In Plympton, Devonshire, July 16, 1723, the great English painter, Sir
Joshua Reynolds, was born. His father, Samuel, and his grandfather,
John, were both ministers, while his mother and grandmother were both
daughters of clergymen.
[Illustration: SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.]
Samuel Reynolds was a gentle, kindly man, master of the grammar school
at Plympton, supporting his eleven children on the meagre income of
seven hundred and fifty dollars a year. He had married Theophila Potter,
when she was twenty-three, the lovely daughter of a lovely young mother,
Theophila Baker, who, marrying against the consent of her father, was
disinherited by him, and at the early death of her devoted husband wept
herself blind, and died broken-hearted.
Joshua, the seventh child of Samuel and Theophila, was a thoughtful,
aspiring boy, who cared more for drawing than for Ovid, and spent his
early years in copying the illustrations from "Plutarch's Lives" and
Jacob Cats's "Book of Emblems," which his grandmother, on his father's
side, had brought with her from Holland. His sisters were also fond of
drawing, and as pencils and paper could not be afforded in the
minister's family, they drew on the whitewashed walls of a long passage,
with burnt sticks. The boy's sketches were the poorest, and he was
therefore nicknamed "the clown."
On the back of a Latin exercise, the lad drew a wall with a window in
it. Under it, the not highly delighted father, who wished his boy to be
a learned doctor, wrote: "This is drawn by Joshua in school, out of pure
idleness." But when in his eighth year the boy made a fine sketch of the
grammar school with its cloister, having studied carefully the Jesuit's
"Treatise on Perspective," the astonished father said, "Now, this
exemplifies what the author of the 'Perspective' says in his preface,
'that, by observing the rules laid down in this book, a man may do
wonders;' for this is wonderful."
Joshua was fond of literary composition, and early composed some rules
of conduct for himself, which influenced him through life. He said, "The
great principle of being happy in this world is not to mind or be
affected with small things," a maxim which he carried out in his
peaceful, self-poised, and remarkably happy life.
"If you take too much care of yourself, nature will cease to take care
of you," he said, and thus without excessive self-consciousness he did
his great work and reaped his great reward.
A book did for Joshua what a book has often done before, became an
inspiration, and therefore led to grand results. He read Richardson's
"Theory of Painting," wherein was expressed the hope and belief that
there was a future for England in art. "No nation under heaven so nearly
resembles the ancient _Greeks_ and _Romans_ as we. There is a haughty
courage, an elevation of thought, a greatness of taste, a love of
liberty, a simplicity and honesty amongst us which we inherit from our
ancestors, and which belong to us as _Englishmen_; and 'tis in these
this resemblance consists.... A time may come when future writers may be
able to add the name of an _English_ painter.... I am no prophet, nor
the son of a prophet, but, considering the necessary connection of
causes and effects, and upon seeing some links of that fatal chain, I
will venture to pronounce (as exceedingly probable) that if ever the
ancient, great, and beautiful taste in painting revives, it will be in
_England_; but not till _English_ painters, conscious of the dignity of
their country and of their profession, resolve to do honor to both by
Piety, Virtue, Magnanimity, Benevolence, and a contempt of everything
that is really unworthy of them.
"And now I cannot forbear wishing that some younger painter than myself,
and one who has had greater and more early advantages, would practise
the magnanimity I have recommended, in this single instance of
attempting and hoping only to equal the greatest masters of whatsoever
age or nation. What were they which we are not or may not be? What
helps had any of them which we have not?"
The boy Joshua was electrified by these words. Perhaps he could become
"equal to the greatest masters." He told a friend, Edmond Malone, that
this book so delighted and inflamed his mind "that Raphael appeared to
him superior to the most illustrious names of ancient or modern time."
Young Reynolds painted his first oil painting, now in the possession of
Deble Boger, Esq., of Anthony, near Plymouth, when he was twelve years
old. It was a portrait of Rev. Thomas Smart, a tutor in the family of
Lord Edgcumbe. In church, while Smart was preaching, Joshua made a
sketch on his thumb-nail of the minister. He enlarged this sketch in a
boat-house, using part of the sail for his canvas.
Good Samuel Reynolds began to wonder whether a boy who could paint at
twelve would make a successful apothecary, and, not being able to decide
the question alone, he consulted Mr. Craunch. This gentleman, of small
fortune, resided at Plympton, and was the father of pretty Betsy
Craunch, a sweetheart of Peter Pindar (Dr. Wolcot). The lad himself
said, "he would rather be an apothecary than an _ordinary_ painter; but
if he could be bound to an eminent master, he should choose the latter."
Mr. Craunch advised the study of art, and through his influence and that
of his friend, a lawyer, Mr. Cutcliffe of Bideford, the lad was sent to
Thomas Hudson, the principal portrait painter in England, living in
Great Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn, London. He was the pupil of
Richardson, married his daughter, and thus Reynolds was brought again
under a kindred influence to that which had inspired him in the "Theory
of Painting."
Hudson was to receive six hundred dollars for care of his pupil, half of
which was loaned by a married sister till he should be able to repay
her. The boy made drawings from ancient statuary and from Guercino, and
was delighted with his work, writing home to his father, "While I am
doing this I am the happiest creature alive."
One morning, while purchasing some pictures for Hudson at an auction
room, he was overjoyed to see a great poet, Alexander Pope, enter the
place, and bow to the crowd, who opened a passage for him. Among others,
Pope shook hands with the ardent young artist. He described the poet as
"about four feet six inches high; very hump-backed and deformed. He wore
a black coat, and, according to the fashion of that time, had on a
little sword. He had a large and very fine eye, and a long, handsome
nose; his mouth had those peculiar marks which are always found in the
mouths of crooked persons, and the muscles which run across the cheek
were so strongly marked that they seemed like small cords."
Though bound to Hudson for four years, at the end of two years Joshua
was dismissed, ostensibly for neglect to carry a picture at the time
ordered, but in reality, it is believed, because the master was jealous
that he had painted so admirably the portrait of an elderly
serving-woman in the house. He returned to Devonshire, and settled at
Plymouth, where he soon painted about thirty portraits of the magnates
of the neighborhood, at fifteen dollars apiece.
He worked earnestly, saying, "Those who are determined to excel must go
to their work whether willing or unwilling, morning, noon, and night,
and they will find it to be no play, but, on the contrary, very hard
labor."
Young Reynolds made a portrait in 1746 of Captain Hamilton, father of
the Marquis of Abercorn, which was the first of his pictures which
brought the artist into notice. He also painted Hamilton in a picture
with Lord and Lady Eliot. The latter married Hamilton after her
husband's death.
"This Captain Hamilton," we find in Prior's Life of Malone, "was a very
uncommon character; very obstinate, very whimsical, very pious, a rigid
disciplinarian, yet very kind to his men. He lost his life as he was
proceeding from his ship to land at Plymouth. The wind and sea were
extremely high; and his officers remonstrated against the imprudence of
venturing in a boat where the danger seemed imminent. But he was
impatient to see his wife, and would not be persuaded. In a few minutes
after he left the ship, the boat was upset and turned keel upwards.
"The captain, being a good swimmer, trusted to his skill, and would not
accept a place on the keel, in order to make room for others, and then
clung to the edge of the boat. Unluckily, he had kept on his great-coat.
At length, seeming exhausted, those on the keel exhorted him to take a
place beside them, and he attempted to throw off the coat; but, finding
his strength fail, told the men he must yield to his fate, and soon
afterwards sank, while _singing a psalm_."
This year, young Reynolds, now twenty-three, painted his own portrait.
Says Tom Taylor, in his "Life and Times of Sir Joshua Reynolds," begun
by Charles Robert Leslie, the royal academician, and finished by Taylor,
"It is masterly in handling, and powerful, almost Rembrandtesque, in
_chiaro-oscuro_. The hair flows, without powder, in long ringlets over
the shoulders. The white collar and ruffled front of the shirt are
thrown open. A dark cloak is flung over the shoulders."
This year, 1746, Samuel Reynolds died, and the young painter took his
two unmarried sisters to Plymouth to provide for them in his new home.
Reynolds learned much at this time from William Gandy, whose father had
been a successful pupil of Van Dyck. One of this painter's maxims, which
Joshua never forgot, was that "a picture ought to have a richness in its
texture, as if the colors had been composed of cream or cheese, and the
reverse of a hard and husky or dry manner."
Three years later, an unlooked-for pleasure came to Reynolds. He had
always longed to visit Rome for study, but his father was too poor to
provide the means, and artists, as a rule, do not grow rich early in
their career, if at all. The famous Admiral Keppel, then a commodore
only twenty-four years old, appointed to a command in the Mediterranean,
put into Plymouth for repairs to his ship. Here, at the house of Lord
Edgcumbe, he met the young painter, and was so pleased with his
courteous manner and frank kindly nature that he offered him passage on
his vessel. The offer was gladly accepted, and they sailed for Lisbon,
May 11, 1749. From here they went to Cadiz, Gibraltar, Tetuan, Algiers,
the Island of Minorca, where Reynolds painted nearly all the officers of
the garrison, then to Genoa, Leghorn, Florence, and, finally, Rome.
"Now," he said, "I am at the height of my wishes, in the midst of the
greatest works of art that the world has produced."
He remained at Rome two years, his married sisters, Mrs. Palmer and Mrs.
Johnson, advancing the money for his expenses. He studied and copied
many of the works of Raphael, Michael Angelo, Titian, Rubens, Rembrandt,
and others, and filled several journals with his art notes. Two of these
books are now carefully preserved in the British Museum, two in the
Sloane Museum, and several in the Lenox Gallery in New York.
At first, Reynolds was disappointed in the works of Raphael, but, said
he, "I did not for a moment conceive or suppose that the name of
Raphael, and those admirable paintings in particular, owed their
reputation to the ignorance and the prejudice of mankind; on the
contrary, my not relishing them as I was conscious I ought to have done
was one of the most humiliating things that ever happened to me. I found
myself in the midst of works executed upon principles with which I was
unacquainted.
"I felt my ignorance, and stood abashed. All the indigested notions of
painting which I had brought with me from England, where the art was at
the lowest ebb,--it could not, indeed, be lower,--were to be totally
done away with and eradicated from my mind. It was necessary, as it is
expressed on a very solemn occasion, that I should become as _a little
child_. Notwithstanding my disappointment, I proceeded to copy some of
those excellent works. I viewed them again and again; I even affected to
feel their merits, and to admire them more than I really did. In a short
time a new taste and new perceptions began to dawn upon me, and I was
convinced that I had originally formed a false opinion of the perfection
of art, and that this great painter was entitled to the high rank which
he holds in the estimation of the world....
"Having since that period frequently revolved the subject in my mind, I
am now clearly of opinion that a relish for the higher excellences of
the art is an acquired taste, which no man ever possessed without long
cultivation and great labor and attention.... It is the florid style
which strikes at once, and captivates the eye, for a time, without ever
satisfying the judgment. Nor does painting in this respect differ from
other arts. A just and poetical taste and the acquisition of a nice
discriminative musical ear are equally the work of time."
In making the studies from Raphael in the Vatican, Reynolds caught so
severe a cold as to produce deafness, from which he never recovered, and
was obliged to use an ear-trumpet all his life. He could not help
observe the superficiality of the average tourist. He said, "Some
Englishmen, while I was in the Vatican, came there, and spent above six
hours in writing down whatever the antiquary dictated to them. They
scarcely ever looked at the paintings the whole time. Instead of
examining the beauties of the works of fame, and why they were esteemed,
they only inquire the subject of the picture and the name of the
painter, the history of a statue and where it is found, and write that
down."
Later, Reynolds journeyed to Bologna, Modena, Parma, and Venice,
studying the methods of the Venetian painters. He says, "When I observed
an extraordinary effect of light and shade in any picture, I took a leaf
out of my pocketbook, and darkened every part of it in the same
gradation of light and shade as the picture, leaving the white paper
untouched to represent the light, and this without any attention to the
subject, or to the drawing of the figures. A few trials of this kind
will be sufficient to give their conduct in the management of their
lights. After a few experiments, I found the paper blotted nearly alike.
Their general practice appeared to be, to allow not above a quarter of
the picture for the light, including in this portion both the principal
and secondary lights; another quarter to be kept as dark as possible;
and the remaining half kept in mezzotint or half-shadow. Rubens appears
to have admitted rather more light than a quarter, and Rembrandt much
less, scarcely an eighth: by this conduct, Rembrandt's light is
extremely brilliant, but it costs too much; the rest of the picture is
sacrificed to this one object."
Reynolds longed to be at home again. So great was his love for England
that when, at Venice, he heard at the opera a ballad that had been
popular in London, it brought tears to his eyes.
Reynolds settled in London on his return from the Continent, after
spending three months in Devonshire. He took a suite of handsome
apartments in St. Martin's Lane, his sister Frances, six years younger
than himself, being his housekeeper. She failed to make her brother
happy, through her peculiar temperament. She was, says Madame d'Arblay,
"a woman of worth and understanding, but of a singular character; who,
unfortunately for herself, made, throughout life, the great mistake of
nourishing a singularity which was her bane, as if it had been her
greatest blessing.... It was that of living in an habitual perplexity
of mind and irresolution of conduct, which to herself was restlessly
tormenting, and to all around her was teasingly wearisome.
"Whatever she suggested or planned one day was reversed the next; though
resorted to on the third, as if merely to be again rejected on the
fourth; and so on almost endlessly; for she rang not the changes on her
opinions and designs, in order to bring them into harmony and practice,
but wavering, to stir up new combinations and difficulties, till she
found herself in the midst of such chaotic obstructions as could chime
in with no given purpose, but must needs be left to ring their own peal,
and to begin again just where they began at first."
Frances copied her brother's pictures, which copies, Reynolds said,
"make other people laugh, and me cry." Dr. Samuel Johnson said she was
"very near to purity itself;" and of her "Essay on Taste," "There are in
these few pages or remarks such a depth of penetration, such nicety of
observation, as Locke or Pascal might be proud of."
Reynolds now painted the portraits of Sir James Colebrooke, the Duchess
of Hamilton, the Countess of Coventry, and the Dukes of Devonshire and
Grafton. The two ladies were two beautiful Irish sisters. Horace Walpole
tells us "how even the noble mob in the drawing-room clambered upon
chairs and tables to look at them; how their doors were mobbed by crowds
eager to see them get into their chairs, and places taken early at the
theatres when they were expected; how seven hundred people sat up all
night, in and about a Yorkshire inn, to see the Duchess of Hamilton get
into her post-chaise in the morning; while a Worcester shoemaker made
money by showing the shoe he was making for the Countess of Coventry."
The latter, the elder and lovelier, died seven years after her marriage,
from consumption. The Duchess of Hamilton, Reynolds painted again five
years later, and a third time in a red dress and hat, on horseback, the
Duke standing near her.
"The evident desire which Reynolds had," writes Northcote, his pupil and
biographer, "to render his pictures perfect to the utmost of his
ability, and in each succeeding instance to surpass the former,
occasioned his frequently making them inferior to what they had been in
the course of the process; and when it was observed to him that probably
he had never sent out to the world any one of his paintings in as
perfect a state as it had been, he answered 'that he believed the remark
was very just; but that, notwithstanding, he certainly gained ground by
it on the whole, and improved himself by the experiment;' adding, 'if
you are not bold enough to run the risk of losing, you can never hope to
gain.'
"With the same wish of advancing himself in the art, I have heard him
say that whenever a new sitter came to him for a portrait, he always
began it with a full determination to make it the best picture he had
ever painted; neither would he allow it to be an excuse for his failure
to say 'the subject was a bad one for a picture;' there was always
nature, he would observe, which, if well treated, was fully sufficient
for the purpose."
The portrait of his friend Admiral Keppel, standing on a sandy beach,
and back of him a tempestuous sea, did much to establish the reputation
of Reynolds. He painted eight other pictures of this brave man, who
entered the navy at ten and at eighteen had been round the world.
"Keppel was the first of many heroes painted by Reynolds," writes
Leslie, "who was never excelled, even by Velasquez, in the expression of
heroism. So anxious was he to do all possible justice to his gallant
friend, and so difficult did he find it to please himself, that after
several sittings he effaced all he had done, and began the picture
again....
"From an early period Reynolds adopted what he strongly recommended in
his Discourses, the practice of drawing with the hair pencil instead of
the port-crayon; and this constant use of the brush gave him a command
of the instrument, if ever equalled, certainly never exceeded, for there
are marvels of delicacy and of finish in his execution, combined with a
facility and a spirit unlike anything upon the canvases of any other
painter. I am far from meaning that in the works of other great masters
there are not many excellences which Reynolds did not possess; but what
I would note is that, though he was all his life studying the works of
other artists, he could not, and it was fortunate that he could not,
escape from his own manner into theirs."
Reynolds once said to Northcote, "There is not a man on earth who has
the least notion of coloring; we all of us have it equally to seek for
and find out, as at present it is totally lost to the art.... I had not
an opportunity of being early initiated in the principles of coloring;
no man, indeed, could teach me. If I have never been settled with
respect to coloring, let it at the same time be remembered that my
unsteadiness in this respect proceeded from an inordinate desire to
possess every kind of excellence that I saw in the works of others,
without considering that there are in coloring, as in style, excellences
which are incompatible with each other; however, this pursuit, or,
indeed, any similar pursuit, prevents the artist from being tired of his
art.... I tried every effect of color; and, leaving out every color in
its turn, showed every color that I could do without it. As I
alternately left out every color, I tried every new color, and often, it
is well known, failed....
"I considered myself as playing a great game; and, instead of beginning
to save money, I laid it out faster than I got it, in purchasing the
best examples of art that could be produced, for I even borrowed money
for this purpose. The possession of pictures by Titian, Vandyck,
Rembrandt, etc., I considered as the best kind of wealth." He said, in
order to obtain one of Titian's best works he "would be content to ruin
himself."
Reynolds was probably never surpassed in the drawing of the face, but
was not always correct in the human form, because of insufficient
knowledge of anatomy.
During Reynolds's second year in London, he had one hundred and twenty
sitters, dukes and duchesses, members of Parliament, and reigning
beauties. That of Mrs. Bonfoy, daughter of the first Lord Eliot, is,
says Leslie, "one of his most beautiful female portraits, and in perfect
preservation. The lady is painted as a half-length, in a green dress,
with one hand on her hip, and the head turned, with that inimitable
grace of which Reynolds was master beyond all the painters who ever
painted women."
Already Reynolds had become the friend of the great-hearted,
great-minded Dr. Samuel Johnson, who came and went at all hours to the
artist's home, and who, when about to be arrested for trivial debts, was
again and again befriended by the artist's purse. In 1756, Reynolds
painted for himself a half-length of Johnson, with a pen in his hand,
sitting at a table. This picture is used in Boswell's Life.
For Johnson's "Idler" Reynolds wrote three papers, sitting up one whole
night to complete them, and by so doing was made ill for a time.
He also painted a young lad, the son of Dr. Mudge, who was very anxious
to visit his father on his sixteenth birthday, but was prevented
through illness. "Never mind, _I_ will send you to your father," said
Reynolds, and he sent a speaking likeness, which was of course a gift.
He seldom, however, made presents of his pictures, for he said they were
usually not valued unless paid for.
About this time, Sir William Lowther, a young millionnaire, died,
leaving twenty-five thousand dollars to each of thirteen companions.
Each companion very properly commissioned Reynolds to paint for him the
portrait of so considerate and generous a friend.
In 1758 and 1759, the artist was overwhelmed with work. In one year
there were one hundred and fifty sitters, among them the Prince of
Wales, afterwards George III.; Lady Mary Coke, afterwards believed to
have been secretly married to the Duke of York, brother of George III.;
and the fair and frail Kitty Fisher, very agreeable and vivacious,
speaking French with great fluency, who died five years after her
marriage, "a victim of cosmetics," it is said. Sir Joshua painted seven
beautiful portraits of her. The most interesting represents her holding
a dove in her lap, while its mate is about to descend to it from a sofa
on which she is reclining. There are three of these, one being in the
Lenox collection in New York.
Reynolds also painted the famous Garrick this year, and thirteen years
later Garrick and his wife. Leslie writes: "Reynolds had to light the
eyes with that meteoric sensibility, and to kindle the features with
that fire of life which would deepen into the passion of Lear, sparkle
in the vivacity of Mercutio, or tremble in the fatuousness of Abel
Drugger. He had to paint the man who, of all men that ever lived,
presents the most perfect type of the actor; quick in sympathy, vivid in
observation, with a body and mind so plastic that they could take every
mould, and give back the very form and pressure of every passion,
fashion, action; delighted to give delight, and spurred to ever higher
effort by the reflection of the effect produced on others, no matter
whether his audience were the crowd of an applauding theatre, a table
full of noblemen and wits, a nursery group of children, or a solitary
black boy in an area; of inordinate vanity, at once the most courteous,
genial, sore, and sensitive of men; full of kindliness, yet always
quarrelling; scheming for applause even in the society of his most
intimate friends; a clever writer, a wit and the friend of wits.
"Mrs. Garrick, though always the delight and charm of Garrick's house,
was now no longer the lovely, light-limbed, laughing Eva Maria Violette,
for love of whom Garrick, twenty-five years before, had dressed in
woman's clothes that he might slip a letter into her chair, without
compromising her, or offending her watchful protectress, Lady
Burlington, and who had witched the world as a dancer, while she won
friends among the titled and the great by her grace, good-humor, and
modest sweetness of disposition. In Lord Normanton's gallery is a most
fascinating sketch of her, which must have been painted in the first
years of Sir Joshua's acquaintance with her. Slight as it is, those who
have seen will not easily forget it. In the picture of her sitting with
her husband, painted this year, she appears of matronly character, with
a handsome, sensitive, kindly face; the dress is painted with singular
force and freedom."
In 1759, Reynolds painted his first Venus, reclining in a wooded
landscape, while Cupid looks in through the boughs. Mason, the poet,
writes: "When he was painting his first Venus, I was frequently near his
easel; and although before I came to town his picture was in some
forwardness, and the attitude entirely decided, yet I happened to visit
him when he was finishing the head from a beautiful girl of sixteen,
who, as he told me, was his man Ralph's daughter, and whose flaxen hair,
in fine natural curls, flowed behind her neck very gracefully.
"But a second casual visit presented me with a very different object; he
was then painting the body, and in his sitting chair a very squalid
beggar-woman was placed, with a child, not above a year old, quite
naked, upon her lap. As may be imagined, I could not help testifying my
surprise at seeing him paint the carnation of the goddess of beauty from
that of a little child, which seemed to have been nourished rather with
gin than with milk, and saying that 'I wondered he had not taken some
more healthy-looking model;' but he answered, with his usual _naivete_,
that, 'whatever I might think, the child's flesh assisted him in giving
a certain _morbidezza_ to his own coloring, which he thought he should
hardly arrive at had he not such an object, when it was extreme (as it
certainly was), before his eyes."
Among the many famous portraits of this year and the next was that of
the Countess Waldegrave, Horace Walpole's beautiful niece Maria,
afterwards Duchess of Gloucester. The earl was the most trusted friend
of George II., and, for a short time, prime minister. Walpole mentions
the countess being mobbed in the park one Sunday when in company with
Lady Coventry, so that several sergeants of the guards marched before
and behind them to keep off the admiring crowd. Also that of the
beautiful Elizabeth Gunning, afterward Duchess of Argyle, and the sister
of Admiral Keppel, afterwards Marchioness of Tavistock. "This is one of
the painter's loveliest and best preserved female portraits. The dress
is white, with a rose in the bosom, and the expression inimitably
maidenly and gentle."
This year, Reynolds removed to a fine home in Leicester Square, where he
remained as long as he lived, having a suburban home at Richmond Villa.
His own painting-room was octagonal, "about twenty feet long and sixteen
in breadth. The window which gave the light to the room was square, and
not much larger than one-half the size of a common window in a private
house; whilst the lower part of this window was nine feet four inches
from the floor. The chair for his sitters was raised eighteen inches
from the floor, and turned on casters. His palettes were those which are
held by a handle, not those held on the thumb. The stocks of his pencils
were long, measuring about nineteen inches. He painted in that part of
the room nearest to the window, and never sat down when he worked."
He had now raised his prices to twenty-five, fifty, and one hundred
guineas for the three classes of portraits,--head, half-length, and
full-length, and his income from his work was thirty thousand dollars a
year. He purchased, says Northcote, "a chariot on the panels of which
were curiously painted the four seasons of the year in allegorical
figures. The wheels were ornamented with carved foliage and gilding; the
liveries also of his servants were laced with silver. But, having no
spare time himself to make a display of this splendor, he insisted on it
that his sister Frances should go out with it as much as possible, and
let it be seen in the public streets to make a show, which she was much
averse to, being a person of great shyness of disposition, as it always
attracted the gaze of the populace, and made her quite ashamed to be
seen in it. This anecdote, which I heard from this very sister's own
mouth, serves to show that Sir Joshua Reynolds knew the use of quackery
in the world. He knew that it would be inquired whose grand chariot
this was, and that, when it was told, it would give a strong indication
of his great success, and, by that means, tend to increase it."
The next year, Reynolds painted, among others, the Rev. Laurence Sterne,
"at this moment the lion of the town, engaged fourteen deep to dinner,
'his head topsy-turvy with his success and fame,' consequent on the
appearance of the first instalment of his 'Tristram Shandy.'" The
picture is now in the gallery of the Marquis of Lansdowne, by whom it
was purchased on the death of Lord Holland.
"Sterne's wig," writes Leslie, "was subject to odd chances from the
humor that was uppermost in its wearer. When by mistake he had thrown a
fair sheet of manuscript into the fire instead of the foul one, he tells
us that he snatched off his wig, 'and threw it perpendicularly, with all
imaginable violence, up to the top of the room.' While he was sitting to
Reynolds, this same wig had contrived to get itself a little on one
side; and the painter, with that readiness in taking advantage of
accident, to which we owe so many of the delightful novelties in his
works, painted it so, for he must have known that a mitre would not sit
long bishop-fashion on the head before him, and it is surprising what a
Shandean air this venial impropriety of the wig gives to its owner....
"In 1768, Sterne lay dying at the 'Silk bag shop in Old Bond Street,'
without a friend to close his eyes. No one but a hired nurse was in the
room, when a footman, sent from a dinner table where was gathered a gay
and brilliant party--the Dukes of Roxburgh and Grafton, the Earls of
March and Ossory, David Garrick and David Hume--to inquire how Dr.
Sterne did, was bid to go upstairs by the woman of the shop. He found
Sterne just a-dying. In ten minutes, 'Now it is come,' he said, put up
his hand as if to stop a blow, and died in a minute.
"His laurels--such as they were--were still green. The town was ringing
with the success of the 'Sentimental Journey,' just published....
Sterne's funeral was as friendless as his death-bed. Becket, his
publisher, was the only one who followed the body to its undistinguished
grave, in the parish burial-ground of Marylebone, near Tyburn
gallows-stand.... His grave was marked down by the body-snatchers, the
corpse dug up, and sold to the professor of anatomy at Cambridge. A
student present at the dissection recognized under the scalpel the face
of the brilliant wit and London lion of a few seasons before."
In 1761, the year of the marriage and coronation of George III.,
Reynolds painted three of the most beautiful of the ten
bridesmaids,--Lady Elizabeth Keppel; Lady Caroline Russell, "in
half-length, sitting on a garden-seat, in a blue ermine-embroidered robe
over a close white-satin vest. She is lovely, with a frank, joyous,
innocent expression, and has a pet Blenheim spaniel in her lap--a
love-gift, I presume, from the Duke of Marlborough, whom she married
next year;" and Lady Sarah Lenox, whom George III. had loved, and would
have married had not his council prevented. She married, six years
later, Sir Joshua's friend, Sir Charles Bunbury, was divorced, married
General Napier, and became the mother of two illustrious sons, Sir
William and Sir Charles. Four years later, Reynolds painted another
exquisite picture of her "kneeling at a footstool before a flaming
tripod, over which the triad of the Graces look down upon her as she
makes a libation in their honor.... Lady Sarah was still in the full
glow of that singular loveliness which, it was whispered, had four years
ago won the heart of the king, and all but placed an English queen upon
the throne. Though the coloring has lost much of its richness, the lakes
having faded from Lady Sarah's robes, and left what was once warm
rose-color a cold, faint purple, the picture takes a high place among
the works of its class--the full-length allegorical."
Five years after this, Lord Tavistock, a young man of rare promise, who
had married Lady Keppel, was killed by falling from his horse. His
beautiful wife never recovered from this bereavement, and died in a few
months at Lisbon, of a broken heart.
All these years were extremely busy ones for the distinguished artist.
He disliked idle visitors, saying: "These persons do not consider that
my time is worth, to me, five guineas an hour." He belonged to several
literary and social clubs, and was a lifelong and devoted friend to such
men as Edmund Burke, Johnson, and Goldsmith.
When he was ill, Johnson wrote him: "If the amusement of my company can
exhilarate the languor of a slow recovery, I will not delay a day to
come to you, for I know not how I can so effectually promote my own
pleasure as by pleasing you, in whom, if I should lose you, I should
lose almost the only man whom I call a friend."
Reynolds had now raised his prices to thirty guineas for a head, seventy
for a half-length, and one hundred and fifty for a full-length, one half
to be paid at the first sitting.
In 1766, when he was forty-three, a frequent visitor to the studio was
Angelica Kauffman, the pretty Swiss artist, whom he usually enters in
his notebooks as "Miss Angel," and whom it is believed he loved and
wished to marry. She was, at this time, twenty-five years old, very
attractive, and admired by everybody for her genius and loveliness.
Mrs. Ellet, in her "Women Artists," says: "At the age of nine, this
child of genius was much noticed on account of her wonderful pastel
pictures. When her father left Morbegno, in Lombardy, in 1752, to reside
in Como, she found greater scope for her ingenious talent, and better
instruction in that city; and, in addition to her practice with the
brush and pencil, she devoted herself to studies in general literature
and in music. Her proficiency in the latter was so rapid, and the talent
evinced so decided, besides the possession of a voice unusually fine,
that her friends, a few years afterward, urged that her life should be
devoted to music. She was herself undecided for some time to which
vocation she should consecrate her powers."
In the native city of her father, Schwarzenberg, Angelica painted in
fresco the figures of the Twelve Apostles after copper engravings from
Piazetta, an unusual work for a woman. After some years in Milan and
Florence, Angelica went to Rome in 1763, where she painted the portrait
of Winkelmann, then sixty years old, and other famous people, and was
taken to London by the accomplished Lady Wentworth, wife of the British
resident.
Here, says Mrs. Ellet, "she found open to her a career of brilliant
success, productive of much pecuniary gain. Her talents and winning
manners raised her up patrons and friends among the aristocracy. Persons
attached to the court engaged her professional services, and the most
renowned painter in England, Sir Joshua Reynolds, was of the circle of
her friends.... She was numbered among the painters of the Royal
Society, and received the rare honor, for a woman, of an appointment to
a professorship in the Academy of Arts in London, being, meanwhile,
universally acknowledged to occupy a brilliant position in the best
circles of fashionable society."
Reynolds painted her portrait twice, and she painted his for his
friend, Mr. Parker of Saltram. She was declared by some persons to be "a
great coquette." Once she professed to be enamoured of Nathaniel Dance;
to the next visitor she would disclose the great secret, "that she was
dying for Sir Joshua Reynolds."
When at the height of her fame, either because she had refused a
prominent lord, who sought to be revenged, or through the jealousy of
another artist, a fearful deception was practised upon her.
"A low-born adventurer," says Mrs. Ellet, "who assumed the name of a
gentleman of rank and character--that of his master, Count Frederic de
Horn--played a conspicuous part at that time in London society, and was
skilful enough to deceive those with whom he associated. He approached
our artist, who was then about twenty-six, and in the bloom of her
existence. He paid his respects as one who rendered the deepest homage
to her genius; then he passed into the character of an unassuming and
sympathizing friend. Finally, he appealed to her romantic generosity, by
representing himself as threatened with a terrible misfortune, from
which she only could save him by accepting him as her husband. A sudden
and secret marriage, he averred, was necessary.
"Poor Angelica, who had shunned love on the banks of Como and under the
glowing skies of Italy, and since her coming to London had rejected many
offers of the most advantageous alliance, that she might remain free to
devote herself to her art, was caught in the fine-spun snare, and
yielded to chivalrous pity for one she believed worthy of her heart's
affection. The marriage was celebrated by a Catholic priest, without the
formality of writings and without witnesses.
"Angelica had received commissions to paint several members of the royal
family and eminent personages of the court, and her talents had procured
her the favorable notice of the Queen of England. One day, while she was
painting at Buckingham Palace, her Majesty entered into conversation
with her, and Angelica communicated to her royal friend the fact of her
marriage. The queen congratulated her, and sent an invitation to the
Count de Horn to present himself at court. The impostor, however, dared
not appear so openly, and he kept himself very close at home, for he
well knew that it could not be long before the deception would be
discovered.
"At length, the suspicions of Angelica's father, to whom her marriage
had been made known, led him to inquiries, which were aided by friends
of influence. About this time, some say, the real count returned, and
was surprised at being frequently congratulated on his marriage. Then
came the mortifying discovery that the pretended count was a low
impostor. The queen informed Angelica, and assured her of her sympathy.
"The fellow had been induced to seek the poor girl's hand from motives
of cupidity alone, desiring to possess himself of the property she had
acquired by her labors. He now wished to compel her to a hasty flight
from London. Believing herself irrevocably bound to him, Angelica
resolved to submit to her fate; but her firmness and strength of nature
enabled her to evade compliance with his requisition that she should
leave England, till the truth was made known to her--that he who called
himself her husband was already married to another woman, still living.
This discovery made it dangerous for the impostor to remain in London,
and he was compelled to fly alone, after submitting unwillingly to the
necessity of restoring some three hundred pounds obtained from his
victim, to which he had no right.
"The false marriage was, of course, immediately declared null and void.
These unhappy circumstances in no way diminished the interest and
respect manifested for the lady who, in plucking the rose of life, had
been so severely wounded by its thorns; on the contrary, she was treated
with more attention than ever, and received several unexceptionable
offers of marriage. But all were declined; she chose to live only for
her profession....
"After fifteen years' residence in England, when the physician who
attended her suffering father advised return to Italy, and the invalid
expressed his fear of dying and leaving her unprotected, Angelica
yielded to her parent's entreaties, and bestowed her hand upon the
painter Antonio Zucchi."
He was then fifty-three, and she forty. He lived fourteen years after
this, and the marriage seems to have been a happy one. Much of the time
was spent in Rome, where Angelica became the friend of Goethe, Herder,
and others. Goethe said of her: "The good Angelica has a most
remarkable, and, for a woman, really unheard-of talent; one must see and
value what she does, and not what she leaves undone. There is much to
learn from her, particularly as to work, for what she effects is really
marvellous.... The light and pleasing in form and color, in design and
execution, distinguish the numerous works of our artist. No living
painter excels her in dignity, or in the delicate taste with which she
handles the pencil."
Her "Allegra" and "Penserosa," "Venus and Adonis," "The Death of
Heloise," "Sappho Inspired by Love," "Leonardo da Vinci dying in the
arms of Francis I.," "The Return of Arminius," painted for Joseph II.,
and the "Vestal Virgin," are among her best known works. She died seven
years after her husband, and, as at the funeral of Raphael, her latest
pictures were borne after her bier. She was buried in St. Andrea della
Fratte, and her bust was preserved in the Pantheon. Such is the sad
history of the woman whom it is believed Reynolds loved, and wished to
marry.
In 1768 the Royal Academy was founded, chiefly by the exertions of West,
the painter, and Sir William Chambers. Reynolds was unanimously chosen
its first president, and was immediately knighted by the king. He left a
sitter to go to St. James's and receive the honor, and then returned to
his sitter. When the president delivered his first discourse, probably
on account of his deafness, he did not speak loud enough to be heard. A
nobleman said to him, "Sir Joshua, you read your discourse in a tone so
low that I scarce heard a word you said."
"That was to my advantage," said Sir Joshua, with a smile.
Reynolds suggested the addition of a few distinguished honorary members
to the Academy: Dr. Johnson, as professor of Ancient Literature;
Goldsmith, professor of Ancient History, and others. Goldsmith wrote his
brother, says Allan Cunningham, in his Life of Reynolds: "I took it
rather as a compliment to the institution than any benefit to myself.
Honors to one in my situation are something like ruffles to a man who
wants a shirt."
Goldsmith was very fond of Reynolds, and dedicated to him his "Deserted
Village," in these words: "I can have no expectations, in an address of
this kind, either to add to your reputation or to establish my own. You
can gain nothing from my admiration, as I am ignorant of the art in
which you are said to excel, and I may lose much by the severity of your
judgment, as few have a juster taste in poetry than you. Setting
interest, therefore, aside, to which I never paid much attention, I must
be indulged at present in following my affections. The only dedication I
ever made was to my brother, because I loved him better than most other
men. He is since dead. Permit me to inscribe this poem to you."
At the first exhibition of the Academy, among the pictures which
attracted the most notice were Sir Joshua's Miss Morris as Hope nursing
Love,--the lady was the daughter of a governor of one of the West-India
Islands, and, going upon the stage as Juliet, was so overpowered by
timidity that she fainted and died soon afterwards,--the Duchess of
Manchester and her son, as Diana disarming Cupid; and pretty Mrs. Crewe,
the daughter of Fulke Greville, whom he had painted at sixteen as
Psyche, and at nineteen as St. Genevieve reading in the midst of her
flock.
Tom Taylor says: "The Mrs. Crewe should class as one of his loveliest
pictures--most touching and pathetic in the expression given by the
attitude rather than the face; for the eyes are cast down on the book,
and the features are nearly hidden by the hand which supports the head.
The landscape is beautiful in color, and powerfully relieves the figure,
clothed in a simple white dress, the light of which is distributed
through the picture by the sheep feeding or resting about their pretty
shepherdess. Walpole notes the harmony and simplicity of the picture,
and calls it, not unjustly, 'one of his best.'"
Each year, Reynolds's discourses were eagerly listened to at the
Academy. "A great part of every man's life," he said, "must be spent in
collecting materials for the exercise of genius. Invention is little
but new combination. Nothing can come of nothing. Hence the necessity
for acquaintance with the works of your predecessors. But of these, who
are to be models--the guides?" The answer is, "Those great masters who
have travelled with success the same road.... Try to imagine how a
Michael Angelo or a Raphael would have conducted themselves, and work
yourself into a belief that your picture is to be seen and observed by
them. Even enter into a kind of competition with these great masters;
paint a subject like theirs; a companion to any work you think a model.
Test your own work with the model.... Let your port-crayon be never out
of your hands. Draw till you draw as mechanically as you write. But, on
every opportunity, _paint_ your studies instead of _drawing_ them.
Painting comprises both drawing and coloring. The Venetians knew this,
and have left few sketches on paper.... Have no dependence on your own
genius; if you have great talents, industry will improve them; if you
have but moderate abilities, industry will supply their deficiency.
Nothing is denied to well-directed labor--nothing is to be obtained
without it.... Without the love of fame you can never do anything
excellent; but by an excessive and undistinguishing thirst after it you
will come to have vulgar views; you will degrade your style, and your
taste will be entirely corrupted.... I mention this because our
exhibitions, while they produce such admirable effects by nourishing
emulation and calling out genius, have also a mischievous tendency by
seducing the painter to an ambition of pleasing indiscriminately the
mixed multitude of people who resort to them."
To Barry, the artist, who was in Rome, he wrote: "Whoever is resolved to
excel in painting, or indeed in any other art, must bring all his mind
to bear upon that one object, from the moment he rises till he goes to
bed. The effect of every object that meets the painter's eye may give a
lesson, provided his mind is calm, unembarrassed with other objects, and
open to instruction. This general attention, with other studies
connected with the art, which must employ the artist in his closet, will
be found sufficient to fill up life, if it were much longer than it
is.... Whoever has great views, I would recommend to him, whilst at
Rome, rather to live on bread and water than lose those advantages which
he can never hope to enjoy a second time, and which he will find only in
the Vatican.... The Capella Sistina is the production of the greatest
genius that was ever employed in the arts.... If you neglect visiting
the Vatican often, and particularly the Capella Sistina, you will
neglect receiving that peculiar advantage which Rome can give above all
other cities in the world. In other places you will find casts from the
antique, and capital pictures of the great masters, but it is _there_
only that you can form an idea of the dignity of the art, as it is there
only that you can see the works of Michael Angelo and Raphael. If you
should not relish them at first, which may probably be the case, as they
have none of those qualities which are captivating at first sight, never
cease looking till you feel something like inspiration come over you,
till you think every other painter insipid in comparison, and to be
admired only for petty excellences."
In 1770, Sir Joshua painted a picture called "The Babes in the Woods,"
which is now in the collection of Viscount Palmerston. Reynolds loved to
find picturesque beggar children on the street, and would send them to
his studio to be painted. Northcote says he would often hear the voice
of a little waif, worn with sitting, say plaintively, "Sir,--sir,--I'm
tired!"
"It happened once," says Leslie, "as it probably often did, that one of
these little sitters fell asleep, and in so beautiful an attitude that
Sir Joshua instantly put away the picture he was at work on, and took up
a fresh canvas. After sketching the little model as it lay, a change
took place in its position; he moved his canvas to make the change
greater, and, to suit the purpose he had conceived, sketched the child
again. The result was the picture of the 'Babes in the Wood.'"
This year, Sir Joshua brought the thirteen-year-old daughter, Theophila,
of his widowed sister, Mrs. Palmer, to live with him in London, and
three years later her elder sister, Mary, who afterward became the
Marchioness of Thomond. He painted Theophila, called Offy, as "A Girl
Reading," at which the young miss was offended, saying, "I think they
might have put 'A Young Lady.'"
Sir Joshua offered to take to his home the sons of his other sister,
Mrs. Johnson--he had not forgotten how these two sisters had loaned him
money when he was poor--but Mrs. Johnson declined his offer, fearing the
temptations of London, and being greatly opposed to her brother's habit
of painting on Sundays. One son went into the church and died young;
another went to India, and Reynolds took great interest in his welfare.
Later, two of Mrs. Johnson's daughters lived with Sir Joshua.
In 1773, he painted and exhibited "The Strawberry Girl," which
represents Offy Palmer, creeping timidly along, and looking anxiously
around with her great black eyes. Sir Joshua always maintained that this
was one of the "half-dozen original things" which he said no man ever
exceeded in his life's work. Later the picture was purchased by the
Marquis of Hertford for ten thousand five hundred dollars.
F. S. Pulling, of Exeter College, Oxford, says, in his Life of Sir
Joshua: "What a love Reynolds had for children, childless though he was
himself! What a marvellous knowledge of their ways, and, even of their
thoughts! With the peer's son or the beggar's child it was the same. The
most fastidious critic finds it impossible to discover faults in these
child portraits; the whole soul of the painter has gone into them, and
he is as much at home with the gypsy child as with little Lord Morpeth.
As Mr. Stephens well observes, 'Reynolds, of all artists, painted
children best ... knew most of childhood, depicted its appearances in
the truest and happiest spirit of comedy, entered into its changeful
soul with the tenderest, heartiest sympathy, played with the playful,
sighed with the sorrowful, and mastered all the craft of infancy.... His
'Child Angels' was not painted till 1786. It consists of simply five
different representations of the same face, that of Frances Gordon. The
perfect loveliness of this picture is beyond dispute.... These are human
faces, it is true, but can you imagine any purer, more innocent, more
gentle faces?... I, for one, am perfectly content to accept these faces
as those of the most lovely beings God ever created."
A picture of a nymph with a young Bacchus, really the portrait of the
beautiful young actress, Mrs. Hartley, "whose lovely face and lithe,
tall, delicate figure had rapidly won for her the leading place at
Covent Garden," is now in the possession of Mr. Bentley, who refused an
offer of ten thousand dollars for it.
Sir Joshua was now elected mayor of Plympton, his native town, an honor
which he greatly prized; and received the degree of D. C. L. from Oxford
University. Oliver Goldsmith had died, and on the day of his death Sir
Joshua did not touch a pencil, "a circumstance the most extraordinary
for him," says Northcote, "who passed no day without a line." He acted
as executor for his dead friend, and found, to his amazement, that his
debts were ten thousand dollars.
Reynolds was as ever the centre of a charming circle. Miss Burney, the
author of "Evelina," liked his countenance and manners; the former she
pronounced "expressive, soft, and sensible; the latter, gentle,
unassuming, and engaging." Hannah More, too, was greatly pleased with
the distinguished painter.
"Foremost among the beauties of this brilliant time," says Leslie, "was
Sir Joshua's pet in childhood, now the irresistible young queen of
_ton_, Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. She effaced all her rivals,
Walpole tells us, without being a beauty. 'Her youth, figure, glowing
good-nature, sense, lively modesty, and modest familiarity make her a
phenomenon.' The young duchess was now sitting to him in the full flush
of her triumph as arbitress of fashion, the most brilliant of the gay
throng who danced and played the nights away at the Ladies' Club,
masqueraded at the Pantheon, and promenaded at Ranelagh. Marie
Antoinette herself had scarcely a gayer, more devoted, and more
obsequious court. It was this beautiful young duchess who set the
fashion of the feather headdresses, now a mark for all the witlings of
the time. Sir Joshua has painted her in her new-fashioned plumes, in the
full-length now at Spencer House....
"Another beautiful sitter of this year was Eliza, the youthful wife of
Richard Brinsley Sheridan. The young couple were now emerging from the
first difficulties of their married life. Her exquisite and delicate
loveliness, all the more fascinating for the tender sadness which
seemed, as a contemporary describes it, to project over her the shadow
of early death; her sweet voice, and the pathetic expression of her
singing; the timid and touching grace of her air and deportment, had won
universal admiration for Eliza Ann Linley. From the days when, a girl of
nine, she stood with her little basket at the pump-room door, timidly
offering the tickets for her father's benefit concerts, to those when in
her teens she was the belle of the Bath assemblies, none could resist
her beseeching grace. Lovers and wooers flocked about her; Richard
Walter Long, the Wiltshire miser, laid his thousands at her feet....
"Nor had she resisted only the temptation of money; coronets, it was
whispered, had been laid at her feet as well as purses. When she
appeared at the Oxford oratorios, grave dons and young gentlemen
commoners were alike subdued. In London, where she sang at Covent Garden
in the Lent of 1773, the king himself was said to have been fascinated
as much by her eyes and voice as by the music of his favorite Haendel.
From all this homage Miss Linley had withdrawn to share love in a
cottage with Sheridan at East Burnham, after a runaway match in March,
1772, and after her husband had fought two duels in her cause with a
Captain Matthews. When she began to sit to Sir Joshua, Richard Brinsley
Sheridan was only known as a witty, vivacious, easy-tempered, and
agreeable young man of three and twenty, with nothing but his wits to
depend on; but, before the picture was finished, he was famous as the
author of 'The Rivals.'"
Sir Joshua painted Mrs. Sheridan as St. Cecilia. "She had a way of
gathering little children about her, and singing their childish songs,
with 'such a playfulness of manner, and such a sweetness of look and
voice,' says one, in describing her so engaged, 'as was quite
enchanting.'... Mrs. Sheridan was gentleness personified, and sang
without pressing; but her husband, proud of her as he was, would never
allow her to sing in public after their marriage, and was even chary of
permitting her to delight their friends with her sweet voice in private.
She was the lovely model for the Virgin in Reynolds's 'Nativity,' for
which the young Duke of Rutland paid him six thousand dollars, an
unexampled price for an English picture at that time. It was burnt at
Belvoir Castle. She died a few years later, living long enough to
witness her husband's great success, and not long enough to see him
overwhelmed with debts, partly the result of drink."
In 1780, Sir Joshua painted the ladies Maria, Laura, and Horatia
Waldgrave, grand-nieces of Horace Walpole. "He never had more beautiful
sitters," says Leslie; "and in none of his pictures has he done more
justice to beauty. Their bright faces are made to tell with wonderful
force, by the white dresses and powdered _tetes_ worn by all three. They
are sitting round a work-table. Lady Laura, in the centre, winds silk on
a card from a skein held by Lady Horatia; while Lady Maria, on the
right, bends over her tambouring frame. The action admits of a natural
arrangement of the heads, in full-face, three-quarters, and profile; and
it is impossible to conceive an easier, prettier way of grouping three
graceful, high-bred young ladies." At this time, all three of these
young ladies were in sorrow. The young Duke of Ancaster, to whom Horatia
was betrothed, had just died suddenly, and two prominent lords to whom
the other sisters were engaged had broken their promises. Lady Maria
married, four years later, the Earl of Euston; Laura, her cousin, Lord
Chewton; and Horatia, Lord Hugh Seymour.
Sir Joshua painted two years later the beautiful but unhappy Mrs.
Musters, whose son John married Mary Chaworth, Byron's first love. "The
fine full-length of her as Hebe, with the eagle, still hangs at Colwich
Hall. Another full-length, with a spaniel at her feet, painted in 1777,
the year of her marriage, is at Petworth. It is interesting to compare
the two, and note the wear and tear of five years in the reign of a
queen of fashion." The eagle was a pet of Sir Joshua, kept in a yard
outside the studio.
In 1783, when Mrs. Siddons was the leading actress of the time, she sat
to Reynolds. Taking her hand, he led her up to his platform with the
words, "Ascend your undisputed throne: bestow on me some idea of the
Tragic Muse." "On which," she said, "I walked up the steps, and
instantly seated myself in the attitude in which the Tragic Muse now
appears." He inscribed his name on the border of her drapery, saying, "I
could not lose the honor this opportunity afforded me of going down to
posterity on the hem of your garment." Sir Thomas Lawrence called this
the finest portrait in the world of a woman, and Mrs. Jameson says, "It
was painted for the universe and posterity." This picture was purchased,
in 1822, by the first Marquis of Westminster, for nearly nine thousand
dollars. Reynolds also painted Miss Kemble, her sister, "a very sweet
and gentle woman."
This year, 1784, a friendship of thirty years was severed by the death
of Dr. Johnson. On his death-bed, he made three requests of Sir Joshua:
never to use his pencil on Sundays; to read the Bible whenever possible,
and always on Sundays; and to forgive him a debt of thirty pounds, which
he had borrowed of him, as he wished to leave the money to a poor
family. Reynolds was present at the funeral, when his friend was laid
beside Garrick, in the south transept of Westminster Abbey.
Reynolds said of his friend: "His pride had no meanness in it; there was
nothing little or mean about him.
"Truth, whether in great or little matters, he held sacred. From the
violation of truth, he said, in great things your character or your
interest was affected, in lesser things your pleasure is equally
destroyed. I remember, on his relating some incident, I added something
to his relation, which I supposed might likewise have happened: 'It
would have been a better story,' says he, 'if it had been so; but it was
not.' Our friend, Dr. Goldsmith, was not so scrupulous; but he said he
only indulged himself in white lies, light as feathers, which he threw
up in the air, and, on whomever they fell, nobody was hurt. 'I wish,'
says Dr. Johnson, 'you would take the trouble of moulting your
feathers.'
"As in his writings not a line can be found which a saint would wish to
blot, so in his life he would never suffer the least immorality or
indecency of conversation, or anything contrary to virtue or piety, to
proceed without a severe check, which no elevation of rank exempted them
from.
"The Christian religion was with him such a certain and established
truth that he considered it as a kind of profanation to hold any
argument about its truth."
At sixty-three years of age, Reynolds was as busy as ever. Miss Palmer
wrote to her cousin in Calcutta: "My uncle seems more bewitched than
ever with his palette and pencils. He is painting from morning till
night, and the truth is that every picture he does seems better than the
former. He is just going to begin a picture for the Empress of Russia,
who has sent to desire he will paint her an historical one. The subject
is left to his own choice, and at present he is undetermined what to
choose."
He chose "The Infant Hercules strangling the Serpents." Rogers says:
"Reynolds, who was always thinking of his art, was one day walking with
Dr. Lawrence, near Beaconsfield, when they met a fine rosy little
peasant boy--a son of Burke's bailiff. Reynolds patted him on the head,
and, after looking earnestly in his face, said: 'I must give more color
to my Infant Hercules.'" He took such great pains with this work that he
used to say of the picture: "There are ten under it, some better, some
worse." The Empress sent him as pay for this a gold box, with her cipher
in diamonds, and seven thousand five hundred dollars.
In his "Gleaners," painted in 1788, the centre figure, with a sheaf of
corn on her head, was the portrait of a beautiful girl, Miss Potts, who
afterwards became the mother of Sir Edwin Landseer.
In 1789, he lost the sight of his left eye, through overwork, but he
still preserved the sweet serenity of his nature, and was not depressed.
He amused himself with his canary bird, which was so tame that it would
sit upon his hand; but one morning it flew out of the window, and never
returned.
On December 10, 1790, Reynolds gave his fifteenth and last Discourse to
the Academy. In closing, he said to the crowded audience: "I reflect,
not without vanity, that these Discourses bear testimony of my
admiration of that truly divine man; and I should desire that the last
words I should pronounce in this Academy and from this place might be
the name of MICHAEL ANGELO."
As Reynolds descended from the chair, Edmund Burke stepped forward, and,
taking his hand, addressed him in the words of Milton,--
"The angel ended, and in Adam's ear
So charming left his voice, that he awhile
Thought him still speaking, still stood fixed to hear."
This year, he allowed Sheridan to buy the picture of his wife, "St.
Cecilia," at half-price. Reynolds said it was "the best picture he ever
painted," and added, in the letter to Sheridan: "However, there is now
an end of the pursuit; the race is over, whether it is won or lost."
The next year, in May, 1791, Sir Joshua sat for his picture for the last
time to the Swedish artist, Beda, at the request of the Royal Academy of
Sweden. He had sent his picture to Florence, on being elected an
honorary member of that famous Academy. In October of this year he
became almost totally blind.
Burke wrote to his son Richard in January, 1792: "Our poor friend, Sir
Joshua, declines daily. For some time past he has kept his bed.... At
times he has pain; but for the most part is tolerably easy. Nothing can
equal the tranquillity with which he views his end. He congratulates
himself on it as a happy conclusion of a happy life. He spoke of you in
a style that was affecting. I don't believe there are any persons he
values more sincerely than you and your mother."
Reynolds died tranquilly between eight and nine on Thursday evening,
February 23, 1792. He was buried in St. Paul's, on Saturday, March 3,
ninety-one carriages following the body to the grave. There were ten
pall-bearers, the Duke of Dorset, Duke of Leeds, Duke of Portland,
Marquis Townshend, Marquis of Abercorn, Earl of Carlisle, Earl of
Inchiquin, Earl of Upper Ossory, Lord Viscount Palmerston, and Lord
Eliot.
By will he left to his niece Offy, who had married, in 1781, a wealthy
Cornish gentleman, Mr. Gwatkin, fifty thousand dollars; to his sister
Frances the use, for life, of twelve thousand five hundred dollars; to
Burke, ten thousand dollars, and cancelled a bond for the same amount of
money borrowed; a thousand dollars to each of his executors; five
thousand dollars to a servant who had lived with him more than thirty
years; all the remainder of his property, about five hundred thousand
dollars, to his niece, Miss Palmer. Such an amount of money earned by an
artist, making his own way in life from poverty, was indeed wonderful.
The number of his pictures is estimated at three thousand.
Burke wrote of him, the pages blurred with his tears: "Sir Joshua
Reynolds was, on very many accounts, one of the most memorable men of
his time. He was the first Englishman who added the praise of the
elegant arts to the other glories of his country. In taste, in grace, in
facility, in happy invention, and in the richness and harmony of
coloring, he was equal to the great masters of the renowned ages. In
portrait he went beyond them; for he communicated to that description of
the art, in which English artists are the most engaged, a variety, a
fancy, and a dignity derived from the higher branches, which even those
who professed them in a superior manner did not always preserve when
they delineated individual nature. His portraits remind the spectator of
the invention of history and the amenity of landscape. He possessed the
theory as perfectly as the practice of his art. To be such a painter, he
was a profound and penetrating philosopher.
"In full affluence of foreign and domestic fame, admired by the expert
in art and by the learned in science, courted by the great, caressed by
sovereign powers, and celebrated by distinguished poets, his native
humility, modesty, and candor never forsook him, even on surprise or
provocation; nor was the least degree of arrogance or assumption visible
to the most scrutinizing eye in any part of his conduct or discourse.
"His talents of every kind, powerful from nature, and not meanly
cultivated by letters, his social virtues in all the relations and all
the habitudes of life, rendered him the centre of a very great and
unparalleled variety of agreeable societies, which will be dissipated by
his death. He had too much merit not to excite some jealousy, too much
innocence to provoke any enmity. The loss of no man of his time can be
felt with more sincere, general, and unmixed sorrow."
Mrs. Jameson says: "The pictures of Reynolds are, to the eye, what
delicious melodies are to the ear,--Italian music set to English words;
for the color, with its luxurious, melting harmony, is Venetian, and the
faces and the associations are English.... More and more we learn to
sympathize with that which is his highest characteristic, and which
alone has enabled him to compete with the old masters of Italy; the
amount of mind, of sensibility, he threw into every production of his
pencil, the genial, living soul he infused into forms, giving to them a
deathless vitality."
One secret of Reynolds's popularity, outside his genius, was the fact
that he never spoke ill of the work of other painters. Northcote says he
once asked Sir Joshua what he thought of two pictures by Madame Le Brun,
who at that time was the most popular artist in France in portraiture.
"'They are very fine,' he answered.
"'How fine?' I said.
"'As fine as those of any painter.'
"'Do you mean living or dead?'
"'Either living or dead,' he answered briskly.
"'As fine as Van Dyke?'
"He answered tartly, 'Yes, and finer.'
"I said no more, perceiving he was displeased at my questioning him."
Leslie says of him: "He felt deeply and almost impatiently the gulf
between the technical merits of his pictures and those of the great
Venetians or Rembrandt, whom at different epochs he worshipped with
equal reverence. I have no doubt his inferiority to these men in power,
in mastery of materials, and in certainty of method was just as apparent
to Sir Joshua as it is to any unbiassed judge who now compares his
pictures with those of Titian, Rembrandt, or Velasquez....
"Estimating Reynolds at his best, he stands high among the great
portrait painters of the world, and has achieved as distinct a place for
himself in their ranks as Titian or Tintoret, Velasquez or Rembrandt."