One of the artist's most virile and trenchant performances, it was
painted in 1798-9. The child was introduced after the grandfather's
death. (See p. 63.)
[Illustration: Plate VI.]
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Yet impressive as these transitions are, they are nothing to the
contrast which Rome presented to the stranger from the north in the
eighteenth century when, after slow and long and weary travelling, he
reached his goal. Then Rome was still a town of the renaissance
imposed upon a city of the ancients; and under the aegis of the Papacy
preserved aspects of life and character which differed little from
those of three or four centuries earlier. After the grey metropolis of
the north, with its softly luminous or cloudy skies, its sombreness of
aspect, its calvinistic religious atmosphere, its interest in science
and philosophy, and its want of interest in the arts, the clear
sunshiny air of the Eternal City, its picturesque and crowded life, its
gorgeous ecclesiastical ceremonies and processions, its monuments of
art and architecture, and its cosmopolitan coteries of eager dilettanti
discussing the latest archaeological discoveries, and of artists
studying the achievements of the past, must have formed an
extraordinary contrast, Yet Raeburn, much as these novel and stirring
surroundings would strike him, remained true to his own impressions of
reality and was unaffected in his artistic ideals. Almost alone of the
foreign artists then resident in Rome, he was unaffected by the
pseudo-classicism which prevailed. In part a product of emasculated
academic tradition, and in part the result of philosophical
speculations, upon which the discoveries at Pompeii and the excavations
then taking place in Rome had had a strong influence, it was an
attitude which founded itself upon the past and opposed the direct
study of nature. Gavin Hamilton (1723-98) and Jacob More (1740?-93)
two of its most conspicuous pictorial exponents were Scots by birth,
but they had lived so long abroad that Scotland had become to them
little more than a memory. The work of the former was in many ways an
embodiment of the current dilettante conception of art, and kindred in
kind, though earlier in date, to that of Jacques Louis David
(1748-1825) under whose sway, towards the close of the century, classic
ideals came to dominate the art of Europe outside these isles. His
usefulness to Raeburn was chiefly that of a cicerone. There was little
of an archaeological kind with which he was unacquainted, and he was so
famous a discoverer of antiquities that the superstitious Romans
thought that he was in league with the devil. The landscapes of More,
though highly praised by Goethe, would appeal to Raeburn little more
than did the "sublime" historical designs of Hamilton. They were but
dilutions, frequently flavoured with melodramatic sentiment, of the
noble convention formulated by Claude and the Poussins. Raeburn, on
the other hand, had looked at man and nature inquiringly, and had
evolved a manner of expressing the results of his observation for
himself. Moreover he was past the easily impressionable age, and
turned his opportunities to direct and practical uses. He used to
declare that the advice of James Byres (1734-1818?) of Tonley, who, in
Raeburn's own words, was "a man of great general information, a
profound antiquary, and one of the best judges perhaps of everything
connected with art in Great Britain," was the most valuable lesson he
received while abroad. "Never paint anything except you have it before
you" was what his friend urged, and, while Raeburn, to judge from his
early portraits, did not stand greatly in need of the injunction, it
probably strengthened him in his own beliefs. Be that as it may he
seems to have used his stay in Italy principally to widen his technical
experience, and his work after his return was richer and fuller than
what he had done previously. No record of any special study he may
have undertaken or of the pictures he particularly admired exists.
Even gossip is silent as regards his preferences, except in so far as
it is said that while in Rome he came near to preferring sculpture to
painting.