Armed HeroesBy James GillrayARMED HEROES(William Pitt and Buonaparte)
Of course the threatened invasion of England finds its echo in Gillray's prints. "French Invasion, or Buonaparte Landing,""Armed Heroes"(of which I give here a reproduction), and the "King of Brobindnag and Gulliver" all belong to this theme of the nation's peril; as does that interesting print,which I also reproduce, of"Britannia between Death and the Doctor,"where the sick lady is threatened on the one side by Buonaparte as Death, the while Pitt, as chief physician, executes a war dance at the expense of his professional rivals, planting his heel very neatly in the mouth of the prostrate Charles James Fox. Napoleon's European victories find comment in the "Surrender of Ulm," and in another of my plates, "Tiddy Doll, the Great French Gingerbread Maker, drawing out a New Batch of Kings," where Talleyrand seems, very appropriately, to be the figure in the background kneading the dough (note, too, the rubbish heap). But the worst danger was past already at the time (as we know now) of that fine plate that commemorates the "Death of Admiral Lord Nelson in the Moment of Victory," published by Humphrey of St. James Street, on December 23, 1805.
Gillray, after trying various publishers—Kent, Brown, Holland of Oxford Street, Fores of Piccadilly—seems to have settled down with Humphrey, first in the Strand, then in Bond Street, and later St. James Street, whose shop-windows became famed for his prints. Joseph Grego, a known authorityon our artist, relates that Fox and Burke once walked into the shop together, alarming the worthy proprietress by this sudden invasion of Gillray's favourite subjects. But Burke reassured her with a smile: "Were I to prosecute you it would be the making of your fortune; and that favour, excuse me, Mrs. Humphrey, you do not entirely merit at my hands."
We may terminate our study or Gillray's Napoleonic caricatures very appropriately with the "Spanish Bullfight," in which Buonaparte is tossed by the Spanish bull (Peninsular War of 1808) before the assembled Powers of Europe (dated July 11, 1808); and the fine print of the "Valley of the Shadow of Death" (September 24, 1808), in which the prediction of an earlier print ("The Handwriting on the Wall") seems near its fulfilment, and the Powers of Europe in grim demonic shapes surround the terrified ruler, the British lion charging him full in front, while the Russian bear takes an ugly snatch from behind at his legs.
Buonaparte as King-MakerBy James GillrayBUONAPARTE AS KING-MAKER(With Talleyrand to help)
James Gillray's political caricatures are so interesting and so important, they form such a priceless commentary on the history of the time, that I have given them the priority of space over hisamusing social satires, which scourge without mercy the follies of dress and fashion. "A Lady putting on her Cap" (1795), "Lady Godiva's Rout" (1796), "High Change in Bond Street" (1796), "A Modern Belle at Bath" (1796), and "A Fashionable Mamma" come into this class, as well as "Following the Fashion," "Characters in High Life," and many others. It was the epoch when English ladies' waists seem to have risen nearly to their arm-pits, and when their hair towered up correspondingly into a forest of feathers; and all the above prints—as well as the series of "Faro's Daughters," directed at the gambling craze, "The Graces in a High Wind (as seen from Nature in Kensington Gardens)," and the still more risky series of "Three Stages of a Lady's Toilet,"—depict these extreme fashions.
"Tales of Wonder," "Advantages of Wearing Muslin Dresses, dedicated to the Fashionable Ladies of Great Britain," "A Broad Hint of not Meaning to Dance," "A Company shocked at a Lady getting up to Ring the Bell," belong to a slightly later period of costume, say 1802-04.
"Dido in Despair" is evidently a satire on the beautiful Lady Hamilton, who is howeverrepresented in this print as enormously fat.[10] Gillray has evidently no sympathy or mercy for the frail and famous beauty; for here she is tumbling out of bed in nightcap and nightdress, from which a huge foot protrudes, while she waves her fat arms in despair. A flask of Maraschino is on the dressing-table near the rouge pot; on the floor lie broken antiques; and a work onStudies of Academic Attitudes, with scarcely academic illustrations, lies near the window, through which is seen a line of British battleships standing out to sea.
"Ah where and oh where is my gallant sailor gone?He's gone to fight the Frenchmen for George upon the throne,"—
is the motto of this print, which was published by Humphrey on February 6 of 1801. "The Bulstrode Siren" (Mrs. Billington), where she is seen warbling to the Duke of Portland, fares little better than Emma herself; and Sir William Hamiltonappears, in another of Gillray's satires, as "A Conoscenti contemplating ye beauties of ye Antique." Among these lastobjets d'arta battered "Lais" and a "Bacchante" who has lost her head seem as full of cryptic allusion as the dancing figures on a Greek vase and the Cupid with a bent arrow; while quite in Hogarth's best vein is the "Mark Antony" framed upon the wall, in a cocked hat and admiral's uniform, the "Cleopatra" with a gin bottle, and a view of Vesuvius in full eruption.
Sheridan is a frequent figure in Gillray's political caricatures; but perhaps he was never more happily treated than when he enters as Harlequin, armed with a goose quill, and assisted by John Kemble and the famous Mrs. Siddons, in "Blowing up the Pic Nics." To the same class and subject of satire belongs the "Pic Nic Orchestra" and "Dilettante Theatre"—this last a Green-room scene which seems reminiscent of Hogarth's print of a similar subject. "Two-penny Whist" and "Push-pin" are filled with contemporary portraits;[11] and thetwo series of "Cockney Sportsmen" (4 plates, 1800) and "Elements of Skating" (4 plates, 1805) must not be overlooked any more than such weirdly hideous creations as "Comfort to the Corns," as "Begone dull Care, I prithee," and "The Gout."
Interesting, however, though much of Gillray's social satire certainly is, it scarcely reaches the same level as his political work. He was a magnificent engraver, and was able in his best time to build up his cartoon with the smallest possible scaffolding, a few lines pencilled upon a card being enough to enable him to commence at once upon the copper; while the freedom and facility of his design is witnessed amply by all his prints—those prints which we have now studied in some measure together, though anything in the nature of a comprehensive catalogue is denied me by the space at my command. His influence, too, upon Isaac Cruikshank is to be marked, as a link in the evolution of English caricature.
In his later years James Gillray resided almost entirely with his kindly publisher, Mrs. Humphrey, of whom, as I have noted, he has left a whimsical portrait, with her faithful maid "giggling Betty," in his print of "Two-penny Whist." Mrs. Humphreyappreciated her client's genius, and at one time their mutual understanding got so far on the road to matrimony that they had already reached the door of the church (their parish church of S. James, Piccadilly) when this eccentric bridegroom remarked, "This is a foolish affair, Mrs. Humphrey. We live very comfortably together—better let well alone!"—and walked home to work on his copper plate. But even if this legend of blighted hopes be correct, the good spinster in any case devoted herself no less to the artist's comfort and welfare; and the tragedy of his later years was due to himself alone. Intemperance weakened his powers; and in the last years of his life he lapsed, from this cause probably, into a condition of mental imbecility, which contrasts sadly with those busy and successful years of his life, from 1777 to close on 1810.
He died upon the 1st of June, 1815, and was buried near the rectory of S. James, Piccadilly; within reach of the busy roar of that London whose complex multitudinous life he had lived amongst and loved and studied, and which still surges around his last resting-place in changed and ever-changing forms.
Thomas Rowlandson, the last and in some ways the greatest of the caricaturists whose work illustrates the eighteenth century, was born in London in 1756, being thus just six years younger than Bunbury, and one year older than Gillray; so that all these artists cover very much the same period, although their work has elements of the greatest diversity.
In Bunbury we have seen the really gifted amateur, who entrusted his clever sketches to other hands to be engraved, who kept in touch with social life in London and county society, and pursued his career in the army and at Court, while throughout devoting himself to art as his greatest hobby. Again, later, we have traced briefly Gillray's supreme talent, both as engraver and draughtsman, moreespecially in his magnificent series of contemporary political cartoons. But in Rowlandson we touch a genius as fertile, but of a different order, and, I incline to think, of a considerably wider grasp; and if I call this chapter, which I am devoting especially to his work, the "Comedy of Life"—in contrast to pictorial morals, to society or politics—it is because life in all its exuberance, all its variety and fertility, seems to stream on us from the gifted artist's pencil.
But Life contains—thanks be—not only coarse, distorted types of humanity, exaggerations of foolish fashion, and political antagonisms, but grace and beauty, even with the changing form of the time-spirit; and it is just here that Rowlandson infinitely surpasses those contemporaries whom we studied in our last chapter. His female figures have often that rich English beauty which we find in Reynolds, Hoppner, or sometimes in Morland; and his landscape has qualities of very exceptional merit. He might, we are frequently tempted to think, have been a painter worthy to take a front rank even in that magnificent English eighteenth-century school, which included Reynolds, Gainsborough, Romney, Hoppner, among its glories; but as we come to studyhis life we shall find in theinsoucianceof his character, in the very facility of his genius, the causes which made him—not, indeed, entirely to our loss—only the greatest caricaturist of his time.
As a boy already, at Dr. Barrow's academy in Soho, he had attracted notice by his humorous sketches of his fellow pupils; and in his sixteenth year he went to Paris at the invitation of his aunt, a Mlle. Chatelier, with the object of pursuing art study in that city. He had already been admitted as a student in the Royal Academy; and his life studies in Paris are said to have possessed great merit. Paris itself at this time (about 1772-4), with Louis XV. still on the throne, must have been very fascinating to the young English lad, living with a relative who treated him with affection and generosity, in the first consciousness too of his genius, in the midst of a most brilliant capital, and with every prospect of fortune waiting for him. These years left, without doubt, an indelible impression on his mind. Mr. Grego, an authority on this artist as well as Gillray, expresses this[12] very happily when he says: "It was the more romantic Paris of Sterne that Rowlandson first viewed, and he seems to haverecognised and noted down the characteristics of the same typical personages described by 'Yorick'; their two satirical points of view were identical. It was indeed the ideal artistic centre: Fragonard, Lavrience, Eisen, St. Aubin, and the school of followers of Boucher and Lancret—elegant triflers in their way, but unequalled for dash and brilliancy—were the leading spirits as Rowlandson imbibed his first inspiration from these attractive fonts. His two years' residence in the midst of these appetising surroundings must have been the happiest of Rowlandson's career; the seeds sown amid these gayer scenes blossomed forth in later years, and influenced the artist in gradually devoting his gifts from the dull routine of portrait-painting to the indulgence of his fruitful imagination."
Whether indeed all the influence which the critic here mentions was entirely for good, is, I think myself, open to question. It is quite possible that our artist acquired at this time the taste for gambling which led him to the brink of ruin more than once in later life; and I have suggested already that had he kept to painting he might have achieved in that medium a fame far above even that which he now possesses. For on his return to London heresumed his studies at the Royal Academy Schools, and in 1775 exhibited at the Academy "Samson visited by Delilah," which he followed up by the portraits on which he was busy now in Wardour Street from 1778 to 1781. His work must have shown considerable power to be hung beside the canvases of Reynolds, Romney, and Hoppner; but at the later date of 1784 his exhibited drawings—"Vauxhall Gardens," "The Serpentine," and "An Italian Family"—show already a tendency to the lighter side of art, and between the above date and 1787 the direction of his art has changed in favour of caricature.
His imagination was as fertile as his pencil was facile. The market was easy—Fores (for whom Gillray also worked), Ackermann,[13] and others offering a ready sale for his satires; and, since we are treating of him here as a caricaturist, it is at this point that we must take his work in detail. The purely humorous prints commence as early as 1781 ("The Village Doctor," published in June of thatyear by Humphrey), and are followed up (November 27, same year and publisher) by "Charity Covereth a Multitude of Sins," and that unpleasing subject (published by Fores, 1783) of "The Amputation"; but it is in his political cartoons of 1784—such as "Britannia roused, or the Coalition Monster destroyed"—that we begin to recognise the distinctive touch of Thomas Rowlandson. This vigorous print shows a half-draped female figure catching Charles James Fox by the ankle and Lord North by the throat; in this print he takes the same political attitude as his contemporary Gillray, whom he resembles, though far less virulently, in his anti-French prints, while he shows less marked hostility to the reigning house.
The famous Westminster election of the same year (1784) brought Rowlandson still further into political satire, in which Charles James Fox and the beautiful Georgina, Duchess of Devonshire, are leading figures. In "The Devonshire, or the most approved manner of securing votes," the lovely duchess is bestowing a warm embrace on a voter, in the shape of a fat butcher, while another lady, perhaps the Duchess of Gordon, looks on approvingly with the words "Huzza! Fox for ever!" In the"Lords of the Bedchamber," Georgina, seated in herboudoirbeneath Reynolds' portrait of her duke, is entertaining to tea two privileged visitors, Fox and his leading supporter, Sam House—"brave, bald-headed Sam" as he was then called. The enthusiastic support which her Grace gave to Fox's candidature gave an opening which was used—often too freely—by the caricaturists. In "Wit's last stake, or the Cobbler's vote," she is seated upon Fox's knee, the while a cobbler puts a stitch into her shoe, so that she may have the excuse of pouring a handful of guineas into his wife's hand. In another print she appears neglecting the infant heir of the Cavendishes for a fox, dressed up in baby clothes; and upon Fox's triumphant return is made by the artist to carry him pick-a-back, and to stop at Mungo's Hotel for a drop of gin.
It is but fair to our Caricaturist to say that the fair Pittite champion, Lady Buckingham, is treated no less mercilessly; and that, even while he was aiming the most outrageous shafts of ridicule and innuendo at the Duchess, his pencil did justice to her extraordinary beauty and charm, both in the prints above mentioned, and in a "Procession to the Hustings after a successful Canvass," in which sheleads the way in a big picture hat, and carrying a perfectly indescribable ensign with "The Man of the People" as its legend. Finally, "The Westminster Mendicant" and the "Westminster Deserter drummed out" complete this really brilliant series of election caricatures, of which I have only detailed the most interesting. In the last-named print it is "brave baldheaded" Sam House who beats the drum, while on his left is the triumphant candidate, Charles James Fox, who addresses the crowd with the time-hallowed words, "Friends and fellow citizens, I cannot find words to express my feelings, etc.," and on his right the defeated Sir Cecil Wray; while behind are the Irish chairmen who had fought (in every sense of the word) so lustily for Fox, and a procession of London maidservants, armed with mops and brooms.
In my account of this series of prints (which all fall within the dates of April and May of 1784) I shall note briefly one remaining print, "For the Benefit of the Champion," in which Fox and Lord North, in female attire, and the Duchess in her large picture hat, butdécollettée, and with bare arms, are busy singing a dirge on the defeated opponent. Georgina, a figure of delicious sprightlinessandbeauty, points to the tombstone marked "Here lies poor Cecil Ray," while the spectacled profile of Burke peeps into the door. And here I may remark again how astonishingly to my own experience a study of these prints makes history real, vivid, and living. These dry bones of bygone politics become clothed with flesh; and names which we had studied with colder interest become friends, and almost intimates. Ere we leave the theme of politics, it may be noted that in the great French War Rowlandson does not come behind Gillray in his patriotic enthusiasm. A whole series of prints, from July to September 1808, was directed against Napoleon; while Nelson appears in a print of which, by the kindness of its possessor, Mr. Newman, a great collector of Nelson relics, I am able to give a plate—"Admiral Nelson recruiting with his brave tars after the glorious Battle of the Nile"(published by Ackermann, October 20, 1798); and both contemporary figures are alluded to in "Napoleon Buonaparte in a Fever on Receiving the Astounding Gazette of Nelson's Victory over the Combined Fleets" (Ackermann, November 13, 1805).
Nelson Recruiting with His Brave Tars after the Battle of the NileBy Thomas RowlandsonNELSON RECRUITING WITH HIS BRAVE TARS AFTER THE BATTLE OF THE NILE
But it is time for us to betake ourselves toRowlandson's social caricatures, which after all represent the best of his life work; and I am tempted to quote—in seeking illustration of that wonderful sense of life which seems to stream upon us from his pencil—some words of my own in an earlier work, in which I had occasion to treat of this artist. "These creatures of his scenes of comedy—drawn boldly in outline with the reed pen dipped in Indian ink and vermillion, with the shadows then washed in, and the whole slightly tinted in colour—seem full-blooded, vigorous, overflowing with animal life and energy. His women above all are delicious. Rather voluptuous, perhaps, and full in form, but yet indescribably charming in their mob caps, or those big 'picture' hats that George Morland loved, in the tight sleeves and high-waisted gowns falling in long folds about their limbs—their eyes sparkling with roguery, and their whole being breathing the charm of sex."[14]
We may commence our study of his social satires here, in following to some extent the sequence of time, with "A Sketch from Nature"—published by J. R. Smith in January of 1784, and engraved by him in stipple with great beauty and finish.The subject here recalls a very similar scene in Hogarth's "Rake's Progress," for here, as there, a merry company of both sexes is engaged in riotous revel; and the wine and punch flowing freely has got into the heads, and found expression in the behaviour, of the nymphs and their attendant swains. "Money-lenders," "Councillor and Client," and "Bookseller and Author" (all 1784) are excellent character-studies of male figures: the eighteenth century evidently needed the presence of Sir Walter Besant, for the bookseller is fat, prosperous, and overbearing, the author terribly thin, poorly dressed, and looking overworked. In "The Golden Apple or the Modern Paris" (1785) the fair Georgina again appears before us with her rival beauties, the Duchesses of Rutland and Gordon:
"Here Juno Devon, all sublime,Minerva Gordon's wit and eyes,Sweet Rutland, Venus in her prime."
The three ladies appear before the Prince of Wales, afterwards George the Fourth—the "Modern Paris" who has the difficult task of awarding the apple. The Prince re-appears in Rowlandson's famous print of "Vauxhall Gardens" (published by J. R.Smith in 1785) with a star upon his breast, where he is paying much attention to Mrs. Robinson—the lovely "Perdita," whose portrait now hangs in the Wallace Collection. The Duchess of Devonshire and her sister, Lady Duncannon, are well in the centre of the picture; Captain Topham takes in the gay scene through his glass; Doctor Johnson, in a supper box, seems deeply engaged upon his meal, though Mrs. Thrale is on his right and "Bozzy" and Goldsmith are of the party. Captain (later Colonel) Topham, themacaroni, man of taste and editor ofThe World, appears in another plate of 1785—as "Captain Epilogue," and as "Colonel Topham endeavouring to extinguish the Genius of Holman" (the actor); and to the same date belong "Grog on Board" and "Tea on Shore," as well as the print in colour chosen for illustration to this chapter.
"Filial Affection,"as this is called, depicting a runaway trip to Gretna Green, speaks so fully for itself that it needs no further description from my pen; but I may mention here its companion print (also published by Mr. Hinton on December 15 of 1785), and called "The Reconciliation, or The Return from Scotland," in which the pair offugitives—whom we have just seen presenting their horse pistols at the parentalpoursuivant—have now returned, all penitence and submission, and have won their forgiveness. A very curious and somewhat grisly adaptation of "Filial Affection" is reproduced by Messrs. Bell, to illustrate the article upon Rowlandson in their new and valuable edition ofBryan's Dictionary. It is a plate fromThe Dance of Death, an illustrated volume published by Ackermann in 1815, and resembles the earlier print—save that the figure behind the angry parent is a skeleton rider mounted on a skeleton steed. At this point, in touching these two periods (of 1785 and 1815) we may note how far fresher and more spontaneous is the figure-work in that rich period from 1785 onwards. Rowlandson had gained, perhaps, in what we may call his "Dr. Syntax period," in the treatment of landscape perspective or the massing of crowds, but had become more of the caricaturist, had lost the rich organic beauty which really irradiates some of his earlier prints.
Filial AffectionFilial Affection.By Thomas Rowlandson.
A print in colour from my own collection, published by Fores only sixteen days earlier (November 30, 1785) than "Filial Affection," may help here to illustrate my meaning. "Intrusion on Study"or "The Painter Disturbed," shows a very charming model, attired in nothing but the prettiest of mob caps, posing for some goddess on the canvas of the artist, who turns to wave his palette and brushes—a most effective weapon of defence—in the faces of two unwelcome visitors of his own sex, who have just broken in open-mouthed upon his study. The details of the studio, the expressive faces of the artist and his visitors (especially the second), are in Rowlandson's best mood; but what is more interesting, because more exceptional, is the exquisite feeling of line, as subtle as anything Beardsley has recorded, in the girl's recumbent figure—in the flow of the shoulder into the right arm, and in the sweep of the right hip, and faultless drawing of the right hand—which touches a note of purely plastic beauty entirely beyond the reach of either Hogarth or Gillray.
Joseph Grego says of our artist very justly: "Rowlandson's sense of feminine loveliness, of irresistible graces of face expression and attitude, was unequalled in its way; several of his female portraits have been mistaken for sketches by Gainsborough or Morland, and as such, it is possible, since the caricaturist is so little known in thisbranch, that many continue to pass current."[15] An engraving which came into my own hands, some years ago, of three young girls by Rowlandson, might be an exact illustration of these words, and as the above writer says, be a portrait group by Gainsborough or Hoppner—so refined and yet so masterly was the treatment. I alluded to this print with others, when speaking of Rowlandson as what might be here called a "feminist" in my study of Bartolozzi and his contemporaries, and found illustration there of this peculiarly charming type of his women in "Luxury" (typified, for this artist, by breakfast in bed), "House Breakers," "The Inn Yard on Fire" (where the ladies are making a very impromptu exit), in the lovely model of "The Artist Disturbed," and (for women of fashion) in the series (twelve prints in all) of the "Comforts of Bath."
I mention there, too, that delightful print of "Lady Hamilton at Home," where poor Sir William (whom the caricaturists never neglected) is suffering from an acute attack of gout, while"the lovely Emma, in very classic garb, is watering a flower-pot, and Miss Cornelia Knight, also dressed after the antique, touches the strings of a lyre, and warbles poems of her own composition." In treating, however, of Rowlandson's women, other prints, such as "Tastes Differ," "Opera Boxes," "Harmony," "A Nap in Town," and "In the Country," "Interruption, or Inconvenience of a Lodging House" (published April 1789), and "Damp Sheets" (August 1791), have a strong claim on our notice. Nor must I entirely neglect here Rowlandson's print called"Preparation for the Academy, or Old Joseph Nollekens and his Venus"(1800). It is perhaps the Miss Coleman here upon the model-stand who nearly caused a domestic breach between old Nollekens and his jealous spouse—the group on which he is at work being his "Venus Chiding Cupid," which was modelled for Lord Yarborough.The Life of the Sculptor Nollekens, by his pupil John Thomas Smith, contains some amusing contemporary gossip. He describes the sculptor much as we see him in this plate—his figure short, his head big, his shoulders narrow, his body too large. His worthy better half held strong opinions upon thesculptor's models—"abandoned hussies, with whom she had no patience"; and Miss Coleman having ventured to visit the scene of her early labours in a carriage and pair, the wrath of the virtuous Mrs. Nollekens became unbounded. Words indeed (perhaps a rare defect with the good lady) seem to have failed her at this crisis; in a later interview with Joseph they were not wanting.
A Ball at the Hackney Assembly RoomsBy Thomas RowlandsonA BALL AT THE HACKNEY ASSEMBLY ROOMS(Remember the Graces!)
But here I would also point out that not only was our caricaturist an unequalled illustrator of lovely woman (and as such makes us often regret that the becoming mob cap has disappeared from use), but also a magnificent landscape artist. I came to notice this especially last year in a very interesting exhibition of Rowlandson's drawings at the Leicester Gallery in London. "A Country Fête," a "Village Scene with Bridge," and the "Promenade on Richmond Hill," were good examples of his delightful handling of English landscape. The last of these formed part of a very interesting set of the artist's original drawings, which were not exhibited, but which I was able to study by kind permission. "Greenwich Park" was among these drawings, with merrymakers racing and tumbling down the hill, and a delicious perspective of the park and hospital; a "Review of Guardsin Hyde Park," where, upon the soldiers firing, two of the spectators' horses have bolted into the crowd; the charming drawing in pencil and colour work of two girls called "The Sirens;" rustic scenes such as "Eel Pie Island at Richmond," "Playing Quoits," and a "Rustic Maid Crossing a Stile," to her sweetheart's admiration; such echoes too of war as the crowd cheering the great battleships at Portsmouth, or the print of "Invaders Repulsed," where British troops are seen driving out the French invaders.
Drawn most delicately in pencil with a wash of pure colour, these drawings bring us nearer to the feeling of the artist than even his prints, and it was interesting to compare "Greenwich Hill" in the print and drawing, and to see how much the transcript had lost. Yet seen by themselves the prints were interesting and characteristic. "A Visit to the Uncle" and "to the Aunt," "Travelling in France, 1790"—a signed work showing a large clumsy diligence, which the artist is sketching—"Angelo's Fencing Room," full of contemporary portraits, "The Pleasure of the Country," where fine ladies struggling through the mud find a litter of piglets rushing in among their skirts, were among the best of these, while a print of "Girls Dressing for the Masquerade," and the "Dutch Academy,"with a fat model posing before solid Dutchmen, were among those not infrequent prints of our artist whose satire comes near—if not over—the confines of good taste.
A Theatrical CandidateBy Thomas RowlandsonA THEATRICAL CANDIDATE
Some clever prints of Dr. Syntax himself were here—a subject this which, published by Ackermann under the title of a "Tour of Dr. Syntax in search of the Picturesque" in 1809, was republished in 1812, and occupied the artist in various developments during his later life. To the same period of Rowlandson's career belonged "The Microcosm of London" (1808), "A Mad Dog in a Coffee House" (1809), and "In a Dining Room" (1809), the print called "Exhibition Stare-case, Somerset House" (1811)—where the visitors of both sexes are tumbling headlong downstairs, the extraordinary cleverness of drawing scarcely compensating for the doubtful taste of the subject; and later followed "The World in Miniature" (1816), "Richardson's Show," "The English Dance of Death" (1814-16), and "Dance of Life" (1817), which leads on to the later "Tour of Dr. Syntax in search of Consolation" (1820), and (1821) "In search of a Wife." Although Fores of Piccadilly seems to have published many of our artist's prints during the last years of the eighteenth century, throughout his whole career RudolphAckermann remained his constant friend; to the suggestion of this latter was due the idea of a monthly publication, which gave Rowlandson regular employment in his later years, and resulted in the series of prints which I have just detailed, among which the quaint, angular form of Dr. Syntax, with his thin legs, black coat and breeches, and hooked nose, claims a prominent place.
These subjects lead us already into the early nineteenth century, and, as doing so, fall outside our present limit; but Rowlandson himself belongs in his art, as much as Bunbury or Gillray, to the earlier age. An artist of extraordinary genius, we have it on record that two successive Presidents of the Academy in his day, Sir Joshua Reynolds and Sir Benjamin West, in expressing their admiration of his drawings, added their opinion that, had he chosen a higher branch of art, he might have stood in the forefront of English contemporary painting. Instead of this he preferred to devote his genius and his best years to caricature, and in doing so, has bequeathed to us a rich and most precious heritage.
He was happy in his friendships. James Gillray was well known to him; George Morland, that brilliant artist with whom he had so much in common, Henry Angelo, whom he loved to depictamong his pupils of the foil ("Angelo's Fencing Room" and "Signora Cigali Fencing at Angelo's"), Bannister, and Ackermann the art publisher were among his intimates. He was less happy in the conduct of his life. Extravagance and carelessness were combined with a passion for gambling which made him a frequent figure in the fashionable playhouses of London; and these habits placed the fortune, which should have been his by industry and inheritance, beyond his reach. The legacy of £7000 bequeathed him by his French aunt, who had treated him so generously in his student days, was speedily dissipated in this way. Indeed, but for the frequent advice and assistance of his friend and publisher, Rudolph Ackermann, he might have found himself in serious difficulties; and the story runs that on one occasion he sat for thirty-six hours at the cards, and that on another, after losing all he had, he sat down coolly to his work and (raising that facile pencil of his) said, "Here is my resource." Thus it was that, after many years of fertile labour, he died a poor man in lodgings at the Adelphi, on the 22nd of April, 1827. His faithful friends of earlier days, Henry Angelo, Bannister, and Rudolph Ackermann, followed to his grave the last great caricaturist of the bygone century.
Old Joseph Nollekens and His VenusBy Thomas RowlandsonOLD JOSEPH NOLLEKENS AND HIS VENUS
In these pages we have traced together the record of that century in English Caricature; and if we have been compelled to note but hastily the lesser men, have, in so doing, at least gained breathing space to study four great and typical figures. We saw how William Hogarth, when he handles the graver as humourist and delineator of character, stands forth immortally great; how, when he sought to place himself at the head of the nascent English School, he fell beneath his own level. We saw in Henry William Bunbury the cultured artist, soldier, and man of society, the welcome guest in many a great country-house, who could bring his host's pretty daughters into some charming sketch, or take his part in the improvised theatricals; but whose prints have real humour, charm, and the sweet, wholesome breath of English country life. Then we watched Gillray tower aloft in political satire, and Rowlandson's pencil touch every side of life.
If we noticed at the same time a certain coarseness of fibre come to the surface in much of their work, finding expression often both in subject, and still more in treatment and in type, we must remember that this quality belongs not to the men alone, but to the age. The more sensitive modern may feel himself at first repelled rather than attracted, andmany a print of Rowlandson or Gillray find a place in hisIndex Expurgatorius; but the brutality of these men is the brutality of Nature in some of her moods, and their work, like Nature, fertile, fresh, and vigorous, attracts us (as all strong work will and must) the more we study it by its masterly drawing, its free, open humour, and often its high imaginative grasp.
Behind these men, these Masters of English Caricature, appears, never entirely absent from our thought, the history of the century, with its magnificent record of English achievement. Behind them, too, a corrective and a stimulant to their best effort, is that wonderful revelation of English eighteenth-century pictorial art. For just as when, in years to come, men think on that stirring epoch, the two wordsEnglandandLibertywill leap unbidden to their thought; so, too, in the record of the greatest epoch of our country's art, a place must be found for the English Caricaturists of the Eighteenth Century.
Footnotes:
[1] A fine collection of lithographs of Honoré Daumier (1808-1879) has this year been exhibited in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
[2] "The Works of William Hogarth, elucidated by Descriptions." By T. Clerk. London, 1810.
[3] "William Hogarth," by Austin Dobson; with a valuable technical introduction by Sir W. Armstrong. London, 1902.
[4] "Bartolozzi and his Pupils in England" (Langham Series). By Selwyn Brinton. London, 1903.
[5] "History of Caricature and of Grotesque in Art." By Thomas Wright, M.A., F.S.A. London, 1863.
[6] His "Englishman at Paris" even predates this by four years (1767). The British Museum etchings, to which I allude later, are early work, one even dating from his schooldays at Westminster!
[7]Op. cit.p. 63.
[8] I give a plate of this beautiful Eliza Farren (painted by Lawrence, engraved by Bartolozzi) in my work on Bartolozzi in this Series (facingp. 63). Gillray has an amusing print of the diminutive Lord Derby, standing on his coronet to admire himself in the glass.
[9] They are all enjoying their new diet under similar conditions. In Italy (perhaps the cleverest hit of all) the old Pope, seated, is having the bread shot into his open mouth from a French soldier's blunderbuss, while an assistant at the same moment neatly removes from his head the triple crown.
[10] Mme. Vigée le Brun, in her delightful memoirs, gives some justification to Gillray's severe treatment. Visiting Lady Hamilton soon after Sir William's death she found "this Andromache" draped in black, and extremely fat.
[11] In "Two-penny Whist" appear the worthy Mrs. Humphrey and her maid Betty; in "Push-pin" the Duke of Queensbury and the Duchess of Gordon.
[12]The Magazine of Art, 1901.
[13] Rudolph Ackermann occupies almost the same position to Rowlandson that Mistress Humphrey did to Gillray, as his early and faithful friend and principal publisher.
[14]Bartolozzi and His Pupils in England, p. 46.
[15]Rowlandson, the Caricaturist.By Joseph Grego. 1880.
Transcriber's Notes:
Missing quotation marks have been added. Otherwise text matches original printing.
Additional spacing after some of the quotes is intentional to indicate both the end of a quotation and the beginning of a new paragraph as presented in the original text.