Famous European Artists Part 22

"But a second casual visit presented me with a very different object; he was then painting the body, and in his sitting chair a very squalid beggar-woman was placed, with a child, not above a year old, quite naked, upon her lap. As may be imagined, I could not help testifying my surprise at seeing him paint the carnation of the G.o.ddess of beauty from that of a little child, which seemed to have been nourished rather with gin than with milk, and saying that 'I wondered he had not taken some more healthy-looking model;' but he answered, with his usual _navete_, that, 'whatever I might think, the child's flesh a.s.sisted him in giving a certain _morbidezza_ to his own coloring, which he thought he should hardly arrive at had he not such an object, when it was extreme (as it certainly was), before his eyes."

Among the many famous portraits of this year and the next was that of the Countess Waldegrave, Horace Walpole's beautiful niece Maria, afterwards d.u.c.h.ess of Gloucester. The earl was the most trusted friend of George II., and, for a short time, prime minister. Walpole mentions the countess being mobbed in the park one Sunday when in company with Lady Coventry, so that several sergeants of the guards marched before and behind them to keep off the admiring crowd. Also that of the beautiful Elizabeth Gunning, afterward d.u.c.h.ess of Argyle, and the sister of Admiral Keppel, afterwards Marchioness of Tavistock. "This is one of the painter's loveliest and best preserved female portraits. The dress is white, with a rose in the bosom, and the expression inimitably maidenly and gentle."

This year, Reynolds removed to a fine home in Leicester Square, where he remained as long as he lived, having a suburban home at Richmond Villa.

His own painting-room was octagonal, "about twenty feet long and sixteen in breadth. The window which gave the light to the room was square, and not much larger than one-half the size of a common window in a private house; whilst the lower part of this window was nine feet four inches from the floor. The chair for his sitters was raised eighteen inches from the floor, and turned on casters. His palettes were those which are held by a handle, not those held on the thumb. The stocks of his pencils were long, measuring about nineteen inches. He painted in that part of the room nearest to the window, and never sat down when he worked."

He had now raised his prices to twenty-five, fifty, and one hundred guineas for the three cla.s.ses of portraits,--head, half-length, and full-length, and his income from his work was thirty thousand dollars a year. He purchased, says Northcote, "a chariot on the panels of which were curiously painted the four seasons of the year in allegorical figures. The wheels were ornamented with carved foliage and gilding; the liveries also of his servants were laced with silver. But, having no spare time himself to make a display of this splendor, he insisted on it that his sister Frances should go out with it as much as possible, and let it be seen in the public streets to make a show, which she was much averse to, being a person of great shyness of disposition, as it always attracted the gaze of the populace, and made her quite ashamed to be seen in it. This anecdote, which I heard from this very sister's own mouth, serves to show that Sir Joshua Reynolds knew the use of quackery in the world. He knew that it would be inquired whose grand chariot this was, and that, when it was told, it would give a strong indication of his great success, and, by that means, tend to increase it."

The next year, Reynolds painted, among others, the Rev. Laurence Sterne, "at this moment the lion of the town, engaged fourteen deep to dinner, 'his head topsy-turvy with his success and fame,' consequent on the appearance of the first instalment of his 'Tristram Shandy.'" The picture is now in the gallery of the Marquis of Lansdowne, by whom it was purchased on the death of Lord Holland.

"Sterne's wig," writes Leslie, "was subject to odd chances from the humor that was uppermost in its wearer. When by mistake he had thrown a fair sheet of ma.n.u.script into the fire instead of the foul one, he tells us that he s.n.a.t.c.hed off his wig, 'and threw it perpendicularly, with all imaginable violence, up to the top of the room.' While he was sitting to Reynolds, this same wig had contrived to get itself a little on one side; and the painter, with that readiness in taking advantage of accident, to which we owe so many of the delightful novelties in his works, painted it so, for he must have known that a mitre would not sit long bishop-fashion on the head before him, and it is surprising what a Shandean air this venial impropriety of the wig gives to its owner....

"In 1768, Sterne lay dying at the 'Silk bag shop in Old Bond Street,'

without a friend to close his eyes. No one but a hired nurse was in the room, when a footman, sent from a dinner table where was gathered a gay and brilliant party--the Dukes of Roxburgh and Grafton, the Earls of March and Ossory, David Garrick and David Hume--to inquire how Dr.

Sterne did, was bid to go upstairs by the woman of the shop. He found Sterne just a-dying. In ten minutes, 'Now it is come,' he said, put up his hand as if to stop a blow, and died in a minute.

"His laurels--such as they were--were still green. The town was ringing with the success of the 'Sentimental Journey,' just published....

Sterne's funeral was as friendless as his death-bed. Becket, his publisher, was the only one who followed the body to its undistinguished grave, in the parish burial-ground of Marylebone, near Tyburn gallows-stand.... His grave was marked down by the body-s.n.a.t.c.hers, the corpse dug up, and sold to the professor of anatomy at Cambridge. A student present at the dissection recognized under the scalpel the face of the brilliant wit and London lion of a few seasons before."

In 1761, the year of the marriage and coronation of George III., Reynolds painted three of the most beautiful of the ten bridesmaids,--Lady Elizabeth Keppel; Lady Caroline Russell, "in half-length, sitting on a garden-seat, in a blue ermine-embroidered robe over a close white-satin vest. She is lovely, with a frank, joyous, innocent expression, and has a pet Blenheim spaniel in her lap--a love-gift, I presume, from the Duke of Marlborough, whom she married next year;" and Lady Sarah Lenox, whom George III. had loved, and would have married had not his council prevented. She married, six years later, Sir Joshua's friend, Sir Charles Bunbury, was divorced, married General Napier, and became the mother of two ill.u.s.trious sons, Sir William and Sir Charles. Four years later, Reynolds painted another exquisite picture of her "kneeling at a footstool before a flaming tripod, over which the triad of the Graces look down upon her as she makes a libation in their honor.... Lady Sarah was still in the full glow of that singular loveliness which, it was whispered, had four years ago won the heart of the king, and all but placed an English queen upon the throne. Though the coloring has lost much of its richness, the lakes having faded from Lady Sarah's robes, and left what was once warm rose-color a cold, faint purple, the picture takes a high place among the works of its cla.s.s--the full-length allegorical."

Five years after this, Lord Tavistock, a young man of rare promise, who had married Lady Keppel, was killed by falling from his horse. His beautiful wife never recovered from this bereavement, and died in a few months at Lisbon, of a broken heart.

All these years were extremely busy ones for the distinguished artist.

He disliked idle visitors, saying: "These persons do not consider that my time is worth, to me, five guineas an hour." He belonged to several literary and social clubs, and was a lifelong and devoted friend to such men as Edmund Burke, Johnson, and Goldsmith.

When he was ill, Johnson wrote him: "If the amus.e.m.e.nt of my company can exhilarate the languor of a slow recovery, I will not delay a day to come to you, for I know not how I can so effectually promote my own pleasure as by pleasing you, in whom, if I should lose you, I should lose almost the only man whom I call a friend."

Reynolds had now raised his prices to thirty guineas for a head, seventy for a half-length, and one hundred and fifty for a full-length, one half to be paid at the first sitting.

In 1766, when he was forty-three, a frequent visitor to the studio was Angelica Kauffman, the pretty Swiss artist, whom he usually enters in his notebooks as "Miss Angel," and whom it is believed he loved and wished to marry. She was, at this time, twenty-five years old, very attractive, and admired by everybody for her genius and loveliness.

Mrs. Ellet, in her "Women Artists," says: "At the age of nine, this child of genius was much noticed on account of her wonderful pastel pictures. When her father left Morbegno, in Lombardy, in 1752, to reside in Como, she found greater scope for her ingenious talent, and better instruction in that city; and, in addition to her practice with the brush and pencil, she devoted herself to studies in general literature and in music. Her proficiency in the latter was so rapid, and the talent evinced so decided, besides the possession of a voice unusually fine, that her friends, a few years afterward, urged that her life should be devoted to music. She was herself undecided for some time to which vocation she should consecrate her powers."

In the native city of her father, Schwarzenberg, Angelica painted in fresco the figures of the Twelve Apostles after copper engravings from Piazetta, an unusual work for a woman. After some years in Milan and Florence, Angelica went to Rome in 1763, where she painted the portrait of Winkelmann, then sixty years old, and other famous people, and was taken to London by the accomplished Lady Wentworth, wife of the British resident.

Here, says Mrs. Ellet, "she found open to her a career of brilliant success, productive of much pecuniary gain. Her talents and winning manners raised her up patrons and friends among the aristocracy. Persons attached to the court engaged her professional services, and the most renowned painter in England, Sir Joshua Reynolds, was of the circle of her friends.... She was numbered among the painters of the Royal Society, and received the rare honor, for a woman, of an appointment to a professorship in the Academy of Arts in London, being, meanwhile, universally acknowledged to occupy a brilliant position in the best circles of fashionable society."

Reynolds painted her portrait twice, and she painted his for his friend, Mr. Parker of Saltram. She was declared by some persons to be "a great coquette." Once she professed to be enamoured of Nathaniel Dance; to the next visitor she would disclose the great secret, "that she was dying for Sir Joshua Reynolds."

When at the height of her fame, either because she had refused a prominent lord, who sought to be revenged, or through the jealousy of another artist, a fearful deception was practised upon her.

"A low-born adventurer," says Mrs. Ellet, "who a.s.sumed the name of a gentleman of rank and character--that of his master, Count Frederic de Horn--played a conspicuous part at that time in London society, and was skilful enough to deceive those with whom he a.s.sociated. He approached our artist, who was then about twenty-six, and in the bloom of her existence. He paid his respects as one who rendered the deepest homage to her genius; then he pa.s.sed into the character of an una.s.suming and sympathizing friend. Finally, he appealed to her romantic generosity, by representing himself as threatened with a terrible misfortune, from which she only could save him by accepting him as her husband. A sudden and secret marriage, he averred, was necessary.

"Poor Angelica, who had shunned love on the banks of Como and under the glowing skies of Italy, and since her coming to London had rejected many offers of the most advantageous alliance, that she might remain free to devote herself to her art, was caught in the fine-spun snare, and yielded to chivalrous pity for one she believed worthy of her heart's affection. The marriage was celebrated by a Catholic priest, without the formality of writings and without witnesses.

"Angelica had received commissions to paint several members of the royal family and eminent personages of the court, and her talents had procured her the favorable notice of the Queen of England. One day, while she was painting at Buckingham Palace, her Majesty entered into conversation with her, and Angelica communicated to her royal friend the fact of her marriage. The queen congratulated her, and sent an invitation to the Count de Horn to present himself at court. The impostor, however, dared not appear so openly, and he kept himself very close at home, for he well knew that it could not be long before the deception would be discovered.

"At length, the suspicions of Angelica's father, to whom her marriage had been made known, led him to inquiries, which were aided by friends of influence. About this time, some say, the real count returned, and was surprised at being frequently congratulated on his marriage. Then came the mortifying discovery that the pretended count was a low impostor. The queen informed Angelica, and a.s.sured her of her sympathy.

"The fellow had been induced to seek the poor girl's hand from motives of cupidity alone, desiring to possess himself of the property she had acquired by her labors. He now wished to compel her to a hasty flight from London. Believing herself irrevocably bound to him, Angelica resolved to submit to her fate; but her firmness and strength of nature enabled her to evade compliance with his requisition that she should leave England, till the truth was made known to her--that he who called himself her husband was already married to another woman, still living.

This discovery made it dangerous for the impostor to remain in London, and he was compelled to fly alone, after submitting unwillingly to the necessity of restoring some three hundred pounds obtained from his victim, to which he had no right.

"The false marriage was, of course, immediately declared null and void.

These unhappy circ.u.mstances in no way diminished the interest and respect manifested for the lady who, in plucking the rose of life, had been so severely wounded by its thorns; on the contrary, she was treated with more attention than ever, and received several unexceptionable offers of marriage. But all were declined; she chose to live only for her profession....

"After fifteen years' residence in England, when the physician who attended her suffering father advised return to Italy, and the invalid expressed his fear of dying and leaving her unprotected, Angelica yielded to her parent's entreaties, and bestowed her hand upon the painter Antonio Zucchi."

He was then fifty-three, and she forty. He lived fourteen years after this, and the marriage seems to have been a happy one. Much of the time was spent in Rome, where Angelica became the friend of Goethe, Herder, and others. Goethe said of her: "The good Angelica has a most remarkable, and, for a woman, really unheard-of talent; one must see and value what she does, and not what she leaves undone. There is much to learn from her, particularly as to work, for what she effects is really marvellous.... The light and pleasing in form and color, in design and execution, distinguish the numerous works of our artist. No living painter excels her in dignity, or in the delicate taste with which she handles the pencil."

Her "Allegra" and "Penserosa," "Venus and Adonis," "The Death of Helose," "Sappho Inspired by Love," "Leonardo da Vinci dying in the arms of Francis I.," "The Return of Arminius," painted for Joseph II., and the "Vestal Virgin," are among her best known works. She died seven years after her husband, and, as at the funeral of Raphael, her latest pictures were borne after her bier. She was buried in St. Andrea della Fratte, and her bust was preserved in the Pantheon. Such is the sad history of the woman whom it is believed Reynolds loved, and wished to marry.

In 1768 the Royal Academy was founded, chiefly by the exertions of West, the painter, and Sir William Chambers. Reynolds was unanimously chosen its first president, and was immediately knighted by the king. He left a sitter to go to St. James's and receive the honor, and then returned to his sitter. When the president delivered his first discourse, probably on account of his deafness, he did not speak loud enough to be heard. A n.o.bleman said to him, "Sir Joshua, you read your discourse in a tone so low that I scarce heard a word you said."

"That was to my advantage," said Sir Joshua, with a smile.

Reynolds suggested the addition of a few distinguished honorary members to the Academy: Dr. Johnson, as professor of Ancient Literature; Goldsmith, professor of Ancient History, and others. Goldsmith wrote his brother, says Allan Cunningham, in his Life of Reynolds: "I took it rather as a compliment to the inst.i.tution than any benefit to myself.

Honors to one in my situation are something like ruffles to a man who wants a shirt."

Goldsmith was very fond of Reynolds, and dedicated to him his "Deserted Village," in these words: "I can have no expectations, in an address of this kind, either to add to your reputation or to establish my own. You can gain nothing from my admiration, as I am ignorant of the art in which you are said to excel, and I may lose much by the severity of your judgment, as few have a juster taste in poetry than you. Setting interest, therefore, aside, to which I never paid much attention, I must be indulged at present in following my affections. The only dedication I ever made was to my brother, because I loved him better than most other men. He is since dead. Permit me to inscribe this poem to you."

At the first exhibition of the Academy, among the pictures which attracted the most notice were Sir Joshua's Miss Morris as Hope nursing Love,--the lady was the daughter of a governor of one of the West-India Islands, and, going upon the stage as Juliet, was so overpowered by timidity that she fainted and died soon afterwards,--the d.u.c.h.ess of Manchester and her son, as Diana disarming Cupid; and pretty Mrs. Crewe, the daughter of Fulke Greville, whom he had painted at sixteen as Psyche, and at nineteen as St. Genevieve reading in the midst of her flock.

Tom Taylor says: "The Mrs. Crewe should cla.s.s as one of his loveliest pictures--most touching and pathetic in the expression given by the att.i.tude rather than the face; for the eyes are cast down on the book, and the features are nearly hidden by the hand which supports the head.

The landscape is beautiful in color, and powerfully relieves the figure, clothed in a simple white dress, the light of which is distributed through the picture by the sheep feeding or resting about their pretty shepherdess. Walpole notes the harmony and simplicity of the picture, and calls it, not unjustly, 'one of his best.'"

Each year, Reynolds's discourses were eagerly listened to at the Academy. "A great part of every man's life," he said, "must be spent in collecting materials for the exercise of genius. Invention is little but new combination. Nothing can come of nothing. Hence the necessity for acquaintance with the works of your predecessors. But of these, who are to be models--the guides?" The answer is, "Those great masters who have travelled with success the same road.... Try to imagine how a Michael Angelo or a Raphael would have conducted themselves, and work yourself into a belief that your picture is to be seen and observed by them. Even enter into a kind of compet.i.tion with these great masters; paint a subject like theirs; a companion to any work you think a model.

Test your own work with the model.... Let your port-crayon be never out of your hands. Draw till you draw as mechanically as you write. But, on every opportunity, _paint_ your studies instead of _drawing_ them.

Painting comprises both drawing and coloring. The Venetians knew this, and have left few sketches on paper.... Have no dependence on your own genius; if you have great talents, industry will improve them; if you have but moderate abilities, industry will supply their deficiency.

Nothing is denied to well-directed labor--nothing is to be obtained without it.... Without the love of fame you can never do anything excellent; but by an excessive and undistinguishing thirst after it you will come to have vulgar views; you will degrade your style, and your taste will be entirely corrupted.... I mention this because our exhibitions, while they produce such admirable effects by nourishing emulation and calling out genius, have also a mischievous tendency by seducing the painter to an ambition of pleasing indiscriminately the mixed mult.i.tude of people who resort to them."

To Barry, the artist, who was in Rome, he wrote: "Whoever is resolved to excel in painting, or indeed in any other art, must bring all his mind to bear upon that one object, from the moment he rises till he goes to bed. The effect of every object that meets the painter's eye may give a lesson, provided his mind is calm, unembarra.s.sed with other objects, and open to instruction. This general attention, with other studies connected with the art, which must employ the artist in his closet, will be found sufficient to fill up life, if it were much longer than it is.... Whoever has great views, I would recommend to him, whilst at Rome, rather to live on bread and water than lose those advantages which he can never hope to enjoy a second time, and which he will find only in the Vatican.... The Capella Sistina is the production of the greatest genius that was ever employed in the arts.... If you neglect visiting the Vatican often, and particularly the Capella Sistina, you will neglect receiving that peculiar advantage which Rome can give above all other cities in the world. In other places you will find casts from the antique, and capital pictures of the great masters, but it is _there_ only that you can form an idea of the dignity of the art, as it is there only that you can see the works of Michael Angelo and Raphael. If you should not relish them at first, which may probably be the case, as they have none of those qualities which are captivating at first sight, never cease looking till you feel something like inspiration come over you, till you think every other painter insipid in comparison, and to be admired only for petty excellences."

In 1770, Sir Joshua painted a picture called "The Babes in the Woods,"

which is now in the collection of Viscount Palmerston. Reynolds loved to find picturesque beggar children on the street, and would send them to his studio to be painted. Northcote says he would often hear the voice of a little waif, worn with sitting, say plaintively, "Sir,--sir,--I'm tired!"

"It happened once," says Leslie, "as it probably often did, that one of these little sitters fell asleep, and in so beautiful an att.i.tude that Sir Joshua instantly put away the picture he was at work on, and took up a fresh canvas. After sketching the little model as it lay, a change took place in its position; he moved his canvas to make the change greater, and, to suit the purpose he had conceived, sketched the child again. The result was the picture of the 'Babes in the Wood.'"

This year, Sir Joshua brought the thirteen-year-old daughter, Theophila, of his widowed sister, Mrs. Palmer, to live with him in London, and three years later her elder sister, Mary, who afterward became the Marchioness of Th.o.m.ond. He painted Theophila, called Offy, as "A Girl Reading," at which the young miss was offended, saying, "I think they might have put 'A Young Lady.'"

Sir Joshua offered to take to his home the sons of his other sister, Mrs. Johnson--he had not forgotten how these two sisters had loaned him money when he was poor--but Mrs. Johnson declined his offer, fearing the temptations of London, and being greatly opposed to her brother's habit of painting on Sundays. One son went into the church and died young; another went to India, and Reynolds took great interest in his welfare.

Later, two of Mrs. Johnson's daughters lived with Sir Joshua.

In 1773, he painted and exhibited "The Strawberry Girl," which represents Offy Palmer, creeping timidly along, and looking anxiously around with her great black eyes. Sir Joshua always maintained that this was one of the "half-dozen original things" which he said no man ever exceeded in his life's work. Later the picture was purchased by the Marquis of Hertford for ten thousand five hundred dollars.

F. S. Pulling, of Exeter College, Oxford, says, in his Life of Sir Joshua: "What a love Reynolds had for children, childless though he was himself! What a marvellous knowledge of their ways, and, even of their thoughts! With the peer's son or the beggar's child it was the same. The most fastidious critic finds it impossible to discover faults in these child portraits; the whole soul of the painter has gone into them, and he is as much at home with the gypsy child as with little Lord Morpeth.

As Mr. Stephens well observes, 'Reynolds, of all artists, painted children best ... knew most of childhood, depicted its appearances in the truest and happiest spirit of comedy, entered into its changeful soul with the tenderest, heartiest sympathy, played with the playful, sighed with the sorrowful, and mastered all the craft of infancy.... His 'Child Angels' was not painted till 1786. It consists of simply five different representations of the same face, that of Frances Gordon. The perfect loveliness of this picture is beyond dispute.... These are human faces, it is true, but can you imagine any purer, more innocent, more gentle faces?... I, for one, am perfectly content to accept these faces as those of the most lovely beings G.o.d ever created."

A picture of a nymph with a young Bacchus, really the portrait of the beautiful young actress, Mrs. Hartley, "whose lovely face and lithe, tall, delicate figure had rapidly won for her the leading place at Covent Garden," is now in the possession of Mr. Bentley, who refused an offer of ten thousand dollars for it.