Mr. Allan Cunningham has completed his fifth volume of the _Lives of the
most eminent British Painters, Sculptors, and Architects_. It contains
Jameson, Ramsey, Romney, Runciman, Copley, Mortimer, Raeburn, Hoppner,
Owen, Harlow, and Bonington; all sketched in the author's most felicitous
style. The memoir of Bonington is of peculiar interest, since all our
readers must recollect the premature death of that promising artist. Mr.
Cunningham observes of his last days:
"I know not whether Bonington was at all aware in these days that a
visible decay had come upon him, and that in the regretful opinion of many
he was a man marked out for an early grave: whatever he might feel or
surmise, he said nothing, but continued to employ his pencil with all the
ardour of the most flourishing health. He rose early and studied late; nor
did he allow any piece to go hastily from his hand. The French, who are
quick in discerning and generous in acknowledging merit, not only
applauded his works from the outset, but watched his progress and
improvement, and eagerly compared the marine paintings of the young
Englishman with the standard works of the artists of their own country.
M. Gros, who, it seems, had for some unrecorded reason closed his _atelier_
against him, was so touched by his fine works, that he ere long recalled
him with commendations; and, in the presence of his pupils, said, he
considered it an honour to have him in his studio. A more moderate style
of rapture was to be expected from his own countrymen; nevertheless, cold
as English approbation of talent may seem, his works were welcomed here as
few works of art have been welcomed. His extreme modesty was somewhat
against his success: he was fearful of being thought presuming and forward;
and has been known to shrink from introductions to men of rank and talent,
from a doubt of his own deservings. A letter to me from Mrs. Forster, a
lady distinguished by her own talent as well as from being the daughter of
Banks the sculptor, contains the following passage:--'When Bonington
visited England, in 1827, I gave him a letter of introduction to Sir
Thomas Lawrence, but he returned to Paris without having delivered it. On
my inquiring why he had not waited on the President, he replied,--"I don't
think myself worthy of being introduced to him yet, but after another year
of hard study I may be more deserving of the honour." The following spring
he went to London with his pictures; those which brought him such well
merited fame. He carried a letter from me to Sir Thomas, which he
presented, and was received into his friendship; but, alas! it was of
short duration; for the great success of his works, the almost numberless
orders which he received for pictures and drawings, together with
unremitting study, brought on a brain fever, from which he recovered only
to sink in a rapid decline.' All other accounts concur with that of Mrs.
Forster, in attributing his illness to the accumulation of pressing
commissions: he viewed the amount with nervous dismay; he became deeply
affected; his appetite failed; his looks denoted anguish of body and mind;
a quick and overmastering consumption left him strength scarcely
sufficient to bring him to London, where he arrived about the middle of
September, 1828. The conclusion of his career was thus related to Mrs.
Forster by Sir Thomas Lawrence:--'Your sad presage has been too fatally
verified; the last duties have just been paid to the lamented Mr.
Bonington. Except in the case of Mr. Harlow, I have never known, in my own
time, the early death of talent so promising, and so rapidly and obviously
improving. If I may judge from the later direction of his studies, and
from remembrance of a morning's conversation, his mind seemed expanding in
every way, and ripening into full maturity of taste and elevated judgment,
with that generous ambition which makes confinement to lesser departments
in the art painfully irksome and annoying.
"But the fair guerdon when we hope to find
Comes the blind Fury with th' abhorred shears,
And slits the thin-spun life'"
Having not quite finished his 27th year, he died calmly on the 23rd of
September, 1828, and was interred in the vault of St. James's Church,
Pentonville, in the presence of Lawrence, and Howard, and Robson, and the
Rev. J.T. Judkin,--himself a skilful painter--an ardent admirer and
steadfast friend.
"Bonington was tall, well, and even to appearance, strongly formed. 'His
countenance,' says the French biographer, 'was truly English; and we loved
him for his melancholy air, which became him more than smiles.' The memory
of his person will soon wear away; but it will fare otherwise with his
fame. He lived long enough to assert his title to a high place amongst
English landscape-painters, and had produced works which bid fair to be
ranked permanently with the foremost. They are not numerous, but for that
very reason they will, perhaps, be the more prized. A series of engravings
amounting to some four and twenty, has been published by Carpenter, from
pictures of this artist, some in his own possession, some in the galleries
of the Marquess of Lansdown, the Duke of Bedford, and other patrons of art.
The best of these are the landscapes; and of the landscapes, the worthiest
are of mingled sea and land--pieces distinguished by great picturesque
beauty, and singular grace of execution. His practice was to sketch in the
outline and general character, and then make accurate studies of the local
light-and-shade, and colour. His handling was delicate and true, and his
colouring clear and harmonious. It cannot, however, be denied, that he
wants vigour and breadth; that his more poetic scenes are too light and
slim; and his express copies from nature too literal and real. He was a
softer sort of Gainsborough, with more than his grace, and with not a
little of his taste for scattering happy and characteristic groups among
landscape scenes--but, it must be added, with only a far-off approach, to
the strength of that great master. That, had his life been prolonged, he
would have risen to very high distinction, cannot be doubted. It was his
generous dream, we are told, to acquire a competency by painting
commissions, and then dedicate his time and pencil to historical
compositions,--a dream which many artists have dreamed; but his works have
little of the epic in them. Nature gave him good advice, when she directed
his steps to the surf-beat shore, and bade him paint the swelling tide,
the busy boats, fishermen drying their nets, and the sea-eagle looking
from the rock upon his wide and, to him, fruitful dominion."
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