Pope, denouncing the vanity of wealth and the crimes committed in the
name of taste, visits Lord Timon's villa, and finds plenty of pegs on
which to hang criticism--ample scope for satire. With depreciating eyes
he surveys the house and grounds, their fittings and garniture, almost
as though he were going to make a bid for them. 'He that blames would
buy,' says the proverb. Then he passes to the out-buildings, taking
notes like a broker in possession under a _fi. fa_.
'And now the chapel's silver bell you hear,
That summons you to all the pride of prayer:
Light quirks of music, broken and uneven,
Make the soul dance upon a jig to heaven.
On painted ceiling you devoutly stare,
Where sprawl the saints of Verrio or Laguerre,
On gilded clouds in fair expansion lie,
And bring all paradise before the eye,' etc.
Who was Verrio? Who was Laguerre?
ANTONIO VERRIO was born in Lecce, a town in the Neapolitan province of
Terra di Otranto, in the year 1639. Early in life he visited Venice to
study the colouring of the Venetian masters. He returned a successful,
not a meritorious painter. In 1660 he was at Naples, where he executed a
large fresco work, 'Christ healing the Sick,' for the Jesuit College.
This painting, we are told, was conspicuous for its brilliant colour and
forcible effect.
Subsequently the artist was in France, painting the high altar of the
Carmelites at Toulouse. Dominici says that 'Verrio had such a love for
travelling that he could not remain in his own country.'
Charles II., desiring to revive the manufacture of tapestry at Mortlake,
which had been stopped by the civil war, invited Verrio to England; but
when he arrived the king changed his plans, and intrusted the painter
with the decoration in fresco of Windsor Castle. Charles was induced to
this by seeing a work of Verrio's at Lord Arlington's house at the end
of St. James's Park, the site of Buckingham House. 'In possession of the
Cartoons of Raphael,' Fuseli lectured, angrily, on the subject, years
afterwards, 'and with the magnificence of Whitehall before his eyes, he
suffered Verrio to contaminate the walls of his palaces.' But there was
raging then a sort of epidemical belief in native deficiency and in the
absolute necessity of importing art talent. In his first picture Verrio
represented the king in a glorification of naval triumph. He decorated
most of the ceilings of the palace, one whole side of St. George's Hall
and the Chapel; but few of his works are now extant. Hans Jordaens'
lively fancy and ready pencil induced his critics to affirm of him,
'that his figures seemed to flow from his hand upon the canvas as from a
pot-ladle.' Certainly, from Verrio's fertility in apologue and allegory,
and the rapidity of his execution, it might have been said that he
spattered out his works with a mop. Nothing daunted him. He would have
covered an acre of ceiling with an acre of apotheosis. As Walpole
writes, 'His exuberant pencil was ready at pouring out gods, goddesses,
kings, emperors, and triumphs over those public surfaces on which the
eye never rests long enough to criticise, and where one should be sorry
to place the works of a better master. I mean ceilings and staircases.
The New Testament or the Roman History cost him nothing but ultramarine;
that and marble columns and marble steps he never spared.'
He shrunk from no absurdity or incongruity. His taste was even worse
than his workmanship. He delighted to avenge any wrong he had received,
or fancied he had received, by introducing his enemy, real or imaginary,
in his pictures. Thus, on the ceiling of St. George's Hall, he painted
Anthony, Earl of Shaftesbury, in the character of Faction dispersing
libels; in another place, having a private quarrel with Mrs. Marriott,
the housekeeper, he borrowed her face for one of his Furies. Painting
for Lord Exeter, at Burleigh, in a representation of Bacchus bestriding
a hogshead, he copied the head of a dean with whom he was at variance.
It is more excusable, perhaps, that, when compelled by his patron to
insert a Pope in a procession little flattering to his religion, he
added the portrait of the Archbishop of Canterbury then living. In a
picture of the 'Healing of the Sick,' he was guilty of the folly and
impropriety of introducing among the spectators of the scene, portraits
of himself, Sir Godfrey Kneller, and Mr. May, surveyor of the works, all
adorned with the profuse periwigs of the period. But he could not
transfer to his pictures a decorum and a common sense that had no place
in his mind. Hence he loved to depict a garish and heterogeneous whirl
of saints and sinners, pan-pipes, periwigs, cherubim, silk stockings,
angels, small-swords, the naked and the clothed, goddesses,
violoncellos, stars, and garters. A Latin inscription in honour of the
painter and his paintings appeared over the tribune at the end of St.
George's Hall:--'_Antonius Verrio Neapolitanus non ignobili stirpe
natus, ad honorem Dei, Augustissimi Regis Caroli Secundi et Sancti
Georgii, molem hanc felicissimâ manu decoravit_.'
The king lavished kindness upon this pretentious and absurd Italian. He
was appointed to the place of master-gardener, and lodgings in a house
in St. James's Park, to be afterwards known as Carlton House, were set
apart for his use. Here he was visited by Evelyn, who records that 'the
famous Italian painter' was 'settled in His Majesty's garden at St.
James's, which he had made a very delicious paradise.' The artist also
dined with the author, and was regaled with 'China oranges off my own
trees, as good, I think, as ever were eaten.' For works executed in
Windsor Castle between the years 1676 and 1681, he received the sum of
£6845, 8s. 4d. Vertue copied the account 'from a half-sheet of paper
fairly writ in a hand of the time.' It particularizes the rooms
decorated, and the cost. For the king's guard chamber, £300; for the
king's presence chamber, £200; for the queen's drawing-room, £250; for
the queen's bed-chamber, £100; and so on, until the enormous total is
reached. Of his paintings in St. George's Hall Evelyn writes, 'Verrio's
invention is admirable, his ordnance full and flowing, antique and
heroical; his figures move; and if the walls hold (which is the only
doubt, by reason of the salts, which in time and in this moist climate
prejudice), his work will preserve his name to ages.' He employed many
workmen under him, was of extravagant habits, and kept a great table. He
considered himself as an art-monarch entitled to considerable state and
magnificence. He was constant in his applications to the Crown for money
to carry on his works. With the ordinary pertinacity of the dun, he
joined a freedom which would have been remarkable, if the king's
indulgence and good humour had not done so much to foster it. Once, at
Hampton Court, having lately received an advance of a thousand pounds,
he found the king so encircled by courtiers that he could not approach.
He called out loudly and boldly--
'Sire! I desire the favour of speaking to your Majesty.'
'Well, Verrio,' the king inquired, 'what is your request?'
'Money, sire! I am so short in cash that I am not able to pay my
workmen, and your Majesty and I have learned by experience that pedlars
and painters cannot give credit long.'
The king laughed at this impudent speech, and reminded the painter that
he had but lately received a thousand pounds.
'Yes, sire,' persisted Verrio, 'but that was soon paid away.'
'At that rate, you would spend more than I do to maintain my family.'
'True, sire,' answered the painter; 'but does your Majesty keep an open
table as I do?'
Verrio designed the large equestrian portrait of the king for the hall
of Chelsea College, but it was finished by Cooke, and presented by Lord
Ranelagh. On the accession of James II. he was again employed at Windsor
in Wolsey's tomb-house, which it was intended should be used as a Roman
Catholic chapel. He painted the king and several of his courtiers in
the hospital of Christchurch, London, and he painted also at St.
Bartholomew's Hospital.
But soon there was an end of his friends and patrons, the Stuarts. James
had fled; William of Orange was on the throne; a revolution had happened
little favourable to Signor Verrio's religion or political principles.
There is a commendable staunchness in his adherence to the ruined cause:
in his abandoning his post of master-gardener, and his refusal to work
for the man he regarded as a usurper; though there is something
ludicrous in the notion of punishing King William by depriving him of
Verrio's art. He did not object, however, to work for the nobility. For
some years he was employed by Lord Exeter at Burleigh, and afterwards at
Chatsworth. He was true to his old execrable style. He introduced his
own portrait in a picture-history of Mars and Venus, and in the chapel
at Chatsworth he produced a dreadful altar-piece representing the
incredulity of St. Thomas. He painted also at Lowther Hall. For his
paintings at Burleigh alone he was paid more money than Raphael or
Michael Angelo received for all their works. Verrio was engaged on them
for about twelve years, handsomely maintained the while, with an
equipage at his disposal, and a salary of £1500 a year. Subsequently, on
the persuasion of Lord Exeter, Verrio was induced to lend his aid to
royalty once more, and he condescended to decorate the grand staircase
at Hampton Court for King William. Walpole suggests that he
accomplished this work as badly as he could, 'as if he had spoiled it
out of principle.' But this is not credible. The painting was in the
artist's usual manner, and neither better nor worse--and his best was
bad enough, in all conscience. His usual faults of gaudy colour, bad
drawing, and senseless composition were of course to be found; but then,
these were equally apparent in all his other works. Later in life his
sight began to fail him, and he received from Queen Anne a pension of
£200 a year for his life. To the last royal favour was extended to him,
and he was selected to superintend the decorations of Blenheim. But
death intervened. The over-rated, overpaid, and most meretricious
painter died at Hampton Court in 1707. There is evident error in
Dominici's statement that the old man met his death from drowning on a
visit to Languedoc. Walpole, summing up his merits and demerits, says,
rather curiously, 'He was an excellent painter for the sort of subjects
on which he was employed, without much invention and with less taste!'
The father of LOUIS LAGUERRE was by birth a Catalan, and held the
appointment of Keeper of the Royal Menagerie at Versailles. To his son,
born at Paris in 1663, Louis XIV. stood godfather, bestowing on the
child his distinguished Christian name. The young Laguerre received his
education at a Jesuit College, with the view of entering the priesthood,
but a confirmed impediment in his speech demonstrated his unfitness for
such a calling. He began to evince considerable art-ability, and, on the
recommendation of the fathers of the college, he eventually embraced the
profession of painting. He then entered the Royal Academy of France, and
studied for a short time under Charles Le Brun. In 1683 he came to
England with one Picard, a painter of architecture. At this time Verrio
was in the acme of his prosperity. He was producing allegorical ceilings
and staircases by wholesale. He had a troop of workmen under him,
obedient to his instructions, dabbing in superficial yards of pink
flesh, and furlongs of blue clouds. Verrio was happy to secure forthwith
so efficient an assistant as Laguerre, and soon found him plenty to do.
In nearly every work of Verrio's after this date, it is probable that
Laguerre had a hand. He seems to have been an amiable, kindly,
simple-minded man, without much self-assertion or any strong opinions of
his own. He was quite content to do as Verrio bid him, even imitating
him and following him through his figurative mysteries, and floundering
with him in the mire of graceless drawing and gaudy colour and
ridiculous fable. He had at least as much talent as his master--probably
even more. But he never sought to outshine or displace him.
'A modest, unintriguing man,' as Vertue calls him, he was quite
satisfied with being second in command, no matter how ignorant and
inefficient might be his captain.
John Tijon, his father-in-law, a founder of iron balustrades, said of
him, 'God has made him a painter, and there left him.'
He worked under Verrio in St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and at Burleigh;
he executed staircases at old Devonshire House, in Piccadilly, at
Buckingham House, and at Petworth; assisted in the paintings at
Marlborough House, St. James's Park; decorated the saloon at Blenheim;
and in many of the apartments at Burleigh on the Hill 'the walls are
covered with his Cæsars.'
William of Orange gave the painter lodgings at Hampton Court, where it
seems he painted the Labours of Hercules in _chiaro-oscuro_, and
repaired Andrea Mantegna's pictures of the Triumphs of Julius Cæsar.
The commissioners for rebuilding St. Paul's Cathedral unanimously chose
Laguerre to decorate the cupola with frescoes. Subsequently this
decision was abandoned in favour of Thornhill; but, as Walpole says,
'the preference was not ravished from Laguerre by superior merit.'
Sir James Thornhill received payment for his paintings in the dome of
St. Paul's at the rate of forty shillings the square yard. The world has
still the opportunity of deciding upon the merits or demerits of those
works. Vertue thinks that Sir James was indebted to Laguerre for his
knowledge of historical painting on ceilings, etc. For decorating the
staircase of the South Sea Company's House, Sir James received only
twenty-five shillings per square yard. By speculating in the shares of
the same Company, it may be stated that another artist, Sir Godfrey
Kneller, lost £20,000. But prosperous Sir Godfrey could afford to lose;
his fortune could sustain even such a shock as that; at his death he
left an estate of £2000 per annum. He had intended that Thornhill should
decorate the staircase of his seat at Wilton, but learning that Newton
was sitting to Sir James, he grew angry. 'No portrait painter shall
paint my house,' cried Sir Godfrey, and he gave the commission to
Laguerre, who did his very best for his brother artist.
On the union of England and Scotland, Laguerre received an order from
Queen Anne to design a set of tapestries commemorative of the event,
introducing portraits of her Majesty and her Ministers. He executed the
requisite drawings; but it does not appear that the work was ever
carried out.
In 1711 he was a director of an academy of drawing instituted in London,
under the presidency of Kneller. On the resignation of Kneller, there
was a probability of Laguerre being elected in his place; but he was
again defeated by his rival, Thornhill, probably as much from his own
want of management and self-confidence, as from any other cause.
He drew designs for engravers, and etched a Judgment of Midas. Round
the room of a tavern in Drury Lane, where was held a club of _virtuosi_,
he painted a Bacchanalian procession, and presented the house with his
labours.
He had many imitators; for there are followers of bad as well as of good
examples. Among others, Riario, Johnson, Brown, besides Lanscroon,
Scheffers, and Picard, who worked with him under Verrio.
His son and pupil, John Laguerre, manifested considerable ability, and
engraved a series of prints of 'Hob in the Well,'[3] which had a large
popularity, though they were but indifferently executed. He was fond of
the theatre, with a talent for music and singing; painted scenery and
stage decorations. He even appeared upon the boards as a singer.
[3] A favourite old ballad farce by Dogget, the comedian.
Laguerre, in his age, feeble and dropsical, attended Drury Lane on the
20th April 1721, to witness his son's performance in a musical version
of Beaumont and Fletcher's 'Island Princess;' but, before the curtain
rose, the poor old man was seized with an apoplectic fit, and died the
same night. He was buried in the Churchyard of St.
Martin's-in-the-Fields. The son subsequently quitted the stage, and
resumed his first profession. He etched a plate, representing Falstaff,
Pistol, and Doll Tearsheet, with other theatrical characters, in
allusion to a quarrel between the players and patentees. He died in very
indigent circumstances, in March 1748.
Time and the white-washer's double-tie brush have combined to destroy
most of the ceilings and staircases of Signor Verrio and Monsieur
Laguerre. For their art, there was not worth enough in it to endow it
with any lasting vitality. They are remembered more from Pope's lines,
than on any other account--preserved in them, like uncomely curiosities
in good spirits. To resort to the poet for verses applicable, though
familiar:--
'Pretty in amber to observe the forms
Of hair, or straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms;
The things we know are neither rich nor rare,
But wonder how the devil they got there!'