Only one of the three Raeburns in the National Gallery is an adequate
example. This is the picture reproduced. It was painted in 1795, and,
while very typical technically, possesses greater charm than most of
the portraits of women executed by him at that comparatively early date.
[Illustration: Plate III.]
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Ramsay's activity as a painter coincided with a remarkable intellectual
movement which, making itself felt in history, philosophy, science, and
political economy, raised Scotland within a few years to a conspicuous
intellectual place in Europe. A product of the reaction which followed
the narrow and intense theological ideals which had dominated Scotland,
it was closely associated with the reign of the Moderates, who, with
their breadth of view, tolerance, and intellectual gifts had become the
most influential party in the National Church. Offering an outlet for
the human instincts and secular activities, it possessed special
attraction for independent minds and induced boldness of speculation
and original investigation of the phenomena of history and society.
Intimate with the leaders in this movement, Ramsay, before he left
Edinburgh for London, was active in the formation (1754) of the "Select
Society," which in addition to its main object--the improvement of its
members in reasoning and eloquence--sought to encourage the arts and
sciences and to improve the material and social condition of the
people. It was in this more genial atmosphere that Henry Raeburn was
reared.
Born in 1756, Raeburn was not too late to paint many of the most gifted
of the older generation. David Hume, who sat to Ramsay more than once,
was dead before the new light rose above the horizon, and the
appearance of Adam Smith does not seem to be recorded except in a
Tassie medallion; but Black, the father of modern chemistry, and
Hutton, the originator of modern geology, were amongst his early
sitters; and fine works in a more mature manner have Principal
Robertson, James Watt, the engineer, Adam Ferguson, the historian,
Dugald Stewart, the philosopher, and others scarcely less interesting
for subject. And of his own immediate contemporaries--the cycle of
Walter Scott--he has left an almost complete gallery. Nor were his
sitters less fortunate. If they brought fine heads to be painted, he
painted them with wonderful insight grasp of character, and great
pictorial power.
[1] J. Michael Wright (1625?-1700?), at his best probably the finest
native painter of the seventeenth century, went to England.