THE name of Joseph Wright, of Derby, once of high repute among English Artists, has, during the last half-century and more, sunk, altogether undeservedly, into a state of semi-oblivion. The Exhibition at Derby in 1883 did, indeed, something to restore its fame, and it is to be hoped that the present work may do yet more. Both book and exhibition owe their existence mainly to the exertions of Mr. Bemrose, who in this matter may be said to have been moved by a triple love—the love of art, the love of family, and the love of locality. By his kindness I am allowed here to aid in doing justice to an artist of whom not only Derby, but England, should be proud.
Even if such a feat were possible, I should have no wish to compare accurately the merits of Wright with those of his forerunners and contemporaries. It will, however, be generally acknowledged that between such names as Hogarth, Reynolds, Gainsborough, and Wilson, and such as West, Northcote, Barry, and Hamilton, there is a gap—sensibly to be felt. In this gap, but nearer to the greater than to the lesser men, a place has of late years been found for Romney. It is but a modest claim for Wright that the same distinction should be accorded to him.
As a painter, his method, in relation to that of Reynolds and Gainsborough, may be said to have been old-fashioned. His pure, precise touches, his level surface, and clear enamelled colours, have not, indeed, the variety of texture or the inspired freedom of a Franz Hals. His practice was nearer to that of Van der Helst, and a host of other illustrious artists to whom clear, clean, work was dear. Through Kneller, and Hogarth, and Hudson, it came to him from Holland; and if he did not reform it, he mastered it, and left his mark upon it. As a colourist, he was scarcely an innovator; but he was still less of a copyist. In this and most other respects a “naturalist,” he did not allow a preference for certain harmonies to dominate his work; but though his colour missed the charm of inspiration, it never failed in harmony. Hehad the colour sense, and a command of the whole scale. In his candle-light pieces the prevailing hues were determined by his subject; but the way in which he united the blazing reds and yellows of the central glare to the rich browns of his transparent shadows, warmed and cooled these shadows with gleams of red coat and glimmers of blue sash and white dress, and from the ruddy glow of the chamber to the cool night outside, led the eye, untired, showed rare taste, as well as skill. If we take his portraits by ordinary light, we find the same fine power. The group of Mr. Newton’s children, with its blue boy, its olive-green boy, and its girl in white and gold, set off with rich green foliage and clusters of ripe cherries, is a masterpiece of colour. In these daylight portraits, all the favourite colours of the dress of the period are introduced and reconciled. The hues and textures of the buff waistcoat, the “nankeen” breeches, the puce slip, the cinnamon coat, and the pink shoes, are imitated with the same sure skill, the same artistic impartiality. Only in regard to one colour do we find a decided preference, and this is neither the blue of Gainsborough nor the red of Reynolds, but what may be called the green of Wright. Probably no other artist has treated this colour with such variety. It tinges those bladders of which he was so fond; we find it lightly in the stone-coloured coat of Mr. Cheslyn, and deeply in the arm of his chair; in pale cucumber the artist robed his pitiful “Maria”; and from that fine picture of himself in the National Portrait Gallery we learn that it was green that he elected to wear in his youth when he wished to look particularly spruce.
Of his effects of artificial light there is the less need to speak, since what reputation he now preserves is founded upon them. The engravings after Wright by Earlom, J. R. Smith, Val. Green, Pether, and others, are still sought after, and the “Air Pump” is in the National Gallery for all who wish to see. It may, however, be doubted whether due recognition has, as yet, been given to the largeness of design and the dignified simplicity of pose and gesture which lend an almost classic style to such pictures as “The Orrery,” “The Air Pump,” and “The Gladiator.” The Exhibition of 1883, while it confirmed the reputation of such pictures, showed also that his rank as a portrait painter was much higher than was supposed. In this branch of art we find him submitting himself to his subject, and seeking rather to express than to adorn it. He brings you, as few artists do, into the presence of his sitters. As if alone and at ease, unconscious of observation, they, whether men, women, or children, are all engaged with their own thoughts and employments, just as they might have been seen any day in library or garden. Many men of celebrity, not only local, he painted—Arkwright and Whitehurst, Darwin and Strutt; but the charm of his portraits does not depend on the fame of the sitter, but on the power of the artist to seize a distinct individuality, and to make each likeness for ever interesting as an authentic image of a fellow-man. Unsophisticated by fashion or affectation, Wright’s portraits are history in its simplest and truest form.
Of the pure charm of his children, some of the illustrations to this volume, especially Mr. Seymour Haden’s painter-like etching of the “Twins,” will speak. Sir Joshua painted children with more spirit and with a livelier eye for fleeting charms of expression; but no artist has painted them more freshly and truly than Wright. Another admirably suggestiveetching by Mr. Haden shows us the elegance of mien and grace of sentiment which he could infuse into his more poetical designs. His versatility was remarkable; but his culture, partly, perhaps, on account of his secluded life, partly from his ill-health, left many of his faculties undeveloped, and his imagination was crossed by a vein of ingenuity which made him delight rather in resolving problems than in indulging fancy. Nevertheless, the “Minstrel” and the “Maria” are as good reflections as exist of that somewhat thin but elegant strain of poetic sentiment which was in vogue in his day. He has in these pictures preserved its gentleness and grace without its falseness. A deeper note of pathos (and pathos unstrained) is touched in the once famous “Dead Soldier.” In his “Death and the Woodman” we find extreme terror depicted with all the force of the most modern realist; and if he did not—(who did?)—prove himself equal to the interpretation of Shakespeare, there is in Boydell’s Gallery no finer head than that of his “Prospero.”
It will seem strange to many that Wright should in his day have ranked even higher as a landscape painter than as a painter of men, but his fireworks and conflagration effects were a novelty, and were executed with a skill which must have then seemed astonishing. Now, perhaps, even if they were done with the superior genius of a Turner, we should not care overmuch for them. His more ordinary scenes from nature were sometimes almost as good as Wilson’s, but generally wanted the warmth and the air of that fine artist, and his composition was apt to be too palpably ingenious.
Nevertheless, all abatement made, he was an original and able landscape painter, and when we add this to his other claims, and remember how thoroughly sincere his art was, how distinct his personality, it seems hard that the latest History of English Art should not even mention his name. True, it was written by a foreigner; and it is probable that if M. Chesneau had visited Derby two years ago he would have awarded Wright an honourable place among those artists whom he calls the Old Masters of England.
COSMO MONKHOUSE.