SUBJECT PAINTERS.
Domestic subject, or _genre_, painting in England may be said to have
originated with Hogarth, but it made slow progress after his death till
the commencement of the nineteenth century. Historic pictures of a large
size were neither popular nor profitable. Corporate bodies did not care
to spend money on the adornment of their guild halls, and ordinary
householders had no room for large pictures. Englishmen are essentially
_domestic_, and pictures small enough to hang in small houses, and
illustrative of home life, suit their necessities, and appeal to their
feelings far more strongly than vast canvases representing battles or
sacred histories. In _genre_ painting the Dutch school has ever been
prominent; to it we doubtless owe much of the popularity of this branch
of art in England, where our painters have chosen familiar subjects,
without descending to the coarse or sensual incidents in which some old
Dutch artists delighted. The _genre_ painters of this country have
mainly drawn their subjects from our national poets and prose writers
and the every-day life of Englishmen, sometimes verging on the side of
triviality, but on the whole including pleasing works, which, as it has
been well said, "bear the same relation to historic art as the tale or
novel does to history."
DAVID WILKIE (1785--1841) was born in his father's manse at Cults,
Fifeshire. It was fully intended that Wilkie should follow in his
father's steps, and become a minister of the Scottish Kirk, but it was
not to be so. He was placed, at his own earnest desire, in the Trustees'
Academy, at Edinburgh, and there in 1803 justified the wisdom of this
choice by gaining the ten-guinea premium for the best painting of the
time, the subject being _Callisto in the Baths of Diana_. Next year
young Wilkie visited his home, and painted _Piltassie Fair_, which he
sold for L25. He painted portraits, and with the money thus acquired
went to London in 1805. Having entered himself as a student at the
Academy, Wilkie soon attracted attention by the _Village Politicians_,
which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1806. One hundred of his
paintings appeared from time to time on the Academy walls; each
succeeding early work added to its author's fame. All his earlier works
were _genre_ pictures. His favourite subjects are shown in _The Blind
Fiddler_, _Card-Players_, _The Rent Day_, _The Jew's Harp_, _The Cut
Finger_, _The Village Festival_, _Blindman's Buff_, _The Letter of
Introduction_, _Duncan Gray_, _The Penny Wedding_, _Reading the Will_,
_The Parish Beadle_, and _The Chelsea Pensioners_, the last painted for
the Duke of Wellington. Wilkie was elected A.R.A. in 1809, and a full
member in 1811. He went abroad in 1814, and again in 1825, when he
visited Germany, Italy, and Spain. The study of the old masters,
especially Correggio, Rembrandt, and Velazquez, had a marked effect on
Wilkie, who changed both his style and subjects. He forsook _genre_ for
history and portraiture, and substituted a light effective style of
handling for the careful execution of his earlier works. _John Knox
Preaching_ (National Gallery) is a good specimen of this second period
of Wilkie's art. He succeeded Sir Thomas Lawrence in 1830 as Painter in
Ordinary to the King, and was knighted six years later. In 1840 Wilkie
visited the East, and painted the portrait of the Sultan Abdul Medjid.
Next year, whilst far from home, on board a steamer off Gibraltar, he
died, and found a grave in the sea. There are eleven of his pictures in
the National Gallery. Her Majesty possesses most of the pictures painted
by Wilkie in Spain, such as _The Guerilla Council of War_, and _The Maid
of Saragossa_. Another Spanish picture, painted in England, is _Two
Spanish Monks in the Cathedral of Toledo_, belonging to the Marquis of
Lansdowne. In it we notice the painting of the hands, which are full of
life and action, a characteristic in which Wilkie excelled. "His early
art certainly made a great impression on the English school, showing how
Dutch art might be nationalized, and story and sentiment added to scenes
of common life treated with truth and individuality. As to his middle
time, such pictures as the _John Knox_ also had their influence on the
school, and the new mode of execution as supported by Wilkie's
authority, a very evil influence, bringing discredit upon English
pictures as entirely wanting in permanency. His methods and the pigments
he used were soon discarded in England, but at the time they influenced,
and have continued to influence, his countrymen long after his death."
(_Redgrave._)
[Illustration: THE MAID OF SARAGOSSA. _By_ WILKIE. A.D. 1827. _In the
possession of the Queen._]
WILLIAM FREDERICK WITHERINGTON (1785--1865) combined landscape and
subject painting in his art. He exhibited his first picture, _Tintern
Abbey_, in 1811, and his succeeding works were principally landscapes
and figure subjects in combination. Witherington was elected A.R.A. in
1830, and became a full member ten years later. Favourable specimens of
his thoroughly English and pleasing pictures are _The Stepping Stones_
and _The Hop Garland_ in the National Gallery, and _The Hop Garden_ in
the Sheepshanks Collection at South Kensington.
ABRAHAM COOPER (1787--1868), the son of an inn-keeper, was born in
London, and early showed singular skill with his pencil. The inn stables
furnished his first and favoured subjects, and the portrait of a
favourite horse belonging to Sir Henry Meux gained him his first
patron. In 1814 Cooper exhibited at the British Institution _Tam
o'Shanter_, which was purchased by the Duke of Marlborough. In 1817 _The
Battle of Marston Moor_ secured his election as an Associate of the
Academy: he became a R.A. in 1820. There is little variety in the
subjects of this painter's works. The best known are _The Pride of the
Desert_, _Hawking in the Olden Time_, _The Dead Trooper_, _Richard I._
and _Saladin at the Battle of Ascalon_, and _Bothwell's Seizure of Mary,
Queen of Scots_.
WILLIAM MULREADY (1786--1863), the ablest _genre_ painter in England
except Wilkie, was born at Ennis, in the County Clare. Although his
works are familiar to most of us as household words, few details of his
life are known. We know that his father was a maker of leather-breeches,
and that he came to London with his son when the latter was about five
years old. The child is said to have shown very early the artistic power
which was in him. He sat as a model for Solomon to John Graham, who was
illustrating Macklin's Bible and probably the surroundings of the studio
stimulated young Mulready's artistic instincts. By the recommendation of
Banks, the sculptor, he gained entrance to the Academy Schools; at the
age of fifteen he required no further pecuniary aid from his parents.
Mulready worked in the Academy Schools, as he worked through life, with
all his heart and soul. He declared he always painted as though for a
prize, and that when he had begun his career in the world he tried his
hand at everything, "from a caricature to a panorama." He was a teacher
all his life, and this accounts, perhaps, for the careful completeness
of his pictures. Mulready married when very young, and did not secure
happiness. He began by painting landscapes, but in 1807 produced _Old
Kasper_, from Southey's poem of "The Battle of Blenheim," his first
subject picture. _The Rattle_ appeared a year later, and marked advance.
Both pictures bear evidence that their author had studied the Dutch
masters. In 1815 Mulready was chosen A.R.A., but before his name could
appear in the catalogue he had attained to the rank of a full member.
This was in 1816, when he exhibited _The Fight interrupted_ (Sheepshanks
Collection). From this time he was a popular favourite, and his
pictures, of which he exhibited on an average scarcely two a year, were
eagerly looked for. We may specify _The Wolf and the Lamb_, _The Last
in_, _Fair Time_, _Crossing the Ford_, _The Young Brother_, _The Butt_,
_Giving a Bite_, _Choosing the Wedding Gown_, and _The Toyseller_ (all
in the National Gallery or in the South Kensington Museum). "With the
exception perhaps of some slight deterioration in his colouring, which
of late years was obtrusively purple, he was in the enjoyment of the
full powers of his great abilities for upwards of half a century. * * *
He was distinguished by the excellence of his life studies, three of
which in red and black chalks, presented by the Society of Arts, are in
the Gallery." (_National Gallery Catalogue._)
[Illustration: CHOOSING THE WEDDING GOWN. _By_ MULREADY, A.D. 1846.
_In the Sheepshanks Gallery in the South Kensington Museum._]
ALEXANDER FRASER (1786--1865), a native of Edinburgh, exhibited his
first picture, _The Green Stall_, in 1810. Having settled in London, he
became an assistant to his countryman Wilkie, and for twenty years
painted the still-life details of Wilkie's pictures. The influence of
his master's art is visible in Fraser's pictures, which are usually
founded upon incidents and scenes in Scotland, as, for example,
_Interior of a Highland Cottage_ (National Gallery) and _Sir Walter
Scott dining with one of the Blue-gown Beggars of Edinburgh_. Other
examples are _The Cobbler at Lunch_, _The Blackbird and his Tutor_, and
_The Village Sign-painter_.
[Illustration: SANCHO PANZA AND THE DUCHESS. _By_ LESLIE. A.D. 1844. _In
the National Gallery._]
CHARLES ROBERT LESLIE (1794--1859) was born in London, probably in
Clerkenwell, of American parents. His father was a clockmaker from
Philadelphia, who returned with his family to America when the future
painter was five years old. The boy was apprenticed to a bookseller, but
his true vocation was decided by a portrait which he made of Cooke, the
English tragedian, who was performing in Philadelphia. This work
attracted so much notice among Leslie's friends that a subscription was
raised to send him to England, the bookseller, his master, liberally
contributing. In 1811, Leslie became a student of the Royal Academy, and
received instruction from his countrymen Washington Allston and Benjamin
West. Leslie, however, considered teaching of little value. He said
that, if materials were provided, a man was his own best teacher, and he
speaks of "Fuseli's wise neglect" of the Academy students. Influenced,
probably, by the example of Allston and West, Leslie began by aiming at
classic art. He mentions that he was reading "Telemachus," with a view
to a subject, and among his early works was _Saul and the Witch of
Endor_. Even when he commenced to draw subjects from Shakespeare, he
turned first to the historic plays, and painted _The Death of Rutland_
and _The Murder Scene from "Macbeth_." Unlike Wilkie and Mulready,
Leslie did not strive to _create_ subjects for his pictures. He
preferred to ramble through literature, and to select a scene or episode
for his canvas. Wilkie invented scenes illustrating the festivities of
the lower classes, Mulready chose similar incidents; it was left to
Leslie to adopt "genteel comedy." Like his countryman and adviser,
Washington Irving, he had visited, doubtless, many scenes of quiet
English country life, and one of these is reproduced in his well-known
picture of _Sir Roger de Coverley going to Church_, which was exhibited
in 1819. He had previously shown his power in humorous subjects by
painting _Ann Page and Slender_. Leslie had discovered his true
vocation, and continued to work in the department of the higher _genre_
with unabated success. The patronage of Lord Egremont, for whom he
painted, in 1823, _Sancho Panza in the Apartment of the Duchess_, was
the means of procuring him many commissions. The picture in the National
Gallery, of which we give an illustration, is a replica with slight
alterations, executed many years later. He married in 1825, and became a
full member of the Academy a year later. In 1831 he exhibited _The
Dinner at Page's House_, from "The Merry Wives of Windsor"--one of his
finest works. No painter has made us so well acquainted with the
delightful old reprobate, Falstaff, with Bardolph, and the merry company
who drank sack at the Boar's Head in Eastcheap. There is a repetition of
_The Dinner at Page's House_ in the Sheepshanks Collection, slightly
varied from the first, and bearing traces of Constable's influence. In
1833, Leslie was appointed teacher of drawing at the American Academy at
West Point, and with his family he removed thither. It was a mistake,
and the painter returned to England within a year. He illustrated
Shakespeare, Cervantes, Goldsmith, and Sterne, the latter furnishing him
with the subject of _Uncle Toby and the Widow Wadman_. In 1838, Leslie,
by request of the Queen, painted _Her Majesty's Coronation_--which is
very unlike the usual pictures of a state ceremonial. In 1841 he was
commissioned to paint _The Christening of the Princess Royal_. The
domestic life of Leslie was peaceful and prosperous, till the death of a
daughter gave a shock from which he never recovered. He died May 5,
1859. Mr. Redgrave says of his art, "Leslie entered into the true spirit
of the writer he illustrated. His characters appear the very individuals
who have filled our mind. Beauty, elegance, and refinement, varied, and
full of character, or sparkling with sweet humour, were charmingly
depicted by his pencil; while the broader characters of another class,
from his fine appreciation of humour, are no less truthfully rendered,
and that with an entire absence of any approach to vulgarity. The
treatment of his subject is so simple that we lose the sense of a
picture, and feel that we are looking upon a scene as it must have
happened. He drew correctly and with an innate sense of grace. His
colouring is pleasing, his costume simple and appropriate."
[Illustration: CAPTAIN MACHEATH. _By_ NEWTON. A.D. 1826. _In the
possession of the Marquis of Lansdowne._]
GILBERT STUART NEWTON (1794--1835), connected with Leslie by
friendship and similarity of taste, was a native of Halifax, Nova
Scotia. In 1817, when travelling in Europe, Newton met with Leslie at
Paris, and returned with him to London. He was a student of the Academy,
and soon attracted attention by _The Forsaken_, _Lovers' Quarrels_, and
_The Importunate Author_, which were exhibited at the British
Institution. Newton began to exhibit at the Academy in 1823, and
delighted the world with _Don Quixote in his Study_, and _Captain
Macheath upbraided by Polly and Lucy_. In 1828 he surpassed these works
with _The Vicar of Wakefield reconciling his Wife to Olivia_, and was
elected an A.R.A. _Yorick and the Grisette_, _Cordelia and the
Physician_, _Portia and Bassanio_, and similar works followed. In 1832
Newton became a full member of the Academy, and visiting America,
married, and returned with his wife to England. The brief remaining
period of his life was clouded with a great sorrow; his mind gave way,
and having exhibited his last picture, _Abelard in his Study_, he became
altogether insane.
AUGUSTUS LEOPOLD EGG (1816--1863) was born in Piccadilly, and on
becoming a painter chose similar subjects to those of Leslie and Newton.
He had not the humour of Leslie; indeed, most of Egg's subjects are
melancholy. His first works were Italian views, and illustrations of
Scott's novels, which attracted little notice. _The Victim_ promised
better. Egg showed pictures in the Suffolk Street Gallery, and, in 1838,
_The Spanish Girl_ appeared at the Royal Academy. Failing health
compelled him to winter abroad, and on the 23rd of March, 1863, he died
at Algiers, and was buried on a lonely hill. Three years before his
death Egg had become a full member of the Academy. He is described as
having a greater sense of colour than Leslie, but inferior to Newton in
this respect. In execution he far surpassed the flimsy mannerism of the
latter. His females have not the sweet beauty and gentleness of
Leslie's. In the National Gallery is _A Scene from "Le Diable
Boiteux_," in which the dexterity of Egg's execution is visible. He
partially concurred with the pre-Raphaelites in his later years, and
their influence may be traced in _Pepys' Introduction to Nell Gwynne_,
and in a scene from Thackeray's "Esmond." Other noteworthy pictures are
_The Life and Death of Buckingham_; _Peter the Great sees Catherine, his
future Empress, for the First Time_; _The Night before Naseby_; and
_Catherine and Petruchio_.
EDWIN HENRY LANDSEER (1802--1873) was eminent among English animal
painters. No artist has done more to teach us how to love animals and to
enforce the truth that--
"He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small."
Not only did Landseer rival some of the Dutch masters of the seventeenth
century in painting fur and feathers, but he depicted animals with
sympathy, as if he believed that "the dumb, driven cattle" possess
souls. His dogs and other animals are so human as to look as if they
were able to speak. The painter was the son of John Landseer, the
engraver, and was born in London. He received art lessons from his
father, and, when little more than a baby, would sketch donkeys, horses,
and cows at Hampstead Heath. Some of these sketches, made when Landseer
was five, seven, and ten years old, are at Kensington. He was only
fourteen when he exhibited the heads of _A Pointer Bitch and Puppy_.
When between sixteen and seventeen he produced _Dogs fighting_, which
was engraved by the painter's father. Still more popular was _The Dogs
of St. Gothard rescuing a Distressed Traveller_, which appeared when its
author was eighteen. Landseer was not a pupil of Haydon, but he had
occasional counsel from him. He dissected a lion. As soon as he reached
the age of twenty-four he was elected an A.R.A., and exhibited at the
Academy _The Hunting of Chevy Chase_. This was in 1826, and in 1831 he
became a full member of the Academy. Landseer had visited Scotland in
1826, and from that date we trace a change in his style, which
thenceforth was far less solid, true and searching, and became more free
and bold. The introduction of deer into his pictures, as in _The
Children of the Mist_, _Seeking Sanctuary_, and _The Stag at Bay_,
marked the influence of Scotch associations. Landseer was knighted in
1850, and at the French Exhibition of 1855 was awarded the only large
gold medal given to an English artist. Prosperous, popular, and the
guest of the highest personages of the realm, he was visited about 1852
by an illness which compelled him to retire from society. From this he
recovered, but the effects of a railway accident in 1868 brought on a
relapse. He died in 1873, and was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral. On the
death of Sir Charles Eastlake, in 1865, he was offered the Presidentship
of the Royal Academy, but this honour he declined. In the National
Gallery are _Spaniels of King Charles's Breed_, _Low Life and High
Life_, _Highland Music_ (a highland piper disturbing a group of five
hungry dogs, at their meal, with a blast on the pipes), _The Hunted
Stag_, _Peace_ (of which we give a representation), _War_ (dying and
dead horses, and their riders lying amidst the burning ruins of a
cottage), _Dignity and Impudence_, _Alexander and Diogenes_, _The Defeat
of Comus_, a sketch painted for a fresco in the Queen's summer house,
Buckingham Palace. Sixteen of Landseer's works are in the Sheepshanks
Collection, including the touching _Old Shepherd's Chief Mourner_, of
which Mr. Ruskin said that "it stamps its author not as the neat
imitator of the texture of a skin, or the fold of a drapery, but as the
man of mind."
[Illustration: PEACE. _By_ LANDSEER. A.D. 1846. _In the National
Gallery._]
WILLIAM BOXALL (1800--1879), after study in the Royal Academy Schools
and in Italy, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1829 his first
picture--_Milton's Reconciliation with his Wife_--and continued to
contribute to its exhibitions till 1866. Though his first works were
historic and allegoric, he finally became famous as a portrait painter,
and reckoned among his sitters some of the most eminent men of the
time--poets, painters, writers on art, and others, _e.g_. Copley
Fielding, David Cox, Coleridge, Wordsworth. In 1852 Boxall became an
associate, and in 1864 a full member of the Royal Academy; he was
Director of the National Gallery from 1865 to 1874; and received the
honour of knighthood in 1871, in recognition of the valuable services
which he rendered to art.
PAUL FALCONER POOLE (1810--1879), a painter of high class of _genre_
pictures as well as of history, exhibited his first picture at the
Academy in 1830, _The Well, a Scene at Naples_. In 1838 he produced _The
Emigrant's Departure_. Other pictures are _May Queen preparing for the
Dance_, _The Escape of Glaucus and Ione_, _The Seventh Day of the
Decameron_. Among the historic works of this artist are _The Vision of
Ezekiel_ (National Gallery) and others. Poole became a full member of
the Academy in 1860.
GEORGE HEMMING MASON (1818--1872), a native of Witley, Staffordshire,
found art to be surrounded by difficulties. His father insisted on his
following the profession of medicine, and placed him with Dr. Watts, of
Birmingham. A portrait painter having visited the doctor's house, young
Mason borrowed his colour-box, and, unaided, produced a picture of such
promise that the artist advised him to follow art. Mason left the
doctor's house, made his way to Italy, and, without any teacher,
developed an original style which is marked by simplicity of design,
refinement of colour, delicacy of chiaroscuro, and pathos of expression.
He was elected A.R.A. in 1868, but died of heart-disease before becoming
a full member. Mason's best-known works are _Campagna di Roma_, _The
Gander_, _The Return from Ploughing_, _The Cast Shoe_, _The Evening
Hymn_, and _The Harvest Moon_, unfinished.
ROBERT BRAITHWAITE MARTINEAU (1826--1869), son of one of the Masters in
Chancery, nephew of Miss Martineau, commenced life as an articled clerk
to a solicitor. After four years' study of the law he forsook it for the
brighter sphere of art, and entered the Academy Schools. In 1852
Martineau exhibited at the Academy _Kit's Writing Lesson_, from "The Old
Curiosity Shop," which indicated the class of subjects which he
delighted in. His _Last Day in the Old House_, and _The Last Chapter_,
by their originality of conception, and exquisite painting, won the
artist a renown which he did not long live to enjoy. He died of
heart-disease.
JOHN FREDERICK LEWIS (1805--1876), the son of an eminent London
engraver, began his career in art by painting studies of animals, and in
1828 was elected a Member of the Society of Painters in Water-Colours.
He afterwards travelled in Spain and Italy, painting many subjects, such
as a _Spanish Bullfight_, _Monks preaching at Seville_, &c., and thence
went to the East, where he stayed some years. He returned to England in
1851, and four years afterwards was made President of the Water-colour
Society. In 1856 he exhibited _A Frank Encampment in the Desert of Mount
Sinai_, which Mr. Ruskin called "the climax of water-colour drawing." In
the same year he began to paint in oil colours, and frequently exhibited
pictures of Eastern life, such as _The Meeting in the Desert_, _A
Turkish School_, _A Cafe in Cairo_, &c. In 1859 he was made an Associate
of the Royal Academy, and in 1866 a full member. In the South Kensington
Museum there are two of Lewis's water-colour drawings, _The Halt in the
Desert_ and _Peasants of the Black Forest_, and a few of his studies
from nature.
[Illustration: THE ARAB SCRIBE. _By_ JOHN FREDERICK LEWIS. A.D. 1852.]
EDWARD MATTHEW WARD (1816--1879) became a student at the Academy by the
advice of Wilkie, who had seen his first picture, a portrait of Mr. O.
Smith as Don Quixote. In 1836 Ward was a student in Rome. Thence he
proceeded to Munich, and studied fresco-painting with Cornelius. In 1839
he returned to England, and exhibited _Cimabue and Giotto_. Joining in
the competition for the decoration of the Houses of Parliament, he
produced _Boadicea_, which was commended, but did not obtain a premium.
_Dr. Johnson reading the MS. of Goldsmith's "Vicar of Wakefield"_,
first brought him to notice. It was followed by _Dr. Johnson in Lord
Chesterfield's Ante-Room_, and the painter was elected an A.R.A. This
work as well as _The Disgrace of Lord Clarendon_, _The South-Sea
Bubble_, and _James II. receiving the news of the landing of William of
Orange_, are in the National Gallery. In 1852 and later Ward executed
eight historic pictures in the corridor of the House of Commons. He was
elected a Royal Academician in 1855. His pictures are too well known to
need description; most popular among them are _Charlotte Corday led to
Execution_, _The Execution of Montrose_, _The Last Sleep of Argyll_,
_Marie Antoinette parting with the Dauphin_, _The Last Moments of
Charles II._, _The Night of Rizzio's Murder_, _The Earl of Leicester and
Amy Robsart_, _Judge Jeffreys and Richard Baxter_.
FREDERICK WALKER (1840--1875) died just as he had fulfilled the promise
of his youth. After spending a short time in the office of an architect
and surveyor, he left this uncongenial region to practise art. He
occasionally studied in the Academy Schools, and began his artistic
career by illustrating Thackeray's "Philip" in the "Cornhill Magazine,"
thus winning much praise. He became a member of the Old Water-Colour
Society, and an A.R.A. A career full of promise was cut short by death
at St. Fillan's, Perthshire, in 1875: the young painter was buried at
his favourite Cookham, on the Thames. His chief works are _The Lost
Path_, _The Bathers_, _The Vagrants_, _The Old Gate_, _The Plough_, _The
Harbour of Refuge_, and _The Right of Way_. Mr. Redgrave said, "His
genius was thoroughly and strikingly original. His works are marked by a
method of their own; the drawing, colour, and execution, alike peculiar
to himself. They are at once refined and pathetic in sentiment, and
novel in their conception of nature and her effects. His figures have
the true feeling of rustic life, with the grace of line of the
antique."
[Illustration: OUR VILLAGE. _By_ FREDERICK WALKER. _Exhibited at the
Water-colour Society's Exhibition._ A.D. 1873.]
GABRIEL CHARLES DANTE ROSSETTI (1828--1882), poet, and painter of sacred
subjects and scenes inspired by the writings of Dante, was the son of an
Italian patriot, a political refugee, who became Professor of Italian in
King's College, London. He exhibited at the Portland Gallery his first
picture, _The Girlhood of the Virgin_, in 1849, and became the founder
of the pre-Raphaelite school, which included Millais, Holman Hunt, and
other artists now celebrated. Rossetti's best-known pictures are
_Dante's Dream_ (now at Liverpool), _The Damosel of the Sancte Graal_,
_The Last Meeting of Lancelot and Guinevere_, _The Beloved_ (an
illustration of the Song of Solomon), and _Proserpina_. He seldom
exhibited his paintings in public, but they were seen by art-critics,
one of whom wrote (in 1873)--"Exuberance in power, exuberance in poetry
of a rich order, noble technical gifts, vigour of conception, and a
marvellously extensive range of thought and invention appear in nearly
everything Mr. Rossetti produces."
He was equally celebrated as a writer of sonnets and a translator of
Italian poetry.
* * * * *
It is not within the province of this work to include notice of living
artists. To give an account of all the celebrated painters would require
another volume. During the past decade Art has advanced with steady
progress, and we can confidently say that at no time have the ranks of
the Royal Academicians and the two Water-Colour Societies been filled
more worthily than at the present day. The last quarter of the
nineteenth century is likely to be a golden era in the history of
British Art.
PAINTING IN AMERICA.
BY S. R. KOEHLER.
[Illustration]
PAINTING IN AMERICA.
INTRODUCTION.
The history of art in America is in reality the record only of the dying
away of the last echoes of movements which had their origin in Europe.
Although the western continent has given birth to new political ideas
and new forms of government, not one of its States, not even the
greatest of them all, the United States of North America, to which this
chapter will be confined, has thus far brought forth a national art, or
has exercised any perceptible influence, except in a single instance, on
the shaping of the art of the world. Nor is this to be wondered at. The
newness of the country, the mixture of races from the beginning, and the
ever-continuing influx of foreigners, together with the lack of
educational facilities, and the consequent necessity of seeking
instruction in Europe, are causes sufficient to explain the apparent
anomaly. Even those of the native painters of the United States who kept
away from the Old World altogether, or visited it too late in life to be
powerfully influenced, show but few traces of decided originality in
either conception or execution. They also were under the spell, despite
the fact that it could not work upon them directly. The attempt has been
made to explain this state of things by assuming an incapacity for art
on the part of the people of the country, and an atmosphere hostile to
its growth, resulting from surrounding circumstances. These conclusions,
however, are false. So far as technical skill goes, Americans--native as
well as adopted--have always shown a remarkable facility of acquisition,
and the rapidity with which carpenters, coach-painters, and
sign-painters, especially in the earlier period of the country's
history, developed into respectable portrait-painters, almost without
instruction, will always remain cause for astonishment. Of those who
went abroad at that time, England readopted four men who became famous
(West, Copley, Newton, Leslie), and she still points to them with
satisfaction as among the more conspicuous on her roll of artists. Nor
has this quality been lost with the advance of time. It has, on the
contrary, been aided by diligent application; and the successes which
have been achieved by American students are recorded in the annals of
the French Salon. There is one curious trait, however, which will become
more and more apparent as we trace the history of art in America, and
that is the absence of a national element in the subjects treated. If we
except a short flickering of patriotic spirit in the art of what may be
called the Revolutionary Period, and the decided preference given to
American scenes by the landscape painters of about the middle of the
present century, it may be said that the artists of the country, as a
rule, have imported with the technical processes also the subjects of
the Old World; that they have preferred the mountains of Italy and the
quiet hamlets of France to the hills of New England and the Rocky
Mountains of the West, the Arab to the Indian, and the history of the
Old World to the records of their own ancestors. Even the struggle for
the destruction of the last vestiges of slavery which was the great work
entrusted to this generation, has called forth so few manifestations in
art (and these few falling without the limits of the present chapter),
that it would not be very far from wrong to speak of it as having left
behind it no trace whatever. All this, however, is not the fault of the
artists, except in so far as they are themselves part of the nation. The
blame attaches to the people as a whole, whose innermost thoughts and
highest aspirations the artists will always be called upon to embody in
visible form. There is no doubt, from the evidence already given by the
painters of America, that they will be equal to the task, should they
ever be called upon to exert their skill in the execution of works of
monumental art.
* * * * *
The history of painting in America may be divided into four periods:--1.
_The Colonial Period_, up to the time of the Revolution; 2. _The
Revolutionary Period_, comprising the painters who were eye-witnesses of
and participators in the War of Independence; 3. _The Period of Inner
Development_, from about the beginning of the century to the civil war;
4. _The Period of the Present_. It will be seen that the designations of
these divisions are taken from the political rather than the artistic
history of the country. And, indeed, it would be difficult to find other
distinguishing marks which would allow of a concise nomenclature. As to
the influences at work in the several periods, it may be said that the
Colonial and Revolutionary were entirely under the domination of
England. In the earlier part of the third period the influence of
England continued, but was supplemented by that of Italy. Later on a
number of American artists studied in Paris, without, however, coming
under the influence of the Romantic school, and towards the middle of
the century many of them were attracted by Duesseldorf. A slight
influence was exercised also by the English pre-Raphaelites, but it
found expression in a literary way rather than in actual artistic
performance. In the fourth or present period, finally, the leadership
has passed to the Colouristic schools of Paris and Munich, to which
nearly all the younger artists have sworn allegiance.
FIRST, OR COLONIAL PERIOD.
The paintings which have come down to the present day from the Colonial
Period, so far as they relate to America, are almost without exception
portraits. Many of these were, as a matter of course, brought over from
England and Holland; but that there were resident painters in the
Colonies as early as 1667, is shown by a passage in Cotton Mather's
"Magnalia," cited by Tuckerman. It is very natural that these "limners,"
to use a favourite designation then applied to artists, were not of the
best. The masters of repute did not feel a call to dwell in the
wilderness, and hence the works belonging to the beginning of this
period are for the most part rude and stiff. Several of these early
portraits may be seen in the Memorial Hall of Harvard University, at
Cambridge, Mass.
The first painters whose names have been preserved to us were not born
to the soil. The honour of standing at the head of the roll belongs to
JOHN WATSON (1685--1768), a Scotchman, who established himself at Perth
Amboy, N.J., in 1715. Of his portraits none are at present known, but at
the Chronological Exhibition of American Art, held in Brooklyn, N.Y., in
1872, there was shown an India ink drawing by him, _Venus and Cupid_,
executed on vellum. A better fate was vouchsafed to the works of JOHN
SMYBERT, another Scotchman, who came to Rhode Island in 1728 with Dean,
afterwards Bishop, Berkeley, in whose proposed college he was to be an
instructor--probably the first movement towards art education made in
the Colonies. Smybert settled and married in Boston, where he died in
1751 or 1752. He was not an artist of note, although his most important
work, _The Family of Bishop Berkeley_, a large group, in which he has
introduced his own likeness, now in the possession of Yale College, at
New Haven, Conn., shows him to have been courageous and not without
talent. Not all the pictures, however, which are attributed to him, come
up to this standard. A very bad example to which his name is attached
may be seen in the portrait of _John Lovell_, in the Memorial Hall of
Harvard University. The influence exercised by Smybert on the
development of art in America is due to an accident rather than to
actual teaching. He brought with him a copy of the head of Cardinal
Bentivoglio, by Van Dyck, which he had made in Italy, and which is still
preserved in the Hall just named. It was this copy which first inspired
Trumbull and Allston with a love of art, and gave them an idea of
colour. Of the other foreigners who visited the Colonies during this
period, the more prominent are BLACKBURN, an Englishman, who was
Smybert's contemporary or immediate successor, and is by some held to
have been Copley's teacher; WILLIAMS, another Englishman, who painted
about the same time in Philadelphia, and from whose intercourse young
West is said to have derived considerable benefit; and COSMO ALEXANDER,
a Scotchman, who came to America in 1770, and was Stuart's first
instructor.
The earliest native painter who has left any lasting record is ROBERT
FEKE, whose life is enveloped by the mystery of romance. Sprung from
Quaker stock, and separated from his people by difference of religious
opinion, he left home, and was in some way taken a prisoner to Spain,
where he is said to have executed rude paintings, with the proceeds of
which he managed to return home. Feke painted in Philadelphia and
elsewhere about the middle of the last century, and his portraits,
according to Tuckerman, are considered the best colonial family
portraits next to West's. Specimens of his work may be seen in the
collections of Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Me.; the Redwood Athenaeum,
Newport, R.I.; and the R. I. Historical Society, Providence, R.I.
Nearest to Feke in date--although his later contemporaries, West and
Copley, were earlier known as artists, and the first named even became
his teacher in England--is MATTHEW PRATT (1734--1805), who started in
life as a sign-painter in Philadelphia. Pratt's work is often spoken of
slightingly, and does not generally receive the commendation it
deserves. His full-length portrait of _Lieutenant-Governor Cadwallader
Colden_, painted for the New York Chamber of Commerce in 1772, and still
to be seen at its rooms, shows him to have been quite a respectable
artist, with a feeling for colour in advance of that exhibited by Copley
in his earlier work. Still another native artist of this period, HENRY
BEMBRIDGE, is chiefly of interest from the fact that he is said to have
studied with Mengs and Battoni, which would make him one of the first
American painters who visited Italy. He seems to have painted chiefly in
Charleston, S.C., and his portraits are described as of singularly
formal aspect.
The most celebrated painters of this period, however, and the only ones
whose fame is more than local, are John Singleton Copley and Benjamin
West. But as both of them left their country at an early age, never to
return, they belong to England rather than to America.
COPLEY (1737--1815) was a native of Boston, and did not go to Europe
until 1774, when his reputation was already established. In 1760 he gave
his income in Boston at three hundred guineas. He first went to Italy
and thence to London, where he settled. Some speculation has been
indulged in as to Copley's possible teachers. He must have received some
aid from his stepfather, Peter Pelham, a schoolmaster and very inferior
mezzotint engraver; and it has also been supposed that he may have had
the benefit of Blackburn's instruction. This does not seem likely,
however, judging either from the facts or from tradition. Copley was
undoubtedly essentially self-taught, and the models upon which he
probably formed his style are still to be seen. Several of them are
included in the collection in the Memorial Hall of Harvard University.
One of these portraits, that of _Thomas Hollis_, a benefactor of the
university, who died when Copley was only six years of age, is so like
the latter's work, not only in conception but even in the paleness of
the flesh tints and the cold grey of the shadows, as to be readily taken
for one of his earlier productions. In England Copley became the painter
of the aristocracy, and executed a considerable number of large historic
pictures, mostly of modern incidents. He is elegant rather than
powerful, and quite successful in the rendering of stuffs. His colour,
at first cold and rather inharmonious, improved with experience,
although he has been pronounced deficient in this respect even in later
years. Copley's most celebrated picture is _The Death of the Earl of
Chatham_. Many specimens of his skill as a portrait-painter can be seen
in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and in the Memorial Hall of
Harvard University, the latter collection including the fine portrait of
_Mrs. Thomas Boylston_. The Public Library of Boston owns one of his
large historic paintings, _Charles I. demanding the Five Members from
Parliament_.
BENJAMIN WEST (1738--1820) was born of Quaker parentage at Springfield,
Pa., and was successfully engaged, at the age of eighteen, as a
portrait-painter in Philadelphia. In 1760 he went to Rome, and it is
believed that he was the first American artist who ever appeared there.
Three years later he removed to London, where he became the leading
historic painter, the favourite of the King, and President of the Royal
Academy. His great scriptural and historic compositions, of which
comparatively few are to be seen in his native country (_King Lear_, in
the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston; _Death on the Pale Horse_ and _Christ
Rejected_, at the Pennsylvania Academy, Philadelphia), show him in the
light of an ambitious and calculating rather than inspired painter, with
a decided feeling for colour. His influence on art in general made
itself felt in the refusal to paint the actors in his _Death of Wolfe_
in classic costume, according to usage. By clothing them in their
actual dress, he led art forward a step in the realistic direction, the
only instance to be noted of a directing motive imparted to art by an
American, but one which is quite in accordance with the spirit of the
New World. West's influence upon the art of his own country was
henceforth limited to the warm interest he took in the many students of
the succeeding generation who flocked to England to study under his
guidance.
[Illustration: DEATH ON THE PALE HORSE. _By_ WEST. A.D. 1817.
_In the Pennsylvania Academy, Philadelphia._
_Copyright_, 1879, _by Harper and Brothers_.]
SECOND, OR REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD.
The Revolutionary Period is, in many respects, the most interesting
division, not only in the political, but also in the artistic history of
the United States. It is so, not merely because it has left us the
pictorial records of the men and the events of a most important epoch in
the development of mankind, but also because it brought forth two
painters who, while they were thoroughly American in their aspirations,
were at the same time endowed with artistic qualities of a very high
order. Gilbert Stuart and John Trumbull, the two painters alluded to,
have a right to be considered the best of the American painters of the
past, and will always continue to hold a prominent place in the history
of their art, even if it were possible to forget the stirring scenes
with which they were connected.
[Illustration: GENERAL KNOX. _By_ GILBERT STUART
_Copyright_, 1879, _by Harper and Brothers_.]
GILBERT STUART was born in Narragansett, R.I., in 1755, and died in
Boston in 1828. He was of Scotch descent, and it has already been
mentioned that Cosmo Alexander, a Scotchman, was his first teacher.
After several visits to Europe, during the second of which he studied
under West, Stuart finally returned in 1793, and began the painting of
the series of national portraits which will for ever endear him to the
patriotic American. Among these his several renderings of Washington, of
which there are many copies by his own hand, are the most celebrated.
The greatest popularity is perhaps enjoyed by the so-called Athenaeum
head, which, with its pendant, the portrait of _Mrs. Washington_, is the
property of the Athenaeum of Boston, and by that institution has been
deposited in the Museum of Fine Arts of the same city. The claim to
superiority is, however, contested by the _Gibbs Washington_, at present
also to be seen in the museum alluded to. It was painted before the
other, and gives the impression of more realistic truthfulness, while
the Athenaeum head seems to be somewhat idealized. Stuart's work is quite
unequal, as he was not a strict economist, and often painted for money
only. But in his best productions there is a truly admirable purity and
wealth of colour, added to a power of characterization, which lifts
portraiture into the highest sphere of art. It must be said, however,
that he concentrated his attention almost entirely upon the head, often
slighting the arms and hands, especially of his female sitters, to an
unpleasant degree. Many excellent specimens of his work, besides the
Washington portraits, are to be found in the Museum of Fine Arts at
Boston and in the collection of the New York Historical Society, the
latter including the fine portrait of _Egbert Benson_, painted in 1807.
His _chef-d'oeuvre_ is the portrait of _Judge Stephen Jones_, owned by
Mr. F. G. Richards, of Boston, a remarkably vigorous head of an old man,
warm and glowing in colour, which, it is said, the artist painted for
his own satisfaction. Stuart's most celebrated work in England is _Mr.
Grant skating_. When this portrait was exhibited as a work by
Gainsborough, at the "Old Masters," in 1878, its pedigree having been
forgotten, it was in turn attributed to all the great English
portrait-painters, until it was finally restored to its true author.
[Illustration: DEATH OF MONTGOMERY IN THE ATTACK OF QUEBEC. _By_ J.
TRUMBULL. _At Yale College._
_Copyright_, 1879, _by Harper and Brothers_.]
Still more national importance attaches to JOHN TRUMBULL (1756--1843),
since he was an historic as well as a portrait-painter, took part in
person as an officer in the American army in many of the events of the
Revolution, and was intimately acquainted with most of the heroes of his
battle scenes. America enjoys in this respect an advantage of which no
other country can boast--that of having possessed an artist
contemporaneous with the most important epoch in its history, and
capable and willing to depict the scenes enacted around him. Colonel
Trumbull, the son of Jonathan Trumbull, the Colonial Governor of
Connecticut, studied at Harvard, and gave early evidences of a taste for
art. At the age of nineteen he joined the American army, but in 1780,
aggrieved at a fancied slight, he threw up his commission and went to
France, and thence to London, where he studied under West. Trumbull must
not be judged as an artist by his large paintings in the Capitol at
Washington, the commission for which he did not receive until 1817. To
know him one must study him in his smaller works and sketches, now
gathered in the gallery of Yale College, where may be seen his _Death of
Montgomery_, _Battle of Bunker Hill_, _Declaration of Independence_, and
other revolutionary scenes, together with a series of admirable
miniature portraits in oil, painted from life, as materials for his
historic works, and a number of larger portraits, including a
full-length of _Washington_. As a portrait-painter, Trumbull is also
represented at his best by the full-length of _Alexander Hamilton_, at
the rooms of the New York Chamber of Commerce. The most successful of
his large historic pieces, _The Sortie from Gibraltar_, painted in
London, is at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Goethe, who saw the
small painting of _The Battle of Bunker Hill_ while it was in the hands
of Mueller, the engraver, commended it, but criticized its colour and the
smallness of the heads. It is true that Trumbull's drawing is somewhat
conventional, and that he had a liking for long figures. But his colour,
as seen to-day in his good earlier pictures, is quite brilliant and
harmonious, although thoroughly realistic. In his later work, however,
as shown by the Scripture pieces likewise preserved in the Yale Gallery,
there is a marked decadence in vigour of drawing as well as of colour.
Owing to an unfortunate concatenation of circumstances, Trumbull has
not received the full appreciation which is his due, even from his own
countrymen. Thackeray readily recognised his merit, and cautioned the
Americans never to despise or neglect Trumbull--a piece of advice which
is only now beginning to attract the attention it deserves.
Among the portrait-painters of this period, CHARLES WILSON PEALE
(1741--1827) takes the lead by reason of quantity rather than quality.
Peale was typical of a certain phase of American character, representing
the restlessness and superficiality which prevail upon men to turn
lightly from one occupation to another. He was a dentist, a worker in
materials of all sorts, an ornithologist and taxidermist, rose to the
rank of colonel in the American army, and started a museum of natural
history and art in Philadelphia. But his strongest love seems, after
all, to have been for the fine arts. Among the fourteen portraits of
_Washington_ which Peale painted, according to Tuckerman, is the only
_full-length_ ever done of the father of his country: it shows him
before the Revolution, attired as an officer in the colonial force of
Great Britain. A large number of Peale's portraits may be seen in the
Pennsylvania Academy and in Independence Hall, Philadelphia. The New
York Historical Society owns, among other works by his hand, a
Washington portrait and a group of the Peale family comprising ten
figures. Much of Peale's work is crude, but all of his heads have the
appearance of being good likenesses.
Among a number of other painters of this period we can select only a
few, whose names receive an additional lustre from their connection with
Washington.
JOSEPH WRIGHT (1756--1793) was the son of Patience Wright, who modelled
heads in wax at Bordentown, N.J., before the Revolution. While in
England he painted a portrait of the Prince of Wales. In the year 1783
Washington sat to him, after having submitted to the preliminary ordeal
of a plaster mask. Tuckerman speaks of this portrait as inelegant and
unflattering, and characterizes the artist as unideal, but
conscientious. Wright's portrait of _John Jay_, at the rooms of the New
York Historical Society, authorizes a more favourable judgment. It is,
indeed, somewhat austere, but lifelike, well posed, and cool in colour.
E. SAVAGE (1761--1817) seems to have been nearly as versatile as Peale,
emulating him also in the establishment of a museum, at first in New
York, then in Boston. His portrait of _General Washington_, in the
Memorial Hall of Harvard University, is carefully painted and bright in
colour, but rather lifeless. His _Washington Family_, in the Boston
Museum (a place of amusement not to be confounded with the Museum of
Fine Arts), which he engraved himself, has similar qualities. A little
picture by him, also in the Boston Museum, representing _The Signers of
the Declaration of Independence in Carpenters' Hall_, is interesting on
account of its subject, but does not possess much artistic merit. The
portrait of _Dr. Handy_, on the contrary, which is assigned to him, at
the New York Historical Society, is a very creditable work, good in
colour, luminous in the flesh, and simple in the modelling.
WILLIAM DUNLAP (1766--1839), finally, may also be mentioned here on
account of his portrait of _Washington_--painted when the artist was
only seventeen years old--although he belongs more properly to the next
period, and is of more importance as a writer than a painter. He
published, in 1834, a "History of the Arts of Design in the United
States," a book now quite scarce and much sought after. A group of
himself and his parents, painted in 1788, is in the collection of the
New York Historical Society.
THIRD PERIOD, OR PERIOD OF INNER DEVELOPMENT.
The example of Trumbull found no followers. The only other American
painter who made a specialty of his country's history seems to have
been JOHN BLAKE WHITE (1782--1859), a native of Charleston, S.C., who
painted such subjects as _Mrs. Motte presenting the Arrows_, _Marion
inviting the British Officer to Dinner_, and the Battles of _New
Orleans_ and _Eutaw_, placed in the State House of South Carolina.
White's fame is quite local, however, and it is impossible, therefore,
to judge of his qualities accurately. Had there been more painters of
similar subjects, a national school might have resulted; but neither the
people nor the Government took any interest in Colonel Trumbull's plans.
It was necessary to employ all sorts of manoeuvring to induce Congress
to give a commission to the artist, and the result was disappointment to
all concerned; and when, later, the further decoration of the Capitol at
Washington, the seat of government, was resolved upon, the artist
selected for the work was CARLO BRUMIDI (1811--1880), an Italian artist
of the old school. The healthy impetus towards realistic historic
painting given by Trumbull thus died out, and what there is of historic
and figure painting in the period now under consideration is mainly
dominated by a false idealism, of which Washington Allston is the
leading representative. To rival the old masters, to do what had been
done before, to flee from the actual and the near to the unreal and the
distant, to look upon monks and knights and robbers and Venetian
senators as the embodiment of the poetic, in spite of the poet's warning
to the contrary, was now the order of the day; and hence it was but
natural that quite a number of the artists who then went to Europe
turned to Italy. It was in this period, also, that the first attempts
were made to establish Academies of Art in Philadelphia and New
York--attempts which, while they were laudable enough in themselves,
inasmuch as these institutions were intended to provide instruction at
home for the rising generation, still pointed in the same direction of
simple imitation of the expiring phases of European Art.
[Illustration: JEREMIAH AND THE SCRIBE. _By_ WASHINGTON ALLSTON. _At
Yale College_.
_Copyright_, 1879, _by Harper and Brothers_.]
WASHINGTON ALLSTON (1779--1843) was a native of South Carolina, but
was sent to New England at an early age, and graduated from Harvard
College in 1800. The year following he went to England, to study under
West, and thence to Italy, where he stayed four years, until his return
to Boston in 1809. After a second absence in Europe of seven years'
duration, he finally settled in Cambridge, near Boston. Allston's art
covered a wide range, including Scripture history, portraiture, ideal
heads, _genre_, landscape, and marine. It is difficult to understand
to-day the enthusiasm which his works aroused, if not among the great
public, at least within a limited circle of admiring friends. He was
lauded for his poetic imagination, and called "the American Titian," on
account of his colour; and this reputation has lasted down to our own
time. The Allston Exhibition, however, which was held two years ago at
the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, has somewhat modified the opinions of
calm observers. Allston was neither deep nor very original in his
conceptions, nor was he a great colourist. One of his most pleasing
pictures, _The Two Sisters_, is full of reminiscences of Titian, and it
is well known that he painted it while engaged in the study of that
master. In the case of an artist upon whose merits opinions are so
widely divided, it may be well to cite the words of an acknowledged
admirer, in speaking of what has been claimed to be his greatest work,
the _Jeremiah and the Scribe_, in the Gallery of Yale College. Mrs. E.
D. Cheney, in describing the impression made upon her by this picture
after a lapse of forty years, says:--"I was forced to confess that
either I had lost my sensibility to its expression, or I had overrated
its value.... The figure of the Prophet is large and imposing, but I
cannot find in it the spiritual grandeur and commanding nobility of
Michel Angelo. He is conscious of his own presence, rather than lost in
the revelation which is given through him. But the Scribe is a very
beautiful figure, simple in action and expression, and entirely absorbed
in his humble but important work. It reminds me of the young brother in
Domenichino's _Martyrdom of St. Jerome_." The same lack of psychological
power, here hinted at, is still more apparent in the artist's attempts
to express the more violent manifestations of the soul. In _The Dead Man
revived by touching Elisha's Bones_--for which he received a premium of
200 guineas from the British Institution, and which is now in the
Pennsylvania Academy--the faces of the terrified spectators are so
distorted as to have become caricatures. This is true, in a still higher
degree, of the heads of the priests in the great unfinished
_Belshazzar's Feast_, in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The unnatural
expression of these heads is generally explained by the condition in
which the picture was left; but the black-and-white sketches, which may
be examined in the same museum, show precisely the same character. The
unhealthy direction of the artist's mind is apparent, furthermore, in
his love of the terrible--shown in his early pictures of banditti, and
in such later works as _Saul and the Witch of Endor_ and _Spalatro's
Vision of the Bloody Hand_; while, on the contrary, it will be found,
upon closer analysis, that the ideality and spirituality claimed for his
female heads, such as _Rosalie_ and _Amy Robsart_, resolve themselves
into something very near akin to sweetness and lack of strength. In
accordance with this absence of intellectual robustness, Allston's
execution is hesitating and wanting in decision.
A somewhat similar spirit manifested itself in the works of John
Vanderlyn (1776--1852), Rembrandt Peale (1787--1860), Samuel F. B. Morse
(1791--1872), and Cornelius Ver Bryck (1813--1844).
JOHN VANDERLYN is best known by his _Marius on the Ruins of Carthage_,
for which he received a medal at the Paris Salon of 1808, and his
_Ariadne_, which forms part of the collection of the Pennsylvania
Academy. Vanderlyn, as the choice of his subjects, coupled with his
success in France, shows, was a very good classic painter, trained in
the routine of the Academy. The _Ariadne_ is a careful study of the
nude, although somewhat red in the flesh, placed in a conventional
landscape of high order. A large historic composition by him, _The
Landing of Columbus_, finished in 1846, fills one of the panels in the
Rotunda of the Capitol at Washington. As a portrait painter Vanderlyn
was most unequal.
REMBRANDT PEALE--the son of Charles Wilson Peale, best known through his
portraits--deserves mention here on account of his _Court of Death_, in
the Crowe Art Museum of St. Louis, and _The Roman Daughter_, in the
Boston Museum. Technically he stands considerably below his leading
contemporaries.
S. F. B. MORSE, whose fame as an artist has been eclipsed by his
connection with the electric telegraph, was a painter of undoubted
talent, but given somewhat to ostentation both in drawing and colour.
Good specimens of his style are found in his _Dying Hercules_, Yale
College, New Haven, and the rather theatrical portrait of Lafayette in
the Governor's Room of the City Hall of New York. Morse essayed to paint
national subjects, and selected for a theme the interior of the House of
Representatives, with portraits of the members; but the public took no
interest in the picture, although it is said to have been very clever,
and the artist did not even cover his expenses by exhibiting it.
CORNELIUS VER BRYCK painted Bacchantes and Cavaliers, and a few historic
pictures, with a decided feeling for colour, as evidenced by his
_Venetian Senator_, owned by the New York Historical Society. He stands
upon the borderland between an older and a newer generation, both of
which, however, belong to the same period. Thus far the influence of
Italy had been paramount; in the years immediately following Duesseldorf
claims a share in shaping the historical art of the United States. The
only names that can be mentioned here in accordance with the plan of
this book, which excludes living artists, are Emmanuel Leutze
(1816--1868), Edwin White (1817--1877), Henry Peters Gray (1819--1877),
W. H. Powell (died 1879), Thomas Buchanan Read (1822--1872), and J. B.
Irving (1826--1877).
LEUTZE was a German by birth, and his natural sympathies, although he
had been brought to America as an infant, carried him to Duesseldorf. The
eminence to which he rose in this school may be inferred from the fact
that he was chosen Director of the Academy after he had returned to
America, and almost at the moment of his death. Although of foreign
parentage, he showed more love for American subjects than most of the
native artists, but the trammels of the school in which he was taught
made it impossible for him to become a thoroughly national painter. His
most important works are _Washington crossing the Delaware_, _Washington
at the Battle of Monmouth_, and _Washington at Valley Forge_; the two
last named are at present in the possession of Mrs. Mark Hopkins of
California. In the Capitol at Washington may be seen his _Westward the
Star of Empire takes its Way_; _The Landing of the Norsemen_ is in the
Pennsylvania Academy; _The Storming of a Teocalle_, in the Museum of
Fine Arts, Boston.
EDWIN WHITE, an extraordinarily prolific artist, who studied both at
Paris and Duesseldorf, also painted a number of American historic
pictures, among them _Washington resigning his Commission_, for the
State of Maryland. The bulk of his work, however, weakly sentimental,
deals with the past of Europe.
H. P. GRAY'S allegiance was given, almost undividedly, to the masters of
Italy, and his subjects were mostly taken from antiquity. In his best
works, such as _The Wages of War_, he appears in the light of an
academic painter of respectable attainments; but there is so little of a
national flavour in his productions, that the label "American School" on
the frame of the picture just named is apt to provoke a smile. Gray's
_Judgment of Paris_ is in the Corcoran Gallery at Washington.
W. H. POWELL is best known by his _De Soto discovering the
Mississippi_, in the Rotunda at Washington, a work which is on a level
with the average of official monumental painting done in Europe, in
which truth is invariably sacrificed to so-called artistic
considerations. As a portrait-painter he does not stand very high. T. B.
READ, the "painter-poet," enjoyed one of those fictitious reputations
which are unfortunately none too rare in America. Without any real
feeling for colour, and with a style of drawing which made up in
so-called grace for what it lacked in decision, he attained a certain
popularity by a class of subjects such as _The Lost Pleiad_, _The Spirit
of the Waterfall_, &c., which captivate the unthinking by their very
superficiality. Several of his productions, among them his _Sheridan's
Ride_, may be seen at the Pennsylvania Academy. J. B. IRVING, a student
at Duesseldorf under Leutze, was a careful and intelligent painter of
subjects which might be classed as historic _genre_, including some
scenes from the past history of the United States.
Among the foreign artists who came to America during this period must be
named CHRISTIAN SCHUeSSELE (1824--1879), a native of Alsace, who has
exercised some influence through his position as Director of the Schools
of the Pennsylvania Academy, in Philadelphia. His _Esther denouncing
Haman_, in the collection of the institution just named, shows him to
have been an adherent of the modern French classic school, in which
elegance is the first consideration.
A place all by himself must finally be assigned to WILLIAM RIMMER
(1816--1879), of English parentage, who spent much of his life in the
vicinity of Boston. Dr. Rimmer, as he is commonly called, since he began
life as a physician, is of greater importance as a sculptor than as a
painter. He, nevertheless, must be mentioned here on account of the many
drawings he executed. To an overweening interest in anatomy he added a
somewhat weird fancy, so that his conceptions sometimes remind one of
Blake. His most important work is a set of drawings for an anatomical
atlas, in which special stress is laid upon the anatomy of expression.
His oil-paintings, such as _Cupid and Venus_, &c., are marred by violent
contrasts of light and dark, and an unnatural, morbid scheme of colour,
which justifies the assumption that his colour-vision was defective. But
Rimmer will always remain interesting as a brilliant phenomenon,
strangely out of place in space as well as in time.
The same absence, in general, of a national spirit is to be noticed in
the works of the _genre_ painters. Among the earliest of these are to be
named CHARLES ROBERT LESLIE (1794--1859), many of whose works may be
seen in the Lenox Gallery, New York, and at the Pennsylvania Academy,
Philadelphia; and GILBERT STUART NEWTON (1794--1835), a nephew of
Stuart, the portrait-painter, who is represented at the New York
Historical Society and in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. These two
artists are, however, so closely identified with the English school, and
draw their inspiration so exclusively from European sources, that they
can hardly claim a place in a history of painting in America.
The one American _genre_ painter _par excellence_ is WILLIAM SYDNEY
MOUNT (1807--1868), the son of a farmer on Long Island, and originally a
sign-painter. No other artist has rivalled Mount in the delineation of
the life of the American farmer and his negro field hands, always looked
at from the humorous side. As a colourist, Mount is quite artless, but
in the rendition of character and expression, and the unbiassed
reproduction of reality, he stands very high. His _Fortune Teller_,
_Bargaining for a Horse_, and _The Truant Gamblers_, the last named one
of his best works also as regards colour, are in the collection of the
New York Historical Society; _The Painter's Triumph_ is in the gallery
of the Pennsylvania Academy; the Corcoran Gallery, Washington, has _The
Long Story_. Several inferior artists have shown, by their
representations of scenes taken from the political and social life of
the United States, how rich a harvest this field would offer the brush
of a modern Teniers. But in spite of the popularity which the
reproductions of their works and those of some of Mount's pictures
enjoyed, the field remained comparatively untilled.
[Illustration: A SURPRISE. _By_ MOUNT.
_Copyright, 1879, by Harper and Brothers._]
Of other painters of the past, HENRY INMAN (1801--1846), better known as
a most excellent portrait-painter, executed a few _genre_ pictures based
on American subjects, such as _Mumble the Peg_ in the Pennsylvania
Academy; and RICHARD CATON WOODVILLE (about 1825--1855), who studied at
Duesseldorf, became favourably known, during his short career, by his
_Mexican News_, _Sailor's Wedding_, _Bar-Room Politicians_, &c.; while
among the mass of work by F. W. EDMONDS (1806--1863) there are also
several of specifically American character; but the majority of artists
preferred to repeat the well-worn themes of their European predecessors,
as shown by W. E. WEST'S (died 1857) _The Confessional_, at the New York
Historical Society's Rooms, or the paintings of JAMES W. GLASS (died
1855), whose _Royal Standard_, _Free Companion_, and _Puritan and
Cavalier_, are drawn from the annals of England.
The Indian tribes found delineators in GEORGE CATLIN (1796--1872) and C.
F. WIMAR (1829--1863), while WILLIAM H. RANNEY (died 1857) essayed the
life of the trappers and frontiersmen. None of these artists, however,
approached their subjects from the genuinely artistic side. As an
ornithological painter, scientifically considered, JOHN JAMES AUDUBON
(1780--1851), the celebrated naturalist, occupied a high rank. The
animal world of the prairies and the great West in general was the
chosen field of WILLIAM J. HAYS (1830--1875). A large picture by him of
an American bison, in the American Museum of Natural History at New
York, shows at once his careful workmanship, his ambition, and the
limitation of his powers, which was too great to allow him to occupy a
prominent place among the animal painters of the world.
The skill in realistic portraiture, eminently shown by the American
painters of the preceding century, was fully upheld by their successors
of the third period. Most of the historic painters named above were well
known also as portraitists, and their claims to reputation are shared
with more or less success by J. W. JARVIS (1780--1851), THOMAS SULLY
(1783--1872), SAMUEL WALDO (1783--1861), CHESTER HARDING (1792--1866),
WILLIAM JEWETT (born 1795), EZRA AMES (flourished about 1812--1830),
CHARLES C. INGHAM (1796--1863), J. NEAGLE (1799--1865), CHARLES L.
ELLIOTT (1812--1868), JOSEPH AMES (1816--1872), T. P. ROSSITER
(1818--1871), G. A. BAKER (1821--1880), and W. H. FURNESS (1827--1867).
Specimens of the work of most of these artists, several of whom were of
foreign parentage, will be found in the collections of the New York
Historical Society, the Governor's Room in the City Hall of New York,
the Pennsylvania Academy, and the Museum of Fine Arts at Boston. The
most prominent among the later names is Charles Loring Elliott, who was
born and educated in America, but whose work, when he is at his best,
nevertheless shows the hand of a master. E. G. MALBONE (1777--1807),
whose only ideal work, _The Hours_, is in the Athenaeum, at Providence,
R.I., is justly celebrated for his delicate miniatures, a department in
which R. M. STAIGG (1817--1881) likewise excelled. As a crayon artist,
famous more especially for his female heads, SETH W. CHENEY (1810--1856)
must be named.
* * * * *
The most interesting, however, because the most original, manifestation
of the art instinct in this period is found in landscape. In this
department also it seemed for a time as if the influence of the old
Italian masters would gain the upper hand. But the influence of
Duesseldorf, aided by that of England, although not through its best
representatives, such as Constable, gave a different turn to the course
of affairs, and in a measure freed the artists from the thraldom of an
antiquated school. Although, naturally and justly enough, the landscape
painters of America did not disdain to depict the scenery of foreign
lands, they nevertheless showed a decided preference for the beauties of
their own country, and diligently plied their brushes in the delineation
of the favourite haunts of the Catskills, the Hudson, the White
Mountains, Lake George, &c., and, at a later period, of the wonders of
the Rocky Mountains and the valley of the Yosemite. It has become the
fashion in certain circles to speak rather derisively of these painters
as "the Hudson River School," a nickname supposed to imply the charge
that they preferred the subject to artistic rendering and technical
skill. There is no denying that there is some truth in this charge, but
later experience has taught, also, that a more insinuating style is apt
to lead the artists to ignore subject altogether. It is precisely the
comparative unattractiveness of the methods employed which enabled these
painters to create what may be called an American school, while, had
they been as much absorbed in technical processes, or in the solving of
problems of colour, as some of their successors, they would probably
have rivalled them also in the neglect of the national element. It is
worthy of note that the rise of this school of painters of nature is
nearly contemporaneous with the appearance of William Cullen Bryant,
whose "Thanatopsis" was first published in 1817, and who is eminently
entitled to be called the poet of nature.
The first specialist in landscape of whom any record is to be found is
JOSHUA SHAW (1776--1860), an Englishman, who came to America about 1817.
The specimens of his work preserved in the Pennsylvania Academy show him
to have been a painter of some refinement, who preferred delicate
silvery tones to strength. In the same institution may also be found
numerous examples by THOMAS DOUGHTY (1793--1856), of Philadelphia, who
abandoned mercantile pursuits for art in 1820, and who may claim to be
the first native landscape-painter. His early work is hard and dry and
monotonous in colour, but nevertheless with a feeling for light. As he
advanced, his colour improved somewhat. ALVAN FISHER (1792--1863), of
Boston, also ranks among the pioneers in this department, but he was
more active as a portrait-painter.
[Illustration: DESOLATION. _From the "Course of Empire."_ _By_ THOMAS
COLE.
_In the possession of the New York Historical Society._
_Copyright, 1879, by Harper and Brothers._]
The greatest name, however, in the early history of landscape art in the
United States is that of THOMAS COLE (1801--1848), who came over from
England with his parents in 1819, but received his first training, such
as it was, in America. Cole spent several years in Italy, and remained
for the rest of his life under the spell of Claude, Salvator Rosa, and
Poussin. He aspired to be a painter of large historic, or rather
allegoric landscapes, and some of his productions in this line, as, for
instance, _The Course of Empire_ (New York Historical Society), a series
of five canvases, showing the career of a nation from savage life
through the splendours of power to the desolation of decay, will always
secure for him a respectable place among the followers of the old
school. He therefore shared, with most of his American colleagues, the
fatal defect that his work contained no germ of advancement, but was
content to be measured by standards which were beginning to be false,
because men had outlived the time in which they were set up. Cole did
not, however, confine himself to such allegoric landscapes. He was a
great lover of the Catskills, and often chose his subjects there, or in
the White Mountains. But in the specimens of this kind to be seen at the
New York Historical Society's rooms, he shows himself curiously
defective in colour, and mars the tone by undue contrasts between light
and dark. He is at his best in the representation of storm effects, such
as _The Tornado_, in the Corcoran Gallery at Washington.
Among the ablest representatives of the "Hudson River School" were J. F.
KENSETT (1818--1873), and SANFORD R. GIFFORD (1823--1880). For Kensett,
it may indeed be claimed that he was the best technician of his time,
bolder in treatment than most of his colleagues, and with a true
feeling for the poetry of colour. Gifford, who divided his allegiance
about equally between America, Italy, and the Orient, loved to paint
phenomenal effects of light, which often suggest the studio rather than
nature. One of the principal works of this very successful and greatly
esteemed artist, _The Ruins of the Parthenon_, is the property of the
Corcoran Gallery, which also owns several pictures by Kensett.
[Illustration: NOON BY THE SEA-SHORE: BEVERLY BEACH. _By_ J. F. KENSETT.
_Copyright, 1879, by Harper and Brothers._]
As one of the leading lights of the little cluster of American
pre-Raphaelites, we may note JOHN W. HILL (died 1879), who painted
landscapes chiefly in water-colour.
The United States being a maritime power, it would be quite natural to
look for a development of marine painting among her artists. Until
lately, however, very little has been done in this branch of art, and
that little mostly by foreigners. THOMAS BIRCH, an Englishman (died
1851), painted the battles between English and American vessels in an
old-fashioned way in Philadelphia, while Boston possessed an early
marine painter of slender merit in Salmon. A. VAN BEEST, a Dutch marine
painter, who died in New York in 1860, is chiefly of interest as the
first teacher of several well-known American painters of to-day. JOHN E.
C. PETERSEN (1839--1874), a Dane, who came to America in 1865, enjoyed
an excellent reputation in Boston. The leading name, however, among the
artists of the past in this department is that of JAMES HAMILTON
(1819--1878), who was brought to Philadelphia from Ireland in infancy,
and went to England for purposes of study in 1854. In many of his
phantastic productions, in which blood-red skies are contrasted with
dark, bluish-gray clouds and masses of shadow, as in _Solitude_, and an
Oriental landscape in the Pennsylvania Academy, the study of Turner is
quite apparent. But he loved also to paint the storm-tossed sea, under a
leaden sky, when it seems to be almost monochrome. One of his finest
efforts, _The Ship of the Ancient Mariner_, is in private possession in
Philadelphia. His _Destruction of Pompeii_ is in the Memorial Hall,
Fairmount Park, in the same city. Hamilton, whose somewhat unsteady mode
of living is reflected in the widely varying quality of his work, very
properly closes our review of this epoch, as he might not
inappropriately be classed with the artists of the period next to be
considered.
FOURTH, OR PRESENT PERIOD.
It has been remarked already that the American students who went to
England up to the middle of the present century were not influenced by
those painters who, like Constable, are credited with having given the
first impulse towards the development of modern art. This is true also
of those who went to France.
They fell in with the old-established Classic school, and were not
affected by the rising Romantic and Colouristic school until long after
its triumphant establishment. Within the last ten or fifteen years,
however, the tendency in this direction has been very marked, and the
main points of attraction for the young American artist in Europe have
been Paris and Munich. One of the results of this movement, consequent
upon the preponderating attention given to colour and technique, has
been an almost entire neglect of subject. What the art of America has
gained, therefore, in outward attractiveness and in increase of skill,
it has had to purchase at the expense of a still greater
de-Americanisation than before. The movement is, however, only in its
inception, and its final results cannot be predicated. Nor will it be
possible to mention here more than a very few of its adherents, as,
self-evidently, the greater part of them belong to the living
generation.
[Illustration: SUNSET ON THE HUDSON. _By_ S. R. GIFFORD.
_Copyright_, 1879, _by Harper and Brothers_.]
One of the first to preach the new gospel of individualism and colour in
America was WILLIAM MORRIS HUNT (1824--1879), who, after his return from
Europe, made his home in Boston. In 1846 he went to Duesseldorf, which he
soon exchanged for Paris, where he studied with Couture, and later with
Millet. Hunt was in a certain sense a martyr to his artistic
convictions, and his road was not smoothed by his eccentricities. Had he
found a readier response on the part of the public, he might have
accomplished great things. As it was, those to whom he was compelled to
appeal could not understand the importance of the purely pictorial
qualities which he valued above all else, and instead of sympathy he
found antagonism. As a fact indicating the difficulties which stood in
his way, it is interesting to know that the first idea for the mural
paintings, _The Flight of Night_ and _The Discoverer_, which he executed
in the new Capitol at Albany, shortly before his death, was conceived
over thirty years ago. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that his
mind was embittered, and his work even more unequal than that of so many
of his older colleagues. But even so he has left a number of works, as
for instance the original sketch for the _Flight of Night_, several
portraits, and a _View of Gloucester Harbour_, which will always be
counted among the triumphs of American art.
Prominent among the American students in the French school was ROBERT
WYLIE, a native of the Isle of Man, who was brought to the United States
when a child, and died in Brittany at the age of about forty years in
1877. His _Death of a Breton Chieftain_, in the Metropolitan Museum of
New York, and _Breton Story-Teller_, in the Pennsylvania Academy, two
very fine pictures, although somewhat heavy in colour, show him to have
been a careful observer, with a power of characterisation hardly
approached by any other American painter.
[Illustration: LAMBS ON THE MOUNTAIN-SIDE. _By_ WILLIAM MORRIS HUNT.]
As a remarkable artist, belonging also to the French-American school,
although he never left his native land, we must mention R. H. FULLER, of
Boston, who died comparatively young in 1871. Fuller had a most
extraordinary career and displayed extraordinary talent. Originally a
cigar-maker, and later a night watchman, he was almost entirely
self-taught, his study consisting in carefully looking at the French
landscapes on exhibition at the stores, and then attempting to reproduce
them at home. The knowledge thus gained he applied to the rendering of
American landscapes, and he had so assimilated the methods of his French
exemplars, that his creations, while they often clearly betrayed by what
master they had been inspired, were yet thoroughly American.
* * * * *
This sketch of the history of painting in America is necessarily very
fragmentary, by reason of its shortness, as well as by the limitation
imposed by the plan of this book, which excludes all living artists.
Many prominent representatives of the various tendencies to which the
reader's attention has been called, have, therefore, had to be omitted.
It is believed, nevertheless, that, while the mention of additional
names would have made the record fuller, the general proportions of the
outline would not have been materially changed thereby. Nor is the
apparently critical tone, the repeated dwelling on the lack of
originality in subject as well as method, to be taken as an expression
of disparagement. A fact has simply been stated which admits of a ready
explanation, hinted at in the introductory remarks, but which must be
kept steadily in view if American Art is ever to assume a more
distinctive character. The painters of America, considering the
circumstances by which they have been surrounded, have no reason to be
ashamed of their past record. They have shown considerable aptitude in
the acquisition of technical attainments, and the diligence and
enthusiasm in the pursuit of their studies on the part of the younger
artists, promise well for the future. It rests altogether with the
nation itself whether this promise shall be fulfilled.
INDEX OF NAMES.
PAGE
Aikman, William, 35
Alexander, Cosmo, 191
Alexander, William, 103
Allston, Washington, 202
Ames, Ezra, 212
Ames, Joseph, 212
Anderton, Henry, 31
Audubon, John James, 211
Bacon, Sir Nathaniel, 22
Baker, G. A., 212
Barret, George, 50
Barret, George, the younger, 105
Barry, James, 69
Beale, Mary, 35
Beechey, Sir William, 79
Bembridge, Henry, 192
Bewick, John, 92
Bewick, Thomas, 91
Birch, Thomas, 217
Blackburn, 191
Blake, William, 85
Boit, Charles, 93
Bone, Henry, 96
Bonington, Richard Parkes, 137
Boxall, Sir William, 178
Briggs, Henry Perronet, 154
Brooking, Charles, 47
Brown, John, 11, 17
Browne, Alexander, 92
Brumidi, Carlo, 202
Caius (Key), 19
Callcott, Sir Augustus Wall, 131
Carmillion, Alice, 17
Catlin, George, 211
Cattermole, George, 112
Chalon, Alfred Edward, 97
Chalon, John James, 97
Cheney, Seth W., 212
Cipriani, Giovanni Battista, 60
Cleef, Joost van, 19
Clostermann, John, 35
Cole, Thomas, 215
Collins, Richard, 95
Collins, William, 133
Constable, John, 130
Cooke, Edward William, 147
Cooper, Abraham, 166
Cooper, Samuel, 31
Copley, John Singleton, 67, 192
Cornelisz, Lucas, 10
Corvus, Johannes, 19
Cosway, Maria, 96
Cosway, Richard, 96
Cotman, John Sell, 142
Cox, David, 108
Cozens, Alexander, 102
Cozens, John Robert, 103
Creswick, Thomas, 145
Cristall, Joshua, 103
Crome, John, 141
Crosse, Lewis, 93
Dahl, Michael, 35
Danby, Francis, 142
Dance, Nathaniel, 76
Deacon, James, 94
De Heere, Lucas, 20
De la Motte, William, 105
De Loutherbourg, Philippe James, 61
Derby, William, 99
De Wint, Peter, 110
Dobson, William, 26
Dodgson, George Haydock, 114
Doughty, Thomas, 213
Duncan, Edward, 114
Duncan, Thomas, 158
Dunlap, 201
Dyce, William, 156
Eastlake, Sir Charles Locke, 154
Edmonds, F. W., 211
Edridge, Henry, 97, 104
Edward, Master, 4
Egg, Augustus Leopold, 175
Elliott, Charles Loring, 212
Elmore, Alfred, 162
Engleheart, George, 96
Essex, William, 97
Etty, William, 152
Faithorne, William, 85
Feke, Robert, 191
Fielding, Anthony Vandyke Copley, 110
Fisher, Alvan, 215
Flatman, Thomas, 92
Flick, Gerbach, 18
Fraser, Alexander, 170
Fuller, Isaac, 31
Fuller, R. H., 221
Furness, W. H., 212
Fuseli, Henry, 62
Gainsborough, Thomas, 55
Garvey, Edmund, 75
Gerbier, Sir Balthasar, 45
Gheeraedts, Marc, 20
Gifford, Sandford R., 215
Gilpin, Sawrey, 81
Girtin, Thomas, 104
Glass, James W., 211
Godeman, 2
Gray, Henry Peters, 207
Greenhill, John, 31
Hamilton, James, 217
Harding, Chester, 212
Harding, James Duffield, 112
Harlow, George Henry, 121
Harvey, George, 158
Havell, William, 108
Haydon, Benjamin Robert, 150
Hayman, Francis, 35, 85
Hays, William J., 211
Heaphy, Thomas, 110
Hearne, Thomas, 102
Highmore, Joseph, 85
Hill, John W., 216
Hilliard, Nicholas, 22
Hills, Robert, 104
Hillton, William, 148
Hogarth, William, 37
Holbein, Hans, 13
Holland, James, 114
Hone, Nathaniel, 94
Hoppner, John, 80
Horebout, Gerrard Lucas, 9, 17
Horebout, Lucas, 17
Horebout, Susannah, 9, 17
Hoskins, John, 22
Howard, Henry, 123
Hudson, Thomas, 35
Humphrey, Ozias, 95
Hunt, William Henry, 112
Hunt, William Morris, 219
Ibbetson, Julius Caesar, 50
Ingham, Charles C., 212
Inman, Henry, 211
Irving, J. B., 208
Jackson, John, 126
Jamesone, George, 28
Jarvis, J. W., 212
Jervas, Charles, 35
Jewett, William, 212
John, Master, 4
Jonson, Cornelis, 22
Kauffman, Angelica, 60
Kensett, J. F., 215
Key, William, 19
Kirk, Thomas, 89
Knapton, George, 35
Kneller, Sir Godfrey, 32
Laguerre, Louis, 34
Lambert, George, 47
Landseer, Charles, 161
Landseer, Sir Edwin Henry, 176
Lawrence, Sir Thomas, 117
Lely, Sir Peter, 30
Leslie, Charles Robert, 170, 209
Leutze, Emmanuel, 207
Lewis, John Frederick, 180
Linnell, John, 147
Linton, William, 135
Loggan, David, 85
Lucy, Charles, 161
Lyzardi, Nicholas, 19
Mabuse, 9
Maclise, Daniel, 158
Malbone, E. G., 212
Martin, John, 139
Martineau, Robert Braithwaite, 179
Mason, George Hemming, 179
Maynors, Katherine, 18
Meyer, Jeremiah, 95
Modena, Nicholas of, 19
Monamy, Peter, 47
Mor, Sir Antonio, 19
Morland, George, 82
Morland, Henry Robert, 82
Morse, S. F. B., 206
Mortimer, John Hamilton, 89
Moser, George Michael, 94
Mount, William Sydney, 209
Mueller, William John, 137
Mulready, William, 167
Mytens, Daniel, 22
Nasmyth, Patrick, 135
Neagle, J., 212
Newton, Gilbert Stuart, 173, 209
Nixon, James, 95
Northcote, James, 76
Oliver, Isaac, 22
Oliver, Peter, 22
Opie, John, 78
Oudry, P., 19
Owen, William, 121
Palmer, Samuel, 114
Parmentier, James, 35
Payne, William, 102
Peale, Charles Wilson, 200
Peale, Rembrandt, 206
Penley, Aaron Edwin, 114
Penni, Bartholomew, 17
Petersen, John E. C., 217
Petitot, Jean, 22
Phillip, John, 161
Phillips, Thomas, 125
Poole, Paul Falconer, 179
Powell, W. H., 207
Pratt, Matthew, 192
Prout, Samuel, 108
Pyne, James Baker, 45
Ramsay, Allan, 46
Ranney, William H., 211
Read, Thomas Buchanan, 208
Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 50
Richardson, Jonathan, 35
Richardson, Thomas Miles, 108
Riley, John, 35
Rimmer, William, 208
Roberts, David, 137
Robertson, Andrew, 97
Robinson, Hugh, 59
Robson, George Fennel, 110
Romney, George, 72
Rooker, Michael Angelo, 104
Ross, Sir William Charles, 99
Rossetti, Gabriel Chas. Dante, 184
Rossiter, T. P., 212
Rowlandson, Thomas, 103
Sandby, Paul, 102
Savage, E., 201
Schuessele, Christian, 08
Scott, Samuel, 47
Serres, Dominic, 47
Serres, John Thomas, 47
Seymour, James, 81
Shalders, George, 114
Shaw, Joshua, 213
Shee, Sir Martin Archer, 123
Shelley, Samuel, 95
Shipley, William, 45
Smirke, Robert, 90
Smith, George (of Chichester), 47
Smith, John " ", 47
Smith, William " ", 47
Smith, John (of Warwick), 103
Smybert, John, 190
Soest, Gerard von, 35
Spencer, Jarvis, 94
Staigg, R. M., 212
Stanfield, William Clarkson, 143
Stark, James, 142
Stothard, Thomas, 88
Streater, Robert, 31
Stretes, Gwillim, 16, 17
Stuart, Gilbert, 195
Stubbs, George, 81
Sully, Thomas, 212
Terling, Lavinia, 17
Thomson, Henry, 126
Thornhill, Sir James, 34
Topham, Francis William, 114
Torell, William, 2
Toto, Antonio, 9, 17
Treviso, Girolamo da, 10, 15
Trumbull, John, 197
Turner, Joseph Mallord William, 105, 127
Uwins, Thomas, 91
Van Beest, A., 217
Vanderbank, John, 35
Vanderlyn, John, 205
Van Dyck, Sir Anthony, 26
Van Honthorst, Gerard, 26
Van Somer, Paul, 22
Varley, John, 107
Ver Bryck, Cornelius, 206
Verrio, Antonio, 34
Vincent, George, 142
Volpe, Vincent, 17
Vroom, Cornelis, 20
Waldo, Samuel, 212
Wale, Samuel, 85
Walker, Frederick, 182
Walker, Robert, 20
Walter, Master, 4
Ward, Edward Matthew, 180
Ward, James, 125
Watson, John, 190
Webber, John, 103
Wehnert, Edward Henry, 114
West, Benjamin, 64, 193
West, W. E., 211
Westall, Richard, 89
Westall, William, 89
White, Edwin, 207
White, John Blake, 202
Wilkie, David, 164
Williams, ----, 191
Wilson, Richard, 47
Wimar, C. F., 211
Wissing, William, 35
Witherington, William Frederick, 166
Woodville, Richard Caton, 211
Wootton, John, 80
Wright, Andrew, 11, 17
Wright, Joseph, 200
Wright, Joseph (of Derby), 74
Wright, Joseph Michael, 35
Wyck, John, 80
Wylie, Robert, 219
Zincke, Christian Frederick, 94
Zoffany, Johann, 61
Zuccarelli, Francesco, 61
Zucchero, Federigo, 20
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Illustrated Biographies of the Great Artists.
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=SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.= By F. S. PULLING, M.A. With Engravings of Penelope
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The following typographical errors were corrected by the etext
transcriber:
Several English astists practised in this reign.=>Several English
artists practised in this reign.
the first English artist who receveid=>the first English artist who
received
an innvoator of a monstrous order=>an innovator of a monstrous order
Durin his life=>During his life
Like his master he not succeed in foliage=>Like his master he did not
succeed in foliage
FOOTNOTES:
[A] At least, like most of the great Italian masters before and after
their time, and like Clouet the Frenchman, they designed garments, and
painted banners of state; they decorated coffers and furniture, book
covers, and, like Holbein and Cellini, made designs for jewellery.
[B] When we discover that the whole frontal has been used as the _top of
a cupboard_, we need not wonder at the present scarcity of specimens of
early English art.
[C] Many pictures executed during the ten years after his death, some
even in the Windsor collection, have been attributed to Holbein.
[D] Now lent to the National Gallery. She was the youthful daughter of
the King of Denmark, and widow of the Duke of Milan. Holbein was sent to
Brussels to paint her portrait for his royal master.
[E] See _The Athenaeum_, August 19th, 1882.
[F] This is Dallaway's summary, note to p. 266 of Walpole's "Anecdotes,"
as above, 1849. Of course, all the pictures were not really by the
artists whose names they bore. There must have been more than sixteen
Van Dycks in the Royal collection. The above are Whitehall pictures
only. The entire gatherings of King Charles were far more numerous.
[G] His painting of this subject, for which he received only twenty-six
guineas, was destroyed by fire in 1874.
[H] Northcote, "Conversations," 1830, p. 32, said, "Sir Joshua
undoubtedly got his first idea of the art from Gandy." James Gandy
(1619--1689), who painted in Ireland and Devonshire, was the last
representative of the art of Van Dyck, whose pupil he was.
End of Project Gutenberg's English Painters, by Harry John Wilmot-Buxton