English Painters Part 1

English Painters.

by Harry John Wilmot-Buxton.

PREFACE.

This brief sketch of the rise and progress of Painting in England has been drawn from a variety of sources. The little that can be traced of artistic work previous to the end of the fifteenth century does not fill many pages. Ignorance, carelessness, and "iconoclastic rage" all contributed to the defacement of paintings which we have every reason to believe at one time abounded in our churches and public buildings, as they did at the same period in Italy; and there is good evidence that some of our early English artists are not to be despised.

Our forefathers were too much engaged in the rough contests of war to care much for the arts of peace. In the sixteenth century several foreign artists of more or less celebrity were induced to visit and stay in England. Foremost of these was Holbein, and to his example English artists are deeply indebted. In the next century there were a few excellent miniature painters, whose work is not to be surpa.s.sed at the present day, and then came a succession of foreigners--Rubens and Van Dyck from Flanders, Lely and Kneller from Germany, and a host of lesser men, who seem to have in a great measure monopolized portrait painting--then in vogue among the n.o.bility--for more than a hundred years.

Early in the eighteenth century came Hogarth, followed by Reynolds, Gainsborough and Romney, and from that time to the present, Art has year by year progressed, till now English Painters have become a recognised power in the state, and contribute, in no small degree, to the enlightenment, pleasure and refinement of the age.

H.J.W.-B.

_November_, 1882.

CHAPTER I.

EARLY ENGLISH ART.

The current English school of art is a creation of a comparatively modern date. It is a mistake, however, to a.s.sume that there were no native painters in England under the Plantagenets, and that we were entirely dependent on foreigners for such art as we possessed. The little care which has been taken of early English pictures and their destruction, sometimes accidental, sometimes wilful, have led many to imagine that ancient England had no art of her own. It has been customary to imagine that in Italy alone, in the thirteenth century, existed the Renaissance and growth of modern design. Later research has, however, shown that the Renaissance in painting was not the sudden creation of Giotto, nor that of sculpture the work of Niccola Pisano.

The Renaissance in Italy was a gradual growth, and there was in England and in other countries a similar Renaissance, which was overlooked by those whose eyes were fixed on Italy. It has been shown that there were English artists, contemporaries of Giotto and Pisano, whose works were as good as any paintings or sculptures which the Italians produced in the thirteenth century. It is quite true that we know very little of these Englishmen. Some gave themselves to illumination, and produced delicate representations of human beings, as well as of animals, leaves, and flowers. In the British Museum there are several ma.n.u.scripts of a very early date, which are ornamented with paintings undoubtedly by English artists. The Duke of Devonshire possesses a ma.n.u.script, the _Benedictional of St. Ethelwold_, written between A.D. 963 and 970, and illuminated, with thirty drawings, by a monk of Hyde Abbey, named G.o.dEMAN, for Ethelwold, Bishop of Winchester. It is a folio of 119 leaves of vellum, 11-1/2 inches in height by 8-1/2 in width. Other artists painted and gilded the images of wood or stone by their brother craftsmen, and were cla.s.sed in the humble category of _Steyners_. They devoted much of their time to heraldic devices, and by degrees pa.s.sed from the grotesque to the natural, and produced what were styled _portraits on board_. Painting on gla.s.s was a favourite art in this early period, and, although the artists had no more n.o.ble t.i.tle than that of _Glaziers_, some of their works survive to prove their merits.

Many of these craftsmen combined the arts of the painter, sculptor, or "marbler," and architect. Among these obscure pioneers of English art was WILLIAM TORELL, a goldsmith and citizen of London, supposed to be descended from an English family whose name occurs in Domesday Book.

Torell modelled and cast the effigy of Henry III. for his tomb in Westminster Abbey, as well as three effigies of Eleanor of Castile, about A.D. 1291. These latter works were placed in Westminster Abbey, Blackfriars' Monastery, and Lincoln Cathedral. The figures in Westminster Abbey show the dignity and beauty of the human form, and are masterpieces of a n.o.ble style. The comparison between the effigy of Margaret of Richmond, executed for Henry VII.'s Chapel by the Florentine Torrigiano, and the figures by Torell, is decidedly in favour of the latter. No work in Italy of the thirteenth century excels in beauty these effigies by the English sculptor. At an earlier period than this, during the life of Henry III., some English artists, as well as foreigners, were employed to embellish the cathedrals and palaces of the King. These native craftsmen, who seem to have been at once artists, masons, carvers, upholsterers, or sometimes tailors,[A] are mostly forgotten, but we can trace the names of MASTER EDWARD of Westminster, or Edward Fitz Odo--probably the son of Odo, goldsmith to Henry III.--MASTER WALTER, who received twenty marks "for pictures in our Great Chamber at Westminster," and MASTER JOHN of Gloucester, who was plasterer to the King. The names of the "imaginators" of Queen Eleanor's Crosses are also well known. The early pictorial art of England has been so neglected or forgotten, that it is commonly said to have commenced with the portrait painters of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FROM ST. ETHELWOLD'S BENEDICTIONAL. _By_ G.o.dEMAN, A MONK OF HYDE ABBEY. A.D. 970.

_An Illuminated MS. in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire_.]

Ignorance, indifference, and bigotry have destroyed, or suffered to perish, the paintings which adorned the walls of almost every church, and the panels of nearly every rood-screen, hundreds of years before the date a.s.signed to the English school. In Kempley Church, Gloucestershire, the walls appear to have been painted early in the twelfth century with large figure subjects. Those in the chancel are in a good state of preservation, and represent the vision in the Apocalypse, and Christ in majesty, attended by the twelve apostles and the saints, painted in life size. In Chaldon Church, Surrey, the chancel walls are ornamented with subjects ill.u.s.trating the _Scala humanae Salvationis_, works apparently of the twelfth century, which, though necessarily rude, are as good as any Italian examples of the same period. In Westminster Abbey there is an important series of small paintings by an English artist contemporary with Cimabue. These pictures once formed the chief ornaments of a frontal, and belonged to the high altar.[B] The work in question consists of a rectangular piece of framed and richly panelled wood-work, about eleven feet long by three feet high. The general design consists of three central figures painted under canopies. On each side are four star-shaped panels filled with painted groups of figures; beyond these on each side is another single figure under a canopy. The wood is covered with fine stucco, or _gesso_, to the thickness of cardboard, as is always the case with old paintings on panels, and generally when on stone. The pictures still extant on the frontal comprise, in the centre, a figure of Christ in the act of benediction, holding an orb in His left hand. At the right hand is the Virgin Mary, bearing her emblem of the lily; on our left is St. John, with a book; on our right is St. Peter, with the keys. In the star-shaped panels we find the miracles of the raising of Jairus's daughter, the loaves and fishes, and the restoration of the blind man. These figures, though somewhat like those of the early Florentine school, possess a character of their own, and are undoubtedly English. The well-known portrait of _Richard II_. (died 1400), now in the Abbey at Westminster, is believed to have been painted by an English artist of the fourteenth century. The figure of the King is of large life size, seated in a coronation chair. He is in royal robes, with the globe in one hand and sceptre in the other. This picture for many years hung near the altar.

The history of art in England during the reigns of Edward I. and Edward II. is a blank; probably men were too busy with swords and bucklers to turn to the gentle arts of painting and sculpture. The reign of Edward III. shows a revival in art and letters, and the patron of Chaucer adorned the Chapel of St. Stephen, Westminster, with the best works of native artists. The fire of 1834, which destroyed the old Houses of Parliament, almost obliterated these interesting relics. The walls of the chapel were painted in oil colours with scriptural and historic episodes on the prepared surface of the stonework. There seems to have been at this period a method, peculiar to London, of producing a blue colour, which is mentioned in a German MS. of the fourteenth century as "the London practice." It is noticeable that a blue colour can still be traced in the relics saved from St. Stephen's. The Society of Antiquaries has published coloured copies of the paintings which adorned the chapel. When we recall the state of England at the period which succeeded the death of Edward III., the turbulence of the feudal barons, the constant lawlessness and blood-shedding, and the ignorance which prevailed even among the upper cla.s.ses, we cannot wonder that art made little progress. Some advance doubtless took place, but we look in vain for originality among the artists who were alternately employed to decorate a baron's pageant, or adorn an altar.

There is a good portrait of _Henry IV._, removed from Hampton Court, Herefordshire, and now at Ca.s.siobury.

To the reign of Henry V., or at latest to the early days of Henry VI., belongs the earliest authentic specimen of historical portraiture in England. It represents _Henry V. and his Relations_, painted on wood, less than life size, and was at one time the altar-piece of Shene Church. The portraits which were attempted in the troublous period of the Wars of the Roses, though unlovely and ghastly to look upon, show that art was gradually emerging from the fetters of monastic teaching, where bad pupils copied bad masters, and reproduced saints and angels, whose want of form and symmetry was atoned for by a liberal allowance of gilding. A fairly expressive portrait of _Richard III._, which must have been painted about this time by a very capable artist, is among the treasures of Knowsley. In the well-known tapestry in St. Mary's Hall, Coventry, there is a representation of King Henry VI. kneeling before the altar, attended by Cardinal Beaufort, the Duke of Gloucester, and many courtiers, in which the drawing will bear comparison with similar work executed in Italy or Flanders at the same time. This tapestry was probably made at Arras, from English designs.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ARTHUR, PRINCE OF WALES. [B. 1486. D. 1502.]

_From a Miniature at Windsor Castle_.]

The gradual spread of knowledge at this period induced the English n.o.bility to promote the adornment of ma.n.u.scripts, chiefly Missals and Romances of Chivalry. These pictures comprise the best specimens of English later mediaeval art, and in richness and delicacy of colour they closely approach oil paintings. With the discovery of printing came a check to the art of illuminating ma.n.u.scripts, and the wild fanaticism of the first Reformers led them to burn at once the religious manuals of Rome, and the wit and wisdom of poet or philosopher. To these ruthless iconoclasts we owe the obscurity in which early English pictorial art remains. It must have been during the later years of the reign of Henry VII. that two miniatures, now at Windsor Castle, were painted, probably for the King. One represents _Arthur, Prince of Wales_, who, at the age of fifteen, married Catherine of Aragon; the other is his brother, who became Henry VIII. (_See Engravings_.)

In the reign of Henry VI. there was an artist of note, undoubtedly an Englishman, who may not be pa.s.sed in silence. This was William Austen, sculptor, to whom we owe the monument ("in fine latten," _i.e._ bra.s.s) of Richard, Earl of Warwick, in the Church of St. Mary, Warwick, a work which Flaxman somewhat courageously considered equal to the productions of Austen's Italian contemporaries, Ghiberti and Donatello.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER II.

ENGLISH ART IN THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES.

The period of the Renaissance found all eyes directed to Italy, and presently England welcomed a number of foreign artists who became the teachers, more or less worthy, of our countrymen. Henry VII. was fonder of money than of art, yet he invited several of these strangers to England; but there are no grounds for supposing, though it is frequently stated, that Mabuse was among the number. Among the foreign artists of this period who visited England, were GERRARD LUCAS h.o.r.eBOUT, or HORNEBOLT, of Ghent (1475--1558), who was employed by Henry VIII., and probably by his predecessor; and SUSANNAH h.o.r.eBOUT, daughter of Gerrard Lucas, a miniature painter, is said to have married an English sculptor named Whorstley. Durer, in his journal, says of her, "it is a great wonder a woman should do so well." Henry VIII. was as lavish as his father had been careful of money; naturally fond of display, and jealous of the magnificence of Francis I. and Charles V., the King became a liberal patron of artists. He is said to have invited Raphael, Primaticcio, and t.i.tian to visit England, but if so, the invitations were declined. Among lesser names, however, we find that of ANTONIO TOTO, who came here in 1531, and was appointed Serjeant-Painter to the King. None of his works is now recognised. GIROLAMO DA TREVISO is supposed to have designed the historic painting of the _Field of the Cloth of Gold_, formerly at Windsor, and now in the possession of the Society of Antiquaries at Burlington House.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HENRY, PRINCE OF WALES. [B. 1491. D. 1547.] AFTERWARDS KING HENRY VIII.

_From a Miniature at Windsor Castle_.]

LUCAS CORNELISZ of Leyden (1493--1552), son of Cornelis Engelbrechtsen, came to England and entered the service of the King. It is said that he taught Holbein in some branches of art, and, as he survived the great painter of Augsburg for nine years, it is _possible_ that some of the works attributed to Holbein after 1543 were painted by him.

Henry VIII. seems to have had two other Serjeant-Painters besides Antonio Toto, and previous to the coming of Holbein. These were ANDREW WRIGHT and JOHN BROWN, whose names proclaim them to be natives. These artists or craftsmen had positions of trust and honour, wore a special dress, and received a weekly wage. Jan van Eyck had a similar post as _varlet de chambre_ to Philippe le Bon. It was the age of pageants, and one great duty of the King's artists was to adorn these singular spectacles. Among the archives of the Church of St. Mary Redcliffe, Bristol, is the following curious notice of a religious pageant held at a somewhat earlier date:--

"Memorandum: That Master c.u.mings hath delivered, the 4th day of July, in the year of Our Lord 1470, to Mr. Nicholas Bettes, Vicar of Radcliffe, Moses Couteryn, Philip Bartholomew, and John Brown, procurators of Radcliffe, beforesaid, a new sepulchre, well gilt, and cover thereto; an image of G.o.d rising out of the same sepulchre, with all the ordinance that longeth thereto: that is to say--Item, a lath, made of timber, and iron work thereto. Item, thereto longeth Heaven, made of timber and stained cloth. Item, h.e.l.l, made of timber and iron work, with devils in number thirteen.

Item, Four knights, armed, keeping the sepulchre, with their weapons in their hands, that is to say, two axes, and two spears.

Item, Three pair of angels' wings; four angels, made of timber, and well painted. Item, the Father, the crown, and visage; the ball, with a cross upon it, well gilt with fine gold. Item, the Holy Ghost coming out of heaven into the sepulchre. Item, Longeth to the angels four chevelers."

[Ill.u.s.tration: NICOLAS KRATZER: ASTRONOMER TO HENRY VIII. _By_ HANS HOLBEIN. DATED 1528.

_In the Louvre_.]

It is not surprising that art made little progress whilst it was mainly directed to the painting and gilding of timber angels and of solid devils for a h.e.l.l of iron and wood-work. Things were not much better in the reign of Henry VIII. His love of ostentation made him fond of pageants, and the instructions which he left for his own monument are curious. "The King shall appear on horseback, of the stature of a goodly man while over him shall appear the image of G.o.d the Father holding the King's soul in his left hand, and his right hand extended in the act of benediction." This work was to have been executed in bronze, but was never finished. Elizabeth stopped the necessary payments, and the uncompleted figure was sold by an unsentimental and Puritan Parliament for 600. The influence of the Reformation was decidedly antagonistic to art in England and elsewhere. In attempting to reform, the leaders tolerated destruction, and whilst pretending to purify the church they carried away not only the "idols," but much that was beautiful. They literally "broke down the carved work thereof with axes and hammers."

Pictures and altar-pieces were ruthlessly destroyed. Fortunately a considerable number of old paintings still exist in our churches. A little work on "Wall Paintings in England," recently published by the Science and Art Department, mentions five hundred and sixty-eight churches and other public buildings in England in which wall paintings and other decorations have been found, all dating from an earlier period than the Reformation, and there are doubtless many not noticed. The branch of art which suffered least from the iconoclastic Reformers was that of portrait-painting, and this received a great impetus in England by the opportune arrival of--

HANS HOLBEIN, the younger, of Augsburg (1497--1543), who came, in 1526, with a recommendation from Erasmus to Sir Thomas More, by whom he was welcomed and entertained at Chelsea. Unlike Albrecht Durer, the other great German painter of the Reformation epoch, Holbein was a literal painter of men, not a dreamer haunted by visions of saints and angels.

His ideas of heaven were probably modelled far more on the plan of the Bristol pageant, than on that of the Italian masters. Such an artist came exactly at the right moment to England, where Protestantism was becoming popular. Holbein's wonderful power as a colourist and the fidelity of his likenesses exercised a lasting effect on English art. He founded no school, however, though he had many imitators among the foreign artists whom Henry had invited.[C]

[Ill.u.s.tration: EDWARD, PRINCE OF WALES, AFTERWARDS KING EDWARD VI.

_By_ HOLBEIN.

_From a Miniature in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire._]

In 1532 Holbein was made Painter to the King, with a salary of 34 a year, in addition to the payment given for his works. The chief pictures painted by Holbein in England are portraits; and tradition says that Henry specially employed him to delineate the features of any fair lady on whom he had cast a favourable eye. Among the portraits we may mention those of _Nicolas Kratzer_, _Erasmus_, _Anne of Cleves_, and _Sir Richard Southwel_ (in the Louvre); _Archbishop Warham_ (Lambeth Palace); _Sir Henry Guildford_, a _Merchant of the Steelyard_, and _Lady Rich_ (Windsor); _Lady Vaux_ and _John Reskimer_ (Hampton Court); _Henry VIII._; the _d.u.c.h.ess of Milan_[D] (Arundel Castle); _Sir William_ and _Lady b.u.t.ts_ (Mr. W. H. Pole Carew); _The Amba.s.sadors_, a most important work, and _Erasmus_ (Lord Radnor, Longford Castle). There is at Windsor a series of eighty portraits of the English n.o.bility, drawn by Holbein in black and red chalks, which are of infinite value as works of art; and at Windsor likewise, and in other galleries, are many carefully painted miniatures ascribed to him, of the greatest artistic and historic value.

Hans Holbein, like most artists of his age, could do more than paint portraits. At Basle are n.o.ble subject pictures by him. He was an architect, a modeller, and a carver. He was specially gifted in designing wood-blocks for ill.u.s.trating books, and in the ornamentation of sword-hilts, plate, and the like. A book of designs for jewels, by Holbein, once the property of Sir Hans Sloane, is now in the British Museum. Holbein died of the plague, in London, between October 7th and November 29th, 1543.

Another painter in the service of King Henry VIII. at this time was the above-named GIROLAMO PENNACCHI, who was born at Treviso, in 1497. He was an imitator of Raphael, and painted portraits--chiefly at Genoa, Faenza, Bologna, and Venice, and in 1542 came to England. He was killed by a cannon-ball while acting as a military engineer in the King's service near Boulogne, in 1544. There is an altar-piece by him, signed IERONIMVS TREVISIVS P (No. 623 in the National Gallery.) In the "Old Masters"

Exhibition of 1880, was a portrait of _Sir T. Gresham_ (No. 165), a fine whole-length, standing, life-size picture of the famous merchant, with a skull on the pavement at our left. This work is dated 1544, the year of Sir Thomas's marriage, in his twenty-sixth year, and, as we have seen above, of Treviso's death. It is the property of the Gresham Committee of London, and every expert has accepted it as a work of the Italian painter, engineer, and architect, who was important enough to be honoured with a separate biography by Vasari in his "Lives of the Painters." Girolamo's salary from the English King was 400 scudi per annum. Much likeness exists between the art of Gresham's portrait and that of the masterly life-size, whole-length picture of the _Earl of Surrey_, with his motto, _Sat super est_, which is one of the chief ornaments of Knole, and almost worthy of Velasquez himself. This picture (which is dated 1546) is attributed to the undermentioned GWILLIM STRETES (or STREET). It is much more like an Italian production than a Dutch one, and so fine that Da Treviso might have painted it at his best time. It is not like the beautiful portraits of _Edward VI._ at Windsor and Petworth, which are exactly such as we attribute to a man in Stretes's position, and which, while differing from the productions of Holbein, are, technically speaking, by no means unworthy of him. The charming Windsor portrait of _Edward VI._ was No. 172 in the National Portrait Exhibition of 1866. In the same collection were more works of the same period, including the portrait of _Henry VIII._, No. 124, lent by the Queen.