Art in England Part 11

IV.

In 1785 he received a medal from the Society of Arts for his crayon drawing of 'Raphael's Transfiguration.' In 1787, being then seventeen, he exhibited seven pictures at the Royal Academy. He painted his own portrait, and wrote concerning it to his mother, 'To any but my own family I certainly should not say this; but, excepting Sir Joshua for the painting of the head, I would risk my reputation with any painter in London.' The picture was broadly painted, three-quarter size, with a Rembrandtish effect, as Sir Joshua detected when the canvas was shown to him. 'You have been looking at the old masters; take my advice and study nature.' He dismissed the young artist with marked kindness, however. In 1789, Martin Archer Shee described him as 'a genteel, handsome young man, effeminate in his manner;' adding, 'he is wonderfully laborious, and has the most uncommon patience and perseverance.' About this time he painted the Princess Amelia, and Miss Farren, the actress, afterwards Countess of Derby, 'in a white satin cloak and m.u.f.f;' and full-length portraits of the King and Queen, to be taken out by Lord Macaulay as presents to the Emperor of China. In 1791 he was, at the express desire, it was said, of the King and Queen, after one defeat, admitted an a.s.sociate of the Royal Academy by a suspension of the law prohibiting the admission of an a.s.sociate under the age of twenty-four. He was opposed by many of the academicians, and bitterly attacked by Peter Pindar.

Dr. Wolcot was especially angry at the alleged interference of royalty in the election. In his satiric poem _The Rights of Kings_, he expostulates ironically with certain academicians who ventured to oppose the nominee of the Court:--

'How, sirs, on majesty's proud corns to tread!

Messieurs ACADEMICIANS, when you're dead, Where can your impudences hope to go?

'Refuse a monarch's mighty orders!

It smells of treason--on rebellion borders!

'S death, sirs! it was the Queen's fond wish as well, That _Master_ LAWRENCE should come in!

Against a queen so gentle to rebel!

This is another crying sin!

'Behold, his majesty is in a pa.s.sion, Tremble, ye rogues, and tremble all the nation!

Suppose he takes it in his, royal head To strike your academic idol dead-- Knock down your house, dissolve you in his ire, And strip you of your boasted t.i.tle--"SQUIRE."[21]

'Go, sirs, with halters round your wretched necks, Which some contrition for your crime bespeaks, And much-offended majesty implore: Say, piteous, kneeling in the royal view, "Have pity on a sad abandoned crew, And we, great king, will sin no more; Forgive, dread sir, the crying sin, And _Mister_ LAWRENCE shall come in!"'

[21] The diplomas of the Academicians const.i.tuted them ESQUIRES. In the last century this designation was conferred and employed by society with more scrupulousness than obtains at present.

The academicians had, it seems, in the first instance, elected FRANCIS WHEATLEY, painter of rural and domestic subjects, in preference to Lawrence. There had been then sixteen votes for Wheatley, and but three for Lawrence.

'Yet opposition, fraught to royal wishes, Quite counter to a gracious king's commands, Behold the ACADEMICIANS, those strange fishes, For WHEATLEY lifted their unhallowed hands.

So then, these fellows have not leave to crawl, To play the spaniel lick the foot and fawn.'

Etc. etc. etc.

In 1792, he attended the funeral of Sir Joshua in St. Paul's Cathedral, when Mr. Burke attempted to thank the members of the Academy for the respect shown to the remains of their president, but, overcome by his emotions, was unable to utter a word. In 1795, Mr. Lawrence was elected a full member of the Academy, having previously succeeded Sir Joshua as painter in ordinary to the King--Benjamin West being elected to the presidential chair.

'Sir Joshua,' writes Northcote in his _Life of Reynolds_, 'expected the appointment [of painter in ordinary] would be offered to him on the death of Ramsay, and expressed his disapprobation with regard to soliciting it; but he was informed that it was a necessary point of etiquette with which he complied, and seems to have pleased Johnson by so doing.'

Burke, reforming the King's household expenses, had reduced the salary of King's painter from 200 to 50 per annum. But the office was nevertheless a valuable source of emolument, derived in great part from the number of State portraits of the sovereign, required, by usage, for the adornment of certain official residences, and the duty and profit of executing which devolved, as of right, on the painter in ordinary. Thus the mansion of every amba.s.sador of the crown, in the capital of the foreign court to which he was accredited, exhibited in its reception rooms whole-length portraits of the King and Queen of England. And these works were not fixtures in the official residence, but were considered as gifts from the sovereign to the individual amba.s.sador, and remained his property--his perquisites on the cessation of his diplomatic functions. Each new appointment among the _corps diplomatique_, therefore, brought grist to the mill of the painter in ordinary in the shape of a new commission for a royal whole-length, usually a _replica_ of a previous work, but to be charged and paid for according to the artist's usual scale of prices for original pictures. When Reynolds, late in his career, accepted the appointment, its pecuniary advantages were a matter of indifference to him, or he did not care to be for ever reduplicating or reproducing the 'counterfeit presentment' of the sovereign, and a fashion sprung up of compensating the amba.s.sador with a fixed sum of money, the estimated market value of the royal portrait; his excellency not being in the least unwilling to accept the specie in lieu of the picture. But Lawrence did not find it expedient to follow Sir Joshua's example. He claimed a right to execute the portraits, however numerous, of the sovereign, let the diplomatists be ever so willing to take money instead. This claim was admitted, and he reaped large profits accordingly.[22]

[22] See _Life of Sir M.A. Shee_, vol. i. p. 441.

Add to his unquestionable art-abilities, that he was courtly in manner, an accomplished fencer and dancer, with a graceful figure and a handsome face; that he possessed an exquisitely modulated voice; and large, l.u.s.trous expressive eyes--the light in which seemed to be always kindling and brilliant.

George the Fourth, indeed, p.r.o.nounced him 'the most finished gentleman in my dominions.' And then, though he had abandoned all thought of the stage as a means of obtaining profit, there was nothing to prevent his distinguishing himself in back drawing-rooms as an unprofessional player. He was certified by no less a person than Sheridan to be 'the best amateur actor in the kingdom.' Lawrence had greatly distinguished himself in that respect at a theatrical _fete_ given by the Marquis of Abercorn in 1803. 'Shall I give you an account of it?' writes the painter to his sister. 'It was projected by a woman of great cleverness and beauty--Lady Caher.... It was determined to do it in a quiet way, and more as an odd experiment of the talents of the party than anything else; but this and that friend would be offended; and at last it swelled up to a perfect theatre (in a room), and a London audience. The Prince, the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Devonshire, Lord and Lady Melbourne, their sons, Lord and Lady Ess.e.x, Lord and Lady Amherst, with a long _et cetera_, and, amongst the rest, Sheridan, were present.' The plays performed were _The Wedding Day_, and _Who's the Dupe?_ Lawrence represented Lord Rakeland in the one, and Grainger in the other. The orchestra was behind the scenes. Lady Harriet Hamilton played the organ, Lady Maria the piano; Lady Catherine the tambourine, the Honourable Mr.

Lamb the violoncello; other instrumentalists were hired--'a most perfect orchestra--with admirable scenery, and light as day.' 'The Prince then came in, and of course the orchestra struck up "G.o.d save the King." Then a little terrifying bell rang--the curtain drew up--and _The Wedding Day_ began. At first, I will own to you, Sheridan's face, the grave Duke of Devonshire, and two or three staunch critics, made me feel unpleasantly: for I opened the piece. However, this soon wore off; our set played extremely well--like persons of good sense without extravagance or buffoonery, and yet with sufficient spirit. Lady Caher, Mr. J. Madox, and G. Lamb were the most conspicuous--the first so beautiful that I felt love-making very easy. A splendid supper closed the business.' Lawrence seems to have fancied that the propriety of his joining in the theatricals might be questioned. Although his father and mother had both been dead some years, their admonitions in respect of his old love for the stage were still sounding in his ears. So he writes with an air of apology to his sister--his senior by some years--'You know me too well, dear Anne, to believe that I should be of such a scheme under any but very flattering circ.u.mstances; as it is, I was right to join in it. Lord Abercorn is an old Jermyn Street friend--a staunch and honourable one, and particularly kind to me in real services and very flattering distinctions. These all formed one strong reason for joining in the thing; and another secret one was, that whatever tends to heighten a character for general talent (when kept in prudent bounds) is of use to that particular direction of it which forms the pursuit of life. I have gained, then, and not lost by this (to you) singular step.

I am not going to be a performer in other families. I stick to Lord Abercorn's: and for the rest I pursue my profession as quietly and more steadily than ever.' Certainly Lawrence seemed a likely man to achieve successes, both social and artistic. And he _did_ succeed unquestionably.

Byron did not criticise leniently his contemporaries, but he records in his diary: 'The same evening (he is writing of the year 1814) I met Lawrence the painter, and heard one of Lord Grey's daughters play on the harp so modestly and ingenuously, that she looked music. I would rather have had my talk with Lawrence, who talked delightfully, and heard the girl, than have had all the fame of Moore and me put together. The only pleasure of fame is, that it paves the way to pleasure, and the more intellectual the better for the pleasure and us too.'

V.

It is clear that Mr. Hoppner, 'portrait-painter to the Prince of Wales,'

had no mean opponent in Mr. Lawrence, 'portrait-painter in ordinary to His Majesty.'

For a time the rivalry was continued in a spirit of much moderation. The painters were calm and forbearing, and scrupulously courteous to each other. Lawrence was too gentle and polite ever to breathe a word against his antagonist, if, indeed, he did not respect his talents too highly to disparage them. Perhaps he was conscious that victory would be his in the end; as Hoppner might also have a presentiment that he was to be defeated. He was of a quick temper; was a husband and a father; entirely dependent on his own exertions, though he could earn five thousand a year easily when fully employed. But certainly the innkeeper's son was stealing away his sitters: even his good friends the Whigs. He chafed under this. He began to speak out. He denounced Lawrence's prudent abstinence from all political feeling as downright hypocrisy. He thought it cowardice "to side with neither faction, and be ready and willing to paint the faces of both." And then he commenced to talk disrespectfully of his rival's art. He claimed for his own portraits greater purity of look and style. 'The ladies of Lawrence,' he said, 'show a gaudy dissoluteness of taste, and sometimes trespa.s.s on moral as well as professional chast.i.ty.' This was purposed to be a terrible blow to Lawrence. Of course there was plenty of repet.i.tion of the remark, and people laughed over it a good deal. But in the end it injured Hoppner rather than Lawrence. The world began to wonder how it was that the painter to the purest court in Europe should depict the demure and reputable ladies of St. James's with such glittering eyes and carmine lips--a _soupcon_ of wantonness in their glances, and a rather needless undraping of their beautiful shoulders; while the painter to the Prince was bestowing on the giddy angels of Carlton House a decency that was within a little of dull, a simplicity that was almost sombreness, a purity that was prudery! The beauties of George III.'s court were not displeased to be pictorially credited with a levity they did not dare to live up or down to; and the ladies of the Prince's court, too honest to a.s.sume a virtue they had not, now hastened to be represented by an artist who appeared so admirably to comprehend their allurements. Poor Mr. Hoppner was deserted by the Whig ladies; he had only now the Whig lords to paint: unless he took up with landscape art, for which he had decided talent, as many of the backgrounds to his pictures demonstrate.

He grew peevish and irritable. He took to abusing the old masters, and cried out at the neglect of living men. Examining a modern work, he would say: 'Ay, it's a n.o.ble picture, but it has one d.a.m.ning defect--it's a thing of _to-day._ Prove it to be but two hundred years old, and from the brush of a famous man, and here's two thousand guineas for it.' Northcote tells of him: 'I once went with him to the hustings, to vote for Home Tooke, and when they asked me what I was, I said, "A painter." At this Hoppner was very mad all the way home, and said I should have called myself "a portrait-painter." I replied that the world had no time to trouble their heads about such distinctions.'

Hoppner now produced but few pictures, and these met with small success.

He looked thin and haggard, talked incoherently, gave way to bitter repinings and despondency. He resented and misinterpreted, as has been shown, Lawrence's inquiries as to his health. Certainly there is every appearance of feeling in Lawrence's letter, where he writes to a friend, 'You will be sorry to hear it. My most powerful compet.i.tor, he whom only to my friends I have acknowledged as my rival, is, I fear, sinking to the grave. I mean, of course, Hoppner. He was always afflicted with bilious and liver complaints (and to these must be greatly attributed the irritation of his mind), and now they have ended in a confirmed dropsy. But though I think he cannot recover, I do not wish that his last illness should be so reported by me. You will believe that I can sincerely feel the loss of a brother-artist from whose works I have often gained instruction, and who has gone by my side in the race these eighteen years.' Hoppner died on the 23d January 1810, in the fifty-first year of his age. To quote Lawrence's letters again: 'The death of Hoppner leaves me, it is true, without a rival, and this has been acknowledged to me by the ablest of my present compet.i.tors; but I already find one small misfortune attending it--namely, that I have no sharer in the watchful jealousy, I will not say hatred, that follows the situation.' A son of Hoppner's was consul at Venice, and a friend of Lord Byron's in 1819.

'Hoppner,' says Haydon, 'was a man of fine mind, great n.o.bleness of heart, and an exquisite taste for music; but he had not strength for originality. He imitated Gainsborough for landscape, and Reynolds for portraits.' He held Northcote, Sir Joshua's pupil, however, in great aversion. 'I can fancy a man fond of his art who painted like Reynolds,'

Hoppner would say; 'but how a man can be fond of art who paints like that fellow Northcote, Heaven only knows!' There was no love lost between them. 'As to that poor man-milliner of a painter Hoppner,' said Northcote, 'I hate him, sir, I ha-a-ate him!'

According to Haydon, he was bilious from hard work at portraits and the hara.s.s of fashionable life. And his post of portrait-painter to the Prince had its trials. The Carlton House porter had been ordered to get the railings fresh painted. In his ignorance the man went to Hoppner to request his attention to the matter. Wasn't he the Prince's painter?

Hoppner was furious!

VI.

The factions of Reynolds and Romney lived again in the rivalry of Hoppner and Lawrence. The painters appeared to be well matched. Hoppner had the advantage of a start of ten years, though this was nearly balanced by the very early age at which Lawrence obtained many of his successes. Hoppner was also a handsome man, of refined address and polished manner; he, too, possessed great conversational powers, while in the matter of wit and humour he was probably in advance of his antagonist. He was well read--'one of the best-informed painters of his time,' Mr. Cunningham informs us--frank, out-spoken, open-hearted, gay, and whimsical. He had all the qualifications for a social success, and was not without some of those 'Corinthian' characteristics which were indispensable to a man of fashion, from the Prince of Wales's point of view. With Edrige, the a.s.sociate miniature-painter, and two other artists, he was once at a fair in the country where strong ale was abounding, and much fun, and drollery, and din. Hoppner turned to his friends. 'You have always seen me,'he said, 'in good company, and playing the courtier, and taken me, I daresay, for a deuced well-bred fellow, and genteel withal. All a mistake. I love low company, and am a bit of a ready-made blackguard.' He pulls up his collar, twitches his neckcloth, sets his hat awry, and with a mad humorous look in his eyes, is soon in the thickest of the crowd of rustic revellers. He jests, gambols, dances, soon to quarrel and fight. He roughly handles a brawny waggoner, a practised boxer, in a regular scientific set-to; gives his defeated antagonist half a guinea, rearranges his toilet, and retires with his friends amidst the cheers of the crowd. It is quite a Tom-and-Jerry scene. Gentlemen delighted to fight coal-heavers in those days. Somehow we always hear of the gentlemen being victorious; perhaps if the coal-heavers could tell the story, it would sometimes have a different _denouement_. Unfortunately for Hoppner, he had to use his fingers, not his fists, against Lawrence--to paint him down, not fight him.

He was a skilful artist, working with an eye to Sir Joshua's manner, and following him oftentimes into error, as well as into truth and beauty.

Ridiculing the loose touches of Lawrence, he was frequently as faulty, without ever reaching the real fascination of his rival's style. He had not the Lawrence sense of expression and charm; he could not give to his heads the vivacity and flutter, the brilliance and witchery, of Sir Thomas's portraits. They both took up Reynolds's theory about it being 'a vulgar error to make things too like themselves,' as though it were a merit to paint untruthfully. And painting people of fashion, they had to paint--especially in their earlier days--strange fashions; and an extravagant, and fantastic, and meretricious air clings as a consequence to many of their pictures; for the Prince of Wales had then a grand head of hair (his own hair), which he delighted to pomatum, and powder, and frizzle; and, of course, the gentlemen of the day followed the mode; and then the folds and folds of white muslin that swathed the chins and necks of the sitters; and the coats, with fanciful collars and lapels; and the waistcoats, many-topped and many-hued, winding about in tortuous lines. It is not to be much marvelled at that such items of costume as 'c.u.mberland corsets,' 'Petersham trousers,' 'Brummel cravats,'

'Osbaldistone ties,' and 'Exquisite crops,' should be only sketchily rendered in paint. Of course, Mr. Opie, who affected thorough John Bullism in art, who laid on his pigments steadily with a trowel, and produced portraits of ladies like washerwomen, and gentlemen liking Wapping publicans--of course, unsentimental, unfashionable Mr. Opie denounced the degeneracy of his compet.i.tor's style. 'Lawrence makes c.o.xcombs of his sitters, and they make a c.o.xcomb of him.' Still 'the quality' flocked to the studios of Messrs. Hoppner and Lawrence, and the rival easels were long adorned with the most fashionable faces of the day.

VII.

For twenty years Lawrence reigned alone. After the final defeat of Napoleon, the artist was commissioned by the Regent to attend the congress of sovereigns at Aix-la-Chapelle, and produce portraits of the princ.i.p.al persons engaged in the great war. These European portraits--twenty-four in number--now decorate the Waterloo Hall at Windsor. In 1815 he was knighted by the Regent; in addition he was admitted to the Academy of St. Luke in Rome, and became in 1817 a member of the American Academy of the Fine Arts, an honour he repaid by painting and presenting to the Academy a portrait of their countryman Benjamin West. The Academies of Venice, Florence, Turin, and Vienna subsequently added his name to their roll of members, while, through the personal interposition of King Christian Frederick, he was presented with the diploma of the Academy of Denmark. He was nominated a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in France, George IV. giving him permission to wear the cross of the order. Charles X. further presented the painter with a grand French clock nearly two feet high, and a dessert service of Sevres porcelain, which Sir Thomas bequeathed to the Royal Academy. From the Emperor of Russia he received a superb diamond ring of great value; from the King of Prussia a ring with his Majesty's initials, F.R., in diamonds. He also received splendid gifts from the foreign ministers a.s.sembled at Aix-la-Chapelle, and from the Archd.u.c.h.ess Charles and Princess Metternich at Vienna; from the Pope a ring and a colosseum in mosaic with his Holiness's arms over the centre of the frame; from the Cardinal Gonsalvi, besides other presents, a gold watch, chain, and seals of intaglios, and many beautiful bon-bon boxes of valuable stones set in gold; gold snuff-boxes, etc.; a breakfast set of porcelain from the Dauphin in 1825, with magnificent casts and valuable engravings from Canova at Rome. Was ever painter so feted and glorified! And then he had been, on the death of West, in 1820, elected to the presidentship of the Academy. 'Well, well,' said Fuseli, who growled at everything and everybody, but was yet a friend to Lawrence, 'since they _must_ have a face-painter to reign over them, let them take Lawrence; he can at least paint eyes!' In 1829, he exhibited eight portraits; but his health was beginning to decline. He died on the 7th June 1830. He had been painting on the previous day another portrait of George IV. in his coronation-dress.

'Are you not tired of those eternal robes? asked some one.

'No,' answered the painter; 'I always find variety in them--the pictures are alike in outline, never in detail. You would find the last the best.'

In the night he was taken alarmingly ill. He was bled, and then seemed better; but the bandage slipped--he fell from his chair into the arms of his valet, Jean Duts, a Swiss.

'This is fainting,' said the valet, in alarm.

'No, Jean, my good fellow,' Sir Thomas Lawrence politely corrected him, 'it is dying.' And he breathed his last.

VIII.

The obsequies of the departed President were of an imposing kind. His remains were removed from his house in Russell Square to Somerset House.

There the body was received by the Council and officers of the Academy, and deposited in the model-room, which was hung with black cloth and lighted with wax candles in silver sconces. At the head of the coffin was raised a large hatchment of the armorial bearings of the deceased; and the pall over the coffin bore escutcheons of his arms, wrought in silk. The members of the Council and the family having retired, the body lay in state--the old servant of the President watching through the night the remains of his master.

The body was interred in St. Paul's Cathedral, in the 'Painters' Corner'

of the south crypt, near the coffins of the former Presidents, Reynolds and West. The Earl of Aberdeen, Earl Gower, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Dover, Sir George Murray, the Right Honourable J.W. Croker, Mr. Hart Davis, and Earl Clanwilliam were pall-bearers. Etty, who followed with the other academicians, writes: 'Since the days of Nelson there has not been so marked a funeral. The only fine day we have had for a long time was _that_ day. When the melancholy pageant had entered the great western door, and was half way up the body of the church, the solemn sound of the organ and the anthem swelled on the ear, and vibrated to every heart. It was deeply touching.... The organ echoed through the aisles.

The sinking sun shed his parting beams through the west window--and we left him alone. Hail, and farewell!'