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Title: English Painters - with a chapter on American painters
Author: Koehler, S. R., Wilmot-Buxton, H. J. (Harry John), 1843-1911
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
Dürer, 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 humanæ 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 mediæval 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. Dürer, 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 £600. 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 Dürer, 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 £34 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 £10 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 £20 a year, a great
sum in those days, when Holbein himself had but £30 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 £30 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 £10, 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 £18,280 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 £300 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 £30, 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 Lübeck, 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. £10,000 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 à 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 £20 for his work
and £10 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 à 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 à 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 à 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 Mæcenas, 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 £2,000 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 CÆSAR 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 £500 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 Zürich,
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, mediæval, 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 Æsop'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 Würtemberg, 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 _specialité_ 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 £100 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 Cæsar_ (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
Dürer, 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._ _Würzburg_, 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 mediæval 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 £50 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 _Æneas
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 _Téméraire_, 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 artist's studio. From 1807 he
exhibited at the Academy, of which he became a full member in 1820. He
exhibited one hundred and twenty-one pictures in a period of forty
years, specially devoting himself to landscape, with incidents of
ordinary life. Now he would paint children swinging on a gate, as in
_Happy as a King_ (National Gallery); children bird-nesting, or
sorrowing for their play-fellows, as in _The Sale of the Pet Lamb_.
Collins was also specially successful in his treatment of cottage and
coast scenery, as in _The Haunts of the Sea-fowl_, _The Prawn Catchers_
(National Gallery), and _Fishermen on the look-out_. After visiting
Italy, Collins forsook for a time his former manner, and painted the
_Cave of Ulysses_, and the _Bay of Naples_; but neither here nor in the
_Christ in the Temple with the Doctors_, and _The two Disciples at
Emmaus_, do we see him at his best. He wisely returned to his first
style.
WILLIAM LINTON (1791--1876) was employed in a merchant's office in
Liverpool, but quitted it to begin an artist's career in London. In
1821, he exhibited his first picture, _The Morning after the Storm_.
After visiting the Continent, Linton returned to England, and produced
pictures of the classic scenes he had studied. After a second foreign
tour, in which he visited Greece, Sicily, and Calabria, he exhibited
_The Embarkation of the Greeks for Troy_, _The Temples of Pæstum_
(National Gallery), and several works of a like character.
PATRICK NASMYTH (1786--1831), son of a Scotch landscape painter, was
born in Edinburgh, and came to London. His first exhibited picture at
the Academy was a _View of Loch Katrine_, in 1811. In the British
Institution Gallery of the same year his _Loch Auchray_ appeared. It is
by his pictures of simple English scenery that Nasmyth is best known. He
took Hobbema and Wynants as models, and chose country lanes, hedge-rows,
with dwarf oak-trees, for his subjects. Nasmyth was deaf in consequence
of an illness, and having lost the use of his right hand by an accident,
painted with his left. In the National Gallery are a _Cottage_, and _The
Angler's Nook_; at South Kensington are _Landscape with an Oak_,
_Cottage by a Brook_, and _Landscape with a Haystack_.
[Illustration: ST. GOMER, BRUSSELS. _By_ DAVID ROBERTS.]
DAVID ROBERTS (1796--1864), a native of Stockbridge, near Edinburgh,
began life as a house-decorator, and, becoming a scene-painter, found
employment at Drury Lane in 1822. Marked success in this capacity led
him to attempt a higher flight in architectural landscape. He exhibited
_Rouen Cathedral_ at the Academy in 1826, and very often contributed
pictures to the British Institution and Society of British Artists; of
the last-named body he was a foundation-member. Roberts made a tour in
Spain for materials of pictures and sketches; noteworthy among the
results of this journey are _The Cathedral of Burgos_, an exterior view,
and a small Interior of the same, now in the National Gallery. Extending
his travels to the East, Roberts produced _The Ruins of Baalbec_, and
_Jerusalem from the South-East_. He was made a full member of the
Academy in 1841, and lived to see his pictures sold for far higher
prices than he had originally assigned to them. David Roberts is well
known by "Sketches in the Holy Land, Syria, and Egypt."
RICHARD PARKES BONINGTON (1801--1828) passed most of his life abroad. He
studied in the Louvre when a child, and gained his knowledge of art
exclusively in Paris and Italy. His influence on the French school of
_genre_ and dramatic art was very great indeed, almost equal to that
which Constable produced on the French artists in landscape. He died,
aged twenty-seven, from the effects of a sunstroke received while
sketching in Paris. Bonington excelled in landscape, marine, and figure
subjects. He exhibited in the British Institution, among other pictures,
two _Views of the French Coast_, which attracted much notice, and _The
Column of St. Mark's_, _Venice_ (National Gallery). Sir Richard Wallace
possesses several of his best works, notably _Henri IV. and the Spanish
Ambassador_.
[Illustration: FRANCIS I. AND HIS SISTER. _By_ BONINGTON.
_In the possession of Sir Richard Wallace, Bart._]
WILLIAM JOHN MÜLLER (1812--1845) was another landscape painter whose
career was brief, and who chiefly painted foreign scenery. He travelled
in Germany, Italy and Switzerland, and for a time practised as a
landscape painter at Bath, though with little success. In 1838 Müller
visited Greece and Egypt, and in 1841 he was in Lycia. He had
previously settled in London. His pictures were chiefly of Oriental
scenes, and his fame was rapidly growing when he died. His works now
command high prices. In the National Gallery we have a _Landscape, with
two Lycian Peasants_, and a _River Scene_.
JOHN MARTIN (1789--1854) held a distinguished place as a painter of
poetic or imaginative landscapes and architectural subjects. He was born
near Hexham, and began the study of art in the humble field of coach
painting at Newcastle. Coming to London, Martin worked at enamel
painting, and in 1812 exhibited his first picture at the Academy, _Sadak
in Search of the Waters of Oblivion_, which is one of his best works.
This was followed by _Joshua commanding the Sun to stand still_ (1816),
_The Death of Moses_ (1838), _The Last Man_ (from Campbell's poem), _The
Eve of the Deluge_, _Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah_, &c. Martin's
most famous works were not exhibited at the Academy, _e.g._
_Belshazzar's Feast_, _The Fall of Babylon_, and _The Fall of Nineveh_.
Many of his compositions were engraved, securing for them a wide
circulation. Mr. Redgrave said: "We can hardly agree with Bulwer, that
Martin was 'more original, more self-dependent than Raphael or Michael
Angelo.'" But if in his lifetime Martin was over-praised, he was
unjustly depreciated afterwards. Many of his brother artists and the
public, when the first astonishment his pictures created had passed
away, called his art a trick and an illusion, his execution mechanical,
his colouring bad, his figures vilely drawn, their actions and
expressions bombastic and ridiculous. But, granting this, wholly or
partially, it must be remembered that his art, or manner, was original;
that it opened new views, which yielded glimpses of the sublime, and
dreams and visions that art had not hitherto displayed; and that others,
better prepared by previous study, working after him, have delighted,
and are still delighting, the world with their works.
[Illustration: BELSHAZZAR'S FEAST. _By_ JOHN MARTIN. _Exhibited at the
British Institution in_ A.D. 1821.]
THE NORWICH SCHOOL.
We must now speak of a provincial school of landscape painters which was
founded by JOHN CROME (1769--1821). The father of the Norwich Society of
Artists is generally known as "Old Crome," to distinguish him from his
son, who was likewise a painter. Crome, the son of a journey-man weaver,
born in a small tavern at Norwich, was in due course apprenticed to a
house and sign-painter. The young house-painter spent his spare time in
painting something more attractive than the walls of houses, and chose
the scenery round Norwich for his subjects. The flat, sunny landscapes,
dotted with farms and cottages, through which the sleeping river glided
slowly, and the Norfolk broads, with their flocks of wild fowl, remained
to the last the frequent subjects of Crome's pencil. Determining to be a
painter in good earnest, Crome, when his apprenticeship was over, eked
out his scanty resources by giving lessons in drawing and painting. At
the Royal Academy he exhibited only fourteen pictures, but in his native
town one hundred and ninety-six. With the exception of _The Blacksmith's
Shop_, all the works shown at the Academy were landscapes. "He wanted
but little subject: an aged oak, a pollard willow by the side of the
slow Norfolk streams, or a patch of broken ground, in his hands became
pictures charming us by their sweet colour and rustic nature." "Crome
seems to have founded his art on Hobbema, Ruysdael, and the Dutch
school, rather than on the French and Italian painters; except so far as
these were represented by our countryman, Wilson, whose works he copied,
and whose influence is seen mingled with the more realistic treatment
derived from the Dutch masters." (_Redgrave._) In the National Gallery
are his _Mousehold Heath_, _View of Chapel Field_, and _Windmill on a
Heath_: all views near Norwich. _A Clump of Trees, Hautbois Common_
(Fitzwilliam Gallery, Cambridge), is another favourable specimen of his
art.
JAMES STARK (1794--1859) was a pupil of Crome, and takes rank next to
him in the Norwich school. In 1812, he was elected a member of the
Norwich Society of Artists. In 1817, he came to London, and became a
student in the Royal Academy. There appeared some of his best works:
_Boys Bathing_, _Flounder Fishing_, and _Lambeth, looking towards
Westminster Bridge_. Illness obliged Stark to return to Norwich, where
he produced his "Scenery of the Rivers Yare and Waveney, Norfolk;" a
series of illustrations engraved by Goodall and others. Stark lacked the
vigour of Crome in colour and drawing.
GEORGE VINCENT (1796--about 1831) is best known for his _View of
Greenwich Hospital_, shown from the river. It was painted for Mr.
Carpenter, of the British Museum, and was in the International
Exhibition of 1862. Vincent was specially fond of sunlight effects or
clouds in his pictures.
JOHN SELL COTMAN (1782--1842) having escaped the life of a
linen-draper's shopman, devoted himself to art, and coming to London
found a friend and patron in Dr. Monro. From 1800 to 1806 Cotman
exhibited pictures at the Academy, and, returning to Norwich, was made a
member and secretary of the Society of Artists there. In the year 1808
he contributed to the Norwich exhibition sixty-seven works. Cotman paid
many visits to Normandy, and after 1834 was Professor of Drawing in
King's College School, London. He was more successful as a water-colour
artist than a painter in oils. He painted chiefly landscapes, marine
pieces, and executed many engravings of architecture.
The Norwich school no longer exists as a distinct body.
* * * * *
FRANCIS DANBY (1793--1861) excelled Martin in the poetry of landscape
art. He was born near Wexford, and gained his first knowledge of art in
Dublin, where, in 1812, he exhibited his first picture, _Evening_. In
1813, he was established at Bristol as a teacher of drawing in water
colour. He became known to the artistic world of London by his _Upas
Tree of Java_, which was at the British Institution of 1820, an
intensely poetic work, now in the National Gallery. His _Sunset at Sea
after a Storm_, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1824, was purchased by
Sir Thomas Lawrence. A year later Danby exhibited _The Delivery of
Israel out of Egypt_, for which he was elected an A.R.A. He is most
famous, however, for quiet scenes, calm evenings at sea, sunset effects,
combined with some poetic incident, and always remarkable for great
brilliancy of colour, among which are _The Artist's Holiday_ and _The
Evening Gun_. In the National Gallery is _The Fisherman's Home,
Sunrise_. He never became a R.A.
WILLIAM CLARKSON STANFIELD (1793--1867) holds one of the highest places
among English landscape and marine painters. Beginning life as a sailor
in the Royal Navy, he sketched vessels as they passed his own. A severe
fall compelled retirement from the navy. He began his art career as a
scene-painter in the Old Royalty Theatre, Wellclose Square, and later
became scene-painter to Drury Lane Theatre. His first exhibited picture
was _A River Scene_ in the Academy, 1820. In the same year _A Study from
Nature_ was at the British Institution. He exhibited _Ben Venu_, and _A
Coast Scene_, at the Institution in 1822. In 1824, he was a
foundation-member of the Society of British Artists, and sent five
pictures to their first exhibition in that year. Stanfield's large
_Wreckers off Fort Rouge_, was exhibited at the British Institution in
1828. In 1827 appeared _A Calm_, in the Royal Academy. From that time
Stanfield's success was assured. His truthfulness in reading nature,
whether in naval battle scenes, views of foreign sea-ports, or mountain
and river scenery, has seldom if ever been surpassed. He became a full
member of the Academy in 1835. An unwearied worker, he exhibited one
hundred and thirty-two pictures at the Royal Academy. We may mention
_The Battle of Trafalgar_; _The Victory, with Nelson's Body on board,
towed into Gibraltar_; _Entrance to the Zuyder Zee_; _Lake of Como_, and
_The Canal of the Giudecca, Venice_ (all in the National Gallery). Among
his earlier works are _Mount St. Michael, Cornwall_; _A Storm_; _A
Fisherman off Honfleur_, and _The Opening of New London Bridge_.
[Illustration: TERMINATI MARINA. _By_ STANFIELD. A.D. 1840. _In the
possession of the Marquis of Lansdowne._]
JAMES BAKER PYNE (1800--1870), born in Bristol, began life in a
solicitor's office, which he quitted to make a precarious subsistence by
painting, teaching, or restoring pictures. He went to London in 1835,
where a picture exhibited a year after at the Academy attracted notice,
and opened the way of success. He became famous as a delineator of lake
scenery, and for _pseudo_-Turner-like treatment of sunlight effects.
THOMAS CRESWICK (1811--1869), one of the most pleasing modern English
landscape painters, was born at Sheffield. He came to London when only
seventeen, and his pictures were exhibited by the British Institution
and the Royal Academy in that year, 1828. Having settled in London, he
delighted lovers of landscape with views in Ireland and Wales, and,
later, turned his attention to the North of England, the rocky dales and
rivers of which furnished subjects for his finest works. In 1842, he was
elected an Associate of the Academy, and received a premium of fifty
guineas from the British Institution for the general excellence of his
productions. In 1851, Creswick became a full member of the Academy, and
somewhat later executed pictures into which Frith and Ansdell introduced
figures and cattle. There is a charm in his paintings, the character of
which may be gathered from _The Old Foot Road_, _The Hall Garden_, _The
Pleasant Way Home_, _The Valley Mill_, _The Blithe Brook_, _Across the
Beck_. In the National Gallery is _The Pathway to the Village Church_.
"He painted the homely scenery of his country, especially its streams,
in all its native beauty and freshness; natural, pure, and simple in his
treatment and colour, careful and complete in his finish, good taste
prevailing in all his works, and conspicuously so in his charming
contributions to the works of the Etching Club, of which he was a valued
member, and also in his many designs on wood." (_Redgrave._)
[Illustration: THE PLEASANT WAY HOME. _By_ CRESWICK. _Exhibited in
1846._]
JOHN LINNELL (1792--1882) the son of a carver and gilder in Bloomsbury,
was at first brought up to his father's trade, and had many
opportunities of studying pictures. At eight years of age he copied
Morland so well that his versions were often taken for originals. Soon
afterwards he became a pupil of John Varley, and in his studio met
Mulready and W. H. Hunt, with whom he frequently went on sketching
tours. In 1807, when only fifteen years of age, Linnell sent his first
pictures, _A Study from Nature_, and _A View near Reading_, to the Royal
Academy Exhibition, to which for more than seventy years he was a
regular contributor. He frequently painted portraits, and was
particularly successful in landscapes with many trees. Mr. Ruskin says,
"The forest studies of John Linnell are particularly elaborate, and in
many points most skilful." For many years towards the close of his life
he lived at Redhill, with his two sons and his son-in-law, Samuel
Palmer, all landscape painters, near him.
During his long life he painted many hundred pictures, which are now for
the most part scattered in private galleries in England. Two of his
works are in the National Gallery, _Wood Cutters_, and _The Windmill_;
and three at South Kensington, _Wild Flower Gatherers_, _Milking Time_,
and _Driving Cattle_.
EDWARD WILLIAM COOKE (1811--1880), the son of an engraver, was intended
for his father's profession; but he preferred the brush to the graver.
In 1851 he was made an associate and in 1864 a full member of the Royal
Academy, to whose exhibitions he was a most constant contributor: he
also exhibited at the British Institution. His works are, for the most
part, coast and river scenes, generally in England, and frequently on
the Thames or Medway. Paintings by him are in the National Gallery and
the South Kensington Museum.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER X.
HISTORIC PAINTERS.
Many of our painters who aspired to high art in the field of history
were forced to abandon these ambitious designs, and confine themselves
to the more lucrative branches of their calling. It was not so with
WILLIAM HILTON (1786--1839), who, although chilled and saddened by
neglect, and generally unable to sell his pictures, maintained his
position as a history painter, and suffered neither poverty nor the
coldness of the public to turn him aside. Few details are known of his
life; he was a gentle, silent, and retiring man, who knew much sorrow
and shunned publicity. Rescued from a trade to which he was destined,
Hilton was allowed to learn drawing, and became a pupil of J. Raphael
Smith, the mezzotint engraver. He entered the Academy schools, and paid
special attention to the anatomy of the figure. His earliest known
productions were a series of designs in oil to illustrate "The Mirror,"
and "The Citizen of the World." Hilton's early exhibited works had
classic subjects, such as _Cephalus and Procris_, _Venus carrying the
wounded Achilles_, and _Ulysses and Calypso_. In 1810, he produced a
large historic painting, called _Citizens of Calais delivering the Keys
to Edward III._, for which the British Institution awarded him a premium
of fifty guineas. For the _Entombment of Christ_ he received a second
premium, and for _Edith discovering the Dead Body of Harold_ a third of
one hundred guineas. Nevertheless, the public did not appreciate his
works, and they were unsold. The Directors of the British Institution,
who had already marked their sense of this painter's ability, purchased
two of his sacred pieces, _Mary anointing the Feet of Jesus_, which was
presented to the Church of St. Michael, in the City, and _Christ crowned
with Thorns_, which was given to that of St. Peter's, Eaton Square, but
which has since been sold. In 1819 Hilton became a full member of the
Academy, and was appointed Keeper in 1827, a position for which he was
specially fitted, and where he gained the affection of the students. In
the next year he married. The death of his wife, in 1835, crushed his
energy and hope. He saw himself painting for a public which did not
value his art.
[Illustration: THE RAPE OF EUROPA. _By_ HILTON. A.D. 1818. _In the
possession of the Earl of Egremont._]
In addition to the above examples, we may mention Hilton's _Serena
rescued by the Red Cross Knight, Sir Calepine_, and _The Meeting of
Abraham's Servant with Rebekah_ (National Gallery), and a triptych of
_The Crucifixion_, which is at Liverpool. Most of Hilton's works are
falling to decay through the use of asphaltum.
BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON (1786--1846) was the son of a bookseller at
Plymouth, and his "fitful life"--marked by "restless and importunate
vanity"--was ended by his own act. Haydon refused to follow his father's
business, and insisted on becoming a painter. Of his thoughts, hopes,
and dreams, we have been well informed. He was in the habit of writing
in an elaborate diary all that concerned himself. He came to London in
1804 with £20 in his pocket, entered the Academy schools, and worked
there with vigour and self-reliance. Northcote did not encourage his
enthusiastic countryman when he told him that as an historic painter "he
would starve with a bundle of straw under his head." We admire the
courage of Haydon in holding fast to the branch of art he had embraced,
but his egotism fulfilled the prophecy of Northcote. When twenty-one,
Haydon ordered a canvas for _Joseph and Mary resting on the Road to
Egypt_, and he prayed over the blank canvas that God would bless his
career, and enable him to create a new era in art. Lord Mulgrave became
his patron, and this may have added to the painter's hopes. He painted
_Dentatus_, and, intoxicated by flattery, believed the production of
this his second work would mark "an epoch in English art." _Dentatus_,
however, was hung in the ante-room of the Royal Academy, and coldly
received. In 1810, he began _Lady Macbeth_ for Sir George Beaumont;
quarrelling with his patron, he lost the commission, but worked on at
the picture. Although deeply in debt, he quarrelled with those who would
have been his friends. His _Judgment of Solomon_, a very fine picture,
was painted under great difficulties and privations. West, the
President, whom the painter accused of hostility to him, is said to have
shed tears of admiration at the sight of this work, and sent Haydon a
gift of £15. _Solomon_ was sold for 600 guineas, and the British
Institution awarded another hundred guineas as a premium to its author.
In 1820 Haydon produced _Christ's Entry into Jerusalem_, and during its
progress he, as he recorded, "held intercourse only with his art and his
Creator." This picture was exhibited at the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly,
and brought a large sum of money to the painter. Unsold in England, the
work of which Haydon had expected much was purchased for £240, and sent
to America. He established an Art school, where several able painters
were trained, but the master was constantly in great pecuniary
difficulties. In 1823, he exhibited the _The Raising of Lazarus_,
containing twenty figures, each nine feet high, which is now in the
National Gallery. Of this work Mr. Redgrave says: "The first impression
of the picture is imposing; the general effect powerful, and well suited
to the subject; the incidents and grouping well conceived; the
colouring good, and in parts brilliant. The Christ is weak, probably the
weakest, though the chief figure in the picture." Misfortune still
dogged the painter. He was thrown into prison for debt; released, he
worked in poverty, afraid of his "wicked-eyed, wrinkled, waddling,
gin-drinking, dirty-ruffled landlady." The closing scenes of his life
grew darker and darker. In 1826, he painted _Venus and Anchises_, on
commission, began _Alexander taming Bucephalus_, and _Euclus_, and was
once more in prison. An appeal in the newspapers produced money enough
to set him again at liberty. Then appeared the _Mock Election_, and
_Chairing the Member_, the former being purchased by the King. No
success, however, seemed to stem the tide of Haydon's misfortunes. He
lectured on Art with great ability in 1840, continued painting for
bread, and finally, disgusted by the cold reception of _Aristides_, and
_Nero watching the Burning of Rome_, the over-wrought mind of the
unfortunate man gave way, and he committed suicide, leaving this brief
entry in his journal--"God forgive me! Amen. Finis. B. R. Haydon.
'Stretch me no longer on the rack of this sad world.'--_Lear_." A sad
finish to his ambitious hopes! Of Haydon's art generally Mr. Redgrave
says: "He was a good anatomist and draughtsman, his colour was
effective, the treatment of his subject and conception were original and
powerful; but his works have a hurried and incomplete look, his finish
is coarse, sometimes woolly, and not free from vulgarity."
[Illustration: THE DANGEROUS PLAYMATE. _By_ ETTY. A.D. 1833. _In the
National Gallery._]
WILLIAM ETTY (1787--1849), the son of a miller at York, had few
advantages to help him on the road to fame. His education was slight,
and his early years were spent as a printer's apprentice in Hull. But he
had determined to be a painter; and his motto was, as he tells us,
"_Perseverance_." In 1806, he visited an uncle, in Lombard Street, and
became a student at the Academy, though his earliest art-school was a
plaster-cast shop in Cock Lane. Through his uncle's generosity, he
became a pupil of Lawrence, who had little time to attend to him. Though
overwhelmed with difficulties Etty persevered bravely. He laboured
diligently in the "Life School," tried in vain for all the medals, sent
his pictures to the Academy only to see them rejected; unlike Haydon, he
never lost heart. In 1820 _The Coral Finders_ was exhibited at the
Academy, and in the following year _Cleopatra_. His patience and
diligence were rewarded; henceforth his career was one of success. In
1822, he visited Italy, and in 1828 became a full member of the Academy.
His art was very unequal. He chiefly devoted himself, however, to
painting women, as being the embodiments of beauty. As a colourist few
English painters have rivalled him, and as a painter of flesh he stands
high. As showing the different forms of his many-sided art, we may
mention _Judith and Holofernes_, _Benaiah_, _The Eve of the Deluge_,
_Youth on the prow and Pleasure at the Helm_, _The Imprudence of
Candaules_, _The dangerous Playmate_, and _The Magdalen_ (all in the
National Gallery). Etty died unmarried, and the possessor of a
considerable fortune.
HENRY PERRONET BRIGGS (1792--1844), distinguished as an historic and
portrait painter, began his art studies at the Academy in 1811, and was
made a full member of that body in 1832. His best-known works are
_Othello relating his Adventures_, _The first Conference between the
Spaniards and Peruvians_, and _Juliet and her Nurse_; the two latter are
in the National Gallery. This master in his later years forsook
historical painting for portraiture.
[Illustration: GREEK FUGITIVES. _By_ EASTLAKE. _Painted for Sir Matthew
White Ridley, Bart._ _Exhibited at the Royal Academy in_ A.D. 1833.]
CHARLES LOCK EASTLAKE (1793--1865), son of the Solicitor to the
Admiralty in that town, was born at Plymouth, and educated first in
Plympton Grammar School, where Reynolds had studied, and afterwards at
the Charterhouse, London. Choosing the profession of a painter, he was
encouraged, doubtless, by his fellow-townsman, Haydon, who had just
exhibited _Dentatus_. Eastlake became the pupil of that erratic master,
and attended the Academy schools. In 1813, he exhibited at the British
Institution a large and ambitious picture, _Christ raising the Daughter
of the Ruler_. In the following year the young painter was sent by Mr.
Harman to Paris, to copy some of the famous works collected by Napoleon
in the Louvre. The Emperor's escape from Elba, and the consequent
excitement in Europe, caused Eastlake to quit Paris, and he returned to
Plymouth, where he practised successfully as a portrait painter. A
portrait of Napoleon, which Eastlake enlarged from his sketch of the
Emperor on board the _Bellerophon_ when bound for St. Helena, appeared
in 1815. This picture now belongs to Lord Clinton. In the same year he
exhibited _Brutus exhorting the Romans to avenge the Death of Lucretia_.
In 1819 Eastlake visited Greece and Italy, and spent fourteen years
abroad, chiefly at Ferrara and Rome. The picturesque dress of the
Italian and Greek peasantry so fascinated him that for a long period he
forsook history for small _genre_ works, of which brigands and peasants
were the chief subjects. A large historical painting, _Mercury bringing
the Golden Apple to Paris_, appeared in 1820. Seven years later, _The
Spartan Isidas_, now in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire, was
exhibited at the Academy, and procured for the painter the
Associateship. It illustrates the story told by Plutarch, in his "Life
of Agesilaus," of the young warrior called suddenly in his bath to
oppose the Thebans. Rushing forth naked with his sword and spear, he
drove back the Thebans and escaped unhurt. In 1828, Eastlake produced
_Italian Scene in the Anno Santo, Pilgrims arriving in sight of St.
Peter's_, which he twice repeated. In 1829 _Lord Byron's Dream_, a
poetic landscape (National Gallery), was exhibited, and Eastlake
becoming an Academician, returned to England. Then followed _Greek
Fugitives_, _Escape of the Carrara Family from the Duke of Milan_ (a
repetition is in the National Gallery), _Haidee_ (National Gallery),
_Gaston de Foix before the Battle of Ravenna_, _Christ blessing Little
Children_, _Christ weeping over Jerusalem_ (a repetition is in the
National Gallery), and _Hagar and Ishmael_. To his labours as a painter
Eastlake added the duties of several important offices, and much
valuable literary work. He was Secretary to the Royal Commission for
Decorating the New Palace of Westminster, Librarian of the Royal
Academy, and Keeper, and afterwards Director of the National Gallery. In
1850, he succeeded Sir Martin Shee as President of the Royal Academy,
and was knighted. From that time till his death, at Pisa, in 1865, he
was chiefly engaged in selecting pictures to be purchased by the British
Government. He was editor of Kugler's "Handbook of the Italian Schools
of Painting," and author of "Materials for a History of Oil Painting."
[Illustration: JOASH SHOOTING THE ARROWS OF DELIVERANCE. _By_ DYCE. A.D.
1844. _In the possession of Mr. Bicknell._]
WILLIAM DYCE (1806--1864), a native of Aberdeen, commenced his art
studies at the Royal Scottish Academy. Visiting Italy he studied the old
masters, and their influence had a lasting effect upon his style. In
1827 Dyce exhibited at the Royal Academy _Bacchus nursed by the Nymphs_.
In 1830, he settled in Edinburgh, and achieved marked success. _The
Descent of Venus_ appeared at the Academy in 1836. Having removed to
London, Dyce exhibited, in 1844, _Joash shooting the Arrows of
Deliverance_, and was elected an Associate. In 1847, he produced the
sketch of a fresco executed at Osborne House, _Neptune assigning to
Britannia the Empire of the Sea_. Dyce was chosen, in 1848, to decorate
the Queen's Robing-Room in the Houses of Parliament, and commenced, but
did not quite finish, a large series of frescoes illustrating _The
Legend of King Arthur_. He produced other historic works, chiefly of
Biblical subjects, and of great merit.
GEORGE HARVEY (1805--1876) was born at St. Ninian's, Fifeshire, and
apprenticed to a bookseller at Stirling. He quitted this craft at the
age of eighteen, and commenced his art career at Edinburgh. In Scotland
he gained a wide popularity. He took an active part in the establishment
of the Royal Scottish Academy, and was knighted in 1867. His favourite
subjects were Puritan episodes, such as _Covenanters' Communion_,
_Bunyan imagining his Pilgrim's Progress in Bedford Gaol_, and _The
Battle of Drumclog_.
THOMAS DUNCAN (1807--1845), a native of Perthshire, first attracted
notice by his pictures of a _Milkmaid_, and _Sir John Falstaff_. In
1840, he exhibited at the Royal Academy his historical painting,
_Entrance of Prince Charlie into Edinburgh after Preston Pans_, and next
year produced _Waefu' Heart_, from the ballad of "Auld Robin Gray,"
which is now at South Kensington.
[Illustration: HAROLD, RETURNED FROM NORMANDY, PRESENTS HIMSELF TO
EDWARD THE CONFESSOR. _By_ MACLISE. A.D. 1866.
_From the "Story of the Norman Conquest."_]
DANIEL MACLISE (1811--1870) was born at Cork, and was intended for the
unromantic calling of a banker's clerk. Fortunately for the world he
soon left the bank stool for the studio of the Cork Society of Arts.
In 1828, he transferred his attention to the Academy schools in London,
and soon obtained the gold medal for the best historic composition,
representing _The Choice of Hercules_. He had previously exhibited
_Malvolio affecting the Count_. In due course appeared, at the British
Institution, _Mokanna unveiling his features to Zelica_, and _Snap-Apple
Night_, which found a place at the Royal Academy. Maclise became a full
Academician in 1840. His latter years were chiefly occupied with the
famous water-glass pictures in the Houses of Parliament, _The Interview
of Wellington and Blucher after Waterloo_, and _The Death of Nelson at
Trafalgar_. The noble cartoon (bought by subscriptions of artists, who
likewise presented the designer with a gold port-crayon) of the former
is now the property of the Royal Academy. Maclise executed many book
illustrations, including those for "Moore's Melodies," and "The Pilgrims
of the Rhine." He executed a noble series of designs delineating _The
Story of the Norman Conquest_. A collection of his drawings has been
bequeathed to the South Kensington Museum by Mr. John Forster. Maclise
painted a few portraits, among them that of Charles Dickens, who spoke
thus of the dead painter, "Of his prodigious fertility of mind and
wonderful wealth of intellect, I may confidently assert that they would
have made him, if he had been so minded, at least as great a writer as
he was a painter. The gentlest, and most modest of men; the freest as to
his generous appreciation of young aspirants; and the frankest and
largest-hearted as to his peers. No artist ever went to his rest leaving
a golden memory more free from dross, or having devoted himself with a
truer chivalry to the goddess whom he worshipped." The most remarkable
works of Maclise are _Macbeth and the Witches_; _Olivia and Sophia
fitting out Moses for the Fair_; _The Banquet Scene in Macbeth_; _Ordeal
by Touch_; _Robin Hood and Coeur de Lion_; _The Play Scene in Hamlet_
(National Gallery); _Malvolio and the Countess_ (National Gallery).
CHARLES LANDSEER (1799--1879), the elder brother of the more famous Sir
Edwin Landseer, was a pupil of Haydon and the Royal Academy Schools. In
1836 appeared his _Sacking of Basing House_ (now in the National
Gallery). He was elected an A.R.A. in the following year, became a full
member in 1845, and Keeper in 1851. Amongst other good works by him are
_Clarissa Harlowe in the Spunging House_ (National Gallery), _Charles
II. escaping in disguise from Colonel Lane's House_, and _The Eve of the
Battle of Edgehill_.
CHARLES LUCY (1814--1873) began life as a chemist's apprentice in his
native town of Hereford. He soon forsook the counter, and went to Paris
to study painting. Coming to London, he exhibited _Caractacus and his
Family before the Emperor Claudius_, a work which formed the
introduction to a long series of historic pictures, noteworthy among
which are _The Parting of Charles I. with his Children_, _The Parting of
Lord and Lady Russell_, and _Buonaparte in discussion with the Savants_,
all of which were exhibited at the Academy. Lucy established a great
reputation in Europe and America.
JOHN PHILLIP (1817--1867) was one of the best colourists of the English
school. He was a native of Aberdeen, began life as an errand boy to what
the Scotch call a "tin smith," and afterwards became an apprentice to a
painter and glazier, and seems to have had instruction in his early
pursuit of art from a portrait painter of his native town, named Forbes,
who was very generous to him. A picture by Phillip secured him the
patronage of Lord Panmure, who sent him to London. In 1837 the young
painter entered the Academy Schools. He exhibited two portraits in 1838,
and two years later returned to Aberdeen, exhibiting in the Royal
Academy _Tasso in Disguise relating his Persecutions to his Sister_.
Once more returning to London, Phillip exhibited _The Catechism_, and
several pictures of Scottish life, as _The Baptism_, _The Spae Wife_,
_The Free Kirk_. Illness compelled him to visit Spain in 1851, and here
he produced many excellent pictures of Spanish life, which greatly added
to his reputation, and gained for him the sobriquet of "Don Phillip of
Spain." _A Visit to Gipsy Quarters_, _The Letter-writer of Seville_, and
_El Paseo_ are examples of his Spanish pictures. In 1857 Phillip was
elected Associate of the Royal Academy, and exhibited the _Prison Window
in Seville_. Elected a full member in 1859, he painted next year _The
Marriage of the Princess Royal_, by command of the Queen. _La Gloria_,
one of his most celebrated works, appeared in 1864. His pictures combine
correctness of drawing with boldness, if not refinement, of
colouring--which is seldom met with in the works of our best painters.
ALFRED ELMORE (1815--1881), an Irishman by birth, won for himself fame
as a painter of historic scenes and _genre_ subjects. Among his works
are _Rienzi in the Forum_; _The Invention of the Stocking Loom_ and _The
Invention of the Combing Machine_; _Marie Antoinette in the Tuileries_;
_Marie Antoinette in the Temple_; _Ophelia_; and _Mary Queen of Scots
and Darnley_. He was elected a R.A. in 1857.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XI.
SUBJECT PAINTERS.
Domestic subject, or _genre_, painting in England may be said to have
originated with Hogarth, but it made slow progress after his death till
the commencement of the nineteenth century. Historic pictures of a large
size were neither popular nor profitable. Corporate bodies did not care
to spend money on the adornment of their guild halls, and ordinary
householders had no room for large pictures. Englishmen are essentially
_domestic_, and pictures small enough to hang in small houses, and
illustrative of home life, suit their necessities, and appeal to their
feelings far more strongly than vast canvases representing battles or
sacred histories. In _genre_ painting the Dutch school has ever been
prominent; to it we doubtless owe much of the popularity of this branch
of art in England, where our painters have chosen familiar subjects,
without descending to the coarse or sensual incidents in which some old
Dutch artists delighted. The _genre_ painters of this country have
mainly drawn their subjects from our national poets and prose writers
and the every-day life of Englishmen, sometimes verging on the side of
triviality, but on the whole including pleasing works, which, as it has
been well said, "bear the same relation to historic art as the tale or
novel does to history."
DAVID WILKIE (1785--1841) was born in his father's manse at Cults,
Fifeshire. It was fully intended that Wilkie should follow in his
father's steps, and become a minister of the Scottish Kirk, but it was
not to be so. He was placed, at his own earnest desire, in the Trustees'
Academy, at Edinburgh, and there in 1803 justified the wisdom of this
choice by gaining the ten-guinea premium for the best painting of the
time, the subject being _Callisto in the Baths of Diana_. Next year
young Wilkie visited his home, and painted _Piltassie Fair_, which he
sold for £25. He painted portraits, and with the money thus acquired
went to London in 1805. Having entered himself as a student at the
Academy, Wilkie soon attracted attention by the _Village Politicians_,
which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1806. One hundred of his
paintings appeared from time to time on the Academy walls; each
succeeding early work added to its author's fame. All his earlier works
were _genre_ pictures. His favourite subjects are shown in _The Blind
Fiddler_, _Card-Players_, _The Rent Day_, _The Jew's Harp_, _The Cut
Finger_, _The Village Festival_, _Blindman's Buff_, _The Letter of
Introduction_, _Duncan Gray_, _The Penny Wedding_, _Reading the Will_,
_The Parish Beadle_, and _The Chelsea Pensioners_, the last painted for
the Duke of Wellington. Wilkie was elected A.R.A. in 1809, and a full
member in 1811. He went abroad in 1814, and again in 1825, when he
visited Germany, Italy, and Spain. The study of the old masters,
especially Correggio, Rembrandt, and Velazquez, had a marked effect on
Wilkie, who changed both his style and subjects. He forsook _genre_ for
history and portraiture, and substituted a light effective style of
handling for the careful execution of his earlier works. _John Knox
Preaching_ (National Gallery) is a good specimen of this second period
of Wilkie's art. He succeeded Sir Thomas Lawrence in 1830 as Painter in
Ordinary to the King, and was knighted six years later. In 1840 Wilkie
visited the East, and painted the portrait of the Sultan Abdul Medjid.
Next year, whilst far from home, on board a steamer off Gibraltar, he
died, and found a grave in the sea. There are eleven of his pictures in
the National Gallery. Her Majesty possesses most of the pictures painted
by Wilkie in Spain, such as _The Guerilla Council of War_, and _The Maid
of Saragossa_. Another Spanish picture, painted in England, is _Two
Spanish Monks in the Cathedral of Toledo_, belonging to the Marquis of
Lansdowne. In it we notice the painting of the hands, which are full of
life and action, a characteristic in which Wilkie excelled. "His early
art certainly made a great impression on the English school, showing how
Dutch art might be nationalized, and story and sentiment added to scenes
of common life treated with truth and individuality. As to his middle
time, such pictures as the _John Knox_ also had their influence on the
school, and the new mode of execution as supported by Wilkie's
authority, a very evil influence, bringing discredit upon English
pictures as entirely wanting in permanency. His methods and the pigments
he used were soon discarded in England, but at the time they influenced,
and have continued to influence, his countrymen long after his death."
(_Redgrave._)
[Illustration: THE MAID OF SARAGOSSA. _By_ WILKIE. A.D. 1827. _In the
possession of the Queen._]
WILLIAM FREDERICK WITHERINGTON (1785--1865) combined landscape and
subject painting in his art. He exhibited his first picture, _Tintern
Abbey_, in 1811, and his succeeding works were principally landscapes
and figure subjects in combination. Witherington was elected A.R.A. in
1830, and became a full member ten years later. Favourable specimens of
his thoroughly English and pleasing pictures are _The Stepping Stones_
and _The Hop Garland_ in the National Gallery, and _The Hop Garden_ in
the Sheepshanks Collection at South Kensington.
ABRAHAM COOPER (1787--1868), the son of an inn-keeper, was born in
London, and early showed singular skill with his pencil. The inn stables
furnished his first and favoured subjects, and the portrait of a
favourite horse belonging to Sir Henry Meux gained him his first
patron. In 1814 Cooper exhibited at the British Institution _Tam
o'Shanter_, which was purchased by the Duke of Marlborough. In 1817 _The
Battle of Marston Moor_ secured his election as an Associate of the
Academy: he became a R.A. in 1820. There is little variety in the
subjects of this painter's works. The best known are _The Pride of the
Desert_, _Hawking in the Olden Time_, _The Dead Trooper_, _Richard I._
and _Saladin at the Battle of Ascalon_, and _Bothwell's Seizure of Mary,
Queen of Scots_.
WILLIAM MULREADY (1786--1863), the ablest _genre_ painter in England
except Wilkie, was born at Ennis, in the County Clare. Although his
works are familiar to most of us as household words, few details of his
life are known. We know that his father was a maker of leather-breeches,
and that he came to London with his son when the latter was about five
years old. The child is said to have shown very early the artistic power
which was in him. He sat as a model for Solomon to John Graham, who was
illustrating Macklin's Bible and probably the surroundings of the studio
stimulated young Mulready's artistic instincts. By the recommendation of
Banks, the sculptor, he gained entrance to the Academy Schools; at the
age of fifteen he required no further pecuniary aid from his parents.
Mulready worked in the Academy Schools, as he worked through life, with
all his heart and soul. He declared he always painted as though for a
prize, and that when he had begun his career in the world he tried his
hand at everything, "from a caricature to a panorama." He was a teacher
all his life, and this accounts, perhaps, for the careful completeness
of his pictures. Mulready married when very young, and did not secure
happiness. He began by painting landscapes, but in 1807 produced _Old
Kasper_, from Southey's poem of "The Battle of Blenheim," his first
subject picture. _The Rattle_ appeared a year later, and marked advance.
Both pictures bear evidence that their author had studied the Dutch
masters. In 1815 Mulready was chosen A.R.A., but before his name could
appear in the catalogue he had attained to the rank of a full member.
This was in 1816, when he exhibited _The Fight interrupted_ (Sheepshanks
Collection). From this time he was a popular favourite, and his
pictures, of which he exhibited on an average scarcely two a year, were
eagerly looked for. We may specify _The Wolf and the Lamb_, _The Last
in_, _Fair Time_, _Crossing the Ford_, _The Young Brother_, _The Butt_,
_Giving a Bite_, _Choosing the Wedding Gown_, and _The Toyseller_ (all
in the National Gallery or in the South Kensington Museum). "With the
exception perhaps of some slight deterioration in his colouring, which
of late years was obtrusively purple, he was in the enjoyment of the
full powers of his great abilities for upwards of half a century. * * *
He was distinguished by the excellence of his life studies, three of
which in red and black chalks, presented by the Society of Arts, are in
the Gallery." (_National Gallery Catalogue._)
[Illustration: CHOOSING THE WEDDING GOWN. _By_ MULREADY, A.D. 1846.
_In the Sheepshanks Gallery in the South Kensington Museum._]
ALEXANDER FRASER (1786--1865), a native of Edinburgh, exhibited his
first picture, _The Green Stall_, in 1810. Having settled in London, he
became an assistant to his countryman Wilkie, and for twenty years
painted the still-life details of Wilkie's pictures. The influence of
his master's art is visible in Fraser's pictures, which are usually
founded upon incidents and scenes in Scotland, as, for example,
_Interior of a Highland Cottage_ (National Gallery) and _Sir Walter
Scott dining with one of the Blue-gown Beggars of Edinburgh_. Other
examples are _The Cobbler at Lunch_, _The Blackbird and his Tutor_, and
_The Village Sign-painter_.
[Illustration: SANCHO PANZA AND THE DUCHESS. _By_ LESLIE. A.D. 1844. _In
the National Gallery._]
CHARLES ROBERT LESLIE (1794--1859) was born in London, probably in
Clerkenwell, of American parents. His father was a clockmaker from
Philadelphia, who returned with his family to America when the future
painter was five years old. The boy was apprenticed to a bookseller, but
his true vocation was decided by a portrait which he made of Cooke, the
English tragedian, who was performing in Philadelphia. This work
attracted so much notice among Leslie's friends that a subscription was
raised to send him to England, the bookseller, his master, liberally
contributing. In 1811, Leslie became a student of the Royal Academy, and
received instruction from his countrymen Washington Allston and Benjamin
West. Leslie, however, considered teaching of little value. He said
that, if materials were provided, a man was his own best teacher, and he
speaks of "Fuseli's wise neglect" of the Academy students. Influenced,
probably, by the example of Allston and West, Leslie began by aiming at
classic art. He mentions that he was reading "Telemachus," with a view
to a subject, and among his early works was _Saul and the Witch of
Endor_. Even when he commenced to draw subjects from Shakespeare, he
turned first to the historic plays, and painted _The Death of Rutland_
and _The Murder Scene from "Macbeth_." Unlike Wilkie and Mulready,
Leslie did not strive to _create_ subjects for his pictures. He
preferred to ramble through literature, and to select a scene or episode
for his canvas. Wilkie invented scenes illustrating the festivities of
the lower classes, Mulready chose similar incidents; it was left to
Leslie to adopt "genteel comedy." Like his countryman and adviser,
Washington Irving, he had visited, doubtless, many scenes of quiet
English country life, and one of these is reproduced in his well-known
picture of _Sir Roger de Coverley going to Church_, which was exhibited
in 1819. He had previously shown his power in humorous subjects by
painting _Ann Page and Slender_. Leslie had discovered his true
vocation, and continued to work in the department of the higher _genre_
with unabated success. The patronage of Lord Egremont, for whom he
painted, in 1823, _Sancho Panza in the Apartment of the Duchess_, was
the means of procuring him many commissions. The picture in the National
Gallery, of which we give an illustration, is a replica with slight
alterations, executed many years later. He married in 1825, and became a
full member of the Academy a year later. In 1831 he exhibited _The
Dinner at Page's House_, from "The Merry Wives of Windsor"--one of his
finest works. No painter has made us so well acquainted with the
delightful old reprobate, Falstaff, with Bardolph, and the merry company
who drank sack at the Boar's Head in Eastcheap. There is a repetition of
_The Dinner at Page's House_ in the Sheepshanks Collection, slightly
varied from the first, and bearing traces of Constable's influence. In
1833, Leslie was appointed teacher of drawing at the American Academy at
West Point, and with his family he removed thither. It was a mistake,
and the painter returned to England within a year. He illustrated
Shakespeare, Cervantes, Goldsmith, and Sterne, the latter furnishing him
with the subject of _Uncle Toby and the Widow Wadman_. In 1838, Leslie,
by request of the Queen, painted _Her Majesty's Coronation_--which is
very unlike the usual pictures of a state ceremonial. In 1841 he was
commissioned to paint _The Christening of the Princess Royal_. The
domestic life of Leslie was peaceful and prosperous, till the death of a
daughter gave a shock from which he never recovered. He died May 5,
1859. Mr. Redgrave says of his art, "Leslie entered into the true spirit
of the writer he illustrated. His characters appear the very individuals
who have filled our mind. Beauty, elegance, and refinement, varied, and
full of character, or sparkling with sweet humour, were charmingly
depicted by his pencil; while the broader characters of another class,
from his fine appreciation of humour, are no less truthfully rendered,
and that with an entire absence of any approach to vulgarity. The
treatment of his subject is so simple that we lose the sense of a
picture, and feel that we are looking upon a scene as it must have
happened. He drew correctly and with an innate sense of grace. His
colouring is pleasing, his costume simple and appropriate."
[Illustration: CAPTAIN MACHEATH. _By_ NEWTON. A.D. 1826. _In the
possession of the Marquis of Lansdowne._]
GILBERT STUART NEWTON (1794--1835), connected with Leslie by
friendship and similarity of taste, was a native of Halifax, Nova
Scotia. In 1817, when travelling in Europe, Newton met with Leslie at
Paris, and returned with him to London. He was a student of the Academy,
and soon attracted attention by _The Forsaken_, _Lovers' Quarrels_, and
_The Importunate Author_, which were exhibited at the British
Institution. Newton began to exhibit at the Academy in 1823, and
delighted the world with _Don Quixote in his Study_, and _Captain
Macheath upbraided by Polly and Lucy_. In 1828 he surpassed these works
with _The Vicar of Wakefield reconciling his Wife to Olivia_, and was
elected an A.R.A. _Yorick and the Grisette_, _Cordelia and the
Physician_, _Portia and Bassanio_, and similar works followed. In 1832
Newton became a full member of the Academy, and visiting America,
married, and returned with his wife to England. The brief remaining
period of his life was clouded with a great sorrow; his mind gave way,
and having exhibited his last picture, _Abelard in his Study_, he became
altogether insane.
AUGUSTUS LEOPOLD EGG (1816--1863) was born in Piccadilly, and on
becoming a painter chose similar subjects to those of Leslie and Newton.
He had not the humour of Leslie; indeed, most of Egg's subjects are
melancholy. His first works were Italian views, and illustrations of
Scott's novels, which attracted little notice. _The Victim_ promised
better. Egg showed pictures in the Suffolk Street Gallery, and, in 1838,
_The Spanish Girl_ appeared at the Royal Academy. Failing health
compelled him to winter abroad, and on the 23rd of March, 1863, he died
at Algiers, and was buried on a lonely hill. Three years before his
death Egg had become a full member of the Academy. He is described as
having a greater sense of colour than Leslie, but inferior to Newton in
this respect. In execution he far surpassed the flimsy mannerism of the
latter. His females have not the sweet beauty and gentleness of
Leslie's. In the National Gallery is _A Scene from "Le Diable
Boiteux_," in which the dexterity of Egg's execution is visible. He
partially concurred with the pre-Raphaelites in his later years, and
their influence may be traced in _Pepys' Introduction to Nell Gwynne_,
and in a scene from Thackeray's "Esmond." Other noteworthy pictures are
_The Life and Death of Buckingham_; _Peter the Great sees Catherine, his
future Empress, for the First Time_; _The Night before Naseby_; and
_Catherine and Petruchio_.
EDWIN HENRY LANDSEER (1802--1873) was eminent among English animal
painters. No artist has done more to teach us how to love animals and to
enforce the truth that--
"He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small."
Not only did Landseer rival some of the Dutch masters of the seventeenth
century in painting fur and feathers, but he depicted animals with
sympathy, as if he believed that "the dumb, driven cattle" possess
souls. His dogs and other animals are so human as to look as if they
were able to speak. The painter was the son of John Landseer, the
engraver, and was born in London. He received art lessons from his
father, and, when little more than a baby, would sketch donkeys, horses,
and cows at Hampstead Heath. Some of these sketches, made when Landseer
was five, seven, and ten years old, are at Kensington. He was only
fourteen when he exhibited the heads of _A Pointer Bitch and Puppy_.
When between sixteen and seventeen he produced _Dogs fighting_, which
was engraved by the painter's father. Still more popular was _The Dogs
of St. Gothard rescuing a Distressed Traveller_, which appeared when its
author was eighteen. Landseer was not a pupil of Haydon, but he had
occasional counsel from him. He dissected a lion. As soon as he reached
the age of twenty-four he was elected an A.R.A., and exhibited at the
Academy _The Hunting of Chevy Chase_. This was in 1826, and in 1831 he
became a full member of the Academy. Landseer had visited Scotland in
1826, and from that date we trace a change in his style, which
thenceforth was far less solid, true and searching, and became more free
and bold. The introduction of deer into his pictures, as in _The
Children of the Mist_, _Seeking Sanctuary_, and _The Stag at Bay_,
marked the influence of Scotch associations. Landseer was knighted in
1850, and at the French Exhibition of 1855 was awarded the only large
gold medal given to an English artist. Prosperous, popular, and the
guest of the highest personages of the realm, he was visited about 1852
by an illness which compelled him to retire from society. From this he
recovered, but the effects of a railway accident in 1868 brought on a
relapse. He died in 1873, and was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral. On the
death of Sir Charles Eastlake, in 1865, he was offered the Presidentship
of the Royal Academy, but this honour he declined. In the National
Gallery are _Spaniels of King Charles's Breed_, _Low Life and High
Life_, _Highland Music_ (a highland piper disturbing a group of five
hungry dogs, at their meal, with a blast on the pipes), _The Hunted
Stag_, _Peace_ (of which we give a representation), _War_ (dying and
dead horses, and their riders lying amidst the burning ruins of a
cottage), _Dignity and Impudence_, _Alexander and Diogenes_, _The Defeat
of Comus_, a sketch painted for a fresco in the Queen's summer house,
Buckingham Palace. Sixteen of Landseer's works are in the Sheepshanks
Collection, including the touching _Old Shepherd's Chief Mourner_, of
which Mr. Ruskin said that "it stamps its author not as the neat
imitator of the texture of a skin, or the fold of a drapery, but as the
man of mind."
[Illustration: PEACE. _By_ LANDSEER. A.D. 1846. _In the National
Gallery._]
WILLIAM BOXALL (1800--1879), after study in the Royal Academy Schools
and in Italy, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1829 his first
picture--_Milton's Reconciliation with his Wife_--and continued to
contribute to its exhibitions till 1866. Though his first works were
historic and allegoric, he finally became famous as a portrait painter,
and reckoned among his sitters some of the most eminent men of the
time--poets, painters, writers on art, and others, _e.g_. Copley
Fielding, David Cox, Coleridge, Wordsworth. In 1852 Boxall became an
associate, and in 1864 a full member of the Royal Academy; he was
Director of the National Gallery from 1865 to 1874; and received the
honour of knighthood in 1871, in recognition of the valuable services
which he rendered to art.
PAUL FALCONER POOLE (1810--1879), a painter of high class of _genre_
pictures as well as of history, exhibited his first picture at the
Academy in 1830, _The Well, a Scene at Naples_. In 1838 he produced _The
Emigrant's Departure_. Other pictures are _May Queen preparing for the
Dance_, _The Escape of Glaucus and Ione_, _The Seventh Day of the
Decameron_. Among the historic works of this artist are _The Vision of
Ezekiel_ (National Gallery) and others. Poole became a full member of
the Academy in 1860.
GEORGE HEMMING MASON (1818--1872), a native of Witley, Staffordshire,
found art to be surrounded by difficulties. His father insisted on his
following the profession of medicine, and placed him with Dr. Watts, of
Birmingham. A portrait painter having visited the doctor's house, young
Mason borrowed his colour-box, and, unaided, produced a picture of such
promise that the artist advised him to follow art. Mason left the
doctor's house, made his way to Italy, and, without any teacher,
developed an original style which is marked by simplicity of design,
refinement of colour, delicacy of chiaroscuro, and pathos of expression.
He was elected A.R.A. in 1868, but died of heart-disease before becoming
a full member. Mason's best-known works are _Campagna di Roma_, _The
Gander_, _The Return from Ploughing_, _The Cast Shoe_, _The Evening
Hymn_, and _The Harvest Moon_, unfinished.
ROBERT BRAITHWAITE MARTINEAU (1826--1869), son of one of the Masters in
Chancery, nephew of Miss Martineau, commenced life as an articled clerk
to a solicitor. After four years' study of the law he forsook it for the
brighter sphere of art, and entered the Academy Schools. In 1852
Martineau exhibited at the Academy _Kit's Writing Lesson_, from "The Old
Curiosity Shop," which indicated the class of subjects which he
delighted in. His _Last Day in the Old House_, and _The Last Chapter_,
by their originality of conception, and exquisite painting, won the
artist a renown which he did not long live to enjoy. He died of
heart-disease.
JOHN FREDERICK LEWIS (1805--1876), the son of an eminent London
engraver, began his career in art by painting studies of animals, and in
1828 was elected a Member of the Society of Painters in Water-Colours.
He afterwards travelled in Spain and Italy, painting many subjects, such
as a _Spanish Bullfight_, _Monks preaching at Seville_, &c., and thence
went to the East, where he stayed some years. He returned to England in
1851, and four years afterwards was made President of the Water-colour
Society. In 1856 he exhibited _A Frank Encampment in the Desert of Mount
Sinai_, which Mr. Ruskin called "the climax of water-colour drawing." In
the same year he began to paint in oil colours, and frequently exhibited
pictures of Eastern life, such as _The Meeting in the Desert_, _A
Turkish School_, _A Café in Cairo_, &c. In 1859 he was made an Associate
of the Royal Academy, and in 1866 a full member. In the South Kensington
Museum there are two of Lewis's water-colour drawings, _The Halt in the
Desert_ and _Peasants of the Black Forest_, and a few of his studies
from nature.
[Illustration: THE ARAB SCRIBE. _By_ JOHN FREDERICK LEWIS. A.D. 1852.]
EDWARD MATTHEW WARD (1816--1879) became a student at the Academy by the
advice of Wilkie, who had seen his first picture, a portrait of Mr. O.
Smith as Don Quixote. In 1836 Ward was a student in Rome. Thence he
proceeded to Munich, and studied fresco-painting with Cornelius. In 1839
he returned to England, and exhibited _Cimabue and Giotto_. Joining in
the competition for the decoration of the Houses of Parliament, he
produced _Boadicea_, which was commended, but did not obtain a premium.
_Dr. Johnson reading the MS. of Goldsmith's "Vicar of Wakefield"_,
first brought him to notice. It was followed by _Dr. Johnson in Lord
Chesterfield's Ante-Room_, and the painter was elected an A.R.A. This
work as well as _The Disgrace of Lord Clarendon_, _The South-Sea
Bubble_, and _James II. receiving the news of the landing of William of
Orange_, are in the National Gallery. In 1852 and later Ward executed
eight historic pictures in the corridor of the House of Commons. He was
elected a Royal Academician in 1855. His pictures are too well known to
need description; most popular among them are _Charlotte Corday led to
Execution_, _The Execution of Montrose_, _The Last Sleep of Argyll_,
_Marie Antoinette parting with the Dauphin_, _The Last Moments of
Charles II._, _The Night of Rizzio's Murder_, _The Earl of Leicester and
Amy Robsart_, _Judge Jeffreys and Richard Baxter_.
FREDERICK WALKER (1840--1875) died just as he had fulfilled the promise
of his youth. After spending a short time in the office of an architect
and surveyor, he left this uncongenial region to practise art. He
occasionally studied in the Academy Schools, and began his artistic
career by illustrating Thackeray's "Philip" in the "Cornhill Magazine,"
thus winning much praise. He became a member of the Old Water-Colour
Society, and an A.R.A. A career full of promise was cut short by death
at St. Fillan's, Perthshire, in 1875: the young painter was buried at
his favourite Cookham, on the Thames. His chief works are _The Lost
Path_, _The Bathers_, _The Vagrants_, _The Old Gate_, _The Plough_, _The
Harbour of Refuge_, and _The Right of Way_. Mr. Redgrave said, "His
genius was thoroughly and strikingly original. His works are marked by a
method of their own; the drawing, colour, and execution, alike peculiar
to himself. They are at once refined and pathetic in sentiment, and
novel in their conception of nature and her effects. His figures have
the true feeling of rustic life, with the grace of line of the
antique."
[Illustration: OUR VILLAGE. _By_ FREDERICK WALKER. _Exhibited at the
Water-colour Society's Exhibition._ A.D. 1873.]
GABRIEL CHARLES DANTE ROSSETTI (1828--1882), poet, and painter of sacred
subjects and scenes inspired by the writings of Dante, was the son of an
Italian patriot, a political refugee, who became Professor of Italian in
King's College, London. He exhibited at the Portland Gallery his first
picture, _The Girlhood of the Virgin_, in 1849, and became the founder
of the pre-Raphaelite school, which included Millais, Holman Hunt, and
other artists now celebrated. Rossetti's best-known pictures are
_Dante's Dream_ (now at Liverpool), _The Damosel of the Sancte Graal_,
_The Last Meeting of Lancelot and Guinevere_, _The Beloved_ (an
illustration of the Song of Solomon), and _Proserpina_. He seldom
exhibited his paintings in public, but they were seen by art-critics,
one of whom wrote (in 1873)--"Exuberance in power, exuberance in poetry
of a rich order, noble technical gifts, vigour of conception, and a
marvellously extensive range of thought and invention appear in nearly
everything Mr. Rossetti produces."
He was equally celebrated as a writer of sonnets and a translator of
Italian poetry.
* * * * *
It is not within the province of this work to include notice of living
artists. To give an account of all the celebrated painters would require
another volume. During the past decade Art has advanced with steady
progress, and we can confidently say that at no time have the ranks of
the Royal Academicians and the two Water-Colour Societies been filled
more worthily than at the present day. The last quarter of the
nineteenth century is likely to be a golden era in the history of
British Art.
PAINTING IN AMERICA.
BY S. R. KOEHLER.
[Illustration]
PAINTING IN AMERICA.
INTRODUCTION.
The history of art in America is in reality the record only of the dying
away of the last echoes of movements which had their origin in Europe.
Although the western continent has given birth to new political ideas
and new forms of government, not one of its States, not even the
greatest of them all, the United States of North America, to which this
chapter will be confined, has thus far brought forth a national art, or
has exercised any perceptible influence, except in a single instance, on
the shaping of the art of the world. Nor is this to be wondered at. The
newness of the country, the mixture of races from the beginning, and the
ever-continuing influx of foreigners, together with the lack of
educational facilities, and the consequent necessity of seeking
instruction in Europe, are causes sufficient to explain the apparent
anomaly. Even those of the native painters of the United States who kept
away from the Old World altogether, or visited it too late in life to be
powerfully influenced, show but few traces of decided originality in
either conception or execution. They also were under the spell, despite
the fact that it could not work upon them directly. The attempt has been
made to explain this state of things by assuming an incapacity for art
on the part of the people of the country, and an atmosphere hostile to
its growth, resulting from surrounding circumstances. These conclusions,
however, are false. So far as technical skill goes, Americans--native as
well as adopted--have always shown a remarkable facility of acquisition,
and the rapidity with which carpenters, coach-painters, and
sign-painters, especially in the earlier period of the country's
history, developed into respectable portrait-painters, almost without
instruction, will always remain cause for astonishment. Of those who
went abroad at that time, England readopted four men who became famous
(West, Copley, Newton, Leslie), and she still points to them with
satisfaction as among the more conspicuous on her roll of artists. Nor
has this quality been lost with the advance of time. It has, on the
contrary, been aided by diligent application; and the successes which
have been achieved by American students are recorded in the annals of
the French Salon. There is one curious trait, however, which will become
more and more apparent as we trace the history of art in America, and
that is the absence of a national element in the subjects treated. If we
except a short flickering of patriotic spirit in the art of what may be
called the Revolutionary Period, and the decided preference given to
American scenes by the landscape painters of about the middle of the
present century, it may be said that the artists of the country, as a
rule, have imported with the technical processes also the subjects of
the Old World; that they have preferred the mountains of Italy and the
quiet hamlets of France to the hills of New England and the Rocky
Mountains of the West, the Arab to the Indian, and the history of the
Old World to the records of their own ancestors. Even the struggle for
the destruction of the last vestiges of slavery which was the great work
entrusted to this generation, has called forth so few manifestations in
art (and these few falling without the limits of the present chapter),
that it would not be very far from wrong to speak of it as having left
behind it no trace whatever. All this, however, is not the fault of the
artists, except in so far as they are themselves part of the nation. The
blame attaches to the people as a whole, whose innermost thoughts and
highest aspirations the artists will always be called upon to embody in
visible form. There is no doubt, from the evidence already given by the
painters of America, that they will be equal to the task, should they
ever be called upon to exert their skill in the execution of works of
monumental art.
* * * * *
The history of painting in America may be divided into four periods:--1.
_The Colonial Period_, up to the time of the Revolution; 2. _The
Revolutionary Period_, comprising the painters who were eye-witnesses of
and participators in the War of Independence; 3. _The Period of Inner
Development_, from about the beginning of the century to the civil war;
4. _The Period of the Present_. It will be seen that the designations of
these divisions are taken from the political rather than the artistic
history of the country. And, indeed, it would be difficult to find other
distinguishing marks which would allow of a concise nomenclature. As to
the influences at work in the several periods, it may be said that the
Colonial and Revolutionary were entirely under the domination of
England. In the earlier part of the third period the influence of
England continued, but was supplemented by that of Italy. Later on a
number of American artists studied in Paris, without, however, coming
under the influence of the Romantic school, and towards the middle of
the century many of them were attracted by Düsseldorf. A slight
influence was exercised also by the English pre-Raphaelites, but it
found expression in a literary way rather than in actual artistic
performance. In the fourth or present period, finally, the leadership
has passed to the Colouristic schools of Paris and Munich, to which
nearly all the younger artists have sworn allegiance.
FIRST, OR COLONIAL PERIOD.
The paintings which have come down to the present day from the Colonial
Period, so far as they relate to America, are almost without exception
portraits. Many of these were, as a matter of course, brought over from
England and Holland; but that there were resident painters in the
Colonies as early as 1667, is shown by a passage in Cotton Mather's
"Magnalia," cited by Tuckerman. It is very natural that these "limners,"
to use a favourite designation then applied to artists, were not of the
best. The masters of repute did not feel a call to dwell in the
wilderness, and hence the works belonging to the beginning of this
period are for the most part rude and stiff. Several of these early
portraits may be seen in the Memorial Hall of Harvard University, at
Cambridge, Mass.
The first painters whose names have been preserved to us were not born
to the soil. The honour of standing at the head of the roll belongs to
JOHN WATSON (1685--1768), a Scotchman, who established himself at Perth
Amboy, N.J., in 1715. Of his portraits none are at present known, but at
the Chronological Exhibition of American Art, held in Brooklyn, N.Y., in
1872, there was shown an India ink drawing by him, _Venus and Cupid_,
executed on vellum. A better fate was vouchsafed to the works of JOHN
SMYBERT, another Scotchman, who came to Rhode Island in 1728 with Dean,
afterwards Bishop, Berkeley, in whose proposed college he was to be an
instructor--probably the first movement towards art education made in
the Colonies. Smybert settled and married in Boston, where he died in
1751 or 1752. He was not an artist of note, although his most important
work, _The Family of Bishop Berkeley_, a large group, in which he has
introduced his own likeness, now in the possession of Yale College, at
New Haven, Conn., shows him to have been courageous and not without
talent. Not all the pictures, however, which are attributed to him, come
up to this standard. A very bad example to which his name is attached
may be seen in the portrait of _John Lovell_, in the Memorial Hall of
Harvard University. The influence exercised by Smybert on the
development of art in America is due to an accident rather than to
actual teaching. He brought with him a copy of the head of Cardinal
Bentivoglio, by Van Dyck, which he had made in Italy, and which is still
preserved in the Hall just named. It was this copy which first inspired
Trumbull and Allston with a love of art, and gave them an idea of
colour. Of the other foreigners who visited the Colonies during this
period, the more prominent are BLACKBURN, an Englishman, who was
Smybert's contemporary or immediate successor, and is by some held to
have been Copley's teacher; WILLIAMS, another Englishman, who painted
about the same time in Philadelphia, and from whose intercourse young
West is said to have derived considerable benefit; and COSMO ALEXANDER,
a Scotchman, who came to America in 1770, and was Stuart's first
instructor.
The earliest native painter who has left any lasting record is ROBERT
FEKE, whose life is enveloped by the mystery of romance. Sprung from
Quaker stock, and separated from his people by difference of religious
opinion, he left home, and was in some way taken a prisoner to Spain,
where he is said to have executed rude paintings, with the proceeds of
which he managed to return home. Feke painted in Philadelphia and
elsewhere about the middle of the last century, and his portraits,
according to Tuckerman, are considered the best colonial family
portraits next to West's. Specimens of his work may be seen in the
collections of Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Me.; the Redwood Athenæum,
Newport, R.I.; and the R. I. Historical Society, Providence, R.I.
Nearest to Feke in date--although his later contemporaries, West and
Copley, were earlier known as artists, and the first named even became
his teacher in England--is MATTHEW PRATT (1734--1805), who started in
life as a sign-painter in Philadelphia. Pratt's work is often spoken of
slightingly, and does not generally receive the commendation it
deserves. His full-length portrait of _Lieutenant-Governor Cadwallader
Colden_, painted for the New York Chamber of Commerce in 1772, and still
to be seen at its rooms, shows him to have been quite a respectable
artist, with a feeling for colour in advance of that exhibited by Copley
in his earlier work. Still another native artist of this period, HENRY
BEMBRIDGE, is chiefly of interest from the fact that he is said to have
studied with Mengs and Battoni, which would make him one of the first
American painters who visited Italy. He seems to have painted chiefly in
Charleston, S.C., and his portraits are described as of singularly
formal aspect.
The most celebrated painters of this period, however, and the only ones
whose fame is more than local, are John Singleton Copley and Benjamin
West. But as both of them left their country at an early age, never to
return, they belong to England rather than to America.
COPLEY (1737--1815) was a native of Boston, and did not go to Europe
until 1774, when his reputation was already established. In 1760 he gave
his income in Boston at three hundred guineas. He first went to Italy
and thence to London, where he settled. Some speculation has been
indulged in as to Copley's possible teachers. He must have received some
aid from his stepfather, Peter Pelham, a schoolmaster and very inferior
mezzotint engraver; and it has also been supposed that he may have had
the benefit of Blackburn's instruction. This does not seem likely,
however, judging either from the facts or from tradition. Copley was
undoubtedly essentially self-taught, and the models upon which he
probably formed his style are still to be seen. Several of them are
included in the collection in the Memorial Hall of Harvard University.
One of these portraits, that of _Thomas Hollis_, a benefactor of the
university, who died when Copley was only six years of age, is so like
the latter's work, not only in conception but even in the paleness of
the flesh tints and the cold grey of the shadows, as to be readily taken
for one of his earlier productions. In England Copley became the painter
of the aristocracy, and executed a considerable number of large historic
pictures, mostly of modern incidents. He is elegant rather than
powerful, and quite successful in the rendering of stuffs. His colour,
at first cold and rather inharmonious, improved with experience,
although he has been pronounced deficient in this respect even in later
years. Copley's most celebrated picture is _The Death of the Earl of
Chatham_. Many specimens of his skill as a portrait-painter can be seen
in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and in the Memorial Hall of
Harvard University, the latter collection including the fine portrait of
_Mrs. Thomas Boylston_. The Public Library of Boston owns one of his
large historic paintings, _Charles I. demanding the Five Members from
Parliament_.
BENJAMIN WEST (1738--1820) was born of Quaker parentage at Springfield,
Pa., and was successfully engaged, at the age of eighteen, as a
portrait-painter in Philadelphia. In 1760 he went to Rome, and it is
believed that he was the first American artist who ever appeared there.
Three years later he removed to London, where he became the leading
historic painter, the favourite of the King, and President of the Royal
Academy. His great scriptural and historic compositions, of which
comparatively few are to be seen in his native country (_King Lear_, in
the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston; _Death on the Pale Horse_ and _Christ
Rejected_, at the Pennsylvania Academy, Philadelphia), show him in the
light of an ambitious and calculating rather than inspired painter, with
a decided feeling for colour. His influence on art in general made
itself felt in the refusal to paint the actors in his _Death of Wolfe_
in classic costume, according to usage. By clothing them in their
actual dress, he led art forward a step in the realistic direction, the
only instance to be noted of a directing motive imparted to art by an
American, but one which is quite in accordance with the spirit of the
New World. West's influence upon the art of his own country was
henceforth limited to the warm interest he took in the many students of
the succeeding generation who flocked to England to study under his
guidance.
[Illustration: DEATH ON THE PALE HORSE. _By_ WEST. A.D. 1817.
_In the Pennsylvania Academy, Philadelphia._
_Copyright_, 1879, _by Harper and Brothers_.]
SECOND, OR REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD.
The Revolutionary Period is, in many respects, the most interesting
division, not only in the political, but also in the artistic history of
the United States. It is so, not merely because it has left us the
pictorial records of the men and the events of a most important epoch in
the development of mankind, but also because it brought forth two
painters who, while they were thoroughly American in their aspirations,
were at the same time endowed with artistic qualities of a very high
order. Gilbert Stuart and John Trumbull, the two painters alluded to,
have a right to be considered the best of the American painters of the
past, and will always continue to hold a prominent place in the history
of their art, even if it were possible to forget the stirring scenes
with which they were connected.
[Illustration: GENERAL KNOX. _By_ GILBERT STUART
_Copyright_, 1879, _by Harper and Brothers_.]
GILBERT STUART was born in Narragansett, R.I., in 1755, and died in
Boston in 1828. He was of Scotch descent, and it has already been
mentioned that Cosmo Alexander, a Scotchman, was his first teacher.
After several visits to Europe, during the second of which he studied
under West, Stuart finally returned in 1793, and began the painting of
the series of national portraits which will for ever endear him to the
patriotic American. Among these his several renderings of Washington, of
which there are many copies by his own hand, are the most celebrated.
The greatest popularity is perhaps enjoyed by the so-called Athenæum
head, which, with its pendant, the portrait of _Mrs. Washington_, is the
property of the Athenæum of Boston, and by that institution has been
deposited in the Museum of Fine Arts of the same city. The claim to
superiority is, however, contested by the _Gibbs Washington_, at present
also to be seen in the museum alluded to. It was painted before the
other, and gives the impression of more realistic truthfulness, while
the Athenæum head seems to be somewhat idealized. Stuart's work is quite
unequal, as he was not a strict economist, and often painted for money
only. But in his best productions there is a truly admirable purity and
wealth of colour, added to a power of characterization, which lifts
portraiture into the highest sphere of art. It must be said, however,
that he concentrated his attention almost entirely upon the head, often
slighting the arms and hands, especially of his female sitters, to an
unpleasant degree. Many excellent specimens of his work, besides the
Washington portraits, are to be found in the Museum of Fine Arts at
Boston and in the collection of the New York Historical Society, the
latter including the fine portrait of _Egbert Benson_, painted in 1807.
His _chef-d'oeuvre_ is the portrait of _Judge Stephen Jones_, owned by
Mr. F. G. Richards, of Boston, a remarkably vigorous head of an old man,
warm and glowing in colour, which, it is said, the artist painted for
his own satisfaction. Stuart's most celebrated work in England is _Mr.
Grant skating_. When this portrait was exhibited as a work by
Gainsborough, at the "Old Masters," in 1878, its pedigree having been
forgotten, it was in turn attributed to all the great English
portrait-painters, until it was finally restored to its true author.
[Illustration: DEATH OF MONTGOMERY IN THE ATTACK OF QUEBEC. _By_ J.
TRUMBULL. _At Yale College._
_Copyright_, 1879, _by Harper and Brothers_.]
Still more national importance attaches to JOHN TRUMBULL (1756--1843),
since he was an historic as well as a portrait-painter, took part in
person as an officer in the American army in many of the events of the
Revolution, and was intimately acquainted with most of the heroes of his
battle scenes. America enjoys in this respect an advantage of which no
other country can boast--that of having possessed an artist
contemporaneous with the most important epoch in its history, and
capable and willing to depict the scenes enacted around him. Colonel
Trumbull, the son of Jonathan Trumbull, the Colonial Governor of
Connecticut, studied at Harvard, and gave early evidences of a taste for
art. At the age of nineteen he joined the American army, but in 1780,
aggrieved at a fancied slight, he threw up his commission and went to
France, and thence to London, where he studied under West. Trumbull must
not be judged as an artist by his large paintings in the Capitol at
Washington, the commission for which he did not receive until 1817. To
know him one must study him in his smaller works and sketches, now
gathered in the gallery of Yale College, where may be seen his _Death of
Montgomery_, _Battle of Bunker Hill_, _Declaration of Independence_, and
other revolutionary scenes, together with a series of admirable
miniature portraits in oil, painted from life, as materials for his
historic works, and a number of larger portraits, including a
full-length of _Washington_. As a portrait-painter, Trumbull is also
represented at his best by the full-length of _Alexander Hamilton_, at
the rooms of the New York Chamber of Commerce. The most successful of
his large historic pieces, _The Sortie from Gibraltar_, painted in
London, is at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Goethe, who saw the
small painting of _The Battle of Bunker Hill_ while it was in the hands
of Müller, the engraver, commended it, but criticized its colour and the
smallness of the heads. It is true that Trumbull's drawing is somewhat
conventional, and that he had a liking for long figures. But his colour,
as seen to-day in his good earlier pictures, is quite brilliant and
harmonious, although thoroughly realistic. In his later work, however,
as shown by the Scripture pieces likewise preserved in the Yale Gallery,
there is a marked decadence in vigour of drawing as well as of colour.
Owing to an unfortunate concatenation of circumstances, Trumbull has
not received the full appreciation which is his due, even from his own
countrymen. Thackeray readily recognised his merit, and cautioned the
Americans never to despise or neglect Trumbull--a piece of advice which
is only now beginning to attract the attention it deserves.
Among the portrait-painters of this period, CHARLES WILSON PEALE
(1741--1827) takes the lead by reason of quantity rather than quality.
Peale was typical of a certain phase of American character, representing
the restlessness and superficiality which prevail upon men to turn
lightly from one occupation to another. He was a dentist, a worker in
materials of all sorts, an ornithologist and taxidermist, rose to the
rank of colonel in the American army, and started a museum of natural
history and art in Philadelphia. But his strongest love seems, after
all, to have been for the fine arts. Among the fourteen portraits of
_Washington_ which Peale painted, according to Tuckerman, is the only
_full-length_ ever done of the father of his country: it shows him
before the Revolution, attired as an officer in the colonial force of
Great Britain. A large number of Peale's portraits may be seen in the
Pennsylvania Academy and in Independence Hall, Philadelphia. The New
York Historical Society owns, among other works by his hand, a
Washington portrait and a group of the Peale family comprising ten
figures. Much of Peale's work is crude, but all of his heads have the
appearance of being good likenesses.
Among a number of other painters of this period we can select only a
few, whose names receive an additional lustre from their connection with
Washington.
JOSEPH WRIGHT (1756--1793) was the son of Patience Wright, who modelled
heads in wax at Bordentown, N.J., before the Revolution. While in
England he painted a portrait of the Prince of Wales. In the year 1783
Washington sat to him, after having submitted to the preliminary ordeal
of a plaster mask. Tuckerman speaks of this portrait as inelegant and
unflattering, and characterizes the artist as unideal, but
conscientious. Wright's portrait of _John Jay_, at the rooms of the New
York Historical Society, authorizes a more favourable judgment. It is,
indeed, somewhat austere, but lifelike, well posed, and cool in colour.
E. SAVAGE (1761--1817) seems to have been nearly as versatile as Peale,
emulating him also in the establishment of a museum, at first in New
York, then in Boston. His portrait of _General Washington_, in the
Memorial Hall of Harvard University, is carefully painted and bright in
colour, but rather lifeless. His _Washington Family_, in the Boston
Museum (a place of amusement not to be confounded with the Museum of
Fine Arts), which he engraved himself, has similar qualities. A little
picture by him, also in the Boston Museum, representing _The Signers of
the Declaration of Independence in Carpenters' Hall_, is interesting on
account of its subject, but does not possess much artistic merit. The
portrait of _Dr. Handy_, on the contrary, which is assigned to him, at
the New York Historical Society, is a very creditable work, good in
colour, luminous in the flesh, and simple in the modelling.
WILLIAM DUNLAP (1766--1839), finally, may also be mentioned here on
account of his portrait of _Washington_--painted when the artist was
only seventeen years old--although he belongs more properly to the next
period, and is of more importance as a writer than a painter. He
published, in 1834, a "History of the Arts of Design in the United
States," a book now quite scarce and much sought after. A group of
himself and his parents, painted in 1788, is in the collection of the
New York Historical Society.
THIRD PERIOD, OR PERIOD OF INNER DEVELOPMENT.
The example of Trumbull found no followers. The only other American
painter who made a specialty of his country's history seems to have
been JOHN BLAKE WHITE (1782--1859), a native of Charleston, S.C., who
painted such subjects as _Mrs. Motte presenting the Arrows_, _Marion
inviting the British Officer to Dinner_, and the Battles of _New
Orleans_ and _Eutaw_, placed in the State House of South Carolina.
White's fame is quite local, however, and it is impossible, therefore,
to judge of his qualities accurately. Had there been more painters of
similar subjects, a national school might have resulted; but neither the
people nor the Government took any interest in Colonel Trumbull's plans.
It was necessary to employ all sorts of manoeuvring to induce Congress
to give a commission to the artist, and the result was disappointment to
all concerned; and when, later, the further decoration of the Capitol at
Washington, the seat of government, was resolved upon, the artist
selected for the work was CARLO BRUMIDI (1811--1880), an Italian artist
of the old school. The healthy impetus towards realistic historic
painting given by Trumbull thus died out, and what there is of historic
and figure painting in the period now under consideration is mainly
dominated by a false idealism, of which Washington Allston is the
leading representative. To rival the old masters, to do what had been
done before, to flee from the actual and the near to the unreal and the
distant, to look upon monks and knights and robbers and Venetian
senators as the embodiment of the poetic, in spite of the poet's warning
to the contrary, was now the order of the day; and hence it was but
natural that quite a number of the artists who then went to Europe
turned to Italy. It was in this period, also, that the first attempts
were made to establish Academies of Art in Philadelphia and New
York--attempts which, while they were laudable enough in themselves,
inasmuch as these institutions were intended to provide instruction at
home for the rising generation, still pointed in the same direction of
simple imitation of the expiring phases of European Art.
[Illustration: JEREMIAH AND THE SCRIBE. _By_ WASHINGTON ALLSTON. _At
Yale College_.
_Copyright_, 1879, _by Harper and Brothers_.]
WASHINGTON ALLSTON (1779--1843) was a native of South Carolina, but
was sent to New England at an early age, and graduated from Harvard
College in 1800. The year following he went to England, to study under
West, and thence to Italy, where he stayed four years, until his return
to Boston in 1809. After a second absence in Europe of seven years'
duration, he finally settled in Cambridge, near Boston. Allston's art
covered a wide range, including Scripture history, portraiture, ideal
heads, _genre_, landscape, and marine. It is difficult to understand
to-day the enthusiasm which his works aroused, if not among the great
public, at least within a limited circle of admiring friends. He was
lauded for his poetic imagination, and called "the American Titian," on
account of his colour; and this reputation has lasted down to our own
time. The Allston Exhibition, however, which was held two years ago at
the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, has somewhat modified the opinions of
calm observers. Allston was neither deep nor very original in his
conceptions, nor was he a great colourist. One of his most pleasing
pictures, _The Two Sisters_, is full of reminiscences of Titian, and it
is well known that he painted it while engaged in the study of that
master. In the case of an artist upon whose merits opinions are so
widely divided, it may be well to cite the words of an acknowledged
admirer, in speaking of what has been claimed to be his greatest work,
the _Jeremiah and the Scribe_, in the Gallery of Yale College. Mrs. E.
D. Cheney, in describing the impression made upon her by this picture
after a lapse of forty years, says:--"I was forced to confess that
either I had lost my sensibility to its expression, or I had overrated
its value.... The figure of the Prophet is large and imposing, but I
cannot find in it the spiritual grandeur and commanding nobility of
Michel Angelo. He is conscious of his own presence, rather than lost in
the revelation which is given through him. But the Scribe is a very
beautiful figure, simple in action and expression, and entirely absorbed
in his humble but important work. It reminds me of the young brother in
Domenichino's _Martyrdom of St. Jerome_." The same lack of psychological
power, here hinted at, is still more apparent in the artist's attempts
to express the more violent manifestations of the soul. In _The Dead Man
revived by touching Elisha's Bones_--for which he received a premium of
200 guineas from the British Institution, and which is now in the
Pennsylvania Academy--the faces of the terrified spectators are so
distorted as to have become caricatures. This is true, in a still higher
degree, of the heads of the priests in the great unfinished
_Belshazzar's Feast_, in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The unnatural
expression of these heads is generally explained by the condition in
which the picture was left; but the black-and-white sketches, which may
be examined in the same museum, show precisely the same character. The
unhealthy direction of the artist's mind is apparent, furthermore, in
his love of the terrible--shown in his early pictures of banditti, and
in such later works as _Saul and the Witch of Endor_ and _Spalatro's
Vision of the Bloody Hand_; while, on the contrary, it will be found,
upon closer analysis, that the ideality and spirituality claimed for his
female heads, such as _Rosalie_ and _Amy Robsart_, resolve themselves
into something very near akin to sweetness and lack of strength. In
accordance with this absence of intellectual robustness, Allston's
execution is hesitating and wanting in decision.
A somewhat similar spirit manifested itself in the works of John
Vanderlyn (1776--1852), Rembrandt Peale (1787--1860), Samuel F. B. Morse
(1791--1872), and Cornelius Ver Bryck (1813--1844).
JOHN VANDERLYN is best known by his _Marius on the Ruins of Carthage_,
for which he received a medal at the Paris Salon of 1808, and his
_Ariadne_, which forms part of the collection of the Pennsylvania
Academy. Vanderlyn, as the choice of his subjects, coupled with his
success in France, shows, was a very good classic painter, trained in
the routine of the Academy. The _Ariadne_ is a careful study of the
nude, although somewhat red in the flesh, placed in a conventional
landscape of high order. A large historic composition by him, _The
Landing of Columbus_, finished in 1846, fills one of the panels in the
Rotunda of the Capitol at Washington. As a portrait painter Vanderlyn
was most unequal.
REMBRANDT PEALE--the son of Charles Wilson Peale, best known through his
portraits--deserves mention here on account of his _Court of Death_, in
the Crowe Art Museum of St. Louis, and _The Roman Daughter_, in the
Boston Museum. Technically he stands considerably below his leading
contemporaries.
S. F. B. MORSE, whose fame as an artist has been eclipsed by his
connection with the electric telegraph, was a painter of undoubted
talent, but given somewhat to ostentation both in drawing and colour.
Good specimens of his style are found in his _Dying Hercules_, Yale
College, New Haven, and the rather theatrical portrait of Lafayette in
the Governor's Room of the City Hall of New York. Morse essayed to paint
national subjects, and selected for a theme the interior of the House of
Representatives, with portraits of the members; but the public took no
interest in the picture, although it is said to have been very clever,
and the artist did not even cover his expenses by exhibiting it.
CORNELIUS VER BRYCK painted Bacchantes and Cavaliers, and a few historic
pictures, with a decided feeling for colour, as evidenced by his
_Venetian Senator_, owned by the New York Historical Society. He stands
upon the borderland between an older and a newer generation, both of
which, however, belong to the same period. Thus far the influence of
Italy had been paramount; in the years immediately following Düsseldorf
claims a share in shaping the historical art of the United States. The
only names that can be mentioned here in accordance with the plan of
this book, which excludes living artists, are Emmanuel Leutze
(1816--1868), Edwin White (1817--1877), Henry Peters Gray (1819--1877),
W. H. Powell (died 1879), Thomas Buchanan Read (1822--1872), and J. B.
Irving (1826--1877).
LEUTZE was a German by birth, and his natural sympathies, although he
had been brought to America as an infant, carried him to Düsseldorf. The
eminence to which he rose in this school may be inferred from the fact
that he was chosen Director of the Academy after he had returned to
America, and almost at the moment of his death. Although of foreign
parentage, he showed more love for American subjects than most of the
native artists, but the trammels of the school in which he was taught
made it impossible for him to become a thoroughly national painter. His
most important works are _Washington crossing the Delaware_, _Washington
at the Battle of Monmouth_, and _Washington at Valley Forge_; the two
last named are at present in the possession of Mrs. Mark Hopkins of
California. In the Capitol at Washington may be seen his _Westward the
Star of Empire takes its Way_; _The Landing of the Norsemen_ is in the
Pennsylvania Academy; _The Storming of a Teocalle_, in the Museum of
Fine Arts, Boston.
EDWIN WHITE, an extraordinarily prolific artist, who studied both at
Paris and Düsseldorf, also painted a number of American historic
pictures, among them _Washington resigning his Commission_, for the
State of Maryland. The bulk of his work, however, weakly sentimental,
deals with the past of Europe.
H. P. GRAY'S allegiance was given, almost undividedly, to the masters of
Italy, and his subjects were mostly taken from antiquity. In his best
works, such as _The Wages of War_, he appears in the light of an
academic painter of respectable attainments; but there is so little of a
national flavour in his productions, that the label "American School" on
the frame of the picture just named is apt to provoke a smile. Gray's
_Judgment of Paris_ is in the Corcoran Gallery at Washington.
W. H. POWELL is best known by his _De Soto discovering the
Mississippi_, in the Rotunda at Washington, a work which is on a level
with the average of official monumental painting done in Europe, in
which truth is invariably sacrificed to so-called artistic
considerations. As a portrait-painter he does not stand very high. T. B.
READ, the "painter-poet," enjoyed one of those fictitious reputations
which are unfortunately none too rare in America. Without any real
feeling for colour, and with a style of drawing which made up in
so-called grace for what it lacked in decision, he attained a certain
popularity by a class of subjects such as _The Lost Pleiad_, _The Spirit
of the Waterfall_, &c., which captivate the unthinking by their very
superficiality. Several of his productions, among them his _Sheridan's
Ride_, may be seen at the Pennsylvania Academy. J. B. IRVING, a student
at Düsseldorf under Leutze, was a careful and intelligent painter of
subjects which might be classed as historic _genre_, including some
scenes from the past history of the United States.
Among the foreign artists who came to America during this period must be
named CHRISTIAN SCHÜSSELE (1824--1879), a native of Alsace, who has
exercised some influence through his position as Director of the Schools
of the Pennsylvania Academy, in Philadelphia. His _Esther denouncing
Haman_, in the collection of the institution just named, shows him to
have been an adherent of the modern French classic school, in which
elegance is the first consideration.
A place all by himself must finally be assigned to WILLIAM RIMMER
(1816--1879), of English parentage, who spent much of his life in the
vicinity of Boston. Dr. Rimmer, as he is commonly called, since he began
life as a physician, is of greater importance as a sculptor than as a
painter. He, nevertheless, must be mentioned here on account of the many
drawings he executed. To an overweening interest in anatomy he added a
somewhat weird fancy, so that his conceptions sometimes remind one of
Blake. His most important work is a set of drawings for an anatomical
atlas, in which special stress is laid upon the anatomy of expression.
His oil-paintings, such as _Cupid and Venus_, &c., are marred by violent
contrasts of light and dark, and an unnatural, morbid scheme of colour,
which justifies the assumption that his colour-vision was defective. But
Rimmer will always remain interesting as a brilliant phenomenon,
strangely out of place in space as well as in time.
The same absence, in general, of a national spirit is to be noticed in
the works of the _genre_ painters. Among the earliest of these are to be
named CHARLES ROBERT LESLIE (1794--1859), many of whose works may be
seen in the Lenox Gallery, New York, and at the Pennsylvania Academy,
Philadelphia; and GILBERT STUART NEWTON (1794--1835), a nephew of
Stuart, the portrait-painter, who is represented at the New York
Historical Society and in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. These two
artists are, however, so closely identified with the English school, and
draw their inspiration so exclusively from European sources, that they
can hardly claim a place in a history of painting in America.
The one American _genre_ painter _par excellence_ is WILLIAM SYDNEY
MOUNT (1807--1868), the son of a farmer on Long Island, and originally a
sign-painter. No other artist has rivalled Mount in the delineation of
the life of the American farmer and his negro field hands, always looked
at from the humorous side. As a colourist, Mount is quite artless, but
in the rendition of character and expression, and the unbiassed
reproduction of reality, he stands very high. His _Fortune Teller_,
_Bargaining for a Horse_, and _The Truant Gamblers_, the last named one
of his best works also as regards colour, are in the collection of the
New York Historical Society; _The Painter's Triumph_ is in the gallery
of the Pennsylvania Academy; the Corcoran Gallery, Washington, has _The
Long Story_. Several inferior artists have shown, by their
representations of scenes taken from the political and social life of
the United States, how rich a harvest this field would offer the brush
of a modern Teniers. But in spite of the popularity which the
reproductions of their works and those of some of Mount's pictures
enjoyed, the field remained comparatively untilled.
[Illustration: A SURPRISE. _By_ MOUNT.
_Copyright, 1879, by Harper and Brothers._]
Of other painters of the past, HENRY INMAN (1801--1846), better known as
a most excellent portrait-painter, executed a few _genre_ pictures based
on American subjects, such as _Mumble the Peg_ in the Pennsylvania
Academy; and RICHARD CATON WOODVILLE (about 1825--1855), who studied at
Düsseldorf, became favourably known, during his short career, by his
_Mexican News_, _Sailor's Wedding_, _Bar-Room Politicians_, &c.; while
among the mass of work by F. W. EDMONDS (1806--1863) there are also
several of specifically American character; but the majority of artists
preferred to repeat the well-worn themes of their European predecessors,
as shown by W. E. WEST'S (died 1857) _The Confessional_, at the New York
Historical Society's Rooms, or the paintings of JAMES W. GLASS (died
1855), whose _Royal Standard_, _Free Companion_, and _Puritan and
Cavalier_, are drawn from the annals of England.
The Indian tribes found delineators in GEORGE CATLIN (1796--1872) and C.
F. WIMAR (1829--1863), while WILLIAM H. RANNEY (died 1857) essayed the
life of the trappers and frontiersmen. None of these artists, however,
approached their subjects from the genuinely artistic side. As an
ornithological painter, scientifically considered, JOHN JAMES AUDUBON
(1780--1851), the celebrated naturalist, occupied a high rank. The
animal world of the prairies and the great West in general was the
chosen field of WILLIAM J. HAYS (1830--1875). A large picture by him of
an American bison, in the American Museum of Natural History at New
York, shows at once his careful workmanship, his ambition, and the
limitation of his powers, which was too great to allow him to occupy a
prominent place among the animal painters of the world.
The skill in realistic portraiture, eminently shown by the American
painters of the preceding century, was fully upheld by their successors
of the third period. Most of the historic painters named above were well
known also as portraitists, and their claims to reputation are shared
with more or less success by J. W. JARVIS (1780--1851), THOMAS SULLY
(1783--1872), SAMUEL WALDO (1783--1861), CHESTER HARDING (1792--1866),
WILLIAM JEWETT (born 1795), EZRA AMES (flourished about 1812--1830),
CHARLES C. INGHAM (1796--1863), J. NEAGLE (1799--1865), CHARLES L.
ELLIOTT (1812--1868), JOSEPH AMES (1816--1872), T. P. ROSSITER
(1818--1871), G. A. BAKER (1821--1880), and W. H. FURNESS (1827--1867).
Specimens of the work of most of these artists, several of whom were of
foreign parentage, will be found in the collections of the New York
Historical Society, the Governor's Room in the City Hall of New York,
the Pennsylvania Academy, and the Museum of Fine Arts at Boston. The
most prominent among the later names is Charles Loring Elliott, who was
born and educated in America, but whose work, when he is at his best,
nevertheless shows the hand of a master. E. G. MALBONE (1777--1807),
whose only ideal work, _The Hours_, is in the Athenæum, at Providence,
R.I., is justly celebrated for his delicate miniatures, a department in
which R. M. STAIGG (1817--1881) likewise excelled. As a crayon artist,
famous more especially for his female heads, SETH W. CHENEY (1810--1856)
must be named.
* * * * *
The most interesting, however, because the most original, manifestation
of the art instinct in this period is found in landscape. In this
department also it seemed for a time as if the influence of the old
Italian masters would gain the upper hand. But the influence of
Düsseldorf, aided by that of England, although not through its best
representatives, such as Constable, gave a different turn to the course
of affairs, and in a measure freed the artists from the thraldom of an
antiquated school. Although, naturally and justly enough, the landscape
painters of America did not disdain to depict the scenery of foreign
lands, they nevertheless showed a decided preference for the beauties of
their own country, and diligently plied their brushes in the delineation
of the favourite haunts of the Catskills, the Hudson, the White
Mountains, Lake George, &c., and, at a later period, of the wonders of
the Rocky Mountains and the valley of the Yosemite. It has become the
fashion in certain circles to speak rather derisively of these painters
as "the Hudson River School," a nickname supposed to imply the charge
that they preferred the subject to artistic rendering and technical
skill. There is no denying that there is some truth in this charge, but
later experience has taught, also, that a more insinuating style is apt
to lead the artists to ignore subject altogether. It is precisely the
comparative unattractiveness of the methods employed which enabled these
painters to create what may be called an American school, while, had
they been as much absorbed in technical processes, or in the solving of
problems of colour, as some of their successors, they would probably
have rivalled them also in the neglect of the national element. It is
worthy of note that the rise of this school of painters of nature is
nearly contemporaneous with the appearance of William Cullen Bryant,
whose "Thanatopsis" was first published in 1817, and who is eminently
entitled to be called the poet of nature.
The first specialist in landscape of whom any record is to be found is
JOSHUA SHAW (1776--1860), an Englishman, who came to America about 1817.
The specimens of his work preserved in the Pennsylvania Academy show him
to have been a painter of some refinement, who preferred delicate
silvery tones to strength. In the same institution may also be found
numerous examples by THOMAS DOUGHTY (1793--1856), of Philadelphia, who
abandoned mercantile pursuits for art in 1820, and who may claim to be
the first native landscape-painter. His early work is hard and dry and
monotonous in colour, but nevertheless with a feeling for light. As he
advanced, his colour improved somewhat. ALVAN FISHER (1792--1863), of
Boston, also ranks among the pioneers in this department, but he was
more active as a portrait-painter.
[Illustration: DESOLATION. _From the "Course of Empire."_ _By_ THOMAS
COLE.
_In the possession of the New York Historical Society._
_Copyright, 1879, by Harper and Brothers._]
The greatest name, however, in the early history of landscape art in the
United States is that of THOMAS COLE (1801--1848), who came over from
England with his parents in 1819, but received his first training, such
as it was, in America. Cole spent several years in Italy, and remained
for the rest of his life under the spell of Claude, Salvator Rosa, and
Poussin. He aspired to be a painter of large historic, or rather
allegoric landscapes, and some of his productions in this line, as, for
instance, _The Course of Empire_ (New York Historical Society), a series
of five canvases, showing the career of a nation from savage life
through the splendours of power to the desolation of decay, will always
secure for him a respectable place among the followers of the old
school. He therefore shared, with most of his American colleagues, the
fatal defect that his work contained no germ of advancement, but was
content to be measured by standards which were beginning to be false,
because men had outlived the time in which they were set up. Cole did
not, however, confine himself to such allegoric landscapes. He was a
great lover of the Catskills, and often chose his subjects there, or in
the White Mountains. But in the specimens of this kind to be seen at the
New York Historical Society's rooms, he shows himself curiously
defective in colour, and mars the tone by undue contrasts between light
and dark. He is at his best in the representation of storm effects, such
as _The Tornado_, in the Corcoran Gallery at Washington.
Among the ablest representatives of the "Hudson River School" were J. F.
KENSETT (1818--1873), and SANFORD R. GIFFORD (1823--1880). For Kensett,
it may indeed be claimed that he was the best technician of his time,
bolder in treatment than most of his colleagues, and with a true
feeling for the poetry of colour. Gifford, who divided his allegiance
about equally between America, Italy, and the Orient, loved to paint
phenomenal effects of light, which often suggest the studio rather than
nature. One of the principal works of this very successful and greatly
esteemed artist, _The Ruins of the Parthenon_, is the property of the
Corcoran Gallery, which also owns several pictures by Kensett.
[Illustration: NOON BY THE SEA-SHORE: BEVERLY BEACH. _By_ J. F. KENSETT.
_Copyright, 1879, by Harper and Brothers._]
As one of the leading lights of the little cluster of American
pre-Raphaelites, we may note JOHN W. HILL (died 1879), who painted
landscapes chiefly in water-colour.
The United States being a maritime power, it would be quite natural to
look for a development of marine painting among her artists. Until
lately, however, very little has been done in this branch of art, and
that little mostly by foreigners. THOMAS BIRCH, an Englishman (died
1851), painted the battles between English and American vessels in an
old-fashioned way in Philadelphia, while Boston possessed an early
marine painter of slender merit in Salmon. A. VAN BEEST, a Dutch marine
painter, who died in New York in 1860, is chiefly of interest as the
first teacher of several well-known American painters of to-day. JOHN E.
C. PETERSEN (1839--1874), a Dane, who came to America in 1865, enjoyed
an excellent reputation in Boston. The leading name, however, among the
artists of the past in this department is that of JAMES HAMILTON
(1819--1878), who was brought to Philadelphia from Ireland in infancy,
and went to England for purposes of study in 1854. In many of his
phantastic productions, in which blood-red skies are contrasted with
dark, bluish-gray clouds and masses of shadow, as in _Solitude_, and an
Oriental landscape in the Pennsylvania Academy, the study of Turner is
quite apparent. But he loved also to paint the storm-tossed sea, under a
leaden sky, when it seems to be almost monochrome. One of his finest
efforts, _The Ship of the Ancient Mariner_, is in private possession in
Philadelphia. His _Destruction of Pompeii_ is in the Memorial Hall,
Fairmount Park, in the same city. Hamilton, whose somewhat unsteady mode
of living is reflected in the widely varying quality of his work, very
properly closes our review of this epoch, as he might not
inappropriately be classed with the artists of the period next to be
considered.
FOURTH, OR PRESENT PERIOD.
It has been remarked already that the American students who went to
England up to the middle of the present century were not influenced by
those painters who, like Constable, are credited with having given the
first impulse towards the development of modern art. This is true also
of those who went to France.
They fell in with the old-established Classic school, and were not
affected by the rising Romantic and Colouristic school until long after
its triumphant establishment. Within the last ten or fifteen years,
however, the tendency in this direction has been very marked, and the
main points of attraction for the young American artist in Europe have
been Paris and Munich. One of the results of this movement, consequent
upon the preponderating attention given to colour and technique, has
been an almost entire neglect of subject. What the art of America has
gained, therefore, in outward attractiveness and in increase of skill,
it has had to purchase at the expense of a still greater
de-Americanisation than before. The movement is, however, only in its
inception, and its final results cannot be predicated. Nor will it be
possible to mention here more than a very few of its adherents, as,
self-evidently, the greater part of them belong to the living
generation.
[Illustration: SUNSET ON THE HUDSON. _By_ S. R. GIFFORD.
_Copyright_, 1879, _by Harper and Brothers_.]
One of the first to preach the new gospel of individualism and colour in
America was WILLIAM MORRIS HUNT (1824--1879), who, after his return from
Europe, made his home in Boston. In 1846 he went to Düsseldorf, which he
soon exchanged for Paris, where he studied with Couture, and later with
Millet. Hunt was in a certain sense a martyr to his artistic
convictions, and his road was not smoothed by his eccentricities. Had he
found a readier response on the part of the public, he might have
accomplished great things. As it was, those to whom he was compelled to
appeal could not understand the importance of the purely pictorial
qualities which he valued above all else, and instead of sympathy he
found antagonism. As a fact indicating the difficulties which stood in
his way, it is interesting to know that the first idea for the mural
paintings, _The Flight of Night_ and _The Discoverer_, which he executed
in the new Capitol at Albany, shortly before his death, was conceived
over thirty years ago. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that his
mind was embittered, and his work even more unequal than that of so many
of his older colleagues. But even so he has left a number of works, as
for instance the original sketch for the _Flight of Night_, several
portraits, and a _View of Gloucester Harbour_, which will always be
counted among the triumphs of American art.
Prominent among the American students in the French school was ROBERT
WYLIE, a native of the Isle of Man, who was brought to the United States
when a child, and died in Brittany at the age of about forty years in
1877. His _Death of a Breton Chieftain_, in the Metropolitan Museum of
New York, and _Breton Story-Teller_, in the Pennsylvania Academy, two
very fine pictures, although somewhat heavy in colour, show him to have
been a careful observer, with a power of characterisation hardly
approached by any other American painter.
[Illustration: LAMBS ON THE MOUNTAIN-SIDE. _By_ WILLIAM MORRIS HUNT.]
As a remarkable artist, belonging also to the French-American school,
although he never left his native land, we must mention R. H. FULLER, of
Boston, who died comparatively young in 1871. Fuller had a most
extraordinary career and displayed extraordinary talent. Originally a
cigar-maker, and later a night watchman, he was almost entirely
self-taught, his study consisting in carefully looking at the French
landscapes on exhibition at the stores, and then attempting to reproduce
them at home. The knowledge thus gained he applied to the rendering of
American landscapes, and he had so assimilated the methods of his French
exemplars, that his creations, while they often clearly betrayed by what
master they had been inspired, were yet thoroughly American.
* * * * *
This sketch of the history of painting in America is necessarily very
fragmentary, by reason of its shortness, as well as by the limitation
imposed by the plan of this book, which excludes all living artists.
Many prominent representatives of the various tendencies to which the
reader's attention has been called, have, therefore, had to be omitted.
It is believed, nevertheless, that, while the mention of additional
names would have made the record fuller, the general proportions of the
outline would not have been materially changed thereby. Nor is the
apparently critical tone, the repeated dwelling on the lack of
originality in subject as well as method, to be taken as an expression
of disparagement. A fact has simply been stated which admits of a ready
explanation, hinted at in the introductory remarks, but which must be
kept steadily in view if American Art is ever to assume a more
distinctive character. The painters of America, considering the
circumstances by which they have been surrounded, have no reason to be
ashamed of their past record. They have shown considerable aptitude in
the acquisition of technical attainments, and the diligence and
enthusiasm in the pursuit of their studies on the part of the younger
artists, promise well for the future. It rests altogether with the
nation itself whether this promise shall be fulfilled.
INDEX OF NAMES.
PAGE
Aikman, William, 35
Alexander, Cosmo, 191
Alexander, William, 103
Allston, Washington, 202
Ames, Ezra, 212
Ames, Joseph, 212
Anderton, Henry, 31
Audubon, John James, 211
Bacon, Sir Nathaniel, 22
Baker, G. A., 212
Barret, George, 50
Barret, George, the younger, 105
Barry, James, 69
Beale, Mary, 35
Beechey, Sir William, 79
Bembridge, Henry, 192
Bewick, John, 92
Bewick, Thomas, 91
Birch, Thomas, 217
Blackburn, 191
Blake, William, 85
Boit, Charles, 93
Bone, Henry, 96
Bonington, Richard Parkes, 137
Boxall, Sir William, 178
Briggs, Henry Perronet, 154
Brooking, Charles, 47
Brown, John, 11, 17
Browne, Alexander, 92
Brumidi, Carlo, 202
Caius (Key), 19
Callcott, Sir Augustus Wall, 131
Carmillion, Alice, 17
Catlin, George, 211
Cattermole, George, 112
Chalon, Alfred Edward, 97
Chalon, John James, 97
Cheney, Seth W., 212
Cipriani, Giovanni Battista, 60
Cleef, Joost van, 19
Clostermann, John, 35
Cole, Thomas, 215
Collins, Richard, 95
Collins, William, 133
Constable, John, 130
Cooke, Edward William, 147
Cooper, Abraham, 166
Cooper, Samuel, 31
Copley, John Singleton, 67, 192
Cornelisz, Lucas, 10
Corvus, Johannes, 19
Cosway, Maria, 96
Cosway, Richard, 96
Cotman, John Sell, 142
Cox, David, 108
Cozens, Alexander, 102
Cozens, John Robert, 103
Creswick, Thomas, 145
Cristall, Joshua, 103
Crome, John, 141
Crosse, Lewis, 93
Dahl, Michael, 35
Danby, Francis, 142
Dance, Nathaniel, 76
Deacon, James, 94
De Heere, Lucas, 20
De la Motte, William, 105
De Loutherbourg, Philippe James, 61
Derby, William, 99
De Wint, Peter, 110
Dobson, William, 26
Dodgson, George Haydock, 114
Doughty, Thomas, 213
Duncan, Edward, 114
Duncan, Thomas, 158
Dunlap, 201
Dyce, William, 156
Eastlake, Sir Charles Locke, 154
Edmonds, F. W., 211
Edridge, Henry, 97, 104
Edward, Master, 4
Egg, Augustus Leopold, 175
Elliott, Charles Loring, 212
Elmore, Alfred, 162
Engleheart, George, 96
Essex, William, 97
Etty, William, 152
Faithorne, William, 85
Feke, Robert, 191
Fielding, Anthony Vandyke Copley, 110
Fisher, Alvan, 215
Flatman, Thomas, 92
Flick, Gerbach, 18
Fraser, Alexander, 170
Fuller, Isaac, 31
Fuller, R. H., 221
Furness, W. H., 212
Fuseli, Henry, 62
Gainsborough, Thomas, 55
Garvey, Edmund, 75
Gerbier, Sir Balthasar, 45
Gheeraedts, Marc, 20
Gifford, Sandford R., 215
Gilpin, Sawrey, 81
Girtin, Thomas, 104
Glass, James W., 211
Godeman, 2
Gray, Henry Peters, 207
Greenhill, John, 31
Hamilton, James, 217
Harding, Chester, 212
Harding, James Duffield, 112
Harlow, George Henry, 121
Harvey, George, 158
Havell, William, 108
Haydon, Benjamin Robert, 150
Hayman, Francis, 35, 85
Hays, William J., 211
Heaphy, Thomas, 110
Hearne, Thomas, 102
Highmore, Joseph, 85
Hill, John W., 216
Hilliard, Nicholas, 22
Hills, Robert, 104
Hillton, William, 148
Hogarth, William, 37
Holbein, Hans, 13
Holland, James, 114
Hone, Nathaniel, 94
Hoppner, John, 80
Horebout, Gerrard Lucas, 9, 17
Horebout, Lucas, 17
Horebout, Susannah, 9, 17
Hoskins, John, 22
Howard, Henry, 123
Hudson, Thomas, 35
Humphrey, Ozias, 95
Hunt, William Henry, 112
Hunt, William Morris, 219
Ibbetson, Julius Cæsar, 50
Ingham, Charles C., 212
Inman, Henry, 211
Irving, J. B., 208
Jackson, John, 126
Jamesone, George, 28
Jarvis, J. W., 212
Jervas, Charles, 35
Jewett, William, 212
John, Master, 4
Jonson, Cornelis, 22
Kauffman, Angelica, 60
Kensett, J. F., 215
Key, William, 19
Kirk, Thomas, 89
Knapton, George, 35
Kneller, Sir Godfrey, 32
Laguerre, Louis, 34
Lambert, George, 47
Landseer, Charles, 161
Landseer, Sir Edwin Henry, 176
Lawrence, Sir Thomas, 117
Lely, Sir Peter, 30
Leslie, Charles Robert, 170, 209
Leutze, Emmanuel, 207
Lewis, John Frederick, 180
Linnell, John, 147
Linton, William, 135
Loggan, David, 85
Lucy, Charles, 161
Lyzardi, Nicholas, 19
Mabuse, 9
Maclise, Daniel, 158
Malbone, E. G., 212
Martin, John, 139
Martineau, Robert Braithwaite, 179
Mason, George Hemming, 179
Maynors, Katherine, 18
Meyer, Jeremiah, 95
Modena, Nicholas of, 19
Monamy, Peter, 47
Mor, Sir Antonio, 19
Morland, George, 82
Morland, Henry Robert, 82
Morse, S. F. B., 206
Mortimer, John Hamilton, 89
Moser, George Michael, 94
Mount, William Sydney, 209
Müller, William John, 137
Mulready, William, 167
Mytens, Daniel, 22
Nasmyth, Patrick, 135
Neagle, J., 212
Newton, Gilbert Stuart, 173, 209
Nixon, James, 95
Northcote, James, 76
Oliver, Isaac, 22
Oliver, Peter, 22
Opie, John, 78
Oudry, P., 19
Owen, William, 121
Palmer, Samuel, 114
Parmentier, James, 35
Payne, William, 102
Peale, Charles Wilson, 200
Peale, Rembrandt, 206
Penley, Aaron Edwin, 114
Penni, Bartholomew, 17
Petersen, John E. C., 217
Petitot, Jean, 22
Phillip, John, 161
Phillips, Thomas, 125
Poole, Paul Falconer, 179
Powell, W. H., 207
Pratt, Matthew, 192
Prout, Samuel, 108
Pyne, James Baker, 45
Ramsay, Allan, 46
Ranney, William H., 211
Read, Thomas Buchanan, 208
Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 50
Richardson, Jonathan, 35
Richardson, Thomas Miles, 108
Riley, John, 35
Rimmer, William, 208
Roberts, David, 137
Robertson, Andrew, 97
Robinson, Hugh, 59
Robson, George Fennel, 110
Romney, George, 72
Rooker, Michael Angelo, 104
Ross, Sir William Charles, 99
Rossetti, Gabriel Chas. Dante, 184
Rossiter, T. P., 212
Rowlandson, Thomas, 103
Sandby, Paul, 102
Savage, E., 201
Schüssele, Christian, 08
Scott, Samuel, 47
Serres, Dominic, 47
Serres, John Thomas, 47
Seymour, James, 81
Shalders, George, 114
Shaw, Joshua, 213
Shee, Sir Martin Archer, 123
Shelley, Samuel, 95
Shipley, William, 45
Smirke, Robert, 90
Smith, George (of Chichester), 47
Smith, John " ", 47
Smith, William " ", 47
Smith, John (of Warwick), 103
Smybert, John, 190
Soest, Gerard von, 35
Spencer, Jarvis, 94
Staigg, R. M., 212
Stanfield, William Clarkson, 143
Stark, James, 142
Stothard, Thomas, 88
Streater, Robert, 31
Stretes, Gwillim, 16, 17
Stuart, Gilbert, 195
Stubbs, George, 81
Sully, Thomas, 212
Terling, Lavinia, 17
Thomson, Henry, 126
Thornhill, Sir James, 34
Topham, Francis William, 114
Torell, William, 2
Toto, Antonio, 9, 17
Treviso, Girolamo da, 10, 15
Trumbull, John, 197
Turner, Joseph Mallord William, 105, 127
Uwins, Thomas, 91
Van Beest, A., 217
Vanderbank, John, 35
Vanderlyn, John, 205
Van Dyck, Sir Anthony, 26
Van Honthorst, Gerard, 26
Van Somer, Paul, 22
Varley, John, 107
Ver Bryck, Cornelius, 206
Verrio, Antonio, 34
Vincent, George, 142
Volpe, Vincent, 17
Vroom, Cornelis, 20
Waldo, Samuel, 212
Wale, Samuel, 85
Walker, Frederick, 182
Walker, Robert, 20
Walter, Master, 4
Ward, Edward Matthew, 180
Ward, James, 125
Watson, John, 190
Webber, John, 103
Wehnert, Edward Henry, 114
West, Benjamin, 64, 193
West, W. E., 211
Westall, Richard, 89
Westall, William, 89
White, Edwin, 207
White, John Blake, 202
Wilkie, David, 164
Williams, ----, 191
Wilson, Richard, 47
Wimar, C. F., 211
Wissing, William, 35
Witherington, William Frederick, 166
Woodville, Richard Caton, 211
Wootton, John, 80
Wright, Andrew, 11, 17
Wright, Joseph, 200
Wright, Joseph (of Derby), 74
Wright, Joseph Michael, 35
Wyck, John, 80
Wylie, Robert, 219
Zincke, Christian Frederick, 94
Zoffany, Johann, 61
Zuccarelli, Francesco, 61
Zucchero, Federigo, 20
PRINTED BY J. S. VIRTUE AND CO., LIMITED, CITY ROAD, LONDON.
* * * * *
Illustrated Biographies of the Great Artists.
_Each Volume is strongly bound in Cloth, Crown 8vo, price 3s. 6d. unless
marked otherwise._
=SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.= By F. S. PULLING, M.A. With Engravings of Penelope
Boothby--Strawberry Girl--Muscipula--Mrs. Siddons--Duchess of
Devonshire--Age of Innocence--and 11 other paintings.
=WILLIAM HOGARTH.= By AUSTIN DOBSON. With Reproductions of Groups from the
Rake's Progress--Southwark Fair--Distressed Poet--Enraged
Musician--March to Finchley--and 11 other subjects.
=GAINSBOROUGH= and =CONSTABLE=. By G. BROCK-ARNOLD, M.A. With Engravings of
the Blue Boy--Mrs. Graham--Duchess of Devonshire--and 5 others, by
Gainsborough; and Salisbury Cathedral--The Corn-field--The Valley
Farm--and 5 others, by Constable.
=SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE= and =GEORGE ROMNEY=. By Lord RONALD GOWER, F.S.A. With
Engravings of the Duchess of Sutherland--Lady Peel--Master Lambton--and
Nature, by Lawrence; the Parson's Daughter--and other Pictures, by
Romney. Price 2s. 6d.
=TURNER.= By COSMO MONKHOUSE. With Engravings of Norham Castle--The
Devil's Bridge--The Golden Bough--The Fighting Téméraire--Venice--and 12
others.
=SIR DAVID WILKIE: a Memoir.= By J. W. MOLLETT, B.A. With Engravings of
Groups from the Rent Day--Penny Wedding--Blind Man's Buff--Duncan
Gray--and 6 other Paintings.
=SIR EDWIN LANDSEER: a Memoir.= By F. G. STEPHENS. With 17 Fac-similes of
Etchings--Low Life--A Shepherd's Dog--Four Irish Greyhounds--Return from
Deerstalking--Sheep and Lambs, &c.
=GIOTTO.= By HARRY QUILTER, M.A. At Padua, Florence, and Assisi. With
Engravings of various Frescoes--Bas-reliefs on the Campanile,
Florence--and a Coloured Plate of the Madonna at Assisi.
=FRA ANGELICO=, =MASACCIO=, and =BOTTICELLI=. By C. M. PHILLIMORE. With
Engravings of the Resuscitation of the King's Son, by Masaccio--Adoration
of the Kings, by Fra Angelico--Coronation of the Virgin, by
Botticelli--and 14 other Paintings.
=FRA BARTOLOMMEO=, =ALBERTINELLI=, and =ANDREA DEL SARTO=. By LEADER SCOTT.
With Engravings of the Enthronement of the Virgin--St. Mark--Salvator
Mundi, by Fra Bartolommeo; The Virgin and Saints, by Albertinelli; The
Madonna del Sacco, by Del Sarto--and 10 other Paintings.
=GHIBERTI= and =DONATELLO=. By LEADER SCOTT. With Engravings of the Marble
Pulpit of Pisano--Gate of Baptistery at Florence, by Ghiberti (4
pages)--St. George, by Donatello--and 10 others. 2s. 6d.
=DELLA ROBBIA= and =CELLINI=. By LEADER SCOTT. With Illustrations of the
Singers, by Luca della Robbia--Perseus, by Cellini--Mercury, by Giovanni
da Bologna--and 20 others. 2s. 6d.
=MANTEGNA= and =FRANCIA=. By JULIA CARTWRIGHT. Illustrated with Engravings
of Lodovico Gonzaga and his Son--Part of the Triumphs of Cæsar--The
Madonna della Vittoria, by Mantegna; The Virgin and Saints--The
Deposition--A Pietà, by Francia--and 8 other Paintings.
=LEONARDO DA VINCI.= By Dr. J. PAUL RICHTER. Illustrated with Engravings
of the Last Supper--The Virgin and St. Anne--Mona Lisa--The Vierge aux
Rochers--and 11 others.
=MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI.= By CHARLES CLÉMENT. With Engravings from
Frescoes of the Last Judgment--Prophet Isaiah--and of the Statues of
Moses--Lorenzo and Giuliano de'Medici--and 12 others.
=RAPHAEL.= By N. D'ANVERS. With Engravings of Lo Sposalizio--La Belle
Jardinière--Madonna di Foligno--St. Cecilia--Madonna della Sedia--The
Transfiguration--and 17 other Paintings.
=TITIAN.= By R. F. HEATH, M.A. With Engravings of La Bella di Tiziano--The
Tribute-Money--The Assumption of the Virgin--St. Peter Martyr--Titian's
Daughter--and 9 others.
=TINTORETTO.= By W. R. OSLER. From recent Investigations at Venice. With
Engravings of the Marriage at Cana--The Entombment--The Crucifixion--The
Betrothal of St. Catherine--and others.
=CORREGGIO.= By M. C. HEATON. With Engravings of La Notte--Il
Giorno--Marriage of St. Catherine--The Madonna of Francis at
Dresden--and 5 other Paintings. Price 2s. 6d.
=VELAZQUEZ.= By E. STOWE, M.A. With Engravings of Isabel of Spain--Duke of
Olivarez--Water-Carrier--The Topers--Surrender of Breda--Maids of
Honour--and 9 other Paintings.
=MURILLO.= By ELLEN E. MINOR. With 8 Engravings of the Immaculate
Conception--The Prodigal Son--The Holy Family (with the _scodella_), at
Madrid--and others. Price 2s. 6d.
=ALBRECHT DÜRER.= By R. F. HEATH, M.A. With Engravings of the Conversion
of St. Eustace--Great White Horse--Knight, Death, and the Devil--Christ
taking Leave of his Mother--and 15 others.
=LITTLE MASTERS OF GERMANY.= By W. B. SCOTT. An Account of Altdorfer, Hans
Sebald Beham, Bartel Beham, Aldegrever, Pencz, Bink, and Brosamer.
Illustrated with many Engravings.
=HANS HOLBEIN.= By JOSEPH CUNDALL. With Engravings of the Meyer
Madonna--Archbishop Warham--Family of Sir Thomas More--Hubert
Morett--The Dance of Death--The Bible Cuts--and many others.
=OVERBECK.= By J. BEAVINGTON ATKINSON. Comprising his Early Years in
Lübeck, Studies at Vienna, and Settlement at Rome. Illustrated with many
Engravings.
=REMBRANDT.= By J. W. MOLLETT, B.A. With Engravings of the Lesson on
Anatomy--The Night Watch--Burgomaster Six--The Three Trees--Ephraim
Bonus--and other celebrated Etchings.
=RUBENS.= By C. W. KETT, M.A. With Engravings of Rubens and Isabella
Brandt--The Descent from the Cross--The Château de Steen--Le Chapeau de
Poil--and 12 other Paintings.
=VAN DYCK= and =HALS=. By P. R. HEAD, B.A. With Engravings of Charles I.
and the Marquis of Hamilton--Henrietta Maria, with Princes Charles and
James, &c., by Van Dyck; and Hals and Lisbeth Reyners--The Banquet of
Arquebusiers--A Cavalier, &c., by Frans Hals.
=FIGURE PAINTERS OF HOLLAND.= By Lord RONALD GOWER, F.S.A. With Engravings
of Paternal Advice, by Terborch--Hunchback Fiddler, by Ostade--Inn
Stable, by Wouwerman--Dancing Dog, by Steen.
=WATTEAU.= By J. W. MOLLETT, B.A. With Engravings of Fêtes Galantes,
Portraits, Studies from the Life, Pastoral Subjects, &c,. Price 2s. 6d.
_Nearly ready._
=VERNET= and =DELAROCHE=. By J. RUNTZ REES. With Engravings of the
Trumpeter's Horse--The Death of Poniatowski--The Battle of Fontenoy, and
5 others, by Vernet; and Richelieu with Cinque Mars--Death of the Duc de
Guise--Charles I. and Cromwell's Soldiers--and the Hemicycle, by
Delaroche.
=MEISSONIER.= By J. W. MOLLETT, B.A. With Engravings from the Chess
Players--La Rixe--The Halt--The Reader--The Flemish Smoker--and many
Book Illustrations. Price 2s. 6d.
London: SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON,
Crown Buildings, 188, Fleet Street.
* * * * *
The following typographical errors were corrected by the etext
transcriber:
Several English astists practised in this reign.=>Several English
artists practised in this reign.
the first English artist who receveid=>the first English artist who
received
an innvoator of a monstrous order=>an innovator of a monstrous order
Durin his life=>During his life
Like his master he not succeed in foliage=>Like his master he did not
succeed in foliage
FOOTNOTES:
[A] At least, like most of the great Italian masters before and after
their time, and like Clouet the Frenchman, they designed garments, and
painted banners of state; they decorated coffers and furniture, book
covers, and, like Holbein and Cellini, made designs for jewellery.
[B] When we discover that the whole frontal has been used as the _top of
a cupboard_, we need not wonder at the present scarcity of specimens of
early English art.
[C] Many pictures executed during the ten years after his death, some
even in the Windsor collection, have been attributed to Holbein.
[D] Now lent to the National Gallery. She was the youthful daughter of
the King of Denmark, and widow of the Duke of Milan. Holbein was sent to
Brussels to paint her portrait for his royal master.
[E] See _The Athenæum_, August 19th, 1882.
[F] This is Dallaway's summary, note to p. 266 of Walpole's "Anecdotes,"
as above, 1849. Of course, all the pictures were not really by the
artists whose names they bore. There must have been more than sixteen
Van Dycks in the Royal collection. The above are Whitehall pictures
only. The entire gatherings of King Charles were far more numerous.
[G] His painting of this subject, for which he received only twenty-six
guineas, was destroyed by fire in 1874.
[H] Northcote, "Conversations," 1830, p. 32, said, "Sir Joshua
undoubtedly got his first idea of the art from Gandy." James Gandy
(1619--1689), who painted in Ireland and Devonshire, was the last
representative of the art of Van Dyck, whose pupil he was.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "English Painters - with a chapter on American painters" ***
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