Sir Joshua Reynolds Part 6

Our thoughts of angels are naturally connected with thoughts of children. Jesus once spoke of the little ones as those whose angels always behold the face of the heavenly Father. Their innocence is the best type we have on earth of the purity of beings of a higher sphere.

Often when we try to describe the beauty of some little child, we use the word angelic.

This explains why Sir Joshua Reynolds when called to paint the portrait of a little girl conceived the pretty fancy of the picture of Angels' Heads.[11] The child's fair face suggested that of an angel.

She had golden hair and blue eyes, and a very sweet little mouth. It was a face which was so charming from every point of view that he painted it in five positions. Grouping the heads in a circle, he added wings after the manner of the cherubs of the old Italian masters, surrounded them with clouds, and lighted the composition with a broad ray of light streaming diagonally across the canvas.

[Footnote 11: Originally called A Cherub Head in Different Views.]

The child's hair falls about the face in straight dishevelled locks, and it is not easy to tell at once whether it is a boy or a girl. In reality the original was little Miss Frances Isabella Ker Gordon, only child of Lord William Gordon and his wife Frances.

In each position of the five heads the expression varies, and looking from one to another, we may trace through the series the child's changing moods. Let each face tell its own story, and perhaps we may learn something of the workings of the mind behind it.

Here at the lower left side the child suddenly sees some new object, a strange bird or flower, and fixes her eyes upon it. She has a wide awake, inquiring mind, quick to notice all that life has to offer, and she is now in an observing mood. The expression of the face just above is very thoughtful and perhaps a little puzzled. Life brings many hard questions to the serious child, and this is one of the little girl's pensive moods. The two upper faces at the right show quite another expression. The lips of both are parted, and they seem to be singing.

One is reminded of the rapturous faces sometimes seen among choir boys when the music lifts them out of their surroundings. All childish troubles and questions are forgotten, as the two faces, flooded with light, seem to look into the glory of heaven.

And now the head is turned and the child gazes directly out of the picture with far-seeing eyes. The expression is of perfect contentment. It will be noticed that the position of the last head is precisely like that of Master Bunbury, and there are points of resemblance between the two faces. The mood and expression are, however, quite unlike in the two children. The boy's eyes are directed towards some actual object, but the eyes of the child here are those of a dreamer fixed upon some vision of the imagination.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ANGELS' HEADS]

A portrait study like the Angels' Heads combines in a novel way the many-sided character of the child. The mother watching a little daughter from day to day feels that she has half a dozen little girls in one. A romp, a chatterbox, a living question mark, a philosopher, a dreamer, a veritable angel, all these and many more change places rapidly in the child's mood. She is taken to the photographer's for her portrait, and the negative shows only a sober little face intently anxious to look pleasant. A more fortunate photographer may perhaps catch her expression of eager interest as some curious new toy is shown her. But that innocent smile of happiness that comes into her face when singing, or that far-away look of the dreamer which she wears in the quiet twilight, is quite beyond the photographer's skill.

Reynolds knew the secret of representing these rarer and more delicate expressions. He was by nature a true lover of children, and many years of experience had taught him to understand their ways. Lady Gordon must have felt rich indeed to have instead of one commonplace picture five of the dearest faces her little girl could show, preserved on a single canvas.

It is true that something of the child's individuality is lost by the sacrifice of the figure. When we look at the other child portraits of our collection we notice how much is expressed in the att.i.tude and gesture of which we here have no indication. Yet the picture shows how truly the face is "a mirror of the soul," and as an interpretation of the child's mind it is unique among Reynolds's works.

The original picture is painted in very delicate colors, and is one of the best preserved of Reynolds's canvases. Miss Frances died unmarried in 1831, and ten years later her mother presented the picture to the English National Gallery.

VIII

THE d.u.c.h.eSS OF DEVONSHIRE AND HER CHILD

Georgiana, the d.u.c.h.ess of Devonshire, was one of the most celebrated beauties of her time. She was the daughter of the Earl of Spencer, and was married[12] at the age of seventeen to William, Duke of Devonshire, "the first match in England".

[Footnote 12: March 28, 1774.]

The young d.u.c.h.ess was as clever as she was beautiful. She was fond of history, music and drawing, and she wrote verses both in French and English.[13] She was an ardent admirer of the great Johnson, and in a circle of his listeners hung with breathless interest upon his conversation. Her charming manners, her wit, wealth, and rank drew a host of admirers about her, and she became the leader of English society. Whatever the d.u.c.h.ess of Devonshire did, or whatever the d.u.c.h.ess of Devonshire wore, at once became the fashion. She opened the fashionable b.a.l.l.s, she was a leading spirit in the Ladies' Club, and she set the standard for the height of headdresses and the length of feathers!

[Footnote 13: A long poem by the d.u.c.h.ess was "The Pa.s.sage over Mt.

Gothard," celebrated in Coleridge's Ode to Georgiana.]

She was not content with merely social triumphs, but her influence reached even into politics. Her most remarkable political exploit was to secure the reelection of Charles James Fox to Parliament (1784) from the borough of Westminster. For this she has sometimes been called "Fox's d.u.c.h.ess," but she is usually known as "the beautiful d.u.c.h.ess."

Sir Joshua Reynolds was among the fortunate number upon whom the beautiful d.u.c.h.ess bestowed her smiles. He had first painted her portrait in her girlhood and again as a young wife but two years married (1776). He was afterwards often honored with invitations to her house and enjoyed the hospitality of her brilliant entertainments.

At length (June, 1784) a daughter was born to the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Devonshire, whom they christened Georgiana Dorothy. The parents were so happy in their baby that the mother founded a charitable school in her honor. The child was a winning little creature, round and rosy and full of spirits. When she was about two years old the d.u.c.h.ess again called her former portrait painter's services into use, desiring a picture of herself and daughter.

By this time, the girlish beauty of the d.u.c.h.ess had faded, and her slender figure had become somewhat stout. But the new grace of motherhood was now added to her other charms. As she had been the model of fashion for all the ladies of England in matter of dress, she now became a model of motherhood for their imitation. Fashionable women usually gave over the care and nourishment of their children to nurses, but the d.u.c.h.ess of Devonshire took upon herself these tender maternal duties. Thus mother and child were constantly together and became boon companions. The d.u.c.h.ess had a very lively nature, and a child could not wish a gayer playmate.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE d.u.c.h.eSS OF DEVONSHIRE AND HER CHILD]

It is in one of their merry romps together that the painter has represented them. The mother is sitting on a sofa with the child on her knee, and the two are playing the old game of Ride a c.o.c.k Horse to Banbury Cross. To and fro on her imaginary steed swings the little rider, supported by the encircling arm of the mother. It is rare sport, and the child kicks her bare feet and throws up her chubby arms gleefully. We can fancy we hear the baby voice gurgling with delight, and the mother smiles at the child's pleasure.

Some years afterward, the poet Coleridge, writing an ode to the beautiful d.u.c.h.ess, pays a tribute to her motherhood which forms a fitting comment on our picture:--

"You were a mother! at your bosom fed The babes that loved you.

You, with laughing eyes, Each twilight thought, Each nascent feeling read Which you yourself created."

It is interesting to compare the picture with that of Lady c.o.c.kburn and her Children which we have already studied. The lighting is managed in the same way, a curtain being drawn aside at the right, that we may look beyond the parapet into the open.

It is an important principle in art that in representing any inclosed s.p.a.ce like the interior of a room, there should be some device for increasing the length of the perspective. The imagination delights in distance, and feels imprisoned where there is no opening in an inclosure.

The princ.i.p.al lines of this composition run diagonally from corner to corner, intersecting in the centre. Some of these are so clearly defined that we can easily trace them. One extends from the uplifted right hand of the d.u.c.h.ess across the slanting line of her bodice and along the lower edge of the child's frock. The lines of her left arm run parallel with this. In the other direction the uplifted arms of the baby, as well as the edge of the curtain, indicate the lines which cross these.

IX

HOPE

We have naturally come to think of Reynolds as chiefly a portrait painter. It was, indeed, by his work in portraiture that his name ranks among the great masters. Yet he made various interesting excursions into other fields. We may see what charming fancy pictures he sometimes painted in Cupid as Link Boy and The Strawberry Girl.

Historical pictures he also attempted, but not so successfully.

Religious and allegorical subjects he tried occasionally, and it is to ill.u.s.trate his work of this kind that our picture of Hope is chosen.

The figure is a part of a large decorative scheme for a stained window. The central compartment is devoted to the subject of the Nativity, and shows a group of the Virgin mother with the Christ child in the manger, Joseph and the angels. In imitation of Correggio's famous painting of the same subject, called the _Notte_, the light of the picture proceeds from the Babe. Two smaller compartments on either side are filled with shepherds coming to worship. Below is a series of seven panels, containing the figures of Faith, Hope, and Charity, and the four cardinal virtues--Temperance, Justice, Fort.i.tude, and Prudence.

This plan of subjects was made by Reynolds early in 1778, to meet an order from New College, Oxford, for a window design to be executed for their chapel. Hope was one of the first figures that he painted, and in 1779 he was ready to exhibit, at the Royal Academy, the Nativity, with Faith, Hope, and Charity.

The three fundamental elements of Christian character have been a.s.sociated together ever since the fifteenth chapter of first Corinthians was written. Artists and poets have had a fashion of personifying them as allegorical figures. Certain symbols have even been invented to correspond to each--the cross for faith, the anchor for hope, and the heart for charity. Thus the imagination has been called to the aid of religion in impressing Christian teaching.

Reynolds tried to put into this figure the various qualities which make up our thought of hope. A pretty young woman steps forth from a region of clouds and lifts her face and hands towards the light.

Through an opening in the sky a broad beam of sunshine falls upon her.

Following its direction, she seems to be looking through the opening into some glad vision beyond. Like the figure of Hope in Swinburne's sonnet, she

"Looks G.o.dward, past the shades where blind men grope Round the dark door that prayers nor dreams can ope, And makes for joy the very darkness dear."

In the lower left-hand corner we may barely make out the portion of an anchor. The meaning of the old symbol is that hope keeps the soul firm, as an anchor holds the ship. The face of which we have a glimpse is girlish and innocent; the figure is full of buoyancy. The left arm and the uplifted hands are very delicately modelled.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HOPE]

In a painting of this kind the artist is free to follow his own bent in the matter of dress, no longer hampered, as in his portraits, by the follies of fashion. It is delightful to see here the exquisite simplicity of the gown falling in long, beautiful lines. The only adornment is a gauzy scarf, twisted about the bodice and falling on each side in spiral folds. One is reminded of the swirling scarfs in our American Vedder's designs, having, as here, a purely decorative purpose in the scheme. The hair is gathered up on the head in a loose knot, from which the end escapes in a curl.

We are not looking here for any strong delineation of character, as in a portrait, and the painter did not even think it worth while to show much of Hope's face. The panel is to be studied as a work of decorative art, and its beauty lies in its scheme of color, the contrast of light and shade, and the graceful patterns traced by the lines. These are drawn in long flowing curves. The strongest are those which run from the upper left to the lower right corner, to emphasize the motion of the figure towards the left. The outline of the cloud billows which separate the light from the darkness are counter curves cutting across diagonally.