The factions of Reynolds and Romney lived again in the rivalry of
Hoppner and Lawrence. The painters appeared to be well matched. Hoppner
had the advantage of a start of ten years, though this was nearly
balanced by the very early age at which Lawrence obtained many of his
successes. Hoppner was also a handsome man, of refined address and
polished manner; he, too, possessed great conversational powers, while
in the matter of wit and humour he was probably in advance of his
antagonist. He was well read--'one of the best-informed painters of his
time,' Mr. Cunningham informs us--frank, out-spoken, open-hearted, gay,
and whimsical. He had all the qualifications for a social success, and
was not without some of those 'Corinthian' characteristics which were
indispensable to a man of fashion, from the Prince of Wales's point of
view. With Edrige, the associate miniature-painter, and two other
artists, he was once at a fair in the country where strong ale was
abounding, and much fun, and drollery, and din. Hoppner turned to his
friends. 'You have always seen me,'he said, 'in good company, and
playing the courtier, and taken me, I daresay, for a deuced well-bred
fellow, and genteel withal. All a mistake. I love low company, and am a
bit of a ready-made blackguard.' He pulls up his collar, twitches his
neckcloth, sets his hat awry, and with a mad humorous look in his eyes,
is soon in the thickest of the crowd of rustic revellers. He jests,
gambols, dances, soon to quarrel and fight. He roughly handles a brawny
waggoner, a practised boxer, in a regular scientific set-to; gives his
defeated antagonist half a guinea, rearranges his toilet, and retires
with his friends amidst the cheers of the crowd. It is quite a
Tom-and-Jerry scene. Gentlemen delighted to fight coal-heavers in those
days. Somehow we always hear of the gentlemen being victorious; perhaps
if the coal-heavers could tell the story, it would sometimes have a
different _dénouement_. Unfortunately for Hoppner, he had to use his
fingers, not his fists, against Lawrence--to paint him down, not fight
him.
He was a skilful artist, working with an eye to Sir Joshua's manner, and
following him oftentimes into error, as well as into truth and beauty.
Ridiculing the loose touches of Lawrence, he was frequently as faulty,
without ever reaching the real fascination of his rival's style. He had
not the Lawrence sense of expression and charm; he could not give to his
heads the vivacity and flutter, the brilliance and witchery, of Sir
Thomas's portraits. They both took up Reynolds's theory about it being
'a vulgar error to make things too like themselves,' as though it were a
merit to paint untruthfully. And painting people of fashion, they had to
paint--especially in their earlier days--strange fashions; and an
extravagant, and fantastic, and meretricious air clings as a consequence
to many of their pictures; for the Prince of Wales had then a grand head
of hair (his own hair), which he delighted to pomatum, and powder, and
frizzle; and, of course, the gentlemen of the day followed the mode; and
then the folds and folds of white muslin that swathed the chins and
necks of the sitters; and the coats, with fanciful collars and lapels;
and the waistcoats, many-topped and many-hued, winding about in tortuous
lines. It is not to be much marvelled at that such items of costume as
'Cumberland corsets,' 'Petersham trousers,' 'Brummel cravats,'
'Osbaldistone ties,' and 'Exquisite crops,' should be only sketchily
rendered in paint. Of course, Mr. Opie, who affected thorough John
Bullism in art, who laid on his pigments steadily with a trowel, and
produced portraits of ladies like washerwomen, and gentlemen liking
Wapping publicans--of course, unsentimental, unfashionable Mr. Opie
denounced the degeneracy of his competitor's style. 'Lawrence makes
coxcombs of his sitters, and they make a coxcomb of him.' Still 'the
quality' flocked to the studios of Messrs. Hoppner and Lawrence, and the
rival easels were long adorned with the most fashionable faces of the
day.