his own pleasure, and retained by him during his lifetime, after which
it passed by bequest to the boy's mother.
VI
MRS. SIDDONS AS THE TRAGIC MUSE
The name of Mrs. Siddons is one of the most distinguished in the
history of English dramatic art. For thirty years she was unsurpassed
in her impersonation of the tragic heroines of Shakespeare. Her first
great success was in the season of 1782, when she appeared for the
second time on the London stage. She was then about twenty-seven years
of age, and had devoted years of arduous study to her profession.
Though gifted by nature with strong dramatic instincts inherited from
generations of players, her powers developed slowly. The rôles which
she acted were of the more serious sort, which required maturity and
experience for interpretation. Her personal appearance was eminently
fitted for tragic parts. She had a queenly presence, a countenance
moulded in noble lines, a deep-toned measured voice, and an impressive
enunciation. In private as well as in public she commanded the highest
admiration. Though all London was at her feet flattery could not spoil
her. Her children adored her, her friends found her the soul of
sincerity, and all the world honored her noble womanhood.
It was while she was still on the threshold of her great career that
Reynolds painted her portrait as the Tragic Muse.
In the old Greek mythology every art had a corresponding goddess or
muse who inspired the artistic instincts in human hearts. There was,
for instance, a muse of tragedy, called Melpomene, a muse of the
dance, Terpsichore, and so on through the nine arts. The great
sculptors used to make statues of these muses, trying to express in
each the highest ideal of the particular art represented.
It was in imitation of this old custom that Reynolds conceived the
idea that Mrs. Siddons, as the greatest of tragediennes, would
appropriately impersonate the muse of tragedy.[9] The story is related
that when she came to his studio for the first sitting the painter
took her by the hand and led her to the chair, saying in his courtly
way: "Ascend your undisputed throne; bestow on me some idea of the
tragic muse." Whereupon she instantly assumed the attitude in which
she was painted. Among Michelangelo's frescoes in the Sistine Chapel
there is a figure of the prophet Isaiah, whose pose is quite similar,
and may have suggested both to painter and sitter the idea of the
Tragic Muse. In any case the attitude which Mrs. Siddons assumes is
entirely characteristic.
[Footnote 9: Russell had already celebrated Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic
Muse in his History of Modern Europe, and Romney had previously
painted Mrs. Yates in the same character.]
[Illustration: MRS. SIDDONS AS THE TRAGIC MUSE]
The expression of her face shows the stress of strong emotion--the
struggle of a noble soul in a conflict of forces which must end in
tragedy. Her hair is brushed back from the face and ornamented with
a tiara like a royal diadem. A rich rope of pearls falls across her
beautiful neck and is gathered in a knot on her bodice. A mantle lies
across her lap draped somewhat like that in the portrait of Lady
Cockburn, and, like it, inscribed with the name of the painter, who
gallantly said that "he could not resist the opportunity of going down
to posterity on the hem of her garment".[10]
[Footnote 10: The compliment has sometimes been referred to the
portrait of Lady Cockburn, but the incident is related by Northcote as
told him by Mrs. Siddons herself in regard to her own portrait.]
Behind her chair are two allegorical figures representing Crime and
Remorse, the two primary causes of tragedy. In the full face of the
one at her left we can trace the features of Sir Joshua himself,
distorted though they are into the expression of a criminal.
The color of the original painting has a sombre magnificence which is
in keeping with the seriousness of the subject. The painting of the
head and bust places it among the finest works of Reynolds.
The portrait shows a remarkable insight on the part of the painter
into the character of Mrs. Siddons. She had not at that time played
any of her great Shakespearean rôles, but Reynolds seemed to
anticipate her power. He followed her career with unfailing interest
and always made a point of attending her first appearances and
benefits, sitting among the musicians in the orchestra. When she
prepared for the character of Lady Macbeth he helped her plan the
costumes and sat rapt and breathless during her first performance.
This was generally considered her grandest effort, and she used
herself to say that after playing it thirty years she never read over
the part without discovering in it something new. In this character
she bade farewell to her profession June 29, 1812. It was said by a
contemporary critic that "there was not a height of grandeur to which
she could not soar, nor a darkness of misery to which she could not
descend; not a chord of feeling from the sternest to the most delicate
which she could not cause to vibrate at her will."
VII
ANGELS' HEADS
Our thoughts of angels are naturally connected with thoughts of
children. Jesus once spoke of the little ones as those whose angels
always behold the face of the heavenly Father. Their innocence is the
best type we have on earth of the purity of beings of a higher sphere.
Often when we try to describe the beauty of some little child, we use
the word angelic.
This explains why Sir Joshua Reynolds when called to paint the
portrait of a little girl conceived the pretty fancy of the picture of
Angels' Heads.[11] The child's fair face suggested that of an angel.
She had golden hair and blue eyes, and a very sweet little mouth. It
was a face which was so charming from every point of view that he
painted it in five positions. Grouping the heads in a circle, he added
wings after the manner of the cherubs of the old Italian masters,
surrounded them with clouds, and lighted the composition with a broad
ray of light streaming diagonally across the canvas.
[Footnote 11: Originally called A Cherub Head in Different Views.]
The child's hair falls about the face in straight dishevelled locks,
and it is not easy to tell at once whether it is a boy or a girl. In
reality the original was little Miss Frances Isabella Ker Gordon,
only child of Lord William Gordon and his wife Frances.
In each position of the five heads the expression varies, and looking
from one to another, we may trace through the series the child's
changing moods. Let each face tell its own story, and perhaps we may
learn something of the workings of the mind behind it.
Here at the lower left side the child suddenly sees some new object, a
strange bird or flower, and fixes her eyes upon it. She has a wide
awake, inquiring mind, quick to notice all that life has to offer, and
she is now in an observing mood. The expression of the face just above
is very thoughtful and perhaps a little puzzled. Life brings many hard
questions to the serious child, and this is one of the little girl's
pensive moods. The two upper faces at the right show quite another
expression. The lips of both are parted, and they seem to be singing.
One is reminded of the rapturous faces sometimes seen among choir boys
when the music lifts them out of their surroundings. All childish
troubles and questions are forgotten, as the two faces, flooded with
light, seem to look into the glory of heaven.
And now the head is turned and the child gazes directly out of the
picture with far-seeing eyes. The expression is of perfect
contentment. It will be noticed that the position of the last head is
precisely like that of Master Bunbury, and there are points of
resemblance between the two faces. The mood and expression are,
however, quite unlike in the two children. The boy's eyes are
directed towards some actual object, but the eyes of the child here
are those of a dreamer fixed upon some vision of the imagination.
[Illustration: ANGELS' HEADS]
A portrait study like the Angels' Heads combines in a novel way the
many-sided character of the child. The mother watching a little
daughter from day to day feels that she has half a dozen little girls
in one. A romp, a chatterbox, a living question mark, a philosopher, a
dreamer, a veritable angel, all these and many more change places
rapidly in the child's mood. She is taken to the photographer's for
her portrait, and the negative shows only a sober little face intently
anxious to look pleasant. A more fortunate photographer may perhaps
catch her expression of eager interest as some curious new toy is
shown her. But that innocent smile of happiness that comes into her
face when singing, or that far-away look of the dreamer which she
wears in the quiet twilight, is quite beyond the photographer's skill.
Reynolds knew the secret of representing these rarer and more delicate
expressions. He was by nature a true lover of children, and many years
of experience had taught him to understand their ways. Lady Gordon
must have felt rich indeed to have instead of one commonplace picture
five of the dearest faces her little girl could show, preserved on a
single canvas.
It is true that something of the child's individuality is lost by the
sacrifice of the figure. When we look at the other child portraits of
our collection we notice how much is expressed in the attitude and
gesture of which we here have no indication. Yet the picture shows how
truly the face is "a mirror of the soul," and as an interpretation of
the child's mind it is unique among Reynolds's works.
The original picture is painted in very delicate colors, and is one of
the best preserved of Reynolds's canvases. Miss Frances died unmarried
in 1831, and ten years later her mother presented the picture to the
English National Gallery.
VIII
THE DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE AND HER CHILD
Georgiana, the Duchess of Devonshire, was one of the most celebrated
beauties of her time. She was the daughter of the Earl of Spencer, and
was married[12] at the age of seventeen to William, Duke of
Devonshire, "the first match in England".
[Footnote 12: March 28, 1774.]
The young duchess was as clever as she was beautiful. She was fond of
history, music and drawing, and she wrote verses both in French and
English.[13] She was an ardent admirer of the great Johnson, and in a
circle of his listeners hung with breathless interest upon his
conversation. Her charming manners, her wit, wealth, and rank drew a
host of admirers about her, and she became the leader of English
society. Whatever the Duchess of Devonshire did, or whatever the
Duchess of Devonshire wore, at once became the fashion. She opened the
fashionable balls, she was a leading spirit in the Ladies' Club, and
she set the standard for the height of headdresses and the length of
feathers!
[Footnote 13: A long poem by the Duchess was "The Passage over Mt.
Gothard," celebrated in Coleridge's Ode to Georgiana.]
She was not content with merely social triumphs, but her influence
reached even into politics. Her most remarkable political exploit was
to secure the reëlection of Charles James Fox to Parliament (1784)
from the borough of Westminster. For this she has sometimes been
called "Fox's Duchess," but she is usually known as "the beautiful
Duchess."
Sir Joshua Reynolds was among the fortunate number upon whom the
beautiful Duchess bestowed her smiles. He had first painted her
portrait in her girlhood and again as a young wife but two years
married (1776). He was afterwards often honored with invitations to
her house and enjoyed the hospitality of her brilliant entertainments.
At length (June, 1784) a daughter was born to the Duke and Duchess of
Devonshire, whom they christened Georgiana Dorothy. The parents were
so happy in their baby that the mother founded a charitable school in
her honor. The child was a winning little creature, round and rosy and
full of spirits. When she was about two years old the Duchess again
called her former portrait painter's services into use, desiring a
picture of herself and daughter.
By this time, the girlish beauty of the Duchess had faded, and her
slender figure had become somewhat stout. But the new grace of
motherhood was now added to her other charms. As she had been the
model of fashion for all the ladies of England in matter of dress, she
now became a model of motherhood for their imitation. Fashionable
women usually gave over the care and nourishment of their children to
nurses, but the Duchess of Devonshire took upon herself these
tender maternal duties. Thus mother and child were constantly together
and became boon companions. The Duchess had a very lively nature, and
a child could not wish a gayer playmate.
[Illustration: THE DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE AND HER CHILD]
It is in one of their merry romps together that the painter has
represented them. The mother is sitting on a sofa with the child on
her knee, and the two are playing the old game of Ride a Cock Horse to
Banbury Cross. To and fro on her imaginary steed swings the little
rider, supported by the encircling arm of the mother. It is rare
sport, and the child kicks her bare feet and throws up her chubby arms
gleefully. We can fancy we hear the baby voice gurgling with delight,
and the mother smiles at the child's pleasure.
Some years afterward, the poet Coleridge, writing an ode to the
beautiful Duchess, pays a tribute to her motherhood which forms a
fitting comment on our picture:--
"You were a mother! at your bosom fed
The babes that loved you.
You, with laughing eyes,
Each twilight thought,
Each nascent feeling read
Which you yourself created."
It is interesting to compare the picture with that of Lady Cockburn
and her Children which we have already studied. The lighting is
managed in the same way, a curtain being drawn aside at the right,
that we may look beyond the parapet into the open.
It is an important principle in art that in representing any inclosed
space like the interior of a room, there should be some device for
increasing the length of the perspective. The imagination delights in
distance, and feels imprisoned where there is no opening in an
inclosure.
The principal lines of this composition run diagonally from corner to
corner, intersecting in the centre. Some of these are so clearly
defined that we can easily trace them. One extends from the uplifted
right hand of the Duchess across the slanting line of her bodice and
along the lower edge of the child's frock. The lines of her left arm
run parallel with this. In the other direction the uplifted arms of
the baby, as well as the edge of the curtain, indicate the lines which
cross these.
IX
HOPE
We have naturally come to think of Reynolds as chiefly a portrait
painter. It was, indeed, by his work in portraiture that his name
ranks among the great masters. Yet he made various interesting
excursions into other fields. We may see what charming fancy pictures
he sometimes painted in Cupid as Link Boy and The Strawberry Girl.
Historical pictures he also attempted, but not so successfully.
Religious and allegorical subjects he tried occasionally, and it is to
illustrate his work of this kind that our picture of Hope is chosen.
The figure is a part of a large decorative scheme for a stained
window. The central compartment is devoted to the subject of the
Nativity, and shows a group of the Virgin mother with the Christ child
in the manger, Joseph and the angels. In imitation of Correggio's
famous painting of the same subject, called the _Notte_, the light of
the picture proceeds from the Babe. Two smaller compartments on either
side are filled with shepherds coming to worship. Below is a series of
seven panels, containing the figures of Faith, Hope, and Charity, and
the four cardinal virtues--Temperance, Justice, Fortitude, and
Prudence.
This plan of subjects was made by Reynolds early in 1778, to meet an
order from New College, Oxford, for a window design to be executed for
their chapel. Hope was one of the first figures that he painted, and
in 1779 he was ready to exhibit, at the Royal Academy, the Nativity,
with Faith, Hope, and Charity.
The three fundamental elements of Christian character have been
associated together ever since the fifteenth chapter of first
Corinthians was written. Artists and poets have had a fashion of
personifying them as allegorical figures. Certain symbols have even
been invented to correspond to each--the cross for faith, the anchor
for hope, and the heart for charity. Thus the imagination has been
called to the aid of religion in impressing Christian teaching.
Reynolds tried to put into this figure the various qualities which
make up our thought of hope. A pretty young woman steps forth from a
region of clouds and lifts her face and hands towards the light.
Through an opening in the sky a broad beam of sunshine falls upon her.
Following its direction, she seems to be looking through the opening
into some glad vision beyond. Like the figure of Hope in Swinburne's
sonnet, she
"Looks Godward, past the shades where blind men grope
Round the dark door that prayers nor dreams can ope,
And makes for joy the very darkness dear."
In the lower left-hand corner we may barely make out the portion of an
anchor. The meaning of the old symbol is that hope keeps the soul
firm, as an anchor holds the ship. The face of which we have a glimpse
is girlish and innocent; the figure is full of buoyancy. The left arm
and the uplifted hands are very delicately modelled.
[Illustration: HOPE]
In a painting of this kind the artist is free to follow his own bent
in the matter of dress, no longer hampered, as in his portraits, by
the follies of fashion. It is delightful to see here the exquisite
simplicity of the gown falling in long, beautiful lines. The only
adornment is a gauzy scarf, twisted about the bodice and falling on
each side in spiral folds. One is reminded of the swirling scarfs in
our American Vedder's designs, having, as here, a purely decorative
purpose in the scheme. The hair is gathered up on the head in a loose
knot, from which the end escapes in a curl.
We are not looking here for any strong delineation of character, as in
a portrait, and the painter did not even think it worth while to show
much of Hope's face. The panel is to be studied as a work of
decorative art, and its beauty lies in its scheme of color, the
contrast of light and shade, and the graceful patterns traced by the
lines. These are drawn in long flowing curves. The strongest are those
which run from the upper left to the lower right corner, to emphasize
the motion of the figure towards the left. The outline of the cloud
billows which separate the light from the darkness are counter curves
cutting across diagonally.
We could appreciate the lines of the panel even better if we could
see it in its relation to the entire plan. Each figure is drawn with
reference to its place in the great design. Though there are so many
component parts, they unite to form a coherent whole, the main lines
flowing together in a harmonious unity.
Reynolds's design was executed by the glass painter Jervas; but when
the window was set in place it was a great disappointment. The colors
are opaque, and can properly be seen only in a darkened room; with the
light falling through them they are at a great disadvantage.
Nevertheless the window is a matter of great pride to the fortunate
college which possesses it. The original designs, instead of being
black and white cartoons, as another artist might have made them, are
finished paintings in oil.
X
LORD HEATHFIELD
Lord Heathfield, the original of this portrait by Reynolds, is famous
in English history as the hero of the siege of Gibraltar. Gibraltar,
as is well known, is that great rock on the coast of Spain,
overlooking the narrow strait which forms the passage between the
Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. In the affairs of nations
this rock occupies a position of great importance, forming, as it
were, a "key to the Mediterranean." The Strait of Gibraltar is the
gateway through which all ships must pass to gain the ports of
southern Europe, and it is therefore a matter of moment to all the
civilized world what nation holds possession there. Nature has made
the rock a fortress, and military inventions have been added, through
the centuries, to strengthen its defences. It has been the scene of
some fearful conflicts.
Gibraltar once belonged to Spain; but, by the fortunes of war, it fell
into the possession of the English early in the eighteenth century.
Various attempts were made to recover it, but the most determined was
that of 1779, when the combined land and sea forces of France and
Spain were brought to bear upon it. The struggle lasted over three
years; but, in the end, the English were victorious, and they have
retained the fortress to this day.
The governor in command at that time was General Elliott, who was
afterwards rewarded for his services here by being raised to the
peerage as Lord Heathfield. General Elliott was already well known as
a gallant officer. He had served in the war of Austrian succession,
holding a colonel's commission at Dettingen, where the English
defeated the French in 1743. In the Seven Years' War he had raised and
disciplined a splendid corps of cavalry, known as the "Light Horse."
He was now over sixty years old, and his long military career fitted
him admirably for the command at Gibraltar. He showed his calibre in
the beginning of the siege, in refusing the keys of the fortress,
which were demanded of him. With tremendous odds against him, his
conduct has not inappropriately been likened to that of the Greek hero
Leonidas, at Thermopylæ, when ordered by the Persian king to lay down
his arms. Throughout the defence his intrepidity, resource, and
generalship, proved him a man of remarkable military genius.
The crisis in the siege was reached in September, 1782, when a fleet
of ten enormous floating batteries opened fire on the fortress, each
one manned by a picked crew, and carrying from ten to eighteen guns.
These batteries were the invention of the most skilled French
engineers, and were believed to be impenetrable to shot. The
cannonading began in the morning and continued all day. Soon after
midnight nine ships were on fire, and the hostile fleet was doomed.
[Illustration: LORD HEATHFIELD]
General Elliott showed himself a generous victor, and the men saved
from the enemy's ships owed their lives to him. Five years later the
returned hero, now become Lord Heathfield, sat to Reynolds for his
portrait, ordered by a wealthy admirer--the public-spirited Alderman
Boydell. The picture shows the brave old soldier as he took his stand
in command of Gibraltar. Some one has said that it tells the whole
story of the siege.
The general grasps firmly the key of the fortress, the chain wound
twice about his hand, to emphasize the determination of the man to
hold it against all odds. His sword swings at his side, ready for
instant use; a cannon in the rear is pointed downward towards the
hostile fleet, and the smoke of battle rolls in clouds behind him. Far
away on the horizon a glimmer of light shines on the distant sea.
The veteran stands as immovable as a Stonewall Jackson. His face is
set in determined lines, the lips firmly closed, the head thrown back
a little, and the eyes steadily fixed on the battle. Yet the face is
not altogether stern; there is much that is kindly and noble in the
expression. One can fancy it in another moment softening into an
expression of gentleness.
It was a remarkable feature of his success during these terrible
months of siege, that he was able to hold the love and loyalty of his
men. When the spirits of the little garrison flagged, under the
combined influence of disease and impending famine, his genial
presence animated them with fresh hope. His chivalry was as unfailing
as his bravery. It is said that "his military skill and moral courage
place him among the best soldiers and noblest men Europe produced in
the eighteenth century."
The portrait painter makes us feel all this in his picture. The
attitude is so dignified, the gesture so forcible, the countenance so
expressive, that we are impressed at once with the dignity of his
character. Even if we knew nothing of his history we should still be
sure that this is a great man.