THE PARSON'S DAUGHTER. FROM A PAINTING BY GEORGE ROMNEY IN THE NATIONAL GALLERY, LONDON.THE PARSON'S DAUGHTER. FROM A PAINTING BY GEORGE ROMNEY IN THE NATIONAL GALLERY, LONDON.This portrait, from an unknown model, gives Romney with all his charm and more than his usual sincerity.
This portrait, from an unknown model, gives Romney with all his charm and more than his usual sincerity.
To the London of 1800, however, were to be given two landscape painters who may fairly claim the honor of placing their art on a higher pinnacle than it had ever before reached. One of them, John Constable, remains to-day the direct source from which all representation of the free open air is derived, be the painter Saxon, Gallic, or Teuton. The other, Joseph Mallord William Turner, may be said to reach greater heights than his contemporary; but, unlike him, his art is so based on qualities peculiar to himself that he stands alone, though having many imitators who have never achieved more than a superficial resemblance to his work.
Constable, founding his work on nature with close observance of natural laws, was able to exert an influence by which all painters have since profited. When he came to London, at the age of twenty-three, to study in the school of the Royal Academy, he attracted the attention of Sir George Beaumont, an amateur painter who, by his taste and social position, was all-powerful in the artistic circles of the metropolis. It was he who asked the young painter the famous question, "Where do you place your brown tree?" this freak of vegetation being one of the essential component parts of the properly constructed academical landscape of the period. For a year or two the youth placed brown trees, submissively enough, in landscapes painfully precise in detail and deficient in atmosphere. Then he did that which to a common, sensible mind would seem the most obvious thing for a landscape painter to do, but which had beendone so rarely that the simple act was the boldest of innovations. He took his colors out of doors, and painted from nature.
JOHN CONSTABLE. FROM AN ENGRAVING BY LUCAS, AFTER A PORTRAIT BY C.E. LESLIE.JOHN CONSTABLE. FROM AN ENGRAVING BY LUCAS, AFTER A PORTRAIT BY C.E. LESLIE.Reproduced, by the courtesy of W.H. Fuller, from "Memoirs of the Life of John Constable, Esq., R.A., Composed Chiefly of his Letters, by C.R. Leslie, R.A." Quarto, London, 1843. This noble memoir, which makes one love the man as one admires the painter, is unfortunately out of print.
Reproduced, by the courtesy of W.H. Fuller, from "Memoirs of the Life of John Constable, Esq., R.A., Composed Chiefly of his Letters, by C.R. Leslie, R.A." Quarto, London, 1843. This noble memoir, which makes one love the man as one admires the painter, is unfortunately out of print.
Of the dreary waste of "historical" and arbitrarily composed landscapes, even in the simpler honest productions of the Dutch preceding this century, nearly all were painted from drawings; color had been applied according to recipe; the brown tree was rampant through all the seasons represented, from primavernal spring to golden autumn. At the most, only studies in colors were made out of doors—unrelated portions of pictures, stained rather than painted, with timid desire to enregister details. These were then transported to the studio, where they underwent a process of arrangement, of "cookery," as the typically just French expression puts it; from which the picture came out steeped in a "brown sauce," conventional, artificial, and monotonous, but pleasing to the Academy-ridden public of the time. The young "miller of Bergholt"—for it was there in the county of Suffolk that young Constable first saw the light, on June 11, 1776—determined in 1803 to have done with convention. He writes to a friend, one Dunthorne, who had had much influence on his early life and was his first teacher: "For the last two years I have been running after pictures and seeking truth at second hand;" adding that he would hereafter study nature alone, convinced that "there is [was] room enough for a natural painter."
FLATFORD MILL, ON THE RIVER STOUR. FROM A PAINTING BY JOHN CONSTABLE, NOW IN THE NATIONAL GALLERY, LONDON.FLATFORD MILL, ON THE RIVER STOUR. FROM A PAINTING BY JOHN CONSTABLE, NOW IN THE NATIONAL GALLERY, LONDON.This picture was given to the National Gallery by the painter's children. It is possibly one of three pictures on which Constable obtained the gold medal of the Paris Salon in 1822—the one which in the Salon catalogue is entitled "A Canal." The other two were "The Hay-Wain" (shown on the next page) and "Hampstead Heath," both now in the National Gallery.
This picture was given to the National Gallery by the painter's children. It is possibly one of three pictures on which Constable obtained the gold medal of the Paris Salon in 1822—the one which in the Salon catalogue is entitled "A Canal." The other two were "The Hay-Wain" (shown on the next page) and "Hampstead Heath," both now in the National Gallery.
This was henceforth the aim of his life; and from constant study out of doors he learned that natural objects exist to our sight not isolated, but in relation one to another; that the whole is more important than a part; and that the bark of a tree, a minutely defined plant, or a conscientiously geologically studied rock, may mar the effect of a whole picture, while the scene to be represented has a character of its own more subtle, more evanescent, but also infinitely more true than any single element of which it is composed. More than that, through living on such intimate terms with Mother Nature, he learned to value the smiles of her sunshine, and to cunningly adjust her cloud-veils when she frowned. His object was no longer that of the earlier painters, who—and along with others even faithful Crome—had aimed to paint a "view" for its topographical value, suppressing or altering, like mediocre portrait painters, any feature which wasthought to be displeasing. Constable painted the moods of nature; the simplest subjects seen under ever-varying effects of light were his choice; and though his pictures bear the names of various places, and divers existing features of these places are portrayed, it is always the beauty of the scene, or that of the moment of the day or night, which affects the spectator.
THE HAY-WAIN. FROM A PAINTING BY JOHN CONSTABLE, NOW IN THE NATIONAL GALLERY, LONDON.THE HAY-WAIN. FROM A PAINTING BY JOHN CONSTABLE, NOW IN THE NATIONAL GALLERY, LONDON.This picture was first exhibited in the Royal Academy of 1821. It is also one of three exhibited by Constable in the Paris Salon the following year. It is one of Constable's best known pictures. The thoroughly English character of the scene, painted with truth and simplicity, makes it, after a lapse of seventy-five years, as modern as though it were painted yesterday.
This picture was first exhibited in the Royal Academy of 1821. It is also one of three exhibited by Constable in the Paris Salon the following year. It is one of Constable's best known pictures. The thoroughly English character of the scene, painted with truth and simplicity, makes it, after a lapse of seventy-five years, as modern as though it were painted yesterday.
By a public which was used to the conventional tones of the older painters, and which understood or was interested in Turner's daring variations on the theme of classical landscape, these fresh, simple pictures which to-day look so natural to us were regarded with distrust. Not even the shepherd, much less the warrior or the demigod, inhabited these quiet scenes. A picture which any rural gentleman could see from his front door, smacked too little of art for the modish town. Moreover, Constable, no doubt sighing for something lighter and more brilliant, was accustomed, in a vain effort to rival the clear light of out-of-doors, to use the lightest colors of his palette. On a varnishing day at the Royal Academy, the word was passed around among the astonished painters that in portions of his picture of the year Constable had actually used pure white!
In 1829, however, the world moving, Constable was elected to membership in the Royal Academy. The most notable triumph of his life, though, befell seven years earlier, in 1822, when he sent three pictures to be exhibited in the Salon in Paris. The Hay-Wain, and Hampstead Heath, both at present in the National Gallery, London, were of the three, and excited the greatest enthusiasm among the group of young painters who, with Delacroix at their head, were warring against the academic rule imposed by David. Constable's work thenceforward was the dominant influence in France, and from it can be directly traced the great group of landscape painters which we to-day miscall the "Barbizon" school.
It is pleasant to recall that official honor—the first which he received—came to Constable by the award of the great gold medal of the Salon at this time. For a number of years after this he sent his work to the successive Salons. Pecuniary success, such as fell to the lot of Turner, wasnever his; the first painter who looked at nature in the open air "through his temperament," as Zola aptly expresses it, was perforce contented to live a modest life at Hampstead, happy in his work, grateful to nature who disclosed so many of her secrets to him.
THE 'FIGHTING TEMERAIRE' TUGGED TO HER LAST BERTH. FROM A PAINTING BY J.M.W. TURNER.THE "FIGHTING TEMERAIRE" TUGGED TO HER LAST BERTH. FROM A PAINTING BY J.M.W. TURNER.The "Fighting Téméraire" was a line-of-battle ship of ninety-eight guns which Lord Nelson captured from the French at the battle of the Nile, August 1, 1798. In the battle of Trafalgar, October 21, 1805, she fought next to the "Victory"—the ship from which Nelson commanded the battle, and aboard which, in the course of it, he was killed. She was sold out of the service in 1838, and towed to Rotherhithe to be broken up. Turner's painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy of 1839. His picture touched the popular heart, and though no reproduction in black and white can approach the splendor of color in the original, the engraving renders faithfully the sentiment of the picture.
The "Fighting Téméraire" was a line-of-battle ship of ninety-eight guns which Lord Nelson captured from the French at the battle of the Nile, August 1, 1798. In the battle of Trafalgar, October 21, 1805, she fought next to the "Victory"—the ship from which Nelson commanded the battle, and aboard which, in the course of it, he was killed. She was sold out of the service in 1838, and towed to Rotherhithe to be broken up. Turner's painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy of 1839. His picture touched the popular heart, and though no reproduction in black and white can approach the splendor of color in the original, the engraving renders faithfully the sentiment of the picture.
"I love," he said, "every stile and stump and lane in the village; as long as I am able to hold a brush, I shall never cease to paint them." He ceased to "hold a brush" on the 30th of March, 1837.
Turner, who was born a year before Constable, on April 23, 1775, was, unlike the miller's son of Bergholt, a child of the city. He was born in London, in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, where his father was a hair-dresser; and when only fourteen entered the Royal Academy schools as a student. The next year he exhibited a drawing of Lambeth Palace; and in 1799 was made an associate, and in 1802 a member, of the Royal Academy. His career was probably more successful than that of any other artist of modern times. Of his life the more that is said in charity the better; for as the sun rises oftentimes from a fog bank, so the luminous dreams of color by which we know Turner emanated from an apparently sour, prosaic cockney. A bachelor implicated in low intrigues, dying under the assumed name of "Puggy Booth" in a dreary lodging in Chelsea, after a long career of miserly observance and rapacious bickering—of his life naught became him like the leaving. He died December 19, 1851. His will directed that his pictures—three hundred and sixty paintings and nearly two thousand drawings—should become the property of the nation, the only condition attached being that two of the pictures should be placed between two paintings by Claude Lorraine in the National Gallery. Twenty thousand pounds were left to the Royal Academy for the benefit of superannuated artists; and one thousand pounds were appropriated for a monument in St. Paul's, where this curious old man knew the English people would be proud to lay him.
For many years Turner had refused to sell certain of his pictures; while for others,and for the published engravings after his work, he had exacted prices of a character and in a manner that smacked of dishonesty. But as in obscure and dingy lodgings his brain had evolved the splendor of sunset and mirage, so, undoubtedly, his imagination had foreshadowed the noble monument which the Turner room at the National Gallery has created to his memory.
JOSEPH MALLORD WILLIAM TURNER. FROM A DRAWING BY SIR JOHN GILBERT.JOSEPH MALLORD WILLIAM TURNER. FROM A DRAWING BY SIR JOHN GILBERT.This portrait, made many years ago, is a sketch from life, and realizes the crabbed, sturdy painter, Turner, as we may imagine him.
This portrait, made many years ago, is a sketch from life, and realizes the crabbed, sturdy painter, Turner, as we may imagine him.
Turner's work, as has been said before, is peculiarly his own. It is true that in the earlier pictures the influence of Claude Lorraine is evident; but upon this root is engrafted an audacity in the conception of color, a research of luminosity in comparison with which nearly all painting is eclipsed. That this refulgence is tinged now and then with exaggeration, with a forcing of effect that destroys the sense of weight and solidity in depicted objects where this sense should prevail, is certain. But it is not the least of his merits that he was endowed with a sureness of taste which enabled him to avoid the rock on which all his imitators have split—his work is never spectacular. It is perhaps at its best when he has the simple elements of sea and sky as his theme. Here, with the intangible qualities of air and light, textureless and diaphanous, he is most at home. When it becomes a question of the representation of earth, buildings, or trees, one feels the lack of loving subservience to nature; the spirit against which the art of Constable is eloquent lurks here too much.
PEACE—BURIAL AT SEA OF THE BODY OF SIR DAVID WILKIE. FROM A PAINTING BY J.M.W. TURNER IN THE NATIONAL GALLERY.PEACE—BURIAL AT SEA OF THE BODY OF SIR DAVID WILKIE. FROM A PAINTING BY J.M.W. TURNER IN THE NATIONAL GALLERY."The midnight torch gleamed o'er the steamer's side,And merit's corse was yielded to the tide."—Fallacies of Hope.The "Fallacies of Hope" was an imaginary poem from which Turner professed to quote whenever he wanted a line or a couplet to explain his pictures, the avowed quotation being really of his own composition. Sir David Wilkie, the distinguished painter, died at sea on his way home from the Orient, June 1, 1841. His body was consigned to the sea at midnight of that day. The picture was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1842.
"The midnight torch gleamed o'er the steamer's side,And merit's corse was yielded to the tide."
"The midnight torch gleamed o'er the steamer's side,And merit's corse was yielded to the tide."
"The midnight torch gleamed o'er the steamer's side,
And merit's corse was yielded to the tide."
—Fallacies of Hope.
The "Fallacies of Hope" was an imaginary poem from which Turner professed to quote whenever he wanted a line or a couplet to explain his pictures, the avowed quotation being really of his own composition. Sir David Wilkie, the distinguished painter, died at sea on his way home from the Orient, June 1, 1841. His body was consigned to the sea at midnight of that day. The picture was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1842.
The stone-pines of Italy are seen through the distortion of convention, the palaces of Venice were never builded by the hand of man; and we lose by this the contrast which nature provides between solid earth and filmy cloud. The onlooker must indeed be devoid of imagination, however, if he can stand before those pictures of Turner where the limitless sky is reflected in the waters, without profound emotion. They may not seemnaturalin such sense as one finds works of more realistic aim; but one must at least agree with Turner, in the time-worn story of the lady who taxed him with violation of natural law, saying that she had never seen a sky like one in the picture before them. "Possibly," growled the unruffled painter; "but don't you wish you could?"
PORTRAIT OF A BOY. FROM A PAINTING BY JOHN OPIE, IN THE NATIONAL GALLERY, LONDON.PORTRAIT OF A BOY. FROM A PAINTING BY JOHN OPIE, IN THE NATIONAL GALLERY, LONDON.This is believed to be a portrait of the painter's younger brother, William Opie.
This is believed to be a portrait of the painter's younger brother, William Opie.
Another phase of art—English, like that of Constable and Turner—rose to its greatest popularity at about the same time. It had an origin more easily traceable—the presence of Vandyke in England in the seventeenth century having given an impulsion to portrait painting which had been maintained by Reynolds and Gainsborough in the century preceding our own. George Romney, who was born at Dalton, in Lancashire, December 15, 1734, divided with these last two painters the patronage of the great and wealthy of his time. He was but eleven years younger than Reynolds, and seven years the junior of Gainsborough; but by the fact of his living until November 15, 1802, he may be considered in connection with the painters of this century. He possessed great facility of brush, which led him occasionally into careless drawing, and he lacked the refined grace of Reynolds and the simple charm of Gainsborough. Nevertheless, a superabundance of the qualities which go to make up a painter were his, and his art is less affected by influences foreign to his native soil than that of any painter of his time.
Romney was preëminently a painter of women, as were the majority of his followers—English art at that time being possessed of more sweetness than force. Lady Hamilton, the Circe who succeeded in ensnaring the English Ulysses, Nelson, was a frequent model for Romney, and the list of notable names of the fair women whose beauty he perpetuated would be a long one. His life offers one of the most curious examples of the engrossing nature of a painter's work, if we accept this as the explanation of his strange conduct. Having come to London from Kendal in 1762, leaving his wife and family behind him in Lancashire,he remained in the metropolis for thirty-seven years, making, during this time, but two visits to the place which he never ceased to consider his home. It does not appear that anything but absorption in work was the cause of this neglect. His wife and children remained all the time in their northern home. In 1799, three years before his death, the husband and father awoke to a realization of their existence, and returned to live with them.
JOHN HOPPNER. FROM A DRAWING BY GEORGE DANCE, NOVEMBER 10, 1793.JOHN HOPPNER. FROM A DRAWING BY GEORGE DANCE, NOVEMBER 10, 1793.
John Opie, known as the "Cornish genius" when his first works, executed at the age of twenty, were exhibited in the Royal Academy, was a pupil of Sir Joshua Reynolds. He was born at Truro in May, 1761, the son of a carpenter. His precocity attracted the notice of Dr. Wolcot ("Peter Pindar"), who introduced him to Reynolds.
Opie is thoroughly English in his manner, having, however, more affiliation to Hogarth and the earlier painters of his century than to his master. A certain hardness and lack of color are his principal defects; but, on the other hand, his work is sincere to a degree which none of the other painters of his time show, preoccupied as were even the best of them by a somewhat conventional type of beauty. He was appointed professor of painting at the Royal Academy in 1805, but delivered only one course of lectures, dying, at the age of forty-six, April 9, 1807.
PORTRAIT OF A LADY. FROM A PAINTING KNOWN AS 'THE CORAL NECKLACE,' BY JOHN HOPPNER.PORTRAIT OF A LADY. FROM A PAINTING KNOWN AS "THE CORAL NECKLACE," BY JOHN HOPPNER.From the collection of George A. Hearn of New York, by whose courtesy it appears here. Quaint and charming as a picture, of great beauty of color in the original, this is an admirable example of this painter. The original painting is at present on exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum, New York.
From the collection of George A. Hearn of New York, by whose courtesy it appears here. Quaint and charming as a picture, of great beauty of color in the original, this is an admirable example of this painter. The original painting is at present on exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum, New York.
During the last quarter of the eighteenth century and the first years of the nineteenth, the fashionable portrait painters of London were John Hoppner and Sir Thomas Lawrence. The latter, living twenty years longer than Hoppner, was able to generously say of him, in a letter written shortly after Hoppner's death: "You will believe that I sincerely feel the loss of a brother artist from whose works I have often gained instruction, and who has gone by my side in the race these eighteen years."
Born in Whitechapel, London, April 4, 1758, Hoppner's first vocation was that of chorister in the Chapel Royal. By lucky accident his first efforts at painting attracted the attention of the king, George III., who granted him a small allowance which enabled him to study in the Royal Academy, where, in 1782, he gained the medal for oil painting. He first exhibited in 1780, and for some years devoted himself to landscape. Gradually changing to portraiture, he was appointed portrait painter to the Prince ofWales in 1789, and in 1793 he was made an associate of the Academy, receiving full membership in 1795. For twenty years and until his death, January 23, 1810, he was extremely successful, and his productions, though less in number than those of Reynolds, or his contemporary, Lawrence, were numerous. In the course of thirty years he contributed one hundred and sixty-six works to the Academy exhibitions. These were chiefly portraits of women and children, and are marked by unaffected grace and appreciation of character.
PORTRAIT OF A CHILD. FROM A PAINTING BY SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE.PORTRAIT OF A CHILD. FROM A PAINTING BY SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE.This picture, in the National Gallery, London, has inscribed on the canvas: "Lady Giorgiana Fane; 1800. Æt 5." It shows Lawrence's method of treating a child's portrait, in the style dear to our ancestors, as a "fancy" portrait. It is also typical of his pronounced mannerism, which would lead one to believe that before the days of photography sitters were easily contented on the score of resemblance. The head in this picture, for instance, is almost identical with that of Napoleon's son in the "Roi de Rome," executed fifteen years later.
This picture, in the National Gallery, London, has inscribed on the canvas: "Lady Giorgiana Fane; 1800. Æt 5." It shows Lawrence's method of treating a child's portrait, in the style dear to our ancestors, as a "fancy" portrait. It is also typical of his pronounced mannerism, which would lead one to believe that before the days of photography sitters were easily contented on the score of resemblance. The head in this picture, for instance, is almost identical with that of Napoleon's son in the "Roi de Rome," executed fifteen years later.
MRS. SIDDONS. FROM A PAINTING BY SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE.MRS. SIDDONS. FROM A PAINTING BY SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE.The greatest of all English actresses, at least in tragic parts—is the common judgment on Mrs. Siddons. She was almost born and reared on the stage, her father, Roger Kemble, being the manager of a travelling company of actors, with one of whom, William Siddons, she had married when she was eighteen. She was born at Brecon, in Wales, July 5, 1755, and had already attained to some distinction as an actress in 1775, when she made her first appearance in London. From then until her retirement in 1812 her career was a succession of triumphs. She died in London, June 8, 1831. Naturally, she was a favorite subject with the portrait painters of her time. The sweet-faced girl shown in the above portrait has as little resemblance to the stately lady of Gainsborough, or the "Tragic Muse" of Sir Joshua Reynolds, as it has to our imagination of what a "tragic queen" should be. The picture is, nevertheless, a portrait oftheMrs. Siddons, and was presented to the National Gallery, London, where it now is, by her daughter, Mrs. Cecelia Combe, in 1868.
The greatest of all English actresses, at least in tragic parts—is the common judgment on Mrs. Siddons. She was almost born and reared on the stage, her father, Roger Kemble, being the manager of a travelling company of actors, with one of whom, William Siddons, she had married when she was eighteen. She was born at Brecon, in Wales, July 5, 1755, and had already attained to some distinction as an actress in 1775, when she made her first appearance in London. From then until her retirement in 1812 her career was a succession of triumphs. She died in London, June 8, 1831. Naturally, she was a favorite subject with the portrait painters of her time. The sweet-faced girl shown in the above portrait has as little resemblance to the stately lady of Gainsborough, or the "Tragic Muse" of Sir Joshua Reynolds, as it has to our imagination of what a "tragic queen" should be. The picture is, nevertheless, a portrait oftheMrs. Siddons, and was presented to the National Gallery, London, where it now is, by her daughter, Mrs. Cecelia Combe, in 1868.
Time has enhanced the value of Hoppner's work somewhat at the expense of his great rival, Lawrence. While the latter remains, from youth to comparative old age, a most astonishing example of facile and brilliant execution, the less obtrusive, possibly more timid, attitude of Hoppner in the presence of nature gives him a greater claim to our sympathy to-day. He was apparently preoccupied above all in rendering the individual characteristics of his sitter; and there are many instances in his work where a painter can see that he has chosen to retain certain qualities of resemblance, rather than risk their loss by an exhibition ofbravurapainting. Sir Thomas Lawrence is one, on the contrary, before whose pictures it is felt that the principal question has been to make it first of all a typical example of his work.
LADY BLESSINGTON. FROM A PAINTING BY SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE.LADY BLESSINGTON. FROM A PAINTING BY SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE.This portrait of the gifted and brilliant woman who, as Lady Blessington, and the intimate friend of Count d'Orsay, alternately shocked and ruled the literary London of Byron's time, is representative of Lawrence's extreme mannerism; but, despite its "keepsake" prettiness, has great charm. Besides her distinguished beauty, Lady Blessington offered much, in her life and surroundings, to inspire a painter. Born in Ireland in 1789, she was forced at fourteen into marrying one Captain Farmer. She could not live with him, and they separated after three months. Farmer was killed in 1817, and the next year she married the Earl of Blessington. Then began that brilliant social career by virtue of which her fame now most survives. Her house became the resort of the most distinguished people of the time; and she herself, by her remarkable grace, cleverness, and vivacity, ever kept pace with the best of her company. She derived a large estate from her husband at his death, in 1829; and besides, for nearly twenty years she had ten thousand dollars a year from her novels (for she was also an author); but she lived most profusely, and had finally, in company with Count d'Orsay, to flee from her creditors. She died in Paris, June 4, 1849.
This portrait of the gifted and brilliant woman who, as Lady Blessington, and the intimate friend of Count d'Orsay, alternately shocked and ruled the literary London of Byron's time, is representative of Lawrence's extreme mannerism; but, despite its "keepsake" prettiness, has great charm. Besides her distinguished beauty, Lady Blessington offered much, in her life and surroundings, to inspire a painter. Born in Ireland in 1789, she was forced at fourteen into marrying one Captain Farmer. She could not live with him, and they separated after three months. Farmer was killed in 1817, and the next year she married the Earl of Blessington. Then began that brilliant social career by virtue of which her fame now most survives. Her house became the resort of the most distinguished people of the time; and she herself, by her remarkable grace, cleverness, and vivacity, ever kept pace with the best of her company. She derived a large estate from her husband at his death, in 1829; and besides, for nearly twenty years she had ten thousand dollars a year from her novels (for she was also an author); but she lived most profusely, and had finally, in company with Count d'Orsay, to flee from her creditors. She died in Paris, June 4, 1849.
Lawrence, born at Bristol, May 4, 1769, was the son of the landlord of the Black Bear Inn at Devizes; and the child was not yet in his teens when some chalk drawings of his father's customers gave him a local reputation. We are told that "at the age of ten he set up as a portrait painter in crayons at Oxford; and soon after took a house at Bath, the then fashionable watering-place, where he immediately met with much employment and extraordinary success." When seventeen, his success called him to London, where in 1791, though under the age required by the laws of the Academy, he was elected as associate when twenty-two. The year before, he had painted the portraits of the king and queen; in 1794 he was made Academician, in 1815 was knighted, in 1820 was unanimously elected President of the Royal Academy, and in 1825 was created chevalier of the Legion of Honor in France.
This list of official honors is but little in comparison with the success which he had socially. Of a charming personality, he was admitted to the intimacy of all that Europe boasted of aristocracy and royalty. In 1815 he went to the congress at Aix-la-Chapelle, where his facile brush portrayed the august features of the allied sovereigns assembled there. He contributed, from 1787 to 1830 inclusive, three hundred and eleven pictures to the exhibitions of the Royal Academy.
It goes without saying that production of this quantity cannot be in every instance of the first quality. But the average merit of Lawrence's work is nevertheless of a high order. Of feminine charm (like many of his time and many of his predecessors) he was a master; no one has ever succeeded better in giving a certain aristocratic bearing to his sitters than he. It can be accounted a fault that this becomes somewhat stereotyped—that we feel that, were it wanting in the person before him, the amiable Sir Thomas could easily supply it. The English race has not changed so much in the short period which has elapsed since his time that the demeasurably large and liquid eyes, the swan-like necks, and the sloping shoulders, which mark it as his own in Lawrence's work, should be to-day of more rare occurrence. With this great and important limitation, among the pictures of Lawrence can be found a certain number of canvases, not always the most typical, of exceeding merit. Few men have ever conveyed better the impression of the depth and living quality of an eye, nor have many painters succeeded in giving to every part of their canvas the same qualities of color and brilliancy of execution as he.
SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE. AFTER A PAINTING BY CHARLES LANDSEER.SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE. AFTER A PAINTING BY CHARLES LANDSEER.
MISS BARRON, AFTERWARDS MRS. RAMSEY. FROM A PAINTING BY SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE.MISS BARRON, AFTERWARDS MRS. RAMSEY. FROM A PAINTING BY SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE.This picture, owned by R.H. McCormick of Chicago, by whose courtesy it is here reproduced, represents Lawrence in his least mannered aspect. The simplicity of young girlhood is well expressed, the head is drawn and modelled with great subtlety, and we are fortunate to have so good an example of Lawrence's work in this country.
This picture, owned by R.H. McCormick of Chicago, by whose courtesy it is here reproduced, represents Lawrence in his least mannered aspect. The simplicity of young girlhood is well expressed, the head is drawn and modelled with great subtlety, and we are fortunate to have so good an example of Lawrence's work in this country.
Lawrence died in his beautiful house on Russell Square in London, surrounded by rare works of art which he had collected, on January 7, 1830. Nine years later Sir William Beechey, born at Burford in Oxfordshire in 1753, died in London at the age of eighty-six. He had come to London in 1772; and in 1798, having acquired consideration and a lucrative practice as a portrait painter, and after having painted a picture, now at Hampton Court, representing the king, George III., the Prince of Wales, and the Duke of York at a review, he was knighted. The same year saw his election to the Academy, of which he had been an associate since 1793.
One of Beechey's distinctions is to have outnumbered even Lawrence in his contributions to the Academy, as three hundred and sixty-two of his works appeared on its walls. Of hasty execution or too great dependence on a dangerous facility, there is, however, little trace in his work. He was occupied exclusively with painting; helived more than twenty years longer than Lawrence, and was never diverted by the claims of society upon his time. With his healthy, English color, recalling Reynolds, a sober style not devoid of charm, he is fairly typical of his time; and may fitly close this brief review of the earlier English portraitists. Their task has never been taken up by their successors in art, English portraiture to-day having much the same qualities and defects which mark the contemporaneous painters of all nations.
PORTRAIT OF A BROTHER AND SISTER. FROM A PAINTING BY SIR WILLIAM BEECHEY.PORTRAIT OF A BROTHER AND SISTER. FROM A PAINTING BY SIR WILLIAM BEECHEY.The original painting is now in the museum of the Louvre, and is a picture charming in color—the warm white of the dress, and the rich surroundings, in the manner of Reynolds, making an admirable foil to the children's heads.
The original painting is now in the museum of the Louvre, and is a picture charming in color—the warm white of the dress, and the rich surroundings, in the manner of Reynolds, making an admirable foil to the children's heads.
The exclusive choice of feminine portraits in this article has been dictated by a desire to show, in the space at command, the painting most typical of the time and people. While all these painters produced portraits of men, their work in this field was, as a rule, inferior to the art of France. Lawrence is perhaps an exception; as it would seem that occasionally in the presence of a masculine sitter he rose superior to his manner and, painting with all sincerity, gave his remarkable gifts full play. The lack, however, of serious training in drawing, the over-reliance on charm of color and sentiment, give to the English work a degree of weakness as compared with the thorough command of form and austere fidelity to resemblance that was preached to the French with "drawing is the probity of art" for a text.
GARFIELD IN 1881, WHILE PRESIDENT. AGE 49.GARFIELD IN 1881, WHILE PRESIDENT. AGE 49.From a photograph by Handy, Washington.
From a photograph by Handy, Washington.
JAMES A. GARFIELD, twentieth President of the United States, had the good fortune to be a boy long after he reached the years of manhood. This fact is the key to his character and the explanation of his career. His boyishness was not lack of manhood; it was a lingering youthfulness of spirit, a keen susceptibility of impression, an elasticity of mind, a hearty enjoyment of his strong life, a tenderness and freshness of heart, an openness to friend and foe, something of deference to others, and of diffidence, not without understanding of and confidence in his own powers. He was youthful with the noble youth of the fields and schools and churches, of the farms and villages of the West, when he became a member of the legislature ofOhio, from which he passed into the army, that was like a university to him. As a soldier he was typically a big, brave boy, powerful, ardent, amiable, rejoicing in his strength. In eastern Kentucky he led his regiment in its first fight. He found out where the enemy were, and pulling off his coat—the regulation country style of preparing for battle—headed a foot-race straight for "the rebs," and routed them. It was literally a case of "come on, boys." Those opposed, so to speak, thought the devil possessed the robust young man in his shirt-sleeves.
GARFIELD IN 1863, THE YEAR IN WHICH, AT THE AGE OF 32, AND WITH THE RANK OF MAJOR-GENERAL, HE RETIRED FROM THE ARMY TO BECOME A MEMBER OF CONGRESS.GARFIELD IN 1863, THE YEAR IN WHICH, AT THE AGE OF 32, AND WITH THE RANK OF MAJOR-GENERAL, HE RETIRED FROM THE ARMY TO BECOME A MEMBER OF CONGRESS.From a photograph by Handy, Washington.
From a photograph by Handy, Washington.
When Garfield was President, he was asked whether he ever thought, before his nomination for the office, that he was likely to fill it, and his answer was curious and characteristic of his manner of expression. He said he supposed all American young men reflected on that subject, and he had done so—not with any serious concern, but as a remote possibility. And he added, "I have fancied the great public personified and looking with an immense, a rolling, intense eye, over the millions of the nation, to pick out future Presidents, and thought as it swept along the ranks the eye might give me a glance, and that perhaps the meaning of it was: I may want you—some time."
It was my theory, as the editor of an important journal in Ohio during the time General Garfield served in Congress, that he needed a good deal of admonition; that he had a tendency to sentimentalism in politics that called for correction; that he required paragraphs to brace him up in various affairs; that he lacked a little in worldly wisdom, and maybe had a dangerous tendency to giving and taking too much confidence; and that he was disposed to dwell upon a mountain, and would be the better off for an occasional taking-down with a shade of good-humored sarcasm. He was still boyish about some things, and the speculative men in public life sought to beguile him. He was growing all the time, though. He was a student, and was brainy and generous, and laughed at "able articles" even if they had stings in them.
GARFIELD IN 1863.GARFIELD IN 1863.From a photograph by Handy, Washington.
From a photograph by Handy, Washington.
Cincinnati knew him best as the Christian orator—follower of Alexander Campbell—who preached with a big voice and great earnestness at the corner of Walnut and Eighth Streets. This was when he was a grand young man, sure enough. Some time after, Congress found it out. After a while the public knew Garfield asone of the half dozen strongest men in the country. Next to John Sherman he stood the most commanding figure in Ohio politics, and was elected Senator of the United States, his term commencing on the day on which, as it happened, he was inaugurated President. He was just realizing his ability, having had it measured for him in the House of Representatives, and knew he was a force in affairs. He enjoyed his dinners and dressed well, and was of imposing presence: a good-natured giant—no posing—no troublesome sense of grandeur—none of the pomp affected by public men too conscious of importance.
GARFIELD IN 1867, WITH HIS DAUGHTER. AT THIS TIME HE WAS CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMITTEE ON MILITARY AFFAIRS, IN THE LOWER HOUSE OF CONGRESS.GARFIELD IN 1867, WITH HIS DAUGHTER. AT THIS TIME HE WAS CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMITTEE ON MILITARY AFFAIRS, IN THE LOWER HOUSE OF CONGRESS.From a photograph by Handy, Washington.
From a photograph by Handy, Washington.
He suffered under the petty charge that he had been influenced by a scrap of stock whose value might be affected by Congressional action; and those who knew him well were aware that his innocence of knowledge to do what he was charged with doing, was absurd and itself proof that he was sound. He was, by virtue of superior capacity, at the head of the Ohio delegationto the Republican National Convention of 1880, and was charged with the management of the candidacy of John Sherman, Secretary of the Treasury, for the Presidency—the most competent man in the country for the office.
It had been thought for a time that the combination of important men for a third term of General Grant would succeed, as the glory of the General was very great and those who wanted him for President again were able and resolute. Blaine had hesitated for a moment whether to take the field; but learning that Sherman would be in the race whether there was or was not any other man a candidate in opposition to Grant, he made the fight, and he and Sherman were the representative leaders against the third term.
Their feeling was that they were not making war upon General Grant, but upon those who sought to use his fame for their own purpose, and they meant particularly Senator Conkling. General Grant, at Galena, wrote a letter to Senator Cameron, and gave it to John Russell Young, who handed it to Mr. Cameron, and it disappeared. This letter was a frank and serious statement that he desired not to be considered a candidate, and no doubt his preference was the nomination of Mr. Conkling.
The interest of the great convention early centred in the two tall men on the floor, the undoubted champions of the contending forces, Conkling and Garfield; and the latter got the first decided advantage in breaking the third term line when Conkling demanded that the majority of the delegation of a State should cast the entire vote. This was the famous unit rule, the defeat of which was the first event of the convention. Garfield and Conkling were foremost in the fray because they were the most masterful men of the vast assembly—nearly twenty thousand people under the roof.
The advocates of the Old Commander for a third term were in heavy force, and knew exactly what they wanted; and whenever the convention met, as Senator Conkling usually walked in late, he had a tumultuous reception. The opposition saw it was necessary to counteract this personal demonstration, and managed to hold Garfield back so that he should be later than Conkling, and then they gave him salutations of unheard-of exuberance far resounding; and this was the beginning of the end. Garfield, because he was in person, position, and transcending talent a leader, was transformed into a colossus before the eyes of the convention, and was an appeal to the imagination. When the nominating addresses were made, none was heard by the whole multitude but those by Conkling and Garfield. They stood on tables of reporters, and their voices rang clear, through their splendid speeches, carrying every word to the remotest corners; and the rivalry between the two men became emphasized. Each had the sense to admire the effort of the other, Conkling saying to the delegate by his side: "It is bright in Garfield to speak from that place," and it was a good deal for him to say. More and more Garfield loomed as the man who stood against Grant.
There had been a good many persons meantime saying that neither Blaine nor Sherman could beat Grant, and that Garfield was the man to do it. All who are familiar with our political methods are aware of the frantic desire of the average office-seeker, or practical politician, no matter what he wants, to find out early all the possibilities of the next Presidency; and it is esteemed a superb achievement to be among the first to pick the man. The number of far-sighted citizens on the subject of the eligibility of Garfield, as the convention progressed, grew large. Governor Foster of Ohio did not conceal his impression that the nomination of Garfield was certain. In his opinion Sherman was not in the race, and perhaps his judgment to that effect assisted the formation of the current that finally flooded the convention. One man, a delegate from Pennsylvania, voted for Garfield on every ballot, and kept him before the people. I had telegrams from correspondents of the Cincinnati "Commercial," at Chicago, several days before the nomination, evidently reflecting Governor Foster's opinions, and frequently repeated, until the event justified them, saying Garfield would be the nominee. I was that time slow to understand the situation, and protested, against putting the "nonsense" on the wires, in telegrams that after the event were held to signify lack of sagacity about Garfield.
The first man who held decidedly Garfield would be nominated was Mr. Starin of New York, who travelled with Senator Conkling in a special car from the national capital to the convention, and said on the way the nomination of Grant was not to be, and that Blaine and Sherman could not carry off the prize, and that therefore Garfield was to be the man. He made this point to the Hon. Thomas L. James, thePostmaster-General in Garfield's cabinet, between Harrisburg and Chicago. Mr. Blaine regarded beating Grant at Chicago as no loss to the General and no reflection on him, but rather as the best thing for him; and that the true policy and purpose was to beat Conkling, who committed the error in strategy, however gallant the sentiment that inspired him, of committing himself irretrievably to Grant—and though the contested votes were all against him, he was unchangeable. "No angle-worm nomination will take place to-day"—meaning nothing feeble—was Mr. Conkling's oracular remark the morning of the day when the Presidential destiny of the occasion was determined.
The drift toward Garfield was in so many ways announced before the decisive hour that he could not be insensible of its existence, and he was greatly disturbed. He said he would "rather be shot with musketry than nominated" and have Sherman think he had been unfaithful to his obligations as leader of the forces for him. That Senator Sherman was offended is well known; but so far as he felt that Garfield had been to blame, it was due to the gossip, widely disseminated, that Garfield was personally concerned in working his own "boom." All that was well threshed out long ago, and there is nothing tangible in it to-day. The fact is, Garfield could not have worked a personal scheme. He must have been defeated if he had tried it. A movement on his part of that kind would have been fatal. On the other hand, if he had got up to decline to be a candidate, it would have been easy to say that he was making a nominating speech for himself. It was not particularly difficult to call Garfield a "traitor," and the temptation to do it was because he was so sensitive regarding that imputation in politics—whatever hurts goes. He had no idea of concealing anything, and told such queer stories as this:
The morning of his nomination—the fact that this was from Garfield himself is certain—one of his relatives from Michigan saw him and said: "Jim, you are going to be nominated to-day. I had a dream about you last night, and thought I was in the hall and there was something happening, I could not tell what, when suddenly on every side the standards of the States [names of the States on staffs locating the delegations] were pulled from their places, and men ran to where you were sitting, and waved them over your head." Garfield stated that this was certainly told him on the way to his breakfast; and after the nomination the dreamer reappeared and said: "What did I tell you, Jim? Why, the very thing I saw in my dream last night, I saw in the convention to-day."
The inside truth about the nomination was freely given by Mr. Blaine, who, as the convention progressed, was studying the proceedings with the surprisingly clear vision he possessed for the estimation of passing events. He soon made up his mind that his nomination could not happen, and that Sherman also was impossible. They could not unite forces without losses. Evidently there was a crisis at hand. There is something in a convention that always tells the competent observer, near or far, that decisive action is about to be taken. The evidence appears of an intolerant impatience. Mr. Conkling was relying upon the absolute solidity of his three hundred and five. Mr. Blaine was a wiser man about the force of a tempest in a convention, and would have preferred Sherman to Conkling. But Conkling was quite as bitter toward Sherman as regarding Blaine, even more so in his invective; and this grew out of the custom-house difficulty that ultimately so deeply affected General Arthur's fortunes. There had to be a break somewhere—to Grant from Sherman and Blaine, or from him to them, or a rush to Conkling, or to Garfield, whose conspicuity had constantly suggested it; and Blaine resolved that the chance to rout the third-termers was to sweep the convention by going for Garfield, and overwhelming him with the rest, thus winning a double victory over Conkling.
It is a fact, and the one that makes certain the proposition that Sherman could not have been nominated, that the majority of the Blaine men from New York, turned loose by breaking the unit rule—there were nineteen of them—preferred Grant to Sherman. If the break by Blaine from himself had been attempted, for Sherman, Grant would have been nominated if one ballot had been decisive. But Blaine was able to transfer every vote cast for him to Garfield, with the exception of that of a colored delegate from Virginia; and this movement was managed so as to overthrow all who strove to stand against it. Grant was in the lead for thirty-four ballots, but on the thirty-fourth there were seventeen votes for Garfield. On the thirty-fifth ballot Garfield had three hundred and ninety-nine votes, twenty-one majority over all. Blaine by telegraph had outgeneralled Conkling, present and commanding in person.