor to the Water-Colour Society, painting
scenes direct from nature, he chose the northern and eastern counties of
England. Corn-fields and hay-harvests are among his favourite subjects.
He is very largely represented in the South Kensington collection.
GEORGE FENNEL ROBSON (1790--1833), after leaving his native Durham,
exhibited many pictures at the Royal Academy, but his best works
appeared at the exhibitions of the Water-Colour Society. He illustrated
many books, and painted in conjunction with Hills, who contributed
animals. Three of his works are at South Kensington.
THOMAS HEAPHY (1775--1835) was born in London, and having been, like
many other artists, apprenticed to an uncongenial craft, left it to
pursue the art of an engraver. This, however, gave place to painting,
and he commenced with portraiture. He exhibited at the Royal Academy for
the first time in 1800, and was admitted an Associate Exhibitor of the
Water-Colour Society in 1807, and a member in 1808. For a time he
accompanied the English army in the Peninsula, and found patrons among
the officers. At South Kensington are two of his figure subjects, _Coast
Scene, with figures_, and _The wounded Leg_.
[Illustration: BERNCASTLE, ON THE MOSELLE. _By_ HARDING.]
WILLIAM HENRY HUNT (1790--1864) was one of the most original as well as
the most versatile of the water-colour school. Starting as a landscape
painter, he, in later years, excelled in rustic figure subjects, whilst
as a painter of fruits and flowers he was without a rival. Hunt was a
pupil of Varley, and had the advantage of Dr. Monro's friendship. The
varied character of his art may be seen at South Kensington, in _Boy and
Goats_, and a _Brown Study_ (a negro boy puzzling over an addition sum),
which illustrate his figure subjects, whilst _Hawthorn Blossoms and
Bird's Nest_, _Primroses and Birds' Nests_, and _Plums_, are examples of
another side of Hunt's genius. His humorous pictures _The Attack_, _The
Defeat_, _The Puzzled Politician_, and _The Barber's Shop_ are well
known.
JAMES DUFFIELD HARDING (1798--1863), the son of an artist, was intended
for a lawyer, but chose to become a painter. At the age of fifteen he
was a pupil of Samuel Prout, and at first his works owed much to that
artist. Like his master he did not succeed in foliage. Harding gained
the silver medal of the Society of Arts for a water-colour drawing, and
became very popular as a drawing-master. He published many lesson books,
in which he called in lithography to his aid. His visit to France and
Italy resulted in numerous studies, which are embodied in _The Landscape
Annual_. He is represented at South Kensington by _A Landscape with
Hovels_. Harding is described as the first water-colour artist who used,
to any extent, body-colour mixed with transparent tints. His example was
almost always injurious.
[Illustration: THE VIEW FROM RICHMOND HILL. _By_ DE WINT.]
GEORGE CATTERMOLE (1800--1868) was a native of Dickleburgh, Norfolk. He
started in life as a topographical draughtsman, and studied
architectural antiquities. This fitted him for the mediaeval and romantic
subjects in which he delighted Brigands, robbers, and knights figure
largely in his works. His travels in Scotland bore fruit in
illustrations to the Waverley novels. His pictures were due to his
memory, rather than to new inspirations, and as he advanced in years
they became tame. Among Cattermole's principal works are _Sir Walter
Raleigh witnessing the execution of Essex in the Tower_, _Hamilton of
Bothwellhaugh preparing to shoot the Regent Murray_, _The Armourer's
Tale_, _Cellini and the Robbers_, _Pirates at Cards_, which are all at
South Kensington.
JAMES HOLLAND (1800--1870) began as a flower painter and teacher of that
branch of art. He found a wider sphere, and is known as a painter of
landscapes and sea subjects. In his works high colouring is remarkable.
His _Nymwegen, in Holland_, is at South Kensington, where there is also
a series of sixteen of his drawings made in Portugal.
SAMUEL PALMER (1805--1881) first exhibited, at the British Institution,
in 1819. In 1843 he was elected an Associate of the Water-Colour
Society, and became a full member in 1855; and it was at the exhibitions
of that society that his works were most often seen.
His paintings are chiefly pastoral scenes, treated in an ideal manner,
and display imaginative and poetic genius of a high order. He drew
inspirations for his paintings from the writings of Milton and Virgil,
with which he was very familiar. He was influenced in his art by the
work of William Blake, and to some extent by that of his father-in-law,
John Linnell. Samuel Palmer executed a few highly-prized etchings.
* * * * *
EDWARD HENRY WEHNERT (1813--1868), FRANCIS WILLIAM TOPHAM (1808--1877),
AARON EDWIN PENLEY (1806--1870), EDWARD DUNCAN (1803--1882), GEORGE
SHALDERS (1826--1873), GEORGE HAYDOCK DODGSON (1811--1880), were all
members of one or other of the Water-Colour Societies, and attained fame
in their various walks of art.
[Illustration: OLD ENGLISH HOSPITALITY. _By_ GEORGE CATTERMOLE. A.D.
1839.]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VIII.
ENGLISH ART IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.--SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE AND HIS
CONTEMPORARIES.
In tracing the progress of British painting, we have seen that early in
the eighteenth century the English public thought most of foreign
artists. There was no belief in the power of Englishmen to create
original works, and therefore no encouragement was given against the
"slavery of the black masters." No one dared to hang a modern English
painting which aimed at being original. If a portrait was desired the
artist considered it necessary to imitate Kneller. If a landscape were
needed, it was thought right to seek it in Italy. If a painter desired
to prosper, he was forced to be more of a house-decorator than an
artist. We have seen also how this spell was broken, first by Hogarth,
who had the courage to abide by his originality, although but one
purchaser appeared at a sale of his pictures; next by Reynolds, who
painted portraits like living persons, and not mere dolls. We have seen
Wilson and Gainsborough create a school of English landscape-painting,
and show the hitherto neglected beauties of our own land. We have marked
historic painters bravely struggling against neglect, like Barry uncared
for, believing in his art; and like Copley, who treated history with
freshness and truth. To West we owe an attempt to depict scenes from
Scripture, and a bold stand against the ridiculous fashion which
represented any warrior, even a Red Indian, attired as a soldier of
ancient Rome. And we must not forget the poetic fancies of Romney, the
dramatic force of Opie, the grace of Stothard, the great inspiration of
Blake, and the wild nightmare illustrations of Fuseli. We have seen art
too long wedded to literature, and yet making great advances under the
treatment of those who turned their attention to book illustration and
miniature-painting, rising to a high pitch of popularity. We have
observed how the Royal Academy improved the social position of English
painters, who had previously been regarded as representing a better kind
of house-decorators, and how the establishment of the Water-Colour
Societies promoted a branch of art which, starting from the
topographer's sketch, has attained high excellence and beauty.
* * * * *
Among the foremost men of the beginning of the nineteenth century was--
[Illustration: MASTER LAMBTON. _By_ LAWRENCE. A.D. 1825.
_In the possession of the Earl of Durham._]
THOMAS LAWRENCE, who was born, in 1769, at Bristol; his father, trained
as a lawyer, being at that time landlord of an inn. At an early age the
future painter was removed with the rest of the family to the "Black
Bear" at Devizes, whither the fortunes of the elder Lawrence led him.
The inn was a well-known posting-house on the way to Bath, and young
Thomas had abundant opportunities for displaying his precocious talents
to the guests who stopped there. His father had given him desultory
lessons in reading and recitation. Nature furnished him with a wonderful
gift of art; and when only five years old the beautiful child, with long
flowing hair, was introduced to all customers, and would recite Milton
and Collins, or take their portraits, according to their several tastes.
We are told of his drawing a remarkably truthful likeness of Lady Kenyon
at this early age. Of regular education Lawrence had little or none
beyond two years' schooling at Bristol, but he learnt much from the
conversation of distinguished patrons and friends in early life. In 1779
the Lawrence family moved from Devizes to Oxford, where the boy drew
many portraits. Leaving Oxford and settling at Bath, Lawrence
contributed to the wants of the family by drawing portraits in crayons
for a guinea and a guinea and a half each. His fame rapidly spread. Mrs.
Siddons sat to him, so did the Duchess of Devonshire, and, in 1785, the
Society of Arts awarded him their silver pallet, "gilded all over," for
a crayon copy of the _Transfiguration_ by Raphael, executed when
Lawrence was only thirteen. London was the fittest place for the
development of such talents as his, and accordingly the elder Lawrence
went thither with his son in 1787, and the latter was entered as a
student in the Royal Academy. He contributed seven works to the
exhibition of the same year, was introduced to Sir Joshua Reynolds and
kindly treated; the great painter encouraged the youthful genius, and
advised him to study nature instead of the old masters. Lawrence took
this advice, and avoided the temptation to try processes of colouring,
which proved fatal to many of Sir Joshua's works. The course of the
youth was one of unvarying success. The King and Queen were interested
in him. In 1791, he was elected an Associate of the Academy, and a year
after was appointed Principal Painter-in-Ordinary to the King, a post
rendered vacant by the death of Reynolds. The Dilettanti Society broke
its rules to make Lawrence a member, and painter to the society; in
1794, when nearly twenty-five years old, the artist was elected a Royal
Academician. Never, perhaps, did painter rise so rapidly and from such
slight foundations, and never was studio more crowded by sitters than
that of Lawrence. Messrs. Redgrave, in criticising his portraits, say,
"After Reynolds and Gainsborough, Lawrence looks pretty and painty;
there is none of that power of uniting the figure with the ground--that
melting of the flesh into the surrounding light which is seen in the
pictures of the first President. Lawrence's work seems more on the
surface--indeed, only surface--while his flesh tints have none of the
natural purity of those by his two predecessors; we think them pretty in
Lawrence, but we forget paint and painting in looking at a face by
Reynolds or Gainsborough." The same critics remark of Lawrence's
portraits of children that Sir Joshua was greatly his superior in this
branch of art, and that the former "had no apparent admission into the
inner heart of childhood." On the other hand, Fuseli, his contemporary,
considered Lawrence's portraits as good or better than Van Dyck's, and
recommended painters to abandon hope of approaching him. In 1797,
Lawrence exhibited his _Satan calling his Legions_, now the property of
the Royal Academy. Various and conflicting are the criticisms on this
picture, a fair specimen of the painter's powers in history. A
contemporary critic says of it, "The figure of Satan is colossal, and
drawn with excellent skill and judgment." Fuseli, on the other hand,
characterizes the principal figure briefly and strongly as "a d--d
thing, certainly, but not the devil." Lawrence himself rightly thought
_Satan_ his best work. On the death of West, in 1820, Lawrence was
unanimously chosen President of the Royal Academy. Five years earlier
the Prince Regent had knighted him. Foreign Academies loaded him with
honours. He made a foreign tour at the request of the Government to
paint portraits of the various illustrious persons who had engaged in
the contest with Napoleon I. Ten years after his accession to the
President's chair Lawrence died. The best critics declare that no high
place among painters may be accorded to him. Much of his popularity was
due to the fact that he flattered his sitters, and led the artificial
style of the day. He lost in later years the fresh vigour of his prime.
It must be allowed, however, that he was no copyist of Reynolds, nor of
any one, but treated his subjects in a style of his own. He is accused
of introducing "a prevailing chalkiness" into his pictures, derived from
his early studies in crayon. When he died there was no one to take his
place. The Waterloo Chamber at Windsor Castle contains the pictures of
_Pius VII._, the _Emperor Francis_, and _Cardinal Gonsalvi_. Famous
among his portraits of children are _Master Lambton_, _Lady Peel and
Daughters_, and _Lady Gower and Child_; for the last he received 1,500
guineas. In the National Gallery are nine of his works, including
_Hamlet with Yorick's Skull_, and portraits of _Benjamin West_ and _Mrs.
Siddons_. The contemporaries of Sir Thomas who practised portraiture
were all indebted to Reynolds.
GEORGE HENRY HARLOW (1787--1819) emerged from a childhood, in which he
was petted and spoilt, to a brief manhood which the society of actors
and actresses did not improve. He was, for a time, a pupil of Lawrence,
and it is supposed that if he had lived Harlow would, as a portrait
painter, have been his successful rival. After a foreign tour, he, like
many of his brethren, longed to succeed in historic painting. His _Queen
Catherine's Trial_, in which Mrs. Siddons appears as the Queen, does not
prove that he would have succeeded in this branch of art. It was at the
"Old Masters" Exhibition, 1882.
WILLIAM OWEN (1769--1825), the son of a bookseller at Ludlow, came to
London in 1786, after receiving a good education at the Ludlow Grammar
School. He became a pupil of Charles Catton, landscape and animal
painter, and of the Academy. In 1792 he exhibited a _Portrait of a
Gentleman_, and a _View of Ludford Bridge_. He is chiefly known as a
portrait painter, and found that branch of art remunerative, but his
real tastes appeared in _Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green_, _The Fortune
Teller_, _The Village Schoolmistress_, and other simple stories of
country life. A picture of two sisters gained him one of the two as a
wife; and portraits of _Pitt_, _Lord Grenville_, the _Duke of
Buccleuch_, and other noteworthy persons brought him into fashion.
Owen was elected full member of the Academy in 1806, and appointed
portrait painter to the Prince of Wales in 1810. He was an unwearied
worker, and his subject-pictures commanded an interest which does not
continue. In the National Gallery is _The Dead Robin_. His _William
Croker_ and _Lord Loughborough_ are in the National Portrait Gallery.
[Illustration: TRIAL OF QUEEN CATHERINE. _By_ HARLOW. A.D. 1817. In the
possession of Mrs. Morrison.]
MARTIN ARCHER SHEE (1770--1850), a native of Dublin, commenced art
studies in the Dublin Academy. In Dublin he became known as a portrait
painter. He came to London in 1788, where he was introduced to Burke,
and by him to Reynolds, who advised the young painter to study at the
Royal Academy, advice which he somewhat unwillingly followed. Gradually
winning his way, he became a successful portrait painter of men. In
1800, he was made a R.A. Though devoting himself to portraiture Martin
Shee turned ever and again to subject-pictures, of which _Belisarius_,
_Lavinia_, and a _Peasant Girl_ are specimens. A more ambitious work was
_Prospero and Miranda_, exhibited in 1806. Shee owed his election to the
Academy to his position as a portrait painter, and he justified the
choice by his defence of the institution against those who attacked its
privileges. In 1830, he was elected President, and knighted. Three of
his works are in the National Gallery, _The Infant Bacchus_, and
portraits of Morton the comedian, and _Lewis as the Marquis in the
'Midnight Hour.'_ The first illustrates Shee's later style; the picture
of Lewis, painted in 1791, his early method. Besides paintings, Shee was
the author of several literary productions, including a tragedy, a
novel, "Rhymes on Art," and art criticisms.
[Illustration: SWISS PEASANT GIRL. _By_ HOWARD.]
HENRY HOWARD (1769--1847), though not intended originally for an artist,
early showed a talent for drawing, became a pupil of Philip Reinagle and
the Academy, where, two years later, he gained the silver medal of the
Life School, and the gold medal in the Painting School for _Caractacus
recognising the dead Body of his Son_, which Reynolds, then President,
warmly praised. From 1791 to 1794 Howard travelled in Italy, and painted
_The Death of Abel_ for the travelling studentship of the Academy, which
he did not obtain. The promise of his youth was not fulfilled. "His
works are graceful and pretty, marked by propriety, and pleasing in
composition; his faces and expressions are good, his drawing is correct,
but his style cold and feeble." (_Redgrave._) Most of Howard's works are
small: he selected classic and poetic subjects, such as _The Birth of
Venus_, _The Solar System_, _Pandora_, and _The Pleiades_, and
occasionally he painted portraits. He was Secretary and Professor of
Painting to the Royal Academy. In the National Gallery is _The Flower
Girl_, a portrait of his own daughter.
JAMES WARD (1769--1859) began life as an engraver, and was thirty-five
years old before he devoted himself to painting. He selected animal
portraiture, and bulls and horses were his favourite subjects. His most
famous, but not his best picture is _A Landscape, with Cattle_ (National
Gallery), produced at the suggestion of West to rival Paul Potter's
_Young Bull_, at the Hague, which Ward had never seen. Ward's cattle
were all painted from life. Morland was a brother-in-law of Ward, and
his influence is obvious in the latter's pictures. The life-size cattle
in the before mentioned picture are an Alderney bull, cow, and calf in
the centre, another cow, sheep, and goat in the foreground. In the
National Gallery, too, is his large landscape of _Gordale Scar,
Yorkshire_.
THOMAS PHILLIPS (1770--1845) was a native of Dudley, and began as a
glass painter at Birmingham. Coming to London, he was assisted by West,
then President of the Academy, and in 1792 exhibited a _View of Windsor
Castle_, and next year _The Death of Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, at the
Battle of Chatillon_. Phillips was more successful as a portrait
painter: his likenesses are faithful, his pictures free from faults,
and possess a pleasant tone, though as a colourist he does not occupy a
high place. He was Professor of Painting in 1829. In the National
Gallery are a portrait of _Sir David Wilkie_, and a _Wood Nymph_. The
latter looks more like a young lady fresh from a drawing-room.
HENRY THOMSON (1773--1843), the son of a purser in the Navy, was born at
Portsea, or, as some say, in London. His works consist of historic and
fancy subjects, and portraits. His first picture exhibited at the
Academy was _Daedalus fastening wings on to his Son Icarus_. Thomson
was, in 1825, appointed Keeper of the Academy in succession to Fuseli.
He exhibited, from 1800 to 1825, seventy-six pictures, chiefly
portraits. _The Dead Robin_ is in the National Gallery.
JOHN JACKSON (1778--1831) rose from the simple home of the tailor, his
father, to a high place in the world of art. He was freed from the craft
of his father by Lord Mulgrave and Sir George Beaumont. The latter
encouraged him to visit London, and allowed him L50 a year and a room in
his house while he studied in the Academy. The young painter soon
obtained success as a portrait painter, and in 1817 was elected a full
member of the Academy. In 1819, he visited Rome with Sir F. Chantrey,
and painted for him a portrait of _Canova_. A portrait of _Flaxman_,
painted for Lord Dover, is considered Jackson's masterpiece. Leslie,
speaking of the subdued richness of his colouring, said that Lawrence
never approached him; and Lawrence himself declared that the portrait of
Flaxman was "a great achievement of the English school, one of which Van
Dyck might have felt proud to own himself the author." Three portraits
by Jackson are in the National Gallery--the _Rev. W. H. Carr_, _Sir John
Soane_, and _Miss Stephens_, afterwards the late Countess of Essex.
Jackson's own portrait, by himself, is in the National Portrait
Gallery.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER IX.
LANDSCAPE PAINTERS.
JOSEPH MALLORD WILLIAM TURNER (1775--1851) stands at the head of English
landscape painters. It has been said that though others may have
equalled or surpassed him in some respects, "none has yet appeared with
such versatility of talent." (_Dr. Waagen._) The character of Turner is
a mixture of contradictory elements. He possessed a marvellous
appreciation of the beautiful in nature, yet lived in dirt and squalor,
and dressed in a style between that of a sea-captain and a hackney
coachman. The man who worked exquisitely was sometimes harsh and
uncouth, though capable of a rude hospitality; disliking the society of
some of his fellow-men, he yet loved the company of his friends, and
though penurious in some money transactions, left a magnificent bequest
to his profession. Turner owed nothing to the beauty or poetic
surroundings of his birth-place, which was the house of his father, a
barber in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden. But as Lord Byron is said to have
conjured up his loveliest scenes of Greece whilst walking in Albemarle
Street, so the associations of Maiden Lane did not prevent Turner from
delineating storm-swept landscapes, and innumerable splendours of
nature. The barber was justly proud of his child, who very early
displayed his genius, and the first drawings of Turner are said to
have been exhibited in his father's shaving-room. In time the boy was
colouring prints and washing in the backgrounds of architects' drawings.
Dr. Monro, the art patron, extended a helping hand to the young genius
of Maiden Lane. "Girtin and I," says Turner, "often walked to Bushey and
back, to make drawings for good Dr. Monro at half-a-crown a piece, and
the money for our supper when we got home." He did not, of course, start
from London.
[Illustration: THE GRAND CANAL, VENICE. _By_ TURNER. A.D. 1834.]
In 1789, Turner became a student in the Academy, and exhibited a picture
in the next year at Somerset House, _View of the Archbishop's Palace at
Lambeth_. He was then only fifteen. From that time he worked with
unceasing energy at his profession. Indeed, the pursuit of art was the
one ruling principle of his life. He frequently went on excursions, the
first being to Ramsgate and Margate, and was storing his memory with
effects of storm, mist, and tempest, which he reproduced. In 1799, when
made A.R.A., Turner had already exhibited works which ranged over
twenty-six counties of England and Wales. In 1802 he was made full
Academician, and presented, as his diploma picture, _Dolbadarn Castle,
North Wales_. In this year he visited the Continent, and saw France and
Switzerland. Five years later Turner was appointed Professor of
Perspective to the Royal Academy. We are told his lectures were
delivered in so strange a style, that they were scarcely instructive. Of
his water-colour paintings and of the _Liber Studiorum_ it is impossible
to speak too highly; he created the modern school of water-colour
painting, and his works in oil have influenced the art of the nineteenth
century. He visited Italy for the first time in 1819; again ten years
later, and for the last time in 1840. His eccentricity, both in manner
and in art, increased with age. Though wealthy, and possessing a good
house in Queen Anne Street, he died in an obscure lodging by the Thames,
at Chelsea, a few days before Christmas, 1851, Turner bequeathed his
property to found a charity for male decayed artists, but the alleged
obscurity of his will defeated this object. It was decided that his
pictures and drawings should be presented to the National Gallery, that
one thousand pounds should be spent on a monument to the painter in St.
Paul's, twenty thousand pounds should be given to the Royal Academy, and
the remainder to the next of kin and heir at law. The National Gallery
contains more than one hundred of his pictures, besides a large number
of water-colour drawings and sketches. In his earlier works Turner took
the old masters as his models, some of his best pictures showing the
characteristics of the Dutch school, as _The Shipwreck_, and _The Sun
rising in a Mist_. In _The Tenth Plague_, and _The Goddess of Discord_,
the influence of Poussin is visible, whilst Wilson is imitated in _AEneas
with the Sibyl_, and _A View in Wales_. Turner was fond of matching
himself against Claude; and not only did he try his powers in rivalry
with the older masters, he delighted to enter into honest competition
with painters of the day, and when Wilkie's _Village Politicians_ was
attracting universal notice, Turner produced his _Blacksmith's Shop_ in
imitation of it. In his later pictures Turner sacrificed form to colour.
"Mist and vapour, lit by the golden light of morn, or crimsoned with the
tints of evening, spread out to veil the distance, or rolled in clouds
and storms, are the great characteristics of Turner's art as contrasted
with the mild serenity of the calm unclouded heaven of Claude."
(_Redgrave._) Turner in his choice of colours forsook conventionality,
and "went to the cataract for its iris, to the conflagration for its
flames, asked of the sea its intensest azure, of the sky its clearest
gold." (_Ruskin._) The same critic considers Turner's period of central
power, entirely developed and entirely unabated, to begin with the
_Ulysses_, and to close with the _Temeraire_, a period of ten years,
1829--1839.
JOHN CONSTABLE (1776--1837) was born at East Bergholt, in Suffolk, June
11th, 1776, and the sunny June weather in which the painter first saw
the light seems to pervade all his pictures. Constable's father was a
miller, and intended that his son should succeed to his business; it has
been said also that it was proposed to educate him for holy orders.
Constable, however, was meant for a painter, and became one of the best
delineators of English scenery. In 1800, he became student in the Royal
Academy. In 1802, he exhibited his first picture. In 1819, he was
elected A.R.A., and became a full member ten years after. Constable's
earlier efforts were in the direction of historical painting and
portraiture, but he found his true sphere in landscape. He was
thoroughly English. No foreign master influenced him, and rustic life
furnished all he needed. He said, "I love every style and stump and lane
in the village: as long as I am able to hold a brush, I shall never
cease to paint them." To this determination we owe some of the most
pleasant English pictures, full of fresh, breezy life, rolling clouds,
shower-wetted foliage, and all the greenery of island scenes. He loved
to paint _under the sun_, and impart a glittering effect to his foliage
which many of his critics could not understand. Indeed, Constable was
not appreciated thoroughly till after his death. He seems to have known
that this would be the case, for early in his career he wrote, "I feel
now more than ever a decided conviction that I shall some time or other
make some good pictures--pictures that shall be valuable to posterity,
if I do not reap the benefit of them." Constable did not attempt bold or
mountainous scenery, but loved the flat, sunny meadows of Suffolk, and
declared that the river Stour made him a painter. In the National
Gallery are his: _The Corn-field_, _The Valley Farm_ (see
_Frontispiece_), (a view of "Willy Lott's House," on the Stour, close by
Flatford Mill, the property of the painter's father), _A Corn-field with
figures_, and _On Barnes Common_.
[Illustration: TRENT IN TYROL. _By_ CALLCOTT. _In the possession of Mr.
Samuel Cartwright._]
SIR AUGUSTUS WALL CALLCOTT (1779--1844) has been styled the English
Claude. He was born at Kensington Gravel Pits, then a pretty suburban
spot. He was, for some years, a chorister at Westminster Abbey, but
early adopted painting as his profession. Callcott was a pupil of
Hoppner, and began as a portrait painter. He soon devoted himself to
landscape, with an occasional attempt at history. He became a full
member of the Academy in 1810, his presentation picture being _Morning_.
His best pictures were produced between 1812 and 1826, during which
period he produced _The Old Pier at Littlehampton_ (National Gallery),
_Entrance to the Pool of London_, _Mouth of the Tyne_, _Calm on the
Medway_ (Earl of Durham). Callcott married in 1827, and went to Italy.
On his return in the following year he soon became a fashionable
painter. "His pictures, bright, pleasant of surface, and finished in
execution, were suited to the appreciation of the public, and not beyond
their comprehension; commissions poured in upon him." (_Redgrave._) The
Queen knighted him in 1837, and in the same year he exhibited his
_Raphael and the Fornarina_, engraved for the Art Union by L. Stocks,
which, if it possesses few faults, excites no enthusiasm. In 1840
appeared _Milton dictating Paradise Lost to his Daughter_, a large
picture, which overtaxed the decaying powers of the artist. Among
Callcott's later pictures are _Dutch Peasants returning from Market_,
and _Entrance to Pisa from Leghorn_. As a figure painter he does not
appear at his best. Examples of this class are _Falstaff and Simple_,
and _Anne Page and Slender_ (Sheepshanks Collection).
[Illustration: THE FISHERMAN'S DEPARTURE. _By_ COLLINS. _Painted in_
A.D. 1826 _for Mr. Morrison_.]
WILLIAM COLLINS (1788--1847) was born in London, where his father
carried on business as a picture dealer, in addition to the somewhat
uncertain calling of a journalist. The future painter was introduced to
Morland, a friend of his father, and learnt many things, some to be
imitated, others to be avoided, in that
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