continued to practise the trade to which he was bred; and his
shop-bills, coats-of-arms, engravings upon tankards, etc., have been
collected with an eagerness quite disproportionate to their value.
Soon he procured employment in furnishing frontispieces and designs
for the booksellers. The most remarkable of these are the plates to an
edition of "Hudibras," published in 1726; but even these are of no
distinguished merit. About 1728 he began to seek employment as a
portrait-painter. Most of his performances were small family pictures,
containing several figures, which he calls "Conversation Pieces," from
twelve to fifteen inches high. These for a time were very popular, and
his practice was considerable, as his price was low. His life-size
portraits are few; the most remarkable are that of Captain Coram, in
the "Foundling Hospital," and that of Garrick as King Richard III.,
which is reproduced in the present volume. But his practice as a
portrait-painter was not lucrative, nor his popularity lasting.
Although many of his likenesses were strong and characteristic, in the
representation of beauty, elegance, and high-breeding he was little
skilled. The nature of the artist was as uncourtly as his pencil. When
Hogarth obtained employment and eminence of another sort through his
wonderful prints, he abandoned portrait-painting, with a growl at the
jealousy of his professional brethren; and the vanity and blindness of
the public.
March 25, 1729, Hogarth contracted a stolen marriage with the only
daughter of the once fashionable painter, Sir James Thornhill. The
father, for some time implacable, relented at last; and the
reconciliation, it is said, was much forwarded by his admiration of
the "Harlot's Progress," a series of six prints, commenced in 1731 and
published in 1734. The novelty as well as merit of this series of
prints won for them extraordinary popularity; and their success
encouraged Hogarth to undertake a similar history of the "Rake's
Progress," in eight prints, which appeared in 1735. The third, and
perhaps the most popular, as it is the least objectionable of these
pictorial novels, "Marriage a la Mode," was not engraved till 1745.
[Illustration: Hogarth Sketching the Highway of Queenborough.]
The merits of these prints were sufficiently intelligible to the
public: their originality and boldness of design, the force and
freedom of their execution, rough as it is, won for them an
extensive popularity and a rapid and continued sale. The "Harlot's
Progress" was the most eminently successful, from its novelty rather
than from its superior excellence. Twelve hundred subscribers' names
were entered for it; it was dramatized in several forms; and we may
note, in illustration of the difference of past and present manners,
that fan-mounts were engraved containing miniature copies of the six
plates. The merits of the pictures were less obvious to the few who
could afford to spend large sums on works of art, and Hogarth, too
proud to let them go for prices much below the value which he put upon
them, waited for a long time, and waited in vain, for a purchaser. At
last he determined to commit them to public sale; but instead of the
common method of auction, he devised a new and complex plan with the
intention of excluding picture-dealers, and obliging men of rank and
wealth who wished to purchase to judge and bid for themselves. The
scheme failed, as might have been expected. Nineteen of Hogarth's best
pictures, the "Harlot's Progress," the "Rake's Progress," the "Four
Times of the Day," and "Strolling Actresses Dressing in a Barn"
produced only L427 7s., not averaging L22 10s. each. The "Harlot's
Progress" was purchased by Mr. Beckford at the rate of fourteen
guineas a picture; five of the series perished in the fire at
Fonthill. The "Rake's Progress" averaged twenty-two guineas a picture;
it has passed into the possession of Sir John Soane, at the advanced
price of five hundred and seventy guineas. The same eminent architect
became the proprietor of the four pictures of an "Election" for the
sum of L1,732. "Marriage a la Mode" was disposed of in a similar way
in 1750; and on the day of the sale one bidder appeared, who became
master of the six pictures, together with their frames, for L115 10s.
Mr. Angerstein purchased them, in 1797, for L1,381, and they now form
a striking feature in the National Gallery.
The satire of Hogarth was not often of a personal nature; but he knew
his own power, and he sometimes exercised it. Two of his prints, "The
Times," produced a memorable quarrel between himself, on one side, and
Wilkes and Churchhill, on the other. The satire of the prints of "The
Times," which were published in 1762, was directed, not against Wilkes
himself, but his political friends, Pitt and Temple; nor is it so
biting as to have required Wilkes, in defence of his party, to
retaliate upon one with whom he had lived in familiar and friendly
intercourse. He did so, however, in a number of the _North Briton_,
containing not only abuse of the artist, but unjust and injurious
mention of his wife. Hogarth was deeply wounded by this attack; he
retorted by the well-known portrait of Wilkes with the cap of liberty,
and he afterward represented Churchill as a bear. The quarrel was
unworthy the talents either of the painter or poet. It is more to be
regretted because its effects, as he himself intimates, were injurious
to Hogarth's declining health. The summer of 1764 he spent at
Chiswick, and the free air and exercise worked a partial renovation of
his strength. The amendment, however, was but temporary, and he died
suddenly, October 26th, the day after his return to his London
residence in Leicester Square.
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
By SAMUEL ARCHER
(1723-1792)
[Illustration: Sir Joshua Reynolds.]
Sir Joshua Reynolds, the celebrated painter, was, on July 16, 1723,
born at Plympton, a small town in Devonshire, England. His father was
a minister of the parish, and also master of the grammar school; and
being a man of learning and philanthropy, he was beloved and respected
by all to whom he was known. Such a man, it will naturally be
supposed, was assiduous in the cultivation of the minds of his
children, among whom his son Joshua shone conspicuous, by displaying
at a very early period a superiority of genius and the rudiments of a
correct taste. Unlike other boys, who generally content themselves
with giving a literal explanation of their author, regardless of his
beauties or his faults, young Reynolds attended to both these,
displaying a happy knowledge of what he read, and entering with ardor
into the spirit of his author. He discovered likewise talents for
composition, and a natural propensity to drawing, in which his friends
and intimates thought him qualified to excel. Emulation was a
distinguishing characteristic of his mind, which his father perceived
with the delight natural to a parent; and designing him for the
church, in which he hoped that his talents might raise him to
eminence, he sent him to one of the universities.
Soon after this period he grew passionately fond of painting; and by
the perusal of Richardson's theory of that art was determined to make
it his profession through life. At his own earnest request, therefore,
he was removed to London; and about the year 1742 became a pupil to
Mr. Hudson, who, though not himself an eminent painter, was preceptor
to many who afterward excelled in the art. One of the first advices
which he gave to Mr. Reynolds was to copy carefully Guercino's
drawings. This was done with such skill, that many of the copies are
said to be now preserved in the cabinets of the curious as the
originals of that very great master.
About the year 1749, Mr. Reynolds went to Italy under the auspices,
and in the company, of the late Lord (then Commodore) Keppel, who was
appointed to the command of the British squadron in the Mediterranean.
In this garden of the world, this magic seat of arts, he failed not to
visit the schools of the great masters, to study the productions of
different ages, and to contemplate with unwearied attention the
various beauties which are characteristic of each. His labor here, as
has been observed of another painter, was "the labor of love, not the
task of the hireling;" and how much he profited by it is known to all
Europe.
Having remained about two years in Italy, and studied the language as
well as the arts of the country with great success, he returned to
England, improved by travel and refined by education. On the road to
London from the port where he landed, he accidentally found in the inn
where he lodged Johnson's life of Savage, and was so taken with the
charms of composition, and the masterly delineation of character
displayed in that work, that, having begun to read it while leaning
his arm on the chimney-piece, he continued in that attitude,
insensible of pain till he was hardly able to raise his hand to his
head. The admiration of the work naturally led him to seek the
acquaintance of its author, who continued one of his sincerest
admirers and warmest friends till 1784, when they were separated by
the stroke of death.
The first thing that distinguished him after his return to his native
country was a full-length portrait of Commodore Keppel; which in
polite circles was spoken of in terms of the highest encomium, and
testified to what a degree of eminence he had arrived in his
profession. This was followed by a portrait of Lord Edgecombe, and a
few others, which at once introduced him to the first business in
portrait-painting; and that branch of the art he cultivated with such
success as will forever establish his fame with all descriptions of
refined society. Having painted some of the first-rate beauties of the
age, the polite world flocked to see the graces and the charms of his
pencil; and he soon became the most fashionable painter not only in
England, but in all Europe. He has indeed preserved the resemblance of
so many illustrious characters, that we feel the less regret at his
having left behind him so few historical paintings; though what he has
done in that way shows him to have been qualified to excel in both
departments. The only landscape, perhaps, which he ever painted,
except those beautiful and chaste ones which compose the backgrounds
of many of his portraits, is "A View on the Thames from Richmond,"
which in 1784 was exhibited by the Society for Promoting Painting and
Design in Liverpool.
In 1764 Mr. Reynolds had the merit of being the first promoter of that
club, which, having long existed without a name, became at last
distinguished by the appellation of the _Literary Club_. Upon the
foundation of the Royal Academy of Painting, Sculpture, and
Architecture, he was appointed president; and his acknowledged
excellence in his profession made the appointment acceptable to all
the lovers of art. To add to the dignity of this new institution, his
majesty conferred on the president the honor of knighthood; and Sir
Joshua delivered his first discourse at the opening of the Academy, on
January 2, 1769. The merit of that discourse has been universally
admitted among painters; but it contains some directions, respecting
the proper mode of prosecuting their studies, to which every student
of every art would do well to pay attention. "I would chiefly
recommend (says he) that an implicit obedience to the _rules of art_,
as established by the practice of the great masters, should be exacted
from the young students. That those models, which have passed through
the approbation of ages, should be considered by them as perfect and
infallible guides, as subjects for their imitation, not their
criticism. I am confident that this is the only efficacious method of
making a progress in the arts; and that he who sets out with doubting
will find life finished before he becomes master of the rudiments. For
it may be laid down as a maxim, that he who begins by presuming on his
own sense, has ended his studies as soon as he has commenced them.
Every opportunity, therefore, should be taken to discountenance that
false and vulgar opinion, that rules are the fetters of genius. They
are fetters only to men of no genius; as that armor, which upon the
strong becomes an ornament and a defence, upon the weak and misshapen
turns into a load, and cripples the body which it was made to
protect."
Each succeeding year, on the distribution of the prizes, Sir Joshua
delivered to the students a discourse of equal merit with this; and
perhaps we do not hazard too much when we say, that from the whole
collected, the lovers of belles-lettres and the fine arts will acquire
juster notions of what is meant by taste in general, and better rules
for acquiring a correct taste, than from the multitude of those
volumes which have been professedly written on the subject.
In the autumn of 1785 he went to Brussels, where he expended about
L1,000 on the purchase of paintings which, having been taken from the
different monasteries and religious houses in Flanders and Germany,
were then exposed to sale by the command of the Emperor Joseph.
Gainsborough and he had engaged to paint each other's portrait; and
the canvas for both being actually stretched, Sir Joshua gave one
sitting to his distinguished rival; but to the regret of every admirer
of the art, the unexpected death of the latter prevented all further
progress.
In 1790 he was anxiously desirous to procure the vacant professorship
of perspective in the academy for Mr. Bonomi, an Italian architect;
but that artist not having been yet elected an associate, was, of
course, no academician, and it became necessary to raise him to those
positions, in order to qualify him for being a professor. Mr. Gilpin
being his competitor for the associateship, the numbers on the ballot
proved equal, when the president, on his casting vote, decided the
election in favor of his friend, who was thereby advanced so far
toward the professorship. Soon after this, an academic seat being
vacant, Sir Joshua exerted all his influence to obtain it for Mr.
Bonomi; but finding himself out-voted by a majority of two to one, he
quitted the chair with great dissatisfaction, and next day sent to the
secretary of the academy a formal resignation of the office, which for
twenty-one years he had filled with honor to himself and to his
country. His indignation, however, subsiding, he suffered himself to
be prevailed upon to return to the chair, which, within a year and a
half, he was again desirous to quit for a better reason.
Finding a disease of languor, occasioned by an enlargement of the
liver, to which he had for some time been subject, increase, and daily
expecting a total loss of sight, he wrote a letter to the academy,
intimating his intention to resign the office of president on account
of bodily infirmities, which disabled him from executing the duties
of it to his own satisfaction. The academy received this intelligence
with the respectful concern due to the talents and virtues of their
president, and either then did enter, or designed to enter, into a
resolution honorable to all parties, namely, that a deputation from
the whole body of the academy should wait upon him, and inform him of
their wish, that the authority and privileges of the office of
president might be his during his life, declaring their willingness to
permit the performance of any of its duties which might be irksome to
him by a deputy.
From this period Sir Joshua never painted more. The last effort of his
pencil was the portrait of the honorable Charles James Fox, which was
executed in his best style, and shows that his fancy, his imagination,
and his other great powers in the art which he professed, remained
unabated to the end of his life. When the last touches were given to
this picture,
"The hand of Reynolds fell, to rise no more."
On Thursday, February 23, 1792, the world was deprived of this amiable
man and excellent artist, at the age of sixty-eight years; a man than
whom no one, according to Johnson, had passed through life with more
observations of men and manners. The following character of him is
said to be the production of Mr. Burke:
"His illness was long, but borne with a mild and cheerful fortitude,
without the least mixture of anything irritable or querulous,
agreeably to the placid and even tenor of his whole life. He had, from
the beginning of his malady, a distinct view of his dissolution, which
he contemplated with that entire composure which nothing but the
innocence, integrity, and usefulness of his life, and an unaffected
submission to the will of Providence, could bestow. In this situation
he had every consolation from family tenderness, which his tenderness
to his family had always merited.
"Sir Joshua Reynolds was, on very many accounts, one of the most
memorable men of his time; he was the first Englishman who added the
praise of the elegant arts to the other glories of his country. In
taste, in grace, in facility, in happy invention, and in richness and
harmony of coloring, he was equal to the great masters of the renowned
ages. In portrait he went beyond them; for he communicated to that
branch of the art in which English artists are the most engaged, a
variety, a fancy, and a dignity derived from the higher branches,
which even those who professed them in a superior manner did not
always preserve when they delineated individual nature. His portraits
reminded the spectator of the invention of history and the amenity of
landscape. In painting portraits he appears not to be raised upon that
platform, but to descend to it from a higher sphere. His paintings
illustrate his lessons, and his lessons seem to be derived from his
paintings.
"He possessed the theory as perfectly as the practice of his art. To
be such a painter, he was a profound and penetrating philosopher.
"In full happiness of foreign and domestic fame, admired by the expert
in art, and by the learned in science, courted by the great, caressed
by sovereign powers, and celebrated by distinguished poets, his native
humility, modesty, and candor never forsook him, even on surprise or
provocation; nor was the least degree of arrogance or assumption
visible to the most scrutinizing eye in any part of his conduct or
discourse.
"His talents of every kind--powerful from nature, and not meanly
cultivated in letters--his social virtues in all the relations and all
the habitudes of life, rendered him the centre of a very great and
unparalleled variety of agreeable societies, which will be dissipated
by his death. He had too much merit not to excite some jealousy, too
much innocence to provoke any enmity. The loss of no man of his time
can be felt with more sincere, general, and unmixed sorrow."
BENJAMIN WEST
By MARTHA J. LAMB[5]
[Footnote 5: Reprinted by permission, from the Magazine of
American History.]
(1738-1820)
[Illustration: Benjamin West.]
In the wilds of the new world, a century and a half ago, there was,
apparently, no spot less likely to produce a famous painter than the
Quaker province of Pennsylvania. And yet, when George Washington was
only six years old there was born, in the little town of Springfield,
Chester County, a boy whose interesting and remarkable career from
infancy to old age has provided one of the most instructive lessons
for students in art that America affords.
Perhaps Benjamin West's aptitude for picture-making in his infancy,
while he was learning to walk and to talk, did not exceed that of
hosts of other children, in like circumstances, in every generation
since his time. But many curious things were remembered and told of
this baby's performances after he had developed a decided talent for
reproducing the beautiful objects that captivated his eye. It was in
the summer of 1745, a few months before he was seven years old that
his married sister came home for a visit, bringing with her an infant
daughter. The next morning after her arrival, little Benjamin was left
to keep the flies off the sleeping baby, while his mother and sister
went to the garden for flowers. The baby smiled in its sleep, and the
boy was captivated. He must catch that smile and keep it. He found
some paper on the table, scrambled for a pen, and with red and black
ink made a hasty but striking picture of the little beauty. He heard
his mother returning, and conscious of having been in mischief, tried
to conceal his production; but she detected and captured it, and
regarded it long and lovingly, exclaiming as her daughter entered, "He
has really made a likeness of little Sally!" She then caught up the
boy in her arms, and kissed instead of chiding him, and he--looking up
encouraged--told her he could make the flowers, too, if she would
permit. The awakening of genius in Benjamin West has been distinctly
traced to this incident, as the time when he first discovered that he
could imitate the forms of such objects as pleased his sense of sight.
And the incident itself has been aptly styled "the birth of fine arts
in the New World."
The Quaker boy, in course of years, left the wilderness of America to
become the president of the Royal Academy in London. His
irreproachable character not less than his excellence as an artist,
gave him commanding position among his contemporaries. From first to
last he was distinguished for his indefatigable industry. The number
of his pictures has been estimated, by a writer in _Blackwood's
Magazine_, at three thousand; and Dunlap says that a gallery capable
of holding them would be four hundred feet long, fifty feet wide, and
forty feet high--or a wall a quarter of a mile long.
The parents of Benjamin West were sincere and self-respecting, and in
the language of the times, well-to-do. His mother's grandfather was
the intimate and confidential friend of William Penn. The family of
his father claimed direct descent from the Black Prince and Lord
Delaware, of the time of King Edward III. Colonel James West was the
friend and companion in arms of John Hampden. When Benjamin West was at
work upon his great picture of the "Institution of the Garter," the
King of England was delighted when the Duke of Buckingham assured him
that West had an ancestral right to a place among the warriors and
knights of his own painting. The Quaker associates of the parents of
the artist, the patriarchs of Pennsylvania, regarded their asylum in
America as the place for affectionate intercourse--free from all the
military predilections and political jealousies of Europe. The result
was a state of society more contented, peaceful, and pleasing than the
world had ever before exhibited. At the time of the birth of Benjamin
West the interior settlements in Pennsylvania had attained
considerable wealth, and unlimited hospitality formed a part of the
regular economy of the principal families. Those who resided near the
highways were in the habit, after supper and the religious exercises
of the evening, of making a large fire in the hallway, and spreading a
table with refreshments for such travellers as might pass in the
night, who were expected to step in and help themselves. This was
conspicuously the case in Springfield. Other acts of liberality were
performed by this community, to an extent that would have beggared the
munificence of the old world. Poverty was not known in this region.
But whether families traced their lineage to ancient and noble
sources, or otherwise, their pride was so tempered with the meekness
of their faith, that it lent a singular dignity to their benevolence.
The Indians mingled freely with the people, and when they paid their
annual visits to the plantations, raised their wigwams in the fields
and orchards without asking permission, and were never molested.
Shortly after Benjamin West's first efforts with pen and ink, a party
of red men reached and encamped in Springfield. The boy-artist showed
them his sketches of birds and flowers, which seemed to amuse them
greatly. They at once proceeded to teach him how to prepare the red
and yellow colors with which they decorated their ornaments. To these
Mrs. West added blue, by contributing a piece of indigo. Thus the boy
had three prismatic colors for his use. What could be more picturesque
than the scene where the untutored Indian gave the future artist his
first lesson in mixing paints! These wild men also taught him archery,
that he might shoot birds for models if he wanted their bright plumage
to copy.