‘Apollo from his shrineCan no more divine:****And each peculiar power foregoes his wonted seat.’
‘Apollo from his shrineCan no more divine:****And each peculiar power foregoes his wonted seat.’
‘Apollo from his shrineCan no more divine:****And each peculiar power foregoes his wonted seat.’
‘Apollo from his shrine
Can no more divine:
****
And each peculiar power foregoes his wonted seat.’
“Into the parlour, which opens out of the hall and into the garden, we did not look. We scarcely know why; but we did not. In that parlour, we used to hear of our maternal ancestors, stout yet kind-hearted Englishmen, who set up their tents with Penn in the wilderness. And there we learnt to unite the love of freedom with that of the graces of life; for our host, though born a Quaker, and appointed a royal painter, and not so warm in his feelings as those about him, had all the natural amenity belonging to those graces, and never truly lost sight of that love of freedom. There we grew up acquainted with the divine humanities of Raphael. There we remember a large coloured print of the old Lion-Hunt of Rubens, in which the boldness of the action and the glow of colouring overcome the horror of the struggle. And there, long before we knew anything of Ariosto, we were as familiar as young playmates with the beautiful Angelica and Medoro, who helped to fill our life with love.
“May a blessing be upon that house, and upon all who know how to value the genius of it!”
JOHN CONSTABLE.
Constable used to relate:—“Under some disappointment, I think it was the rejection at the Academy of a view of Flatford Mill, I carried a picture to Mr. West, who said: ‘Don’t be disheartened, young man, we shall hear of you again; you must have loved nature very much before you could have painted this.’ He then took a piece of chalk and showed me how I might improve the chiaroscuro by some additional touches of light between the stems and branches of the trees, saying; ‘Always remember, sir, that light and shadownever stand still,”—and added: ‘Whatever object you are painting, keep in mind its accidental appearance (unless in the subject there is some peculiar reason for the latter), and never be content until you have transferred that to canvas. In your skies, for instance, always aim atbrightness, although there are states of the atmosphere in which the sky itself is not bright. I do not mean that you are not to paint solemn or lowering skies, but even in the darkest effects there should be brightness. Your darks should look like the darks of silver, not of lead or of slate.’”
WILLIAM WOOLLET.
The following amusing anecdote is told of the engraver’s unexpected alterations in a plate. On bringing to Mr. West what he conceived to be a finished impression of one of his prints from an historical picture by the great painter, he inquired, with his usual mild deference, “If Mr. West thought that there was anything more to be done to the plate?” The painter, with a tone of affability and a smile of pleasure, while he surveyed the print, exclaimed: “More! Anything more, Mr. Woollet! No, sir, nothing,—nothing.It is excellent! admirable! only just suppose we take down these shadows, in the middle distance; a nothing,—a mere nothing!”—at the same time touching upon that part of the print with grey chalk, to lower it to the requisite tint;—“Nothing, Mr. Woollet! nothing at all! It is fine, very fine!—but perhaps we may throw a little more force into these near figures,”—heightening the shadows with black chalk,—“then, I think, all will be done!—Yes, all! nothing will remain;only, if we can contrive to keep those parts together:”—adding a faint wash of India ink. “There—there, now take it: Mr. Woollet take it; it would be overdoing it to hazard a single touch more! But stop!—stay! this reflection in the water;—a few touches, just to keep it quiet;—and the edges of these clouds a little more,—that is, I mean, a little less edgy,—more kept down. Good, very good!—There, now, Mr. Woollet, you shall not persuade me to give it another touch; you can make these few little alterations, any time at your leisure.” Woollet, who justly looked up to West as the father of the British School of Historical Painting, heard and saw all with thankful good humour, while West spoke and worked, and worked and spoke upon the proof; although the engraver was conscious that the suggested alterations would occupy a long time, and they actually delayed the publication some months, though with great advantage to the effect of the engraving.
JAMES NORTHCOTE, R.A.
“I remember once being at the Academy, when Sir Joshua wished to propose a monument to Dr. Johnson in St. Paul’s, and West got up and said that the King, he knew, was averse to anything of the kind, for he had been proposing a similar monument in Westminster Abbey for a man of the greatest genius and celebrity,—one whose workswere in all the cabinets of the curious throughout Europe,—one whose name they would all hear with the greatest respect; and then it came out, after a long preamble, that he meant Woollet, who had engraved his ‘Death of Wolfe.’ I was provoked, and could not help exclaiming: ‘My God! What! do you put him upon a footing with such a man as Dr. Johnson,—one of the greatest philosophers and moralists that ever lived? We have thousands of engravers at any time!’ And there was such a burst of laughter at this,—Dance, who was a grave gentleman, laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks; and Farrington, the painter, used afterwards to say to me, ‘Why don’t you speak in the Academy, and begin with “My God!” as you do sometimes?’”
YOUTHFUL AMBITION.
West entertained very grand notions of Art and of its professors. He was about to ride with a school-fellow to a neighbouring plantation. “Here is the horse,” said the boy, “bridled and saddled, so come, get up behind me.” “Behind you!” said West; “I will ride behind nobody!” “Oh, very well,” said the other, “I will ride behind you; so mount.” He mounted, and away they rode. “This is the last ride I shall have for some time,” said the boy; “for I am, to-morrow, to be apprenticed to a tailor.” “A tailor!” exclaimed West; “you will surely never be a tailor!” “Indeed, but I shall,” returned the other; “it is a good trade. What do you intend to be, Ben?” “A painter!” “A painter!—Why, what sort of a trade is painter? I have never heard o’ it before.” “A painter,” said West, grandly, “is the companion of kings and emperors.” “You are surely mad,” said the other; “Why, they don’t have kings nor emperors in ’Merriky!” “Ah! but there are plenty in other parts of the world. But do you really mean to be atailor?” “Indeed I do; there’s nothing more certain.” “Then you may ride alone,” said West, leaping down; “I will not ride with one who would be a tailor.”
PERSEVERANCE IN ART.
Being subject to the gout, it attacked his right hand while he was painting his great picture of “Death on the Pale Horse;” but this did not check his ardour, for he proceeded with his left hand, and the whole was finished by himself without any assistance.
DAVID WILKIE, the son of a Scotch minister, was born in 1785. His genius for the art in which he was destined to become so famous, was displayed even in his infancy, and led to his being sent to study in the Edinburgh Academy, where he had for his fellow-students Sir William Allen and John Burnet. At the age of nineteen his performances had attracted so much notice that he was confirmed in his professional career. He started for London, studied at the Academy, became an exhibitor, and so paved the way for his bright success of after-years. Among his intimate companions was Haydon,—another equally celebrated painter, though not equally successful, who relates the following:—
“When the Academy opened, Wilkie, who had gained admission as a probationer by means of a drawing from the Niobe, took his seat with his class. Something of his Edinburgh fame had preceded him: Jackson, at that time a student, seems to have seen as well as heard of him, forhe wrote to me, then young and ardent, to hasten from Devonshire, for that a tall, pale, thin Scotsman had just come to study at the Academy, who had done something from Macbeth, of which report spoke highly. Touched with this, I came at once to London and went to the Academy. Wilkie, the most punctual of mankind, was there before me. We sat and drew in silence for some time; at length Wilkie rose, came and looked over my shoulder, said nothing, and resumed his seat. I rose, went and looked over his shoulder, said nothing, and resumed my seat. We saw enough to satisfy us of each other’s skill, and when the class broke up we went and dined together.”
The acquaintance thus begun ripened into a warm friendship, notwithstanding occasional disputes arising from a dissimilarity in taste of the two artists.
Haydon also relates the following:—
“Wilkie, who was always hospitable in his nature, invited me one morning to breakfast, soon after his arrival in London, I went accordingly to 8, Norton Street, and knocked at the door of his apartments; a voice said, ‘Come in.’ I opened the door and found, instead of the breakfast which I expected, the painter sitting partly naked and drawing from his left knee for a figure which he had on his easel. He was not at all moved, for nought moved Wilkie; and when I expressed some surprise at what he was about, he replied with a smile, ‘It’s capital practice, let me tell you.’”
About this time (1805), in a letter written by Wilkie to a fellow-student, occurs the following characteristic passage: “And I am convinced now that no picture can possess real merit unless it is a just representation of nature.”
On the sale of his first commission picture, “The Village Politicians,” he thus buoyantly concludes a letter to hisfather, “My ambition is got beyond all bounds, and I have the vanity to hope that Scotland will one day be proud to boast of your affectionate son,
“David Wilkie.”
On the death of his father, he invited his mother and sister over from Scotland to live with him in London. In after-years, writing to a friend, he adds, “If I were desired to name the happiest hour of my life, I should say it was when I first saw my honoured mother and much loved sister sitting beside me while I was painting.”
Another scene, of a different description, at Wilkie’s house is worthy of insertion. Mr. Collins’s brother, Francis, possessed a remarkably retentive memory, which he was accustomed to use for the amusement of himself and others, in the following way. He learnt by heart a whole number of one of Dr. Johnson’s “Ramblers,” and used to cause considerable diversion to those in the secret, by repeating it all through to a new company in a conversational tone, as if it were the accidental product of his own fancy,—now addressing his flow of moral eloquence to one astonished auditor, and now to another. One day, when the two brothers were dining at Wilkie’s, it was determined to try the experiment upon their host. After dinner, accordingly, Mr. Collins paved the way for the coming speech, by leading the conversation imperceptibly to the subject of the paper in the “Rambler.” At the right moment Francis Collins began. As the first grand Johnsonian sentences struck upon his ear (uttered, it should be remembered, in the most elaborately careless and conversational manner,) Wilkie started at the high tone that the conversation had suddenly assumed, and looked vainly to his friend Collins for explanation, who, onhispart sat with his eyes respectfully fixed on his brother, all rapt attentionto the eloquence that was dropping from his lips. Once or twice, with perfect mimicry of the conversational character he had assumed, Francis Collins hesitated, stammered, and paused, as if collecting his thronging ideas. At one or two of these intervals, Wilkie endeavoured to speak, to ask a moment for consideration; but the torrent of his guest’s eloquence was not to be delayed,—“it was too rapid to stay for any man,—away it went” like Mr. Shandy’s oratory before “My Uncle Toby,”—until at last it reached its destined close; and then Wilkie, who, as host, thought it his duty to break silence by the first compliment, exclaimed with the most perfect unconsciousness of the trick that had been played him, “Ay, ay, Mr. Francis; verra clever (though I did not understand itall),—verra clever!”
His friends relate of him (Wilkie) that he could draw before he could write. He recollected this himself, and spoke to me of an old woman who had in her cottage near his father’s manse a clean scoured wooden stool, on which she used to allow him to draw with a coarse carpenter’s pencil, and then scrub it out to be ready for another day.
Collins relates the following of Wilkie with whom he lived on terms of the closest intimacy.
“When Lord Mulgrave’s pictures were sold at Christie’s, Wilkie waited in the neighbourhood whilst I attended the sale. It was quite refreshing to see his joy when I returned with a list of the prices. The sketches produced more than five hundred per cent., the pictures three hundred. I recollect one,—a small, early picture, called ‘Sunday Morning’—I asked Wilkie what he thought of its fetching, as it did, a hundred and ten pounds, and whether Lord Mulgrave had not got it cheap enough?—‘Why, he gave me fifteen pounds for it!’ When I expressed my surprise that he should have given so small a sum for so clever a work,Wilkie, defending him, said:—‘Ah, but consider, as I was not known at that time,it was a great risk!’”
Dr. Chalmers was asked by Wilkie whether Principal Baird would preach before the King. (Now, Principal Baird had a sad way of crying in the pulpit.) “Why,” replied Chalmers, “if he does, it will be George Baird to George Rex,greeting!”
Wilkie died in the year 1841, aged 56 years.
“LETTER OF INTRODUCTION.”
This picture was suggested by the reception which the artist himself experienced, it is said by Cunningham in his Life of Wilkie, from one of the small wits about town, Caleb Whiteford by name, discoverer of the “cross-readings” in newspapers, and who set up for a judge in art. Some one desirous to do a good turn to Wilkie, when he first came to town, gave him a note to Caleb, who, struck with his very youthful look, inquired how old he was. “Really now,” said the artist, with the hesitation he bestowed on most questions. “Ha!” exclaimed Caleb; “introduce a man to me who knows not how old he is!” and regarded him with that dubious look which is the chief charm of the picture. This was in his mind when he formed the resolution to paint the subject.
COLLINS’S REMINISCENCES OF WILKIE.
“Wilkie was not quick in perceiving a joke, although he was always anxious to do so, and to recollect humorous stories, of which he was exceedingly fond. As instances, I recollect once when we were staying at Mr. Wells’s, at Redleaf, one morning at breakfast a very small puppy was running about under the table. ‘Dear me,’ said a lady,‘how this creature teases me!’ I took it up and put it into my breast-pocket. Mr. Wells said, ‘That is a pretty nosegay.’—‘Yes,’ said I, ‘it is adog-rose.’ Wilkie’s attention, sitting opposite, was called to his friend’s pun: but all in vain,—he could not be persuaded to see anything in it. I recollect trying once to explain to him, with the same want of success, Hogarth’s joke in putting the sign of the woman without a head, (‘The Good Woman’) under the window from whence the quarrelsome wife is throwing the dinner into the street.
“Chantrey and Wilkie were dining alone with me, when the former, in his great kindness for Wilkie, ventured, as he said, to take him to task for his constant use of the word ‘relly’ (really) when listening to any conversation in which he was interested. ‘Now, for instance,’ said Chantrey, ‘suppose I was giving you an account of any interesting matter, you would constantly say, ‘Relly!’ ‘Relly!’ exclaimed Wilkie immediately, with a look of the most perfect astonishment.”
WILKIE’S ARREST AT CALAIS.
When returning from a short Continental tour in 1816, Wilkie became involved in a difficulty at Calais similar to that of Hogarth at the same place, as indicated by our great moral painter in his print of “Oh, the Roast Beef of Old England.” Wilkie, while busily engaged in making a sketch of the gate, was accosted by an officer of police, and taken before the mayor, who told the artist he could not be permitted to make drawings of any of the fortifitions, and courteously dismissed him. The observation was made in England that Wilkie sought his arrest on this occasion, wishing to re-enact the Hogarth incident: but his well-known unobtrusive manners and unaffectedmodesty completely vindicate him from such an accusation.
The followingnaïveaccount of the arrest of Sir David Wilkie is told by him in a letter to his friend and travelling companion, Abraham Raimbach, the celebrated engraver of many of the artist’s pictures:—
“On travelling through France the most singular occurrence was that of my being arrested at Calais, in the act of completing a sketch of the celebrated gate of Hogarth. A young Englishman, who had come from Lille with me, had agreed to remain with me while I was making the drawing; and as I had first obtained leave from the officer of the guard, I expected no sort of interruption. After I had been at work, however, about an hour, with a great crowd about me, agendarmecame to me, and with an imperious tone, said, ‘Par quelle autorité faites-vous cela, monsieur?’ I pointed to the officer on guard, and told him that he had given me leave. ‘Ce n’est rien—c’est défendu, monsieur. Il faut que vous preniez votre livre et m’accompagniez à l’Hôtel de Ville.’ This, of course, I agreed to most willingly, and beckoning my friend to go too, I went along with him, with all the people staring at us. At the Hôtel de Ville we were requested to go to the mayor, and as we were marching along to his house, thegendarmesaid, ‘Voila le maire,—arrêtons.’ We stopped till the mayor came up, and learning from us what was the matter, he dismissed thegendarme, took us back to his house, and told me, that as there were a number of people there, as in other places, who, on seeing a foreigner making a drawing of a fortified place, would naturally suppose it to be from a hostile intention, and finding it doneen plein jour, would be apt to blame the magistrates for allowing it; he said it was necessary, therefore, that I should not go on with my drawing, although, from examining it, he was satisfied that I onlydid it for amusement, and therefore regretted the interruption.”—Memoirs of Abraham Raimbach, edited by his son, M. T. S. Raimbach, M.A.
HIS OPINION OF MICHAEL ANGELO AND RAPHAEL.
“The labours of Michael Angelo and Raphael have since been the chief object of my study,—by far the most intellectual. They make other works appear limited, and though high in all that is great, are still an example,—and a noble example too,—of how the accessories of a work may be treated with most advantage. No style can be so pure as to be above learning from them, nor so low and humble as not to gain even in its own way by their contemplation. They have that without which the Venus and the Apollo would lose their value, and with which the mean forms of Ostade and Rembrandt become instructive and sublime,—namely, expression and sentiment. To some of the younger artists here, however, I find they are a stumbling-block; things to be admired but not imitated, and less to be copied than any flat, empty piece of Venetian colouring that comes in their way. The effect of these works upon the unlearned public at large deserves attention. Frescoes, when old, get dull and dry, and cannot be repaired or refreshed like oil; their impression, therefore, upon the common eye is not striking, and many people acknowledge this who, show them a new print from Raphael or Michael Angelo, would be delighted. Vividness is perhaps necessary to make any work generally impressive; and suppose these fresh as they were at first, and as I have seen some recent frescoes, I believe they would be the most beautiful things imaginable,—popular beyond a doubt, as it is on record they were so.”—Memoirs of Abraham Raimbach.
RICHARD WILSON was born in Montgomeryshire in the year 1713. He excelled as a landscape painter. After practising some time in London, he was enabled, by the assistance of relations, to travel into Italy, where he renewed the study of portrait painting, in which he had made some progress when in London. But the peculiar form and bias of his genius was landscape, as was shown so powerfully later in life by his famous productions, among others, of “Niobe” and the “Villa of Mæcenas.” An incident which happened during his visit to Italy tended to confirm him in his inclination to follow landscape instead of portrait painting. The celebrated French painter, Vernet, happening one day when in Rome to visit Wilson’s painting-room, was so struck with a landscape Wilson had painted that he requested to become the possessor of it, offering in exchange one of his best pictures. The proposal was readily accepted, and Vernet kindly recommended Wilson to the English nobility and gentry then visiting Rome. It is said of Wilson that at times, through his intemperate and irregular habits, he was obliged to pawn his pictures, and was sometimes unable to procure canvas or colours. Fuseli, though generally severe in his criticism of the “map makers,” as he designated the landscape painters of his day, formed what I consider an exaggerated estimate of Wilson’s merits. He says of him: “He is now numbered with the classics of the Art, though little more than the fifth of a century has elapsed since death relieved him from the apathy of cognoscenti, the envy of rivals, and the neglect of a tasteless public; for Wilson, whose works will soon command prices as proud as those of Claude, Poussin, or Elzheimer, resembled the last most in his fate,—lived and died nearerto indigence than ease; and as an asylum for the severest wants incident to age and decay of powers, was reduced to solicit the librarian’s place in the Academy of which he was one of the brightest ornaments.” Wilson died on the 11th of May, 1782, aged 69.
A SCENE AT CHRISTIE’S.
“Towards the close of Wilson’s life, annoyed and oppressed by the neglect which he experienced, it is well known that he unfortunately had recourse to those means of temporary oblivion of the world to which disappointed genius but too frequently resorts. The natural consequence was, that the works which he then produced were much inferior to those of his former days,—a fact of which, of course, he was not himself conscious. One morning, Mr. Christie, to whom had been entrusted the sale by auction of a fine collection of pictures belonging to a nobleman, having arrived at achef-d’œuvreof Wilson’s, was expatiating with his usual eloquence on its merits, quite unaware that Wilson himself had just before entered the room. ‘This, gentlemen, is one of Mr. Wilson’s Italian pictures; he cannot paint anything like it now.’ ‘That’s a lie!’ exclaimed the irritated artist, to Mr. Christie’s no small discomposure, and to the great amusement of the company; ‘he can paint infinitely better.’”—Literary Gazette, 1824.
JOHANN ZOFFANY was born at Frankfort-on-the-Maine in the year 1735. He was by descent a Bohemian, but his father, who followed the profession of an architect, had settled in Germany. When a merechild, having shown considerable ability with the pencil, his father sent him to Italy, where he studied several years. He practised, on his return to Germany, as an historical and portrait painter at Coblentz on the Rhine. He arrived in England but a few years before the foundation of the Royal Academy, and was elected one of its first members in 1768. On his arrival, the extent of his finances hardly amounted to the sum of one hundred pounds. “With this,” he relates, “I commenced maccaroni, bought a suità la mode, a gold watch, and gold-headed cane.” Thus equipped he made the acquaintance of Benjamin Wilson, a portrait painter, then residing in Great Queen Street, Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields. With this artist Zoffany engaged himself as drapery-painter, and remained with him until, tired of the monotony of his employment, he determined to try his fortune by trading on the capital of his talent on his own account. He accordingly took furnished apartments at the upper part of Tottenham Court Road, and began his practice as aLimner, by painting the portraits of his landlord and landlady, which, as a standing advertisement, were placed on either side the gate that then opened into the area before the house. Garrick, by chance, passing that way, saw these specimens, admired them, and inquired for the painter. The interview ended in his employing Zoffany to paint himself in small, and hence were produced those admired subjects in which the great actor figured,—“Sir John Brute;”Abel Drugger, in Ben Jonson’s “Alchemist;” “The Farmer’s Return,” etc. Sir Joshua Reynolds was so pleased with the painting in which Garrick is represented asAbel Drugger, that he purchased it of Zoffany for the sum of one hundred guineas. It is related that the Earl of Carlisle, conversing with Sir Joshua upon the merits of the picture, earnestly urged him to part with it. “Well, my lord,” said he, “whatpremium will you pay upon my purchase?” “Any sum you will name,” replied the earl. “Then it is yours, my lord, if you will pay me one hundred guineas, and add fifty as a gratuity to Mr. Zoffany.” He consented, and purchased the picture. In 1771, Zoffany painted the royal family on a large canvas, to the number of ten portraits, which has been engraved in mezzotinto by Earlom. He painted likewise two separate portraits of George III. and his Queen, which were also engraved in mezzotinto by Houston. Shortly after this, he paid a second visit to Italy, and taking a recommendation from George III. to the Grand Duke of Tuscany at Florence, he painted an interior view of the Florentine picture gallery. The hopes which he had indulged as to the result of this exertion of his talent were frustrated; for when the Queen was informed that the painter expected to be paid two thousand guineas for his picture, she showed no inclination to receive it. Some years after, the Queen purchased it off him at the greatly reduced sum of six hundred guineas. In 1774, he painted his much-admired picture of the “Life School of the Royal Academy,” in which he introduced two naked models and thirty-six portraits. This painting was also engraved in mezzotinto by Earlom. In 1781, Zoffany went to the East Indies, where he painted three of his best works. One is the “Embassy of Hyderbeck to Calcutta,” who was sent by the Vizier of Oude to Lord Cornwallis. He went with a numerous retinue by Patna to Calcutta. This picture is a rich display of Indian costume, and contains besides about one hundred figures, several elephants and horses. The scene is placed in Patna. The other two pictures are an “Indian Tiger Hunt;” and as a companion to the Embassy, a “Cock Fight,” at which there are many spectators. Zoffany returned to London with a large fortune, and died at Kew, December 16th, 1810.
THE ROYAL PICTURE.
When Zoffany began the picture of the royal family there were ten children. He made his sketch accordingly, and attending two or three times, went on finishing the figures. Various circumstances prevented him from proceeding,—his Majesty was engaged in business of more consequence; her Majesty was engaged; some of the princesses were engaged, and some of the princesses were unwell. The completion of the picture was consequently delayed, when a messenger came to inform the artist that another prince was born, and must be introduced in the picture; this was not easy, but it was accomplished with some difficulty. All this took up much time, when a second messenger arrived to announce the birth of a princess, and to acquaint him that the illustrious stranger must have a place in the canvas; this was impossible without a new arrangement: one half of the figures were therefore obliterated, in order that the grouping might be closer to make room. To do this was the business of some months, and before it was finished, a letter came from one of the maids of honour, informing the painter that there was another addition to the family, for whom a place must be found. “This,” cried the artist, “is too much; if they cannot sit with more regularity, I cannot paint with more expedition, and must give it up.”
THE “COCK FIGHT.”
The ship in which this picture left the Indies was wrecked, and the picture lost. Zoffany fortunately took his passage in another vessel. It is said he heard of the loss of his picture with the philosophy of a Stoic. Having his original sketches by him, he set to work again and made out a second picture with all the grouping, portraits of Hindoos andGentoos, Rajahs and Nabobs, and finished a fac-simile of the first. It is said Governor Hastings, by whose commission it was originally painted, was never made acquainted with the accident and its repainting.