Title: Drawings of David Cox
Author: Finberg, A. J. (Alexander Joseph)
Language: English
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                         DRAWINGS OF DAVID COX

               [Illustration: MODERN MASTER DRAUGHTSMEN]

                  [Illustration: FRONTISPIECE PLATE I

                       UNFINISHED WATER-COLOUR]



                              DRAWINGS OF
                               DAVID COX

                            [Illustration]

                     LONDON.GEORGE NEWNES LIMITED
                    SOUTHAMPTON STREET STRAND W.C.
                   NEW YORK.CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS


                         THE BALLANTYNE PRESS
                         TAVISTOCK ST., LONDON



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


.....PLATE

UNFINISHED WATER-COLOUR....._Frontispiece_.....I

OLD WESTMINSTER.....II

PEASANTS ON HORSEBACK.....III

A ROADSIDE COTTAGE.....IV

NEAR DINAS MOWDDWY, MERIONETHSHIRE.....V

A FISHING VILLAGE.....VI

NEAR KENILWORTH.....VII

CHEPSTOW.....VIII

SCENE IN NORTH WALES.....IX

A VILLAGE STREET.....X

FOREGROUND STUDY.....XI

CHEPSTOW BRIDGE AND CASTLE.....XII

STUDY OF TREES.....XIII

VIEW IN NORTH WALES.....XIV

EARLY MORNING MIST.....XV

LLANRWST.....XVI

HARDWICK.....XVII

NEAR BIRMINGHAM.....XVIII

AUTUMN WOODS.....XIX

KIRKBY STEPHEN.....XX

MOUNTAIN AND STREAM, NORTH WALES.....XXI

ARCHITECTURAL STUDY.....XXII

GOODRICH CASTLE.....XXIII

NEAR KENILWORTH CASTLE.....XXIV

THE SALT MARSH.....XXV

KNOLE HOUSE, KENT.....XXVI

THE BEACH.....XXVII

WINDY WEATHER.....XXVIII

A STUDY OF TREES.....XXIX

CARNARVON CASTLE.....XXX

ON THE MOOR.....XXXI

CLAPHAM, YORKSHIRE.....XXXII

THE HILL SIDE.....XXXIII

LOW TIDE.....XXXIV

LLAUGHARNE CASTLE, CARMARTHEN BAY.....XXXV

SKETCH OF ROCKS AND CASTLE.....XXXVI

DUTCH COAST SCENE.....XXXVII

SCENE IN NORTH WALES.....XXXVIII

NEAR RADLETT.....XXXIX

NEAR KENILWORTH.....XL

ROTTERDAM.....XLI

TREFRIW, NEAR LLANRWST.....XLII

THE INN YARD.....XLIII

OLD WESTMINSTER.....XLIV



DAVID COX

BY ALEXANDER J. FINBERG


The greatest artists have expressed themselves so completely in their
works, that the story of their lives adds little or nothing to our
knowledge of their personality. We know very little about the life of
Turner--almost as little, indeed, as we know of Shakespeare’s--but in
neither case do we seem to have missed anything that would add to our
comprehension or enjoyment of their work. With Turner, as with
Shakespeare, his art was the perfect organ of his spirit. His pictures
enshrine more of the real personality of the artist than even a
biographer of genius with unlimited opportunities could tell us. But
though this is almost invariably true of the greatest artists, it is not
true of all artists. It is hardly the case with David Cox. His hampered,
thwarted art is indeed replete with glimpses and hints of the
personality behind it; but without a commentary it is not very eloquent
or very likely to arrest attention. The artist’s life furnishes the
needed commentary. The beautiful simplicity and _naïveté_ of the man’s
character, the mean circumstances in which his life was cast, the
fortitude, industry, and manliness with which he triumphed over his
difficulties--these things explain much that seems at first sight futile
in his art and colour even his worst failures with a glow of purely
human sympathy. And the works of his old age--his most eloquent and
self-subsistent productions, _i.e._, the works of Cox that stand least
in need of a commentary--these lose nothing of their compelling power
from the spectator’s consciousness of the difficulties through which the
artist’s spirit had to struggle towards self-realisation and expression.

Cox was born on April 29, 1783, in a small house, surrounded by
workshops and small forges in Heath Mill Lane, Deritend, a poor suburb
on the south-east side of Birmingham. His father, Joseph Cox, followed
the calling of a blacksmith and whitesmith, forging gun-barrels,
bayonets, horse-shoes and similar articles. He appears to have been an
industrious and thriving artificer, while Cox’s mother, who was better
educated than his father, was a woman of forcible character, highly
religious feelings and natural good sense.

When about six or seven years old Cox was sent to one of the day schools
in Birmingham. At this time he fell over a door-scraper and broke his
leg. This accident was the cause of his first introduction to art, for a
cousin gave him a box of paints to amuse himself with during the
confinement which he had to endure whilst his leg was in splints.
David’s first artistic efforts were confined to daubing the kites which
his school companions brought to him. But he was so delighted with the
colours that when he recovered he procured some paper and set to work
copying a number of small engravings.

After recovering from his accident he returned to school for a short
time, but was soon withdrawn and set to work in his father’s shop. But
he was by no means a strong lad, and a short trial convinced his father
that he was not fitted for so laborious a craft. With the idea of
qualifying him for apprenticeship to one of the toy-trades of
Birmingham, he was sent in the evenings to a drawing school in the
neighbourhood, where he is said to have made great progress. At the age
of fifteen David was considered capable of assisting in the
ornamentation of snuff-boxes, lockets, buttons and buckles. He was
apprenticed to a locket and miniature painter named Fielder. The
apprenticeship, however, only lasted about a year and a half, as it was
brought to an abrupt termination by the suicide of his master.

After this tragical termination of his brief experience as a locket
painter and decorator Cox’s cousin got him an engagement with the
scene-painters employed at the Birmingham theatre. His business was to
grind the colours and run errands for the painters. In the evenings he
was enabled to resume his studies at his old drawing class.

The chief scene-painter at the theatre, which was leased and managed by
the elder Macready, was an Italian named De Maria. Cox watched De
Maria’s work with great admiration, and after a time he was allowed to
assist him in painting the side scenes. Upon De Maria’s departure from
the theatre Cox was permanently engaged with Macready as scene painter,
touring with his company, and even playing small parts when occasion
demanded it. At one small country place it is said that he played the
part of the clown. However, the manager’s hasty temper led to quarrels,
and these, together with his mother’s entreaties, led Cox to terminate
his engagement about the year 1803.

Receiving an offer of employment from Astley, the proprietor of Astley’s
circus, Cox, at the age of twenty-one, moved to London. Astley’s offer
coming to nothing the artist had a hard time of it. He executed various
odd commissions for scenery for provincial theatres and disposed of
small drawings at the modest rate of two guineas a dozen to various
London dealers. London, however, offered more opportunities for study
than Birmingham, and Cox made the most of them. He managed to become
possessed of a collection of indifferent etchings from paintings by
Poussin, Salvator Rosa and Claude, which had been published by Pond
between 1741 and 1746. These he copied and studied for the sake of their
composition and arrangement of light and shade, and a dealer named
Simpson, who kept a shop in Greek Street, Soho, allowed him to make a
large copy in water-colour of a fine painting by Poussin which hung in
his shop. Cox’s first important picture was based on the arrangement and
effect of this Poussin. It is a drawing of Kenilworth Castle, an
autotype of it being published in Mr. Neal Solly’s admirable “Memoir of
the Life of David Cox” (Chapman & Hall, 1873), a volume to which we are
indebted for the details of the artist’s early life. The _Kenilworth_ in
Mr. Solly’s opinion cannot be dated later than 1806 or 1807; and to
judge from the photographic reproduction it is especially interesting as
an example of the imitative methods which were rife among the artists of
those days. The works of the older and more successful masters were
accepted as models to be copied and imitated.

In this connection it may be not impertinent to recall the account which
Edward Dayes (Girtin’s master) has left us of the method of education by
which Turner’s powers were developed. “The ways he (Turner) acquired his
professional powers was by borrowing where he could a drawing or a
picture to copy from, or by making a sketch of any one in the Exhibition
early in the morning, and finishing it at home.” So that Cox was not
alone in devoting his early practice to works of art, rather than to the
works of nature.

In pursuance of this plan of appropriating what he could from the
practice and methods of the proficients in the art, Cox determined to
take lessons from the living as well as from the dead. For some time his
choice hesitated between John Varley, John Glover, and William Havell.
He finally decided to go to Varley, who treated him with much kindness.
Varley, who was only five years older than Cox, was one of the most
successful teachers of the time, and, in addition to Cox, he numbered
Mulready, W. H. Hunt, Linnell, Samuel Palmer, Copley Fielding, and De
Windt among his pupils. His early manner was modelled largely on the
practice of John Cozens and Girtin; and the simplicity, directness and
dignity of much of Cox’s early work is certainly due to the
thoroughness with which Varley had mastered the traditions of the
earlier English water-colour painters, and to his capacities as a
teacher. The second plate in this volume is a reproduction of one of
Cox’s drawings of this period. The original water-colour, _Old
Westminster_, is probably one of the most successful of Cox’s purely
architectural drawings; it might almost pass for a Girtin.

In 1805, Cox made his first journey into Wales. He supported himself at
this time by working up the sketches made on such tours, and by chance
commissions for scenery. A bill is still in existence, dated February
15, 1808, for “painting 310 yards of scenery at 4s. per square yard.”
The year when he executed this lucrative commission was the year of his
marriage to the eldest daughter of the landlady in whose house at
Lambeth Cox had lodged since his arrival in London. His wife, who was
eight years his senior, is said to have been a slight, delicate woman,
of a naturally cheerful disposition. The young couple rented a small
cottage at the corner of Dulwich Common, “just past the College on the
road to the right.” Dulwich Common at that time was a wild and lonely
spot, much frequented by gypsies, whose donkeys and picturesque rags and
surroundings formed excellent material for the young artist’s
compositions.

To eke out his meagre resources, Cox now turned his attention to
teaching. He was fortunate enough to attract the attention of Colonel
the Hon. H. Windsor (afterwards Earl of Plymouth), who took many lessons
from him, and introduced and recommended him to several families of
distinction. But the times were bad for artists, and the newly married
couple must have found it hard work to make both ends meet. From some
extracts from the artist’s account book, which Mr. Solly has printed, we
learn that Cox’s prices for lessons ranged from 7_s._ to 10_s._ Between
1811 and 1814 the prices he got for his drawings ranged from
half-a-guinea up to five guineas. His average price seems to have been
about a guinea a drawing; but on November 30, 1811, he sold a dozen for
8_s._ each.

Nearly every year during his residence in London, Cox made a journey to
visit his old father and his other friends at Birmingham. The sketch
book he used on his 1810 visit is still in existence, and Plate XVIII.,
a drawing of some half-timbered houses “near Birmingham,” represents the
contents of one of its pages. The drawings are all made on rough blue
paper; and among the other subjects contained in this singularly
interesting book are some striking studies of scenes down a mine at
Dudley, and sketches at and near Kenilworth. The handling is not so
loose as in Cox’s later work; but what the drawings lack in freedom is
more than compensated by their directness and admirable restraint, as
our reproduction amply proves.

During the period of the artist’s early married life he had many
difficulties to contend with. The long war with France had depressed
trade, made living dear, and people generally had little to spare for
articles of luxury. But Cox worked away steadily at his art, forming
himself on the best models. This was the time when Turner was painting
what many artists consider are among the finest landscapes that have
ever been produced by an English artist. His _Sun rising through
Vapour_, the picture which now hangs in the National Gallery beside the
Claudes, was exhibited in 1807, the _Spithead_ in 1809, and the superb
_Windsor_, _Abingdon_, _Greenwich_, and _Frosty Morning_, were all
painted and exhibited within the next few years. The first number of the
“Liber,” too, appeared in 1807; and as one turns over the plates that
were issued in the earlier numbers--designs like the _Flint Castle_,
_Barn and Straw Yard_, _Pembury Mill_, _Morpeth_, and _Lock and
Mill_--it is easy to imagine the influence they must have exerted on the
formation of Cox’s art. We have it on Mr. Solly’s authority that “no
artist appreciated Turner’s genius more than Cox did,” and he
illustrates this with a charming anecdote of Cox’s reproduction from
memory of Turner’s picture of _Kingston Bank_ (now in the National
Gallery). Mr. Solly also states that Cox was one of the earliest
subscribers to the “Liber,” and he adds, “that he did so at this time,
when his means were so straitened, is a proof how highly he prized this
admirable work.” The remark is perfectly just, though it may be worth
remembering that those were the times when ordinary issues of the
“Liber” were still to be had for a modest 15_s._ for a part containing
five plates.

With such models before his eyes it is not surprising to find that Cox’s
work at this period is characterised by a breadth of style, a feeling of
repose, and an absence of any attempt at superficial prettiness or
drawing-master dexterity. But though Cox became a member of the Society
of Painters in Water-Colour in 1813, and contributed no less than
seventeen drawings to its Exhibition, few of them found purchasers. In
the summer of this year Cox was glad to accept an appointment as teacher
of drawing at the Military College at Farnham. But the work and military
discipline to which he had to submit proved irksome, and at the end of a
term or two he was allowed to retire. Soon after this, in 1814, Cox went
to Hereford, having accepted a post as drawing-master at a young ladies’
school. This new appointment carried with it the magnificent salary of
£100 a year, but he had to teach only twice a week, and he was at
liberty to take private pupils.

The removal to Hereford, where the artist remained for thirteen years,
is rightly regarded by Cox’s biographers as an important event in his
life. He went there penniless, having indeed to borrow £40 to defray the
expenses of his removal, and he left there with at least a thousand
pounds to the good. The money, it is true, was amassed slowly and with
difficulty, and it was earned rather by incessant teaching than by
original artistic productivity. But the town was pleasantly situated;
the Wye winds round the city walls, and Wales is not far distant. Cox
had opportunities for familiarising himself with all the details of
rustic business--with ploughing, haymaking, reaping, and sowing; and in
his constant journeyings to and fro for the purpose of giving lessons
his memory became stored with images of all kinds of weather and all
kinds of effects.

All the coloured reproductions in the present volume represent drawings
made during the artist’s residence in Hereford. The _Chepstow Bridge and
Castle_ (Plate XII.) was probably one of the results of Cox’s first
sketching tour after his removal, and this very drawing may possibly
have formed one of the exhibits which he sent to the Society of Painters
in Water-Colour in 1816. Plate XXIII. may represent the sketch made for
the picture of _Goodrich Castle on the Wye_, which the artist exhibited
in 1819. In both the drawings, as in the unfinished Frontispiece, the
colour scheme is less severe than in the earlier _Westminster_. They are
less like Girtin’s than like early Cotmans; and though they lack
something of Cotman’s fastidiousness of selection, and the aristocratic
charm of his draughtsmanship and design, they have a sobriety, reserve
and seriousness of their own which must make them objects of delight to
their fortunate possessor. The slightness of the execution of _Low Tide_
(Plate XXXIV.) is no hindrance to the poignant expression of its
sentiment. Unfortunately, it has not been found convenient to reproduce
the magnificent--albeit unfinished--water-colour, entitled _Autumn
Woods_, in its original colours. The half-tone reproduction (Plate
XIX.), however, is useful as a suggestion of the simple dignity that
reigns in this beautiful drawing--assuredly one of the finest works
produced during the artist’s residence in Hereford.

It is interesting to learn that the production in great quantities of
small drawings like those we have reproduced in colour, and his onerous
duties of teaching, did not exhaust Cox’s energies. At that time Cox was
something of a politician. Very naturally he took great delight in the
raciness and full-flavoured eloquence of Cobbett’s “Register”; and in
1820, when Joseph Hume visited Hereford, Cox, as one of the advanced
Liberals of the locality, formed one of the committee of reception, and
with two others subscribed to present the reformer with a hogshead of
the best Herefordshire cider. A public dinner was organised at which to
make the presentation, and on his return home in the evening Cox decided
to celebrate so important a day by planting a number of acorns and
chestnuts in his garden. But Cox’s reforming zeal was not always
satisfied with such unaggressive results. As a protest against the
policy of the Government which led to the imposition of high taxes on
tea, beer and other articles of domestic consumption, he determined to
slake his thirst with non-dutiable beverages. He religiously drank
Hunt’s roasted corn for a time, but finding the concoction unpalatable
he invented a beverage of his own. He and his unfortunate family drank a
concoction made from new hay in place of tea-leaves as a morning
beverage; but, in the long run, the iniquitous revenue triumphed.

Even now, however, we have not come to the end of Cox’s multifarious
activities during this period. Besides being an amateur agitator and
gardener, a prolific artist in water colour, and an overworked teacher,
he seems to have turned author as well. In 1814 he published an
educational work on landscape art, called: “A Treatise on Landscape
Painting and Effect in Water-Colours, from the first Rudiments to the
finished Picture, with Examples in Outline Effect and Colouring.” This
was illustrated by a number of soft-ground etchings. It was followed, in
1816, by “Progressive Lessons in Landscape for Young Beginners,” a
series of twenty-four soft-ground etchings without letterpress; and in
1825, his “Young Artist’s Companion, or Drawing-Book of Studies,”
appeared. It was perhaps as a preliminary study for one of the
illustrations to these volumes that the pen and ink drawing reproduced
in Plate XIV. was made. At any rate the interest of these publications
depends rather upon the illustrations than upon the letterpress, many of
the etchings containing the first ideas of subjects which later had
great success as water-colours; the etchings of _Changing Pasture_ and
_Going to the Mill_, for example, furnished the subjects of some of
Cox’s latest paintings. It has also been rumoured that Cox was not
entirely responsible for the letterpress, being indebted for assistance
in its composition to some unknown “clergyman.” However this may be, it
is pretty certain that the opinions must have been those which Cox
himself held. And as the opinions of a great artist as to the aim and
scope of his own art are always of interest it may be advisable to
quote a passage or two from these books, even though some other hand may
have corrected the artist’s grammar and inflated his periods.

In the “Treatise” Cox writes: “The principal art of Landscape Painting
consists in conveying to the mind the most forcible effect which can be
produced from the various classes of scenery.... This is the grand
principle upon which pictorial excellence hinges, as many pleasing
objects, the combination of which renders a piece perfect, are
frequently passed over by an observer because the whole of the
composition is not under the influence of a suitable effect. Thus a
cottage or a village scene requires a soft and simple admixture of tones
calculated to produce pleasure without astonishment. On the contrary,
the structures of greatness and antiquity should be marked by a
character of awful sublimity, suited to the dignity of the subjects,
indenting on the mind a reverential and permanent impression, and giving
at once a corresponding and unequivocal grandeur to the picture. Much
depends on the classification of the objects, which should wear a
magnificent uniformity, and much on the colouring, the tones of which
should be deep and impressive.

“In the selection of a subject from nature the student should ever keep
in view the principal object which induced him to make the sketch,
whether it be mountains, a castle, group of trees, a cornfield, river
scene, or any other object. The prominence of this leading feature in
the piece should be duly supported throughout; the character of the
picture should be derived from it; every other object introduced should
be subservient to it, and the attraction of the one should be the
attraction of the whole. The union of too great a variety of parts tends
to destroy, or at least to weaken, the predominance of that which ought
to be the principal of the composition, and which the student, when he
comes to the colouring, should be careful to characterise by turning
upon it the strongest light. All objects which are not in character with
the scenes should be most carefully avoided, as the introduction of any
unnecessary object is sure to be attended with injurious consequences.
This must prove the necessity of becoming thoroughly acquainted with and
obtaining a proper feeling of the subject. The picture should be
complete and perfect in the mind before it is ever traced upon canvas.
Such force and expression should be displayed as would render the effect
at the first glance intelligible to the observer. Merely to paint is not
enough, for when no interest is felt nothing is more natural than that
none should be conveyed.”

And again: “The last and surest method of obtaining instruction from
the works of others is not so much by copying them as by drawing the
same subjects from nature immediately after a critical examination of
them, while they are fresh in the memory. Thus they are seen through the
same medium, and imitated upon the same principles, without preventing
the introduction of sufficient alterations to give originality of
manner, or incurring the risk of being degraded into a mere imitator.”

In the frequent wordiness and emptiness of parts of these passages it is
easy to trace the hand of the friendly clergyman. But through it all one
can catch the echoes of Cox’s own convictions. He has realised very
clearly the need that the colour and light and shade of a drawing should
be emotionally expressive as well as merely explanatory. Cox was no
realist in the shallow sense of the term; he was as convinced an
idealist as Reynolds himself, and as firmly opposed to the scientific
and abstract conception of art as a merely optical exercise divorced
from the primary feelings and emotions of humanity.

After thirteen years’ residence in Hereford, Cox determined to return to
London. He felt the need for opportunities of intercourse with his
brother artists and for a wider scope for his art. When he had left
London at the end of 1814 he had been surrounded by difficulties, and
his prospects had seemed far from bright. But in 1827 the outlook had
brightened. The trade of the country, fostered by many years of peace,
was now flourishing, and Cox himself was now possessed of a certain but
very small income. For though Cox’s name was by this time fairly well
known in the world of art he had often to face the unpleasant experience
of finding the whole of the twenty or thirty drawings he had exhibited
with the Water Colour Society returned unsold. When his drawings did
sell they commanded only very small prices, as the following entry from
his account book shows:

     “1830.

      July 5. Five water-colour drawings, _viz._, _Calais Pier_, _View in
              Ghent_, _Boat in the Scheldt near Dort_, _Minehead_, and
             _Landscape in Wales_--price for the five, £12.”

It was not till about 1836 that anything like a sustained demand for his
work came into existence. Even then, it was only his smaller drawings
that he could readily dispose of, and these only at the modest prices of
£5 or £6 each. Consequently, in London as in Hereford, it was upon his
work as a drawing-master that Cox had to rely for the main part of his
income.

It can scarcely be doubted that the effect upon Cox’s art of this
constant drudgery of teaching was mischievous. Besides frittering away
the best part of his time, thus preventing him from attempting works
that required sustained efforts, it had a tendency to force a mechanical
and facile dexterity upon his style--a quality hopelessly at variance
with all the most sincerely felt contents of his work. For the business
of the drawing-master in those days was very different from that which
now devolves upon an art-master. To-day a teacher of art does little
more than criticise the work which his pupils produce. In Cox’s time a
drawing-master had to go from one pupil’s house to another, making a
display of his own accomplishments. His lessons resolved themselves into
the making of show pieces. He sat down before the pupil and “showed how
it was done,” and the professional success of the teacher depended
largely upon the admiration he could excite in his pupils or their
parents and guardians at the apparent ease and rapidity with which he
could manufacture plausible imitations of works of art. That the habit
of working to excite the astonishment of the ignorant and uncritical
tended to bring something of commonness into Cox’s style can hardly be
doubted. That the daily round of making a show of himself and his
beloved art must have been peculiarly galling to a man of Cox’s simple
and transparently honest nature, needs little evidence. We can scarcely
wonder when his sympathetic biographer tells us that at times he would
say to his wife, “Oh, Mary, I cannot go out this morning to teach--I
feel I cannot do it.” At these times it required all his wife’s powers
of persuasion to induce him to overcome his repugnance; often she had to
put on her bonnet and mantle and accompany him to the pupil’s house.

In 1840, _i.e._, at the age of fifty-seven, Cox determined to cut
himself free from these depressing duties, and to devote the remainder
of his days to more purely artistic labours. By his own and his wife’s
frugality he had been able to save enough money to secure his old age
against want, and his son, who was now married and settled in London as
an artist, was able and willing to take over his father’s teaching
connection. Besides, Cox was tired of the noise and bustle of London,
and anxious to live among more rural surroundings. He therefore began to
look out for a house on the outskirts of Birmingham, his native town.
His choice fell upon an old house in Greenfield Lane, in the village of
Harborne, about two and a half miles from Birmingham, into which he and
his wife moved on June 20, 1841.

The house stood in a lane leading to Harborne Church, beyond which
meadows and open country stretched out in the direction of Hagley. The
garden was a large one, surrounded on both sides by trees, and Cox took
great interest in it, often working there himself. He enjoyed
cultivating broad-leaved plants, such as rhubarb and the various kinds
of docks, and he was especially fond of Scotch thistles and hollyhocks.
At Harborne, he spent some of the happiest years of his life; he was
happy in his home, in his work, and in his surroundings. As Mr. Solly
says, “Cox’s wants were few and simple; his ambition took no flight
beyond the constant aim of his life, namely, to excel in the practice of
his art. The inexhaustible wealth of nature, his genius, and the love of
his family and friends, sufficed to fill his cup with more happiness
than is allotted to most men; even when his steps were fast approaching
that goal to which all human efforts tend, he was still serene and
generally cheerful.” We need not wonder that the most moving and
powerful of all the artist’s works were painted after his removal to
Harborne.

From 1841 to the end in 1859, Cox’s artistic career was one of unbroken,
though limited, success. The weight of years only strengthened the grim
certainty with which he grasped the essentials of his art. All his
drawing-master dexterity gradually fell away from him, the trivialities
of imitative and explanatory art were quietly eliminated, and his art
took on the simplicity, the sincerity, and rugged human dignity of the
man’s own character.

Of the visits to Bettwys-y-Coed, of the painting of such masterpieces as
_The Welsh Funeral_, _The Peat Gatherers_, _Lancaster Sands_, _Green
Lanes_, and _Going to the Hayfield_, of his superb work in oil colour,
and indeed of all the closing events of the artist’s life, it is
impossible here to speak in detail. The whole story has been well and
fully told by admiring friends like Mr. Hall and Mr. Solly, who were
intimately associated with the life they describe, and to whose pages
the reader may be warmly recommended.

Reproductions of a number of charcoal and chalk sketches belonging to
this later period of his life have been included in the present volume.
Large charcoal drawings like _The Salt Marsh_ (Plate XXV.), _The Beach_
(Plate XXVII.), _Windy Weather_ (Plate XXVIII.), and _The Hill Side_
(Plate XXXIII.), lose something of their impressiveness when reduced in
size, as these have necessarily been, but enough remains, even in this
form, of their freshness, largeness of conception and sense of movement,
to delight the intelligent amateur. No one at all susceptible to the
higher beauties of art could remain insensible to the fascination of the
bold, synthetic handling of _The Peasants on Horseback_ (Plate III.). In
some of these late sketches--notably in the two _Near Kenilworth_
(Plates VII. and XXIV.)--the loose, flowing touch often seems a trifle
too disdainful of the individual forms of objects. But when the artist
is serenely self-possessed his style is delightfully intimate and
unbuttoned, a candid revelation of his sympathies and moods. When
thoroughly interested he becomes astonishingly vivid and succinct, as in
the _Kirkby Stephen_ (Plate XX.), _Llanrwst_ (Plate XVI.), and _Clapham,
Yorkshire_ (Plate XXII.). How much his art had become a matter of
feeling and impulse is shown by the glaring way he fails when his
sympathies have not been aroused; the draughtsmanship of the
_Architectural Study_ (Plate XXII.) is about as bad as draughtsmanship
can well be--bald, perfunctory, external. The pencil and stump drawing
of _Carnarvon Castle_ (Plate XXX.), for all its lightness and charm of
atmospheric suggestion, is “mappy” in draughtsmanship--its drawing being
mere “spacing,” without intimacy in the form or sympathy with the
structure. The drawing of _Rotterdam_ (Plate XLI.) is again external and
unsympathetic. These drawings might well have been chosen as
illustrations of the truth of one of Cox’s own remarks: “Merely to
paint” (or draw) “is not enough, for when no interest is felt nothing is
more natural than that none should be conveyed.”

From the passages quoted above from his “Treatise on Landscape Painting
and Effect”--in which this remark occurs--it is evident that Cox must be
classed among the Idealists rather than among the Realists or
Naturalists. The character of a picture, he insists, should be
determined by the character and appropriate sentiments of its principal
object; “every other object introduced should be subservient to it, and
the attraction of the one should be the attraction of the whole,” he
writes. He insists upon the necessity “of becoming thoroughly acquainted
with and obtaining a proper feeling of the subject,” and maintains that
“the picture should be complete and perfect in the mind before it is
ever traced upon the canvas.” And these were undoubtedly the principles
upon which his finest works were wrought. It is obviously a mistake to
class such a man with the realists or naturalists who place scientific
before artistic considerations, though it is easy to understand how the
Mid-Victorians made such a blunder. They confused what the language of
the schools describes as objective idealism with subjective idealism.
Compared with the emptiness and vapidity of a Barret, Cox may well have
seemed realistic and naturalistic. But his work has nothing of the
disjunctive observation or cold-blooded, rationalistic, inventory-making
of a typical realist like John Brett. Cox paints what Reynolds has
called “the unadulterated habits of nature.” He never aims at
“deceiving the eye,” “nor will he waste a moment upon those smaller
objects which only serve to catch the sense” and “divide the attention.”
The one great design he always keeps in view is that of “speaking to the
heart.”

It would be useless to pretend that Cox is altogether free from the
defects of his qualities. He is often too general, vague and empty.
Sometimes he is passive and timid, as though he hoped to get his effects
by merely “leaving out,” or by overlooking and scorning the
individuality of natural objects. But he possesses in abundance the
great and inspiriting virtues of the idealists, as well as some of their
defects. He takes us away from the world of bare unrelated fact into
regions where the human consciousness can beat its wings and feel glad.
His art is of the centre, thoroughly typical and national. He deals only
with essentials, with those dumb longings and primary passions that form
the obscure groundwork of life itself. His place is certainly among the
great figures of English art, beside Constable and Cozens and Girtin, as
one of the seers and prophets of the tenderness and strength of the
nation’s character.

I should like to take this opportunity to thank Mr. A. Walker, of 118,
New Bond Street--to whose kindness the publishers and editor are
indebted for permission to publish this selection from Cox’s drawings
and sketches--for his courtesy in permitting me to examine at my leisure
the whole of the drawings, sketches and sketch books of David Cox which
he is fortunate enough to possess.



ILLUSTRATIONS

[Illustration: PLATE II

OLD WESTMINSTER]

[Illustration: PLATE III

PEASANTS ON HORSEBACK]

[Illustration: PLATE IV

A ROADSIDE COTTAGE]

[Illustration: PLATE V

NEAR DINAS MOWDDWY, MERIONETHSHIRE]

[Illustration: PLATE VI

A FISHING VILLAGE]

[Illustration: PLATE VII

NEAR KENILWORTH]

[Illustration: PLATE VIII

CHEPSTOW]

[Illustration: PLATE IX

SCENE IN NORTH WALES]

[Illustration: PLATE X

A VILLAGE STREET]

[Illustration: PLATE XI

FOREGROUND STUDY]

[Illustration: PLATE XII

CHEPSTOW BRIDGE AND CASTLE]

[Illustration: PLATE XIII

STUDY OF TREES]

[Illustration: PLATE XIV

VIEW IN NORTH WALES]

[Illustration: PLATE XV

EARLY MORNING MIST]

[Illustration: PLATE XVI

LLANRWST]

[Illustration: PLATE XVII

HARDWICK]

[Illustration: PLATE XVIII

NEAR BIRMINGHAM]

[Illustration: PLATE XIX

AUTUMN WOODS]

[Illustration: PLATE XX

KIRKBY STEPHEN]

[Illustration: PLATE XXI

MOUNTAIN AND STREAM, NORTH WALES]

[Illustration: PLATE XXII

ARCHITECTURAL STUDY]

[Illustration: PLATE XXIII

GOODRICH CASTLE]

[Illustration: PLATE XXIV

NEAR KENILWORTH CASTLE]

[Illustration: PLATE XXV

THE SALT MARSH]

[Illustration: PLATE XXVI

KNOLE HOUSE, KENT]

[Illustration: PLATE XXVII

THE BEACH]

[Illustration: PLATE XXVIII

WINDY WEATHER]

[Illustration: PLATE XXIX

A STUDY OF TREES]

[Illustration: PLATE XXX

CARNARVON CASTLE]

[Illustration: PLATE XXXI

ON THE MOOR]

[Illustration: PLATE XXXII

CLAPHAM, YORKSHIRE]

[Illustration: PLATE XXXIII

THE HILL SIDE]

[Illustration: PLATE XXXIV

LOW TIDE]

[Illustration: PLATE XXXV

LLAUGHARNE CASTLE, CARMARTHEN BAY]

[Illustration: PLATE XXXVI

SKETCH OF ROCKS AND CASTLE]

[Illustration: PLATE XXXVII

DUTCH COAST SCENE]

[Illustration: PLATE XXXVIII

SCENE IN NORTH WALES]

[Illustration: PLATE XXXIX

NEAR RADLETT]

[Illustration: PLATE XL

NEAR KENILWORTH]

[Illustration: PLATE XLI

ROTTERDAM]

[Illustration: PLATE XLII

TREFKIW, NEAR LLANRWST]

[Illustration: PLATE XLIII

THE INN YARD]

[Illustration: PLATE XLIV

OLD WESTMINSTER]



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