English Painters Part 6

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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: OLD ENGLISH HOSPITALITY. _By_ GEORGE CATTERMOLE. A.D.

1839.]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

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 fas.h.i.+on 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 ill.u.s.trations 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 ill.u.s.tration 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--

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 d.u.c.h.ess of Devons.h.i.+re, 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 a.s.sociate of the Academy, and a year after was appointed Princ.i.p.al 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 princ.i.p.al 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 ill.u.s.trious 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 fas.h.i.+on.

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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 inst.i.tution 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 ill.u.s.trates 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 students.h.i.+p 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 cla.s.sic 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, Yorks.h.i.+re_.

THOMAS PHILLIPS (1770--1845) was a native of Dudley, and began as a gla.s.s painter at Birmingham. Coming to London, he was a.s.sisted 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 Ess.e.x.

Jackson's own portrait, by himself, is in the National Portrait Gallery.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

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 surpa.s.sed 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 a.s.sociations 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 was.h.i.+ng 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE GRAND Ca.n.a.l, 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 s.h.i.+pwreck_, and _The Sun rising in a Mist_. In _The Tenth Plague_, and _The G.o.ddess of Discord_, the influence of Poussin is visible, whilst Wilson is imitated in _aeneas with the Sibyl_, and _A View in Wales_. Turner was fond of matching himself against Claude; and not only did he try his powers in rivalry with the older masters, he delighted to enter into honest compet.i.tion with painters of the day, and when Wilkie's _Village Politicians_ was attracting universal notice, Turner produced his _Blacksmith's Shop_ in imitation of it. In his later pictures Turner sacrificed form to colour.

"Mist and vapour, lit by the golden light of morn, or crimsoned with the tints of evening, spread out to veil the distance, or rolled in clouds and storms, are the great characteristics of Turner's art as contrasted with the mild serenity of the calm unclouded heaven of Claude."

(_Redgrave._) Turner in his choice of colours forsook conventionality, and "went to the cataract for its iris, to the conflagration for its flames, asked of the sea its intensest azure, of the sky its clearest gold." (_Ruskin._) The same critic considers Turner's period of central power, entirely developed and entirely unabated, to begin with the _Ulysses_, and to close with the _Temeraire_, a period of ten years, 1829--1839.

JOHN CONSTABLE (1776--1837) was born at East Bergholt, in Suffolk, June 11th, 1776, and the sunny June weather in which the painter first saw the light seems to pervade all his pictures. Constable's father was a miller, and intended that his son should succeed to his business; it has been said also that it was proposed to educate him for holy orders.

Constable, however, was meant for a painter, and became one of the best delineators of English scenery. In 1800, he became student in the Royal Academy. In 1802, he exhibited his first picture. In 1819, he was elected A.R.A., and became a full member ten years after. Constable's earlier efforts were in the direction of historical painting and portraiture, but he found his true sphere in landscape. He was thoroughly English. No foreign master influenced him, and rustic life furnished all he needed. He said, "I love every style and stump and lane in the village: as long as I am able to hold a brush, I shall never cease to paint them." To this determination we owe some of the most pleasant English pictures, full of fresh, breezy life, rolling clouds, shower-wetted foliage, and all the greenery of island scenes. He loved to paint _under the sun_, and impart a glittering effect to his foliage which many of his critics could not understand. Indeed, Constable was not appreciated thoroughly till after his death. He seems to have known that this would be the case, for early in his career he wrote, "I feel now more than ever a decided conviction that I shall some time or other make some good pictures--pictures that shall be valuable to posterity, if I do not reap the benefit of them." Constable did not attempt bold or mountainous scenery, but loved the flat, sunny meadows of Suffolk, and declared that the river Stour made him a painter. In the National Gallery are his: _The Corn-field_, _The Valley Farm_ (see _Frontispiece_), (a view of "w.i.l.l.y 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_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 fas.h.i.+onable 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 cla.s.s are _Falstaff and Simple_, and _Anne Page and Slender_ (Sheepshanks Collection).

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 cla.s.sic 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 Paestum_ (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 Inst.i.tution 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_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 Inst.i.tution 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 a.s.signed to them. David Roberts is well known by "Sketches in the Holy Land, Syria, and Egypt."