English Painters Part 2

[Ill.u.s.tration: WILLIAM HOGARTH AND HIS DOG TRUMP. _By_ HOGARTH.

_In the National Gallery._]

WILLIAM HOGARTH was born in 1697 in s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+p Court, and sought work from booksellers. But, like many another poor scholar, he could not make a living, and died disappointed. After spending some time at school, William Hogarth, warned by the example of his father, determined to pursue a craft in preference to literature, and was apprenticed, probably in 1711, to Ellis Gamble, a silversmith in Cranbourne Alley. Here, though his drawings and engravings were mostly confined to heraldic devices and the like, the young artist gained accuracy of touch, to which he added truthfulness of design, and prepared himself to delineate that London life which was to furnish him with models for his art. He tells us how he determined to enter a wider field than that of mere silver-plate engraving, though at the age of twenty to engrave his own designs on copper was the height of his ambition. The men and women who jostled him in London streets, or rolled by him in their coaches, were his models. Besides the keenest powers of observation, and a sardonic, sympathizing, and pitying humour, he possessed a wonderfully accurate and retentive memory, which enabled him to impress a face or form on his mind, and reproduce it at leisure.

Occasionally, if some very attractive or singular face struck his fancy, he would sketch it on his thumb-nail, and thence transfer it. Hogarth tells us that "instead of burdening the memory with musty rules, or tiring the eye with copying dry or damaged pictures, I have ever found studying from nature the shortest and safest way of obtaining knowledge of my art." Thus, whether he was watching "society" on its way to court, or mingling in the midnight orgies of a tavern, Hogarth was storing portraits which were to appear, some in silks and satins, as in the _Marriage a la Mode_, others among the humours of _Beer Street_ and the misery of _Gin Lane_. Hogarth's apprentices.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+lling 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 ill.u.s.trate books with engravings and frontispieces. In "Mottraye's Travels" (1723) there are eighteen ill.u.s.trations by Hogarth, seven in the "Golden a.s.s of Apuleius" (1724), and five frontispieces in "Ca.s.sandra" (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," ill.u.s.trated 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 a la Mode_. For a time after his marriage Hogarth confined himself to painting portraits and conversation pieces, for which he was well paid, although Walpole declares that this "was the most ill-suited employment to a man whose turn was certainly not flattery." Truthfulness, however, is more valuable in a portrait than flattery, and we surely find it in Hogarth's portraits of himself, one in the National Gallery, and in that of _Captain Coram_, at the Foundling. In 1734, Hogarth published the first of those wonderful unspoken sermons against vice and folly, _A Harlot's Progress_, which was followed immediately by _A Rake's Progress_, issued in 1735. _A Harlot's Progress_, in six plates, met with an enthusiastic reception; it was a bold innovation on the cold stilted style of the day, and its terrible _reality_ stirred the hearts of all beholders. _A Rake's Progress_, in eight plates, was scarcely so popular, and the professors of the kind of art which Hogarth had satirised found many faults with the reformer. Hogarth was now a person of consequence, and the once unknown and struggling artist was the talk of the town. _The Sleeping Congregation_ is a satire on the heavy preachers and indifferent church-goers of that period. _The Distressed Poet_ and _A Midnight Modern Conversation_ soon followed. The latter, in which most of the figures are actual portraits, is considered in France and Germany the best of this master's single works. In due course appeared _The Enraged Musician_, of which a wit of the day observed that "it deafens one to look at it," and _The Strolling Actresses_, which Allan Cunningham describes as "one of the most imaginative and amusing of all the works of Hogarth."[G]

One of the best of Hogarth's life stories is the _Marriage a la Mode_, the original paintings of which are in the National Gallery; they appeared in prints in 1745. These well-known pictures ill.u.s.trate 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 ill.u.s.trative of the complete work. The same characters recur again and again, moved in different tableaux with varied pa.s.sions, one moral running through all, the beginning finding its natural climax in the end." Some of the most striking points in the satire of Hogarth's picture are brought out in the background, as in the first picture of _Marriage a la Mode_, where the works of "the black masters" are represented ludicrously, and the ceiling of the room is adorned with an unnatural picture of the destruction of the Egyptians in the Red Sea. In 1750 appeared _The March of the Guards to Finchley_, which is "steeped in humour and strewn with absurdities." It was originally dedicated to George II., but, so the story goes, the King was offended by a satire on his Guards, and he declared "I hate boetry and bainting; neither one nor the other ever did any good." Certain it is that Hogarth was disappointed by the reception of his work, and dedicated it to the King of Prussia. The painting of _The March to Finchley_, on publication of the print, was disposed of by lottery, and won by the Foundling Hospital. We cannot do more than mention some of the remaining works by which the satirist continued "to shoot Folly as she flies." _Beer Street_, and _Gin Lane_, ill.u.s.trate the advantages of drinking the national beverage, and the miseries following the use of gin. _The c.o.c.kpit_ 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 pa.s.sions 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 a.n.a.lysis 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 pa.s.sed 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 n.o.blest 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_."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

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 circ.u.mstances 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 G.o.dfrey 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 s.h.i.+pley 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 inst.i.tution, 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 pa.s.s 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, Montgomerys.h.i.+re, 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 wors.h.i.+pped, 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 p.a.w.nbrokers, who, so it is said, could not sell them again. Poverty and neglect soured the painter's temper, and made him irritable and reckless. He had many enemies, and even Sir Joshua Reynolds treated him with injustice. Wilson was one of the original thirty-six members of the Royal Academy, and in 1776 applied for and obtained the post of Librarian to that body, the small salary helping the struggling man to live. The last years of his life were brightened by better fortune. A brother left him a legacy, and in 1780 Wilson retired to a pleasant home at Llanberis, Carnarvon, where he died two years later. Mr. Redgrave says of him: "There is this praise due to our countryman--that our landscape art, which had heretofore been derived from the meaner school of Holland, following his great example, looked thenceforth to Italy for its inspiration; that he proved the power of native art to compete on this ground also with the art of the foreigner, and prepared the way for the coming men, who, embracing Nature as their mistress, were prepared to leave all and follow her."

Wilson frequently repeated his more successful pictures. _The Ruins of the Villa of Maecenas, at Tivoli_ (National Gallery), was painted five times by him. In the same Gallery are _The Destruction of Niobe's Children_, _A Landscape with Figures_, three _Views in Italy_, _Lake Avernus with the Bay of Naples in the distance_, &c. In the Duke of Westminster's collection are _Apollo and the Seasons_ and _The River Dee_. Wilson, like many another man of genius, lived before his time, and was forced one day to ask Barry, the Royal Academician, if he knew any one mad enough to employ a landscape painter, and if so, whether he would recommend him.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 CaeSAR IBBETSON (1759--1817), who painted landscapes with cattle and figures and rustic incidents with much success.

JOSHUA REYNOLDS (1723--1792) was born at Plympton, Devon, the son of a clergyman who was a master in the grammar school. His father had intended him for a doctor, but nature decided that Joshua Reynolds should be a painter. He preferred to read Richardson's "Treatise on Painting" to any other book, and when his taste for art became manifest he was sent to London to study with Hudson, the popular portrait painter of the day. Before this time, however, the young Reynolds had studied "The Jesuit's Perspective" with such success that he astonished his father by drawing Plympton school. There is at Plymouth a portrait of the _Rev. Thomas Smart_, tutor in Lord Edgc.u.mbe'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 Devons.h.i.+re, 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 fas.h.i.+on 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 a.s.sisted 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 Gra.s.s_ (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 t.i.tian, 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. t.i.tian paints n.o.bler pictures, and Van Dyck had n.o.bler 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 a.s.sert 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 n.o.bility and gentry, and which are now frequently seen on the walls of Burlington House as each "Old Masters"

Exhibition pa.s.ses 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 pa.s.sed 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 friends.h.i.+p 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 ma.s.ses. 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, pa.s.sed 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."

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 Yorks.h.i.+reman--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.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

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 fas.h.i.+on 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.