It was not till the time of Banks and Flaxman, that the English school
had produced any notable specimens of the lofty and heroic style in
sculpture. Wilton, Bacon, and Nollekens, were respectable in their line,
which was nearly confined to allegorical monuments and busts.
Roubilliac, though eminently unclassical, possessed a superior style of
art, and has executed some works which for strength and liveliness of
expression may challenge competition in this or any other country. But
the attainments and genius of the two first-mentioned artists were of a
different, and a loftier class. Those, however, who trace the history of
the lives of Flaxman and Banks, will find, that whatever they achieved
in the higher departments of sculpture was due solely to their ardent
pursuit of excellence, almost unaided by that patronage, which, in this
country, has been so liberally bestowed on other branches of the fine
arts.
The heroic beauty and noble proportions of the Mourning Achilles, fully
establish the claim of Banks to a high rank as a poetic sculptor; this
fine work of art, however, remained for years in plaster during his
life, and after his death was presented to the British Gallery, where it
now stands in the hall, “as a warning,” observes Mr. Allan Cunningham,
“to all sculptors who enter, that works of classic fancy find slender
encouragement here!” With respect to Flaxman, in an early period of his
professional career, he executed the outline illustrations of Homer,
Æschylus, and Dante, which at once established his fame; and yet, during
a long life, no single patron called upon him to embody in marble any
one of these lofty conceptions, the very existence of which forms the
chief glory of the English school of poetic design.
The progress of sculpture in this country has been very recently traced
by Mr. Allan Cunningham, in his amusing ‘Memoirs of British Sculptors.’
Of these, the last, and most interesting, is that of Flaxman, from the
spirited and amusing pages of which, together with the memoir prefixed
to the Lectures on Sculpture, this short account has been chiefly
extracted.
John Flaxman, the second son of a moulder of figures, who kept a shop in
the Strand for the sale of plaster casts, was born in 1755. Like most
who have been eminent as artists, he early manifested a taste for
drawing. As soon as he could hold a pencil, he took delight in copying
whatever he saw, and at an age when most children are engrossed with
childish sports, he had read many books, and had begun to trace upon
paper the lineaments and actions of those heroes who had engaged his
fancy. Numerous stories are told of his fondness for that art to which
his mature energies were devoted; and, allowing somewhat for the fond
recollections of parents and friends, it is fully established that young
Flaxman early showed proofs both of application and genius. To this
development of his talents, his bodily constitution may have lent some
aid, for his health from infancy was delicate, and a weak, and somewhat
deformed frame, indisposed him from joining in the usual games of
children.
His station in life did not enable him to profit by the common means of
education; he gathered his knowledge from various sources, and mastered
what he wanted by some of those ready methods which form part of the
inspirations of genius. The introduction, through the means of an early
patron, Mr. Mathew, to Mrs. Barbauld, contributed to improve his
education and form his taste.
In his fifteenth year he became a student in the Royal Academy. Here he
formed an intimacy with Blake and Stothard, both artists of original
talent; but, like their more eminent companion, less favoured by fortune
than many not so deserving of patronage and applause.
At the Academy, Flaxman obtained the silver medal, but in the contest
for the gold one, he was worsted by Engleheart, a name now entirely
forgotten. Flaxman, however, though humbled and mortified, was only
stimulated by this defeat to greater exertions and more unwearied
application.
The narrow circumstances of his father did not allow him to devote his
whole time to unproductive study. His first employment was for the
Wedgewoods; and to this fortunate combination of genius in the artist,
and enterprise, skill, and taste in the manufacturers, the sudden and
rapid improvement of the porcelain of this country is mainly to be
ascribed. “The subjects executed by Flaxman were chiefly small groups in
very low relief, from subjects of ancient verse and history; many of
which,” observes Mr. A. Cunningham, “are equal in beauty and simplicity
to his designs for marble: the Etruscan vases and the architectural
ornaments of Greece supplied him with the finest shapes; these he
embellished with his own inventions, and a taste for forms of elegance
began to be diffused over the land. Flaxman loved to allude, even when
his name was established, to these humble labours; and since his death,
the original models have been eagerly sought after.” A set of chessmen,
also executed for the Wedgewoods, are exceedingly beautiful.
Whilst earning by his labour a decent subsistence, he continued his
devotion to the pursuit of his art, making designs from the Greek poets,
the Pilgrim’s Progress, and the Bible. He exhibited various works at the
Academy; but it does not appear that he was enabled by patronage to
execute any of these in marble, and it is, perhaps, owing to the little
practice that he had in early life in this mode of working, that his
admitted want of excellence in this branch of the art of sculpture is to
be attributed.
In 1782 he left his father’s home, and married an amiable and
accomplished woman, whose society and affection formed the chief
happiness of his after life. All those who knew them, describe in
glowing terms the harmony and mutual affection in which they lived. In
1787 he determined to visit Rome. Two monuments which he executed before
his departure deserve notice. One is in memory of Collins. It represents
the poet seated, reading what he told Dr. Johnson was his only book,
‘THE BIBLE,’ whilst his lyre and poetical compositions lie neglected on
the ground. The second is erected in Gloucester cathedral, to Mrs.
Morley, who perished with her child at sea, and is represented as rising
with the infant from the waves, at the summons of angels. The simple and
serene beauty of this work is admirably suited for monumental sculpture.
How he profited whilst at Rome by the study of those noble specimens of
ancient art, to which modern artists resort as the best school of
excellence, is shown in the outline illustrations of Homer, Æschylus,
and Dante; works which spread his fame throughout Europe, and at once
stamped the character of the English School of Design. These
compositions, which have been the admiration of every nation where art
is cultivated, which have been repeatedly published in Germany and
Italy, as well as in England, and which have been commented on with
unlimited praise by Schlegel, and almost every other modern writer on
the fine arts, were made, the Homeric series for fifteen shillings;
those taken from Æschylus and Dante, for one guinea each. It is not
creditable to English taste that this country does not possess a single
group, or even bas-relief, executed from them, although the author lived
for more than thirty years after their publication.
Of the illustrations of the Iliad, there are in all thirty-nine; of the
Odyssey, thirty-four. Of the designs from Dante, thirty-eight are taken
from the Hell, thirty-eight from the Purgatory, and thirty-three from
the Paradise. The Homeric series was made for Mrs. Hare. The
illustrations of Æschylus were undertaken at the desire of the Countess
Spencer; and those of the Divina Commedia were executed for Mr. Thomas
Hope, one of Flaxman’s early patrons, for whom, whilst at Rome, he
executed in marble a very beautiful small-sized group of Cephalus and
Aurora.
Of these three series, the Homeric is the most popular. This preference
may, perhaps, be accounted for by the Grecian poem being more generally
familiar than that of Dante: yet the subject of the Divina Commedia in
many respects appears to have been more congenial to the talents of the
artist; and perhaps an impartial judgment will pronounce, that of all
the works of Flaxman, the designs from Dante best exhibit his peculiar
genius. During his stay at Rome he executed for Frederick, Earl of
Bristol and Bishop of Derry, a group in marble, which consisted of four
figures larger than life, representing the fury of Athamas, from Ovid’s
Metamorphoses: by this he lost money, the price agreed on being only six
hundred guineas; a sum insufficient to cover the expenses of the work.
The recollection of this piece of patronage was so disgusting, to use
the word by which he himself once characterized it, that in after life
he could not bear to talk on the subject.
Whilst in Italy he made numerous drawings and memoranda upon ancient
art, which afterwards formed the groundwork of his lectures on
sculpture. After an absence of seven years he returned to England, and
engaged a house in Buckingham-street, in which he continued to reside
till his death.
His first great work after his return was a monument to the Earl of
Mansfield. In 1797 he was elected an associate, and in 1800, a member of
the Royal Academy, to which he presented, on his admission, a marble
group of Apollo and Marpessa. He visited for a short time, in 1802, the
splendid collections of the Louvre, in order to revive his early
recollection of the works of art which had been brought from Rome. In
1810, a professorship of sculpture having been established by the
Academy, he was elected to fill the chair, and his lectures were
commenced in 1811. Those who had formed high expectations of eloquence,
and of felicity of diction and illustration, were disappointed. The
sedate gravity of his manner, his unimpassioned tone, and the somewhat
dull catalogue of statues and works of art which he occasionally
introduced, conduced to tire a general audience. But the ten lectures,
which have been published since his death, must always furnish an
important manual to every student in sculpture. The lectures on Beauty,
and the contrast of Ancient and Modern Sculpture, are peculiarly
interesting, and embody nearly all which can be said on the leading
principles of art. In addition to these lectures he wrote several
anonymous articles, which are enumerated by Mr. Cunningham. These were
the ‘Character of the Works of Romney,’ for Hayley’s life of that
artist, and either the whole or part of the articles, Armour,
Basso-relievo, Beauty, Bronze, Bust, Composition, Cast, Ceres, in Rees’s
Cyclopædia. Many of the opinions put forth in these different essays he
has embodied in his lectures.
Besides the designs already noticed, he executed numerous illustrations
of the Pilgrim’s Progress, forty designs for Sotheby’s translation of
Oberon, and thirty-six designs from Hesiod, illustrating the story of
Pandora, and exhibiting the effects of her descent on earth. The
subjects from Hesiod were those in which his poetic fancy appeared most
to delight.
In 1820, Flaxman lost his wife, with whom he had lived in uninterrupted
happiness for thirty-eight years, and from the effects of this
bereavement he seemed never entirely to recover. A beloved sister, and
the sister of her whom he most loved, remained to him, and continued his
companions till his death.
At the time of this domestic misfortune the artist was in the zenith of
his fame. Commissions poured in, and among them, one order especially
worthy of his talents, for a group of the Archangel Michael vanquishing
Satan, given by the Earl of Egremont, a nobleman who has omitted no
opportunity of patronising the fine arts in this country. This group
exhibits more grandeur of conception than any work of art of modern
times. Unfortunately the marble of which it was cut was much
discoloured, and the work was not entirely finished at his death.
Amongst the finest of Flaxman’s later productions, Mr. Cunningham
enumerates his Pysche, the pastoral Apollo (also in the possession of
Lord Egremont), and two small statues of Michael Angelo and Raphael. But
the most remarkable of them is the shield of Achilles, designed and
modelled for Messrs. Rundell and Bridge, the silversmiths. The diameter
is three feet, and the description of Homer has been strictly followed.
In the centre is the chariot of the sun, in bold relief, almost starting
from the surface, surrounded by the most remarkable of the heavenly
bodies: around the rim is rolled the ever flowing ocean. The
intermediate space is occupied by twelve scenes, beautifully designed in
conformity with the words of the poet. For this the artist was paid
£620. Four casts of it in silver were taken, the first for the late
King, another for the Duke of York, the third for Lord Lonsdale, the
fourth for the Duke of Northumberland.
Flaxman died on the 7th of December, 1826, of an inflammation of the
lungs, the result of a cold. In person he was small, and slightly
deformed, but his countenance was peculiarly placid and benign, and
greatly expressive of genius. His dress, manners, and mode of life were
simple in the extreme: he was never found at the parties of the rich and
great, and mixed little even with his professional brethren. His life
was spent in a small circle of affectionate friends, in his studio, and
in his workshops, where those whom he employed looked up to him as a
father.
Amongst the different classes of his works, the religious and the poetic
were those in which he chiefly excelled. The number of pure and exalted
conceptions, which he has left sketched in plaster or outlined in
pencil, is quite extraordinary. “His solitude,” observes Sir Thomas
Lawrence, “was made enjoyment to him by a fancy teeming with images of
tenderness, purity, or grandeur. His genius, in the strictest sense of
the word, was original and inventive.” Among the most important of his
works not before noticed, is his monument to the memory of Sir Francis
Baring, in Mitcheldever Church, Hants, a work of exquisite beauty, both
in design and expression, embodying the words, “Thy kingdom come—thy
will be done—deliver us from evil.” He also executed, among others,
monuments to the memory of Mary Lushington, of Lewisham, in Kent, to the
Countess Spencer, to the Rev. Mr. Clowes, of St. John’s Church,
Manchester, and to the Yarborough family at Street Thorpe, near York.
This last, and one to Edward Bulmer, representing an aged man
instructing a youthful pair, Flaxman considered the best of his
compositions.
He executed several historical monuments to naval and military
commanders. These deal too largely in emblems and allegories,
Britannias, lions, victories, and wreaths of laurel, to add much to the
reputation of the artist: especially as his forte lay in the exquisite
feeling and grace of his conceptions, not in manual dexterity of
execution; the chief merit to which such cold and uninteresting
productions can lay claim. He executed statues of Sir Joshua Reynolds;
of Sir John Moore, in bronze, of colossal size, for Glasgow; of Pitt,
for the Town-Hall of the same city; of Burns; and of Kemble, in the
character of Coriolanus. That of Sir Joshua Reynolds (one of his
earliest) is perhaps the best. Many of his works were sent abroad: for
India he executed a statue of the Rajah of Tanjore, and a monument to
the celebrated Schwartz; two monuments in memory of Lord Cornwallis, a
figure of Warren Hastings, and a statue of the Marquess of Hastings.
Since the death of Flaxman, six plates have been published by his
sister, from his designs. The subjects are religious; the engravings are
admirable fac-similes of the original drawings, which were made in his
best time; and perhaps there is no published work of his more
illustrative of the peculiar taste and genius of the artist.
Our Portrait has been engraved from a fine picture by Jackson, in the
possession of Lord Dover. There is also an excellent portrait painted by
Howard, and a good bust of Flaxman was executed by Baily some few years
before our artist’s death.
[Illustration: [“Feed the hungry,” from a bas-relief of Flaxman.]]
[Illustration]