As an artist, Morland's claims are high and undisputed. He is original
and alone; his style and conceptions are his own; his thoughts are ever
at home, and always natural; he extracts pleasing subjects out of the
most coarse and trivial scenes, and finds enough to charm the eye in the
commonest occurrences. His subjects are usually from low life, such as
hog-sties, farm-yards, landscapes with cattle and sheep, or fishermen
with smugglers on the sea-coast. He seldom or ever produced a picture
perfect in all its parts, but those parts adapted to his knowledge and
taste were exquisitely beautiful. Knowing well his faults, he usually
selected those subjects best suited to his talents. His knowledge of
anatomy was extremely limited; he was totally unfitted for representing
the human figure elegantly or correctly, and incapable of large
compositions. He never paints above the most ordinary capacity, and
gives an air of truth and reality to whatever he touches. He has taken a
strong and lasting hold of the popular fancy: not by ministering to our
vanity, but by telling plain and striking truths. He is the rustic
painter for the people; his scenes are familiar to every eye, and his
name is on every lip. Painting seemed as natural to him as language is
to others, and by it he expressed his sentiments and his feelings, and
opened his heart to the multitude. His gradual descent in society may be
traced in the productions of his pencil; he could only paint well what
he saw or remembered; and when he left the wild sea-shore and the green
wood-side for the hedge ale-house and the Rules of the Bench, the
character of his pictures shifted with the scene. Yet even then his
wonderful skill of hand and sense of the picturesque never forsook him.
His intimacy with low life only dictated his theme--the coarseness of
the man and the folly of his company never touched the execution of his
pieces. All is indeed homely--nay, mean--but native taste and elegance
redeemed every detail. To a full command over every implement of his
art, he united a facility of composition and a free readiness of hand
perhaps quite unrivalled.