[1] All Raeburn's biographers follow Cunningham in stating that Raeburn succeeded to St Bernard's on the death of his brother in 1787 or 1788. It was not so, however. The intimation in theEdinburgh Evening Courant, of 13th December 1810, reads, "Died on the 6th December Mr William Raeburn, manufacturer, Stockbridge"; and the title deeds of St Bernard's show that the artist purchased it from the trustees of the late Mrs Margaret Ross in October 1809.
[2] Henry Raeburn & Co.'s affairs were not settled until March 1810.
[3] That his own affairs were not only settled but were again highly prosperous before this is apparent from his having purchased St Bernard's in 1809.
While Raeburn's attitude to reality was determined and his style was formed to a great extent before he went abroad, his ideas of pictorial effect were broadened and his technical resources enriched by his sojourn in Italy. Some of the work executed immediately after his return, such as the portraits of Lord President Dundas, Neil Gow, the famous fiddler, and the earlier of two portraits of his friend John Clerk of Eldin, shows, with much unity, a greater care and precision in the handling of detail, a more searched kind of modelling and a fuller sense of tone, and thicker impasto and fuller colour than that done previously. Moreover the design of the first-named picture is reminiscent in certain ways of Velasquez's "Pope Innocent X.," which he may have seen and studied in the Doria Palace in Rome, though too much stress need not be laid on the resemblance. About this time also, he painted a few pictures in which difficult problems of lighting are subtly and skilfully solved. In things like the charming bust "William Ferguson of Kilrie" (before 1790) and the group of Sir John and Lady Clerk of Penicuik (1790) the faces are in luminous shadow, touched by soft reflected light to give expression and animation. But for obvious reasons such effects are not favoured by the clients of portrait-painters, and that Raeburn should have adopted them at all is evidence of the widening of the artistic horizon induced by his stay abroad.
PLATE VII.—MISS EMILY DE VISMES—LADY MURRAY. (Earl of Mansfield.)
An admirable example of the artist's mature style, and one of his most charming portraits of women. (See p.79.)
Plate VII.
Plate VII.
In pictures painted but little later than these, one finds a marked tendency to revert to the more abbreviated modelling and broader execution which have been noted as characteristic of his pre-Roman style. The execution, however, is now much more confident and masterly, the draughtsmanship better, the design, while exceedingly simple, less stiff and more closely knit. Using pigment of very fluid consistency and never loading the lights, though following the traditional method of thick in the lights and thin in the shadows, his handling is exceedingly direct and spontaneous, his touch fearless and broad yet thoroughly under control, his drawing summary yet selective and so expressive that, even in faces where the lighting is so broad that there is little shadow to mark the features and little modelling to explain the planes, the large structure of the head and the essentials of likeness are rendered in a very satisfying and convincing way. His colour, however, if losing the inclination to the rather dull grey-greenness which had prevailed before 1785, remained somewhat cold and wanting in quality, and the more forcible tints introduced in the draperies were frequently lacking in modulation and were not quite in harmony with the prevailing tone. Something of this deficiency in fusion is also noticeable in his flesh tints, the carnations of the complexions being somewhat detached owing to defective gradation where the pinks join the whites. As experience came, Raeburn advanced from the somewhat starved quality of pigment, which in his earlier pictures was accentuated by his broad manner of handling, until in many of the pictures painted during the later nineties he attained extraordinarypower of expression by vigorous and incisive use of square brush-work and full yet fluid and unloaded impasto. This method with its sharply struck touches and simplified planes reaches its climax perhaps in the striking portrait (1798 circa) of Professor Robison in white night-cap and red-striped dressing-gown, though the more fused manner of "Mrs Campbell of Balliemore" (1795) and the extraordinary trenchant handling of the "John Tait of Harvieston and his grandson" (1798-9) show modifications which are as fine and perhaps less mannered. Even earlier he sometimes attained a solidity and forcefulness of effect, a fullness of colour, and a resonance of tone which gave foretaste of the accomplishment of his full maturity. Curiously this is most marked in two or three full-lengths. The earliest of these was the famous "Dr Nathaniel Spens" in the possession of the Royal Company of Archers, by which body it was commissioned in 1791. In it close realisation of detail and restraint in handling are very happily harmonised with breadth of ensemble and effectiveness of design. Some five years later this fine achievement was followed by the even more striking, if rather less dignified, "Sir John Sinclair," a splendid piece of virtuosity, which unites brilliant colour and admirable tone to great dash and bravura of brush-work.
During this period, and indeed throughout his career, Raeburn usually placed his sitters in a strong direct light, which, being thrown upon the head and upper part of the figure (from a high side-light) illumined the face broadly, and, while emphasising the features with definite though narrow shadows, made it dominate the ensemble. Very often this concentration of effect was associated with a forced and arbitrary use of chiaroscuro. In many of his pictures one finds the lower portion of the figure, including the hands, low in tone through the artist having arranged a screen or blind to throw a shadow over the parts he wished subordinated. This device appears in full-lengths as well as in busts and threequarter-lengths, and while, no doubt, helping to the desired end, is now and then a disturbing influence from the fact that it is difficult to account for the result from purely normal causes. With Rembrandt, the greatest master of concentrated pictorial effect, the transitions from the fully illumined passages to the surrounding transparent darks are so gradual and so subtle that one scarcely notices that the effect has been arranged—the concentration is an integral part of the imaginative apprehension of the subject. It is otherwise with Raeburn, in his earlier work at least. Later he attained much the same results by less arbitrary and apparent means, by swathing the hands and arms—the high tone of which he evidently found disconcerting and conflicting with the heads—in drapery, by placing them where they tell as little as possible, and by modifications in handling. His management of accessories was also determined by desire for concentration. Although, as is obvious from his increasing use of it, preferring a simple background from which the figure has atmospheric detachment, he frequently used the scenic setting which Reynolds and Gainsborough had made the vogue. His idea, however, was that a landscape background should be exceedingly unassertive—"nothing more than the shadow of a landscape; effect is all that is wanted"—and, always executing them himself, his are invariably subordinate to the figure. But the essential quality of his vision went best with plain backgrounds. That he did not wholly abandon the decorative convention which he heired, and often employed to excellent purpose, was due in large measure to caution. "He came," says W. E. Henley, "at the break between new and old—when the old was not yet discredited, and the new was still inoffensive; and with that exquisite good sense which marks the artist, he identified himself with that which was known, and not with that which, though big with many kinds of possibilities, was as yet in perfect touch with nothing actively alive." Yet, had he had the full courage of his convictions, his work would have been an even more outstanding landmark in the history of painting than it is. Still to ask from Raeburn what one does not get from Velasquez, many of whose portraits have a conventional setting, is to be more exacting than critical, and, as has been indicated, simplicity of design and aerial relief became increasingly evident in Raeburn's work, and that in spite of the protests of some of his admirers.
While Raeburn had been working towards a fuller and more subtle statement of likeness, modelling, and arrangement, it is possible that removal to his new studio accelerated development in that direction. The painting-room had been designed by himself for his own special purposes, and no doubt suggested new possibilities. In any case, the portraits painted after 1795 reveal a definite increase in the qualities mentioned. But before considering the characteristics of his later style, it might be well to tell what is known of his habits of work and technical procedure. Cunningham's summary of these applies partly to the George Street and partly to the York Place period, but for practical purposes they may be regarded as one, for, while Raeburn's art may be divided into periods, each was but a stage in a gradual and consistent evolution. "The motions of the artist were as regular as those of a clock. He rose at seven during summer, took breakfast about eight with his wife and children, walked into George Street, and was ready for a sitter by nine; and of sitters he generally had, for many years, not fewer than three or four a day. To these he gave an hour and a half each. He seldom kept a sitter more than two hours, unless the person happened—and that was often the case—to be gifted with more than common talents. He then felt himself happy, and never failed to detain the party till the arrival of a new sitter intimated that he must be gone. For a head size he generally required four or five sittings: and he preferred painting the head and hands to any other part of the body; assigning as a reason that they required less consideration. A fold of drapery, or the natural ease which the casting of a mantle over the shoulder demanded, occasioned him more perplexing study than a head full of thought and imagination. Such was the intuition with which he penetrated at once to the mind, that the first sitting rarely came to a close without his having seized strongly on the character and disposition of the individual. He never drew in his heads, or indeed any part of the body, with chalk—a system pursued successfully by Lawrence—but began with the brush at once. The forehead, chin, nose, and mouth, were his first touches. He always painted standing, and never used a stick for resting his hand on; for such was his accuracy of eye, and steadiness of nerve, that he could introduce the most delicate touches, or the almost mechanical regularity of line, without aid, or other contrivance than fair off-hand dexterity. He remained in his painting-room till a little after five o'clock, when he walked home, and dined at six.... From one who knew him in his youthful days, and sat to him when he rose in fame, I have this description of his way of going to work. "He spoke a few words to me in his usual brief and kindly way—evidently to put me into an agreeable mood; and then having placed me in a chair on a platform at the end of his painting-room, in the posture required, set up his easel beside me with the canvas ready to receive the colour. When he saw all was right, he took his palette and his brush, retreated back step by step, with his face towards me, till he was nigh the other end of the room; he stood and studied for a minute more, then came up to the canvas, and, without looking at me, wrought upon it with colour for some time. Having done this, he retreated in the same manner, studied my looks at that distance for about another minute, then came hastily up to the canvas and painted for a few minutes more." These details may be supplemented by the list of colours used by him, which Alexander Fraser, R.S.A., gave inThe Portfolio. "His palette was a simple one; his colours were vermilion, raw sienna (but sometimes yellow ochre instead), Prussian blue, burnt sienna, ivory black, crimson lake, white, of course, and the medium he used was 'gumption,' a composition of sugar of lead, mastic varnish, and linseed oil. The colours were ground by a servant in his own house and put into small pots ready for use." When one adds that his studio had a very high side-light, and that he painted on half-primed canvas with a definitely marked twill, all that is known of his practice has been noted.
PLATE VIII.—MRS SCOTT MONCRIEFF.
(National Gallery of Scotland.)
None of Raeburn's portraits of ladies is quite so famous as this. Although in indifferent condition owing to bitumen having been used, it is singularly charming in colour, design, and sentiment, and is one of the chief treasures of the gallery, in which it has hung since 1854, when Mr R. Scott Moncrieff, Welwood of Pitliver, bequeathed it to the Royal Scottish Academy. (See page79.)
Plate VIII.
Plate VIII.
As already suggested, Raeburn's style was tending towards greater completeness of expression and more naturalness of arrangement before he removed to York Place in 1795, but, while his normal advance was in that direction, it was so gradual that it is only by looking at a number of pictures painted, say, five or ten years later, and comparing them with theirpredecessors that one notices that the advance was definite and not casual. Occasionally, as in the "Professor Robison," there is a very emphatic restatement of a somewhat earlier method; but, as the "Lord Braxfield" of about 1790 is a premonition of a much later manner, this exceptional treatment seems to have been inspired by the character of the sitter having suggested its special suitability. But comparing the splendid group, "Reginald Macdonald of Clanranald and his two younger brothers" (about 1800), or the "Mrs Cruikshank of Langley Park" (about 1805), with typical examples painted between 1787 and 1795, one finds the later pictures marked not only by increased power of drawing and more masterly brush-work but by a finer rendering of form, by greater roundness of modelling, and by a more expressive use of colour and chiaroscuro.
Considerable ingenuity has been expended in trying to prove that Raeburn's subsequent development was due in some way or other to the influence of Hoppner and Lawrence. Consideration of his situation and of his work itself, however, scarcely bears this out. His ignorance of what was being done by London artists, and of how his own pictures compared with theirs, is very clearly evident from the following letter written to Wilkie:—
Edinburgh,12th September1819.
Mr dear Sir,—I let you to wit that I am still here, and long much to hear from you, both as to how you are and what you are doing. I would not wish to impose any hardship upon you, but it would give me great pleasure if you would take the trouble to write me at least once a year, if not oftener, and give me a little information of what is going on among the artists, for I do assure you I have as little communication with any of them, and know almost as little about them, as if I were living at the Cape of Good Hope.
I send up generally a picture or two to the Exhibition, which serve merely as an advertisement that I am still in the land of the living, but in other respects it does me no good, for I get no notice from any one, nor have I the least conception how they look beside others. I know not in what London papers any critiques of that kind are made, and our Edinburgh ones (at least those that I see) take no notice of these matters. At any rate I would prefer a candid observation or two from an artist like you, conveying not only your own opinion but perhaps that of others, before any of them.
Are the Portrait-Painters as well employed as ever? Sir Thomas Lawrence, they tell me, has refused to commence any more pictures till he gets done with those that are on hand, and that he has raised his prices to some enormous sum. Is that true, and will you do me the favour to tell me what his prices really are, and what Sir W. Beechy, Mr Philips, and Mr Owen have for their pictures? It will be a particular favour if you will take the trouble to ascertain these for me precisely, for I am raising my prices too, and it would be a guide to me—not that I intend to raise mine so high as your famous London artists.
Moreover he is said to have visited London only three times: in 1785, when he spent several weeks while on his way to Italy; in 1810, when he contemplated settling there; and in 1815, after he was elected an Academician. It is of course only with the later visits that we have to do in this connection. By that time Hoppner was dead, and Lawrence's claim to be painter par excellence to the fashionable world was undisputed. No doubt the Scottish painter would be attracted by the technical accomplishment of Lawrence's work; but he was between fifty and sixty years of age and little likely to be influenced by an art, which, for all its brilliance, was meretricious in many respects. Yet it is possible that the adulation lavished by society upon his contemporary's style may have induced him to consider if something of the elegance for which it was esteemed so highly could not be added with advantage to his own. On the other hand, Scottish society was gradually undergoing evolution, and, while a greater infusion of fashion amongst its members would in itself tend to stimulate the favourite painter of the day in the same direction, increase in wealth would bring a greater number of younger sitters to his studio. Probably a combination of these represents the influences which affected Raeburn. In any case, his later portraits, especially of women, possess qualities of charm and beauty which, while never merely pretty or meretricious, connect them in some measure with the more modish and less sincere and virile work of Lawrence. But otherwise—and, unlike his southern contemporaries, he never sacrificed character to elegance or subordinated individuality to type—the evolution of his style continued on purely personal lines. The pictures painted between 1810 and his death, while still at the height of his powers, are essentially one with those of the preceding decade. There is in them a more delicate sense of beauty than before, and his portraits of ladies are marked by a quickened perception of feminine grace and charm; but these are results of the natural development of his nature and of his personal powers of expression rather than of any radical alteration in his standpoint.
As regards the work of the last fifteen years and more, it is less increased grasp of character, for that had always been a leading trait, than growth in the expressive power and completeness of his technique that is the dominating factor. And here the prevailing qualities are but the issue of previous experience. His modelling ceases to be marked by the rough-hewn and over simplified planes which had distinguished his incisive square-touch at its strongest and becomes fused and suave. As Sir Walter Armstrong put it, "He began with the facets and ended with the completest modelling ever reached by any English painter." Now his colour not only loses the inclination to slatiness and monotony, which were evident before 1795, and sometimes even later, but, the half-tones being more delicately graded, the transitions, though still lacking the subtleties of the real colourist, are blended and the general tone enriched and harmonised. And his use of chiaroscuro becomes infinitely more delicate both in its play upon the face and in the broad disposition, which now attains finer and more convincing concentration in virtue of more skillful subordination through handling, as well as through more pictorial management of his old arrangement of lighting. Moreover the scenic setting, if retained in many full-lengths, is to a great extent abandoned for a simple background lighted from the same source as the sitter, and against which face and figure come in truer atmospheric envelope and relief. With these alterations, which were not perhaps invariably all gain, his later work now and then lacking the delightfully clear and incisive brushing of the preceding period, were also associated a fuller and fatter body of paint which, while never loaded, gives richness of effect, and a sonorousness of tone which his earlier pictures rarely possess.
A sympathetic and human perception of character was the basis of his relationship to his sitters, each of whom is individualised in a rarely convincing way, and to me at least theview of life expressed in his later pictures seems more genial and comprehending than that which dominates his earlier work. Comparatively this is perhaps especially evident in his rendering of pretty women. "Mrs Scott Moncrieff," "Miss de Vismes," "Miss Janet Suttie," and "Mrs Irvine Boswell," to name no more, are all beauties; but each differs from the others, and is marked by personal traits to an extent unusual in his earlier practice. Still his grasp of character is more obviously seen in his portraitures of older women and of men, and his masterpieces are to be found amongst his pictures of this kind rather than amongst his "beauty" pieces, seductive though the best of these are. When one thinks of his finest and most personal achievements, one recalls such things as "Lord Newton," "Sir William Forbes," and "James Wardrop of Torbanehill," or "Mrs Cruikshank," and "Mrs James Campbell."
Born a painter of character, Raeburn was at his best where character, intellect, and shrewdness were most marked. Yet axiomatic though it may sound, this implies great gifts. To seize the obvious points of likeness, and make a portrait more living than life itself is comparatively easy; but to grasp the essential elements of likeness and character, and, while vitalising these pictorially and decoratively, to preserve the normal tone of life is difficult indeed. Of this, the highest triumph of the portrait-painter's art as such, Raeburn was a master.
ARTIST. AUTHOR.VELAZQUEZ. S. L. BENSUSAN.REYNOLDS. S. L. BENSUSAN.TURNER. C. LEWIS HIND.ROMNEY. C. LEWIS HIND.GREUZE. ALYS EYRE MACKLIN.BOTTICELLI. HENRY B. BINNS.ROSSETTI. LUCIEN PISSARRO.BELLINI. GEORGE HAY.FRA ANGELICO. JAMES MASON.REMBRANDT. JOSEF ISRAELS.LEIGHTON. A. LYS BALDRY.RAPHAEL. PAUL G. KONODY.HOLMAN HUNT. MARY E. COLERIDGE.TITIAN. S. L. BENSUSAN.CARLO DOLCI. GEORGE HAY.LUINI. JAMES MASON.TINTORETTO. S. L. BENSUSAN.Others in Preparation.