"Art is too tedious an employment for any not infatuated with it."
"The only artists I ever knew who achieved work of note in any
sense whatever, went first through a steady training of several
years and afterwards entered their studios with as unwearying a
punctuality as business men attend their offices, worked longer
hours than these, and had fewer holidays, partly because of their
love for art, but also because of their deep sense of the utter
uselessness of grappling with the difficulties besetting the happy
issue of each contest, except at close and unflinching quarters."
"I have many times in my studio come to such a pass of humiliation
that I have felt that there was no one thing that I had thought I
could do thoroughly in which I was not altogether incapable."
W. H. H.
Upon a wintry afternoon in London, in the year 1834, a little boy of six
years old was standing on the stairs of a poor artist's house, watching,
through a window in the wall, the marvellous deeds of the man within.
The man within was painting the "Burning of the Houses of Parliament."
Scarlet and gold! Scarlet and gold! He used them up so quickly that he
had to grind and prepare more and more. Every time he ground with the
muller on the slab a fresh supply of vermilion and chrome yellow, there
was a fresh flare up of the conflagration, another outburst of applause
from the little boy. Meantime, the artist's wife put the kettle on the
fire, and cut bread and butter as if nothing out of the way were going
on; and by-and-by she and the father and their children sat down to tea.
It seemed very strange to the little watchman that they could behave in
this calm, everyday manner when such wonders were all about them in the
room. Presently a porter came from a warehouse in Dyer's Court,
Aldermanbury, where dwelt a merchant, Mr. William Hunt; and he took the
little boy home to his father.
[Illustration: PLATE II.--THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.
(Painted in 1852)
The subject of this picture is taken from the last act
of Shakespeare's "Two Gentlemen of Verona." It will be
remembered that Proteus and Valentine had each gone from
Verona to Milan to improve by travel and by seeing the
wonders of the world abroad. Later on Julia, whose love
Proteus had won, followed him disguised as a page, only
to discover that the false, fickle, and treacherous
wooer was endeavouring to supplant his friend Valentine
in the affections of Sylvia, the Duke's daughter. But
Valentine, interposing at the critical moment, rescued
her. This is the moment the artist depicts. The scene is
one of pure bright sunlight, in which the brilliant
colours of the gay costumes tell out with almost
startling vividness. In the background are seen
advancing the outlaws, with the Duke and Thurio whom
they have captured. It adds an interest to the picture
to know that Sylvia was painted from Miss Siddall, who
afterwards became the wife of Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
The beech-tree forest scenery was painted in Lord
Amherst's park at Knowle, Kent.