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THE 
 
 CABINET GALLERY OF PICTURES, 
 
 SELECTED FROM 
 
 THE SPLENDID COLLECTIONS OF ART, 
 
 PUBLIC AND PRIVATE, WHICH ADORN 
 
 GREAT BRITAIN; 
 
 WITH 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL DESCRIPTIONS 
 
 BY 
 
 ALLAN CUNNINGHAM. 
 
 1834 . 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 JOHN MAJOR, FLEET STREET. 
 GEORGE AND WILLIAM NICOL, PALL-MALL 
 
PBIXTfiD BY WILLIAM NICOL, CLEVELAND ROW, ST. JAMES S 
 
TO THU; 
 
 KING’S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY 
 THE PATRON, 
 
 THE PRESIDENT, THE DEPUTY PRESIDENT, 
 
 AND 
 
 THE GOVERNORS, 
 
 OF 
 
 THE BRITISH INSTITUTION 
 
 FOR PROMOTING THE FINE ARTS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM, 
 
 THIS WORK, 
 
 INTENDED BY ITS CHEAPNESS, AS WELL AS ITS EXECUTION, TO ASSIST 
 IN DIFFUSING A GENUINE TASTE FOR THE STYLE OF PAINTING AND 
 ENGRAVING EXHIBITED BY THE GREAT MASTERS OF EITHER ART, 
 
 IS, 
 
 WITH THE CONFIDENCE OF ITS DESERVING THEIR 
 DISTINGUISHED PATRONAGE, 
 
 MOST RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED 
 
 BY THEIR OBEDIENT HUMBLE SERVANTS, 
 
 THE PUBLISHERS 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Bacchus and Ariadne, 
 
 Titian. 
 
 Christ in the Sepulchre, 
 
 Guercino. 
 
 The Market Cart, 
 
 Gainsborough. 
 
 Landscape, 
 
 Claude. 
 
 The Holy Family, 
 
 Reynolds. 
 
 Puck, - - - 
 
 Reynolds. 
 
 Portrait of Gevartius, 
 
 Vandyke. 
 
 Death of Chatham, 
 
 Copley. 
 
 Landscape, 
 
 R. Wilson. 
 
 W. H. Worthington. 
 A. Duncan. 
 
 H. Robinson. 
 
 F. Mansell. 
 
 W.' H. Worthington. 
 C. Marr. 
 
 W. H. Worthington. 
 F. C. Nicholson. 
 
 F. J. Havell. 
 
 St. John in the Wilderness, _ _ _ 
 
 A. Caracci. W. H. Worthington. 
 
 Dutch Lady, - - 
 
 F. Boll. E. Smith. 
 
 Landscape, _ _ _ _ _ _ 
 
 Gainsborough. W. R. Smith. 
 
 A Brisk Gale, 
 
 W. Vandevelde. 
 
 J. H. Kernot. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Portrait of Queen Henrietta, _ _ . 
 
 Vandyke. H. Watt. 
 
 Page 83 
 
 The Farm Yard, 
 
 Teniers. 
 
 F. J. Havell. 
 
 87 
 
 Landscape, . _ _ 
 
 Salvator Rosa. 
 
 J. T. Wedgwood. 
 
 93 
 
 Cephalus and Aurora, 
 
 N. Poussin. 
 
 C. Marr. 
 
 99 
 
 Mrs, Siddons as the Tragic Muse, 
 
 Reynolds. E. Smith. 
 
 - 103 
 
 Dutch Village, 
 
 Ruysdael. 
 
 W. Chevalier. 
 
 109 
 
 St. Martin dividing his Cloak, 
 
 Rubens. W. H. Worthington. 
 
 115 
 
 Landscape, _ _ _ 
 
 G. Poussin. 
 
 W. Radeliffe. 
 
 - 119 
 
 Christ and St. Peter, 
 
 A. Caracci. 
 
 H. Robinson. 
 
 125 
 
 Landscape and Figures, 
 Rubens. 
 
 F. J. Havell. 
 
 - 131 
 
 The Market Girl, 
 
 Morland. 
 
 C. Marr. 
 
 - 137 
 
 The Water Mill, 
 
 Ruysdael. 
 
 J. H. Kernot. 
 
 - 141 
 
 The Holy Family, 
 
 Baroccio. 
 
 A. Duncan. 
 
 - 145 
 
 Sea Port, _ _ _ 
 
 Claude. 
 
 W. R. Smith. 
 
 151 
 
 Spanish Peasant Boy, 
 Murillo. 
 
 W. H. Watt. 
 
 157 
 
 Landscape, - _ _ 
 
 Loutherbour^^ 
 
 F. J. Havell. 
 
 163 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Bacchus and Ariadne, _ - - - Page 1 
 
 Titian. 
 
 W. H. Worthington. 
 
 
 Christ in the Sepulchre, 
 Guercino. 
 
 A. Duncan. 
 
 9 
 
 The Market Cart, 
 
 Gainsborough. 
 
 H. Robinson. 
 
 - 15 
 
 Landscape, _ _ _ 
 
 Claude. 
 
 F. Mansell. 
 
 25 
 
 The Holy Family, 
 
 Reynolds. 
 
 W. H. Worthington. 
 
 - 31 
 
 Puck, - - - - 
 
 Reynolds. 
 
 C. Marr. 
 
 35 
 
 Portrait of Gevartius, 
 Vandyke. 
 
 W. H. Worthington. 
 
 43 
 
 Death of Chatham, 
 
 Copley. 
 
 F. C. Nicholson. 
 
 - 49 
 
 Landscape, . - . 
 
 R. Wilson. 
 
 F. J. Havell. 
 
 55 
 
 St. John in the Wilderness, 
 A. Caracci. 
 
 W. H. Worthington. 
 
 59 
 
 Dutch Lady, 
 
 F. Boll. 
 
 E. Smith. 
 
 - G5 
 
 Landscape, _ _ _ 
 
 Gainsborough. 
 
 W. R. Smith. 
 
 71 
 
 A Brisk Gale, 
 
 W. Vandevelde. 
 
 J. H. Kernot. 
 
 77 
 
 J. H. Kernot. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Portrait of Queen Henrietta, _ _ - Page 83 
 
 Vandyke. W. H. Watt. 
 
 The Farm Yard, ------ 87 
 
 Teniers. F. J. Havell. 
 
 Landscape, - - - - - - - 93 
 
 Salvator Rosa. J. T. Wedgwood. 
 
 Cephalus and Aurora, - - - - - 99 
 
 N. Poussin. C. Marr. 
 
 Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse, - - - 103 
 
 Reynolds. E. Smith. 
 
 Dutch Village, - - - - - - 109 
 
 Ruysdael. W. Chevalier. 
 
 St. Martin dividing his Cloak, - - - 115 
 
 Rubens. W. H. Worthington. 
 
 Landscape, - - - - - - -119 
 
 G. Poussin. W. Radelitfe. 
 
 Christ and St. Peter, ----- 125 
 
 A. Caracci. H. Robinson. 
 
 Landscape and Figures, - - - - - 131 
 
 Rubens. F. J. Havell. 
 
 The Market Girl,.137 
 
 Morland. C. Marr. 
 
 The Water Mill, ------ 141 
 
 Ruysdael. J. H. Kernot. 
 
 The Holy Family,.145 
 
 Baroceio. A. Duncan. 
 
 Sea Port, ------- 151 
 
 Claude. W. R. Smith. 
 
 Spanish Peasant Boy, - - - - - 157 
 
 Murillo. W. H. Watt. 
 
 Landscape,.163 
 
 F. J, Havell. 
 
 Loutherbourg. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 The Merry Fiddler, 
 Berkheyden. 
 
 H. C. Shenton. 
 
 Page 169 
 
 Grand Canal, Venice, 
 Canaletto. 
 
 P. Heath. 
 
 - 173 
 
 The Queen of Hearts, 
 VangooL 
 
 E. Smith. 
 
 - 179 
 
 Landscape and Cattle, 
 
 A. Cuyp. 
 
 W. Chevalier. 
 
 - 183 
 
 Tobias and the Angel, 
 Rembrandt. 
 
 F. Mansell. 
 
 - 189 
 
 The Watering Place, 
 Gainsborough. 
 
 J. T. Wedgwood. 
 
 193 
 
 The Game of Trie Trac, 
 Teniers. 
 
 W. Raddon. 
 
 199 
 
j.ondon, K j b isKed Oe pi.f ■. 18 3 by John Major. 50. hi eel 
 
TITIAN. 
 
 BACCHUS AND ARIADNE. 
 
 Works of genius are liable to as many vicissitudes as 
 empires: the historical marbles of Athens are in a 
 British Museum; the brazen horses of Venice seem 
 ever to have heard and obeyed the sound of the 
 victor’s trumpet; the Colossus of Rhodes, since 
 borne away by the camels of the Arabians, has been 
 reproduced in many shapes, elegant probably or 
 barbarous ; the Apollo is now in the keeping of a 
 Christian priest, who it is hkely honors it as much 
 as the heathen priests of old, and the Bacchus and 
 Ariadne, one of the masterpieces of Titian, has 
 undergone, in the brief space of three hundred 
 years, a strange variety of fortune. It was painted 
 about the year 1514 for Alfonso, Duke of Ferrara; 
 on the decline of his house it passed into the hands 
 of the Pope; English taste and money united in 
 bringing it from the Villa Aldobrandini into the 
 collection of Lord Kinnaird, at whose sale, some 
 two-and-twenty years ago, the hammer of Harry 
 Phillips consigned it to Mr. Hamlet; and now, at 
 the cost we hear of four thousand pounds, it is 
 become the property of Government, and is at pre¬ 
 sent in the National Gallery. The moderate dimen- 
 
 B 
 
2 
 
 BACCHUS AND ARIADNE. 
 
 sions of six feet two inches long, by five feet eight 
 inches high, render it portable and easy to be placed 
 in a good light, while the wonderful splendour of 
 the colouring, and the classic and well told story, 
 make it a favourite with all visitors. 
 
 The Bacchus and Ariadne is one of the first 
 pictures of true genius which we had the pleasure of 
 seeing; it was then in the collection of Lord Kin- 
 naird, and the almost miraculous beauty of its 
 colouring acted upon us like a spell. But, though 
 we felt ourselves in the presence of a work of art 
 immeasurably superior to aught we had before seen, 
 the bright and harmonious variety of its colours 
 did not conceal from us that the figures were less 
 accurate in their proportion, and less true in their 
 drawing, than might have been looked for from 
 the hands of so great a master. The Ariadne, 
 though inclining to the heavy in its form is never¬ 
 theless a figure of great beauty and matchless ease. 
 The composition is in conception nearly blame¬ 
 less. Bacchus during an excursion, for the double 
 purpose it would appear, of hunting and drinking, 
 arrives at the wild sea-shore, with woods at hand 
 and temples in the distance, and with light enough 
 from the stars and moon, to observe, not only the 
 loveliness of the scene, but also the beauty of 
 Ariadne, who, on hearing of the approach of 
 
 Bacchus and his revellers,” announced as it was 
 by cymbal and tambourine, and probably song, 
 throws down her mantle and pitcher, and flies. 
 
BACCHUS AND ARIADNE 
 
 3 
 
 plucking higher a part of her lower dress as she 
 runs, and showing a shapely leg— 
 
 While one kind glance at her pursuer flies. 
 
 So much at variance are her feet and eyes.” 
 
 Her hurrying motion, and head half turned round, 
 give a flne winding line to her figure ; but though in 
 full flight it cannot be concealed that she is running 
 rather into the way of her pursuer than from him, 
 and as we all know the result, we may imagine that 
 the artist put no more life and mettle into her heels, 
 nor bestowed more presence of mind, than a young 
 woman would wish for in running away from a 
 very handsome god. We are perhaps supported 
 in our notions by the posture of the little strutting 
 faun, who is dragging a calf’s head along the ground. 
 This arch personage is drawing up his little body to 
 its fullest height, and putting on looks of great lofti¬ 
 ness and allurement, in order to seem something in 
 the eyes of a lady whom he cannot chuse but see 
 is extremely beautiful. The companions of Bacchus 
 seem all inspired with a sort of tipsy jollity, save 
 old Silenus, who keeps moving on in drunken gra¬ 
 vity, sensible only to the charms of wine; nor has 
 any thing like envy of the superior beauty of 
 Ariadne made its way among the nymphs; they 
 continue to clank the cymbals and strike the tam¬ 
 bourine as if rejoicing in the joy of the god. The 
 nymph with the cymbals, indeed, is almost a rival 
 in beauty to Ariadne, and may be thought to feel 
 
4 
 
 BACCHUS AND ARIADNE. 
 
 as much, as she seems showing legs with her ; while 
 the sly Cupid-looking faun, who but barely reaches 
 the waist of the lady, appears to be making a compa¬ 
 rison favourable to the charms of his companion. 
 On the whole the picture is almost unequalled in 
 the gorgeous lustre of its colouring, in the clever¬ 
 ness of its characters, and in the elegance of the 
 landscape. 
 
 Other faults than those of imperfect drawing, and 
 heaviness of shape, have been found with this per¬ 
 formance. The ingenious Mr. Ottley says, though 
 the figure of Bacchus throwing himself out of his 
 chariot is exceedingly bold in the conception, the 
 head is somewhat too large, and the rest of the 
 figure is not very well drawn. Besides this, it may 
 be questioned how far it was judicious in the artist 
 to represent that figure suspended, as it appears to 
 be in the air, midway between the top of the chariot 
 and the ground, and that not from any apparent 
 lightness inherent in the figure itself, or other power 
 of supporting itself as that of flying, but merely be¬ 
 cause the instant of time which intervenes between 
 his quitting the top of the chariot and his reaching 
 the ground is not supposed to be yet completed. 
 Titian, indeed, appears to have been somewhat 
 aware of this last objection, and therefore to have 
 added the large mantle floating over this figure of 
 Bacchus, in order to help to sustain it.” We sus¬ 
 pect that the critic has imagined the fault which he 
 censures. The god, so far from throwing himself 
 
BACCHUS AND ARIADNE. 
 
 5 
 
 out of his cai% is leaping out, and any one who looks 
 carefully at the picture will see that Bacchus is not 
 so tipsy as not to calculate that his right foot will 
 light on the projecting nave of the chariot wheel, 
 and thus not only keep him from falling on his face, 
 but give him a fresh starting point for the renewal 
 of his spring. The whole frame of the god seems 
 as it were conscious of this, and his foot actually 
 appears on the feel for the nave. 
 
 The lustrous colouring of the picture has never 
 been questioned by either artists or critics. It is 
 executed in what we believe is called the second 
 style of Titian, which he acquired from Giorgione 
 on escaping from the dry and less flexible style of 
 Bellini. The gay character of the subject accords 
 with this voluptuous outlay of colour ; yet nothing 
 can be more natural, and we have heard accom¬ 
 plished painters add scientific, than the way in 
 which the artist has employed his glowing, his warm, 
 and his cold colours. The cold blue of the sky, the 
 deep green of the trees, the yellow, the red and the 
 blue draperies of the figures, with the varied hues 
 of the nymphs, the fauns and the god, changing 
 from the almost bronze like colour of Silenus, and 
 one or more of his comrades, up to the rose-and- 
 -lily lustre of Ariadne herself, all blend into one grand 
 and harmonious whole, exhibiting an almost mathe- 
 matical-like skill of combination. Though all this 
 seems to have been dashed out by the artist in a few 
 happy hours of lucky workmanship, we are satisfied 
 
6 
 
 BACCHUS AND ARIADNE. 
 
 that he has extended his care to the most minute 
 things. The head of the ass, looking demurely 
 from among the nymphs ; the dog, evidently the 
 supphant follower of Ariadne; the leopards har¬ 
 nessed to the car ; nay, even the weeds and flowers, 
 scattered as it were in the careless luxury of nature 
 about the foreground, are all represented with that 
 correctness of eye, fidelity of touch, and minute 
 observance of truth, noticed by almost all critics 
 as belonging to the works of the painter. Thus, 
 when in emulation of Albert Durer,” says Fuseli, 
 Titian painted at Ferrara the Christ to whom a 
 Pharisee shows the tribute money, he outstript in 
 subtlety of touch even that hero of minutenes ; the 
 hairs of the heads and hands may be counted, the 
 pores of the skin discriminated, and the surround¬ 
 ing objects seen reflected in the pupils of the eyes ; 
 yet the effect of the whole is not impaired by this 
 extreme finish, it increases it at a distance, which 
 effaces the fac-simihsms of Albert, and assists the 
 beauties of imitation with which that work abounds 
 to a degree seldom attained, and never excelled by 
 the master himself, who has left it indeed as a 
 single monument, for it has no companion to attest 
 his power of combining the extremes of finish and 
 effect.” 
 
 In days when classic allusions were more common 
 in verse than they are now, when no song was 
 reckoned beautiful unless it dealt in gods and god¬ 
 desses, and invoked Venus or Apollo, Dibdin, 
 
BACCHUS AND ARIADNE. 
 
 7 
 
 wrought with considerable skill something of this 
 adventure of Ariadne into a song in honour of wine; 
 the following lines still linger in our memory:— 
 
 When Theseus on the naked shore 
 Fair Ariadne left. 
 
 D’ye think she did her fate deplore. 
 
 Or her fair locks or bosom tore 
 Like one of hope bereft ? 
 
 Not she, indeed—her fleeting love 
 From mortal turned divine. 
 
 And love that was before a toy 
 Became the source of mortal joy; 
 
 The urchin shook his dewy wdngs. 
 
 And careless levelled clowns and kings; 
 Such power has mighty wine. 
 
 Such power has mighty wine. 
 
 Of the birth, studies, and history of Titian, little 
 need be said; his paintings are known to the utter¬ 
 most ends of the earth, and the story of his fame 
 and fortunes has accompanied them. He was born 
 at the Castle of Cador, in Friuli, in 1480 ; his edu¬ 
 cation is said to have been learned, and his masters 
 in Latin and Greek have been named; but this 
 imaginary scholarship is ill supported by the fact 
 that he studied in the painting school of Bellini at 
 Venice in his tenth year, and distinguished himself 
 too in early hfe as an artist to have been far seen 
 in Greek.” If he was taught by Belhni he was in¬ 
 spired by Giorgione, but inspired in a nobler way 
 
8 
 
 BACCHUS AND ARIADNE. 
 
 than his master, and he soon forsook all imitation 
 and invented a style of his own, which in truth and 
 force of colour has never yet been equalled. He 
 lived to a great age, was a firm and a modest man, 
 and avoided the heart-burnings and bickerings 
 which have but too much distingushed artists at all 
 periods. He was patronized by Charles the Fifth, 
 by the Cardinal Farnese, and by the Pope; he 
 was the friend of Michael Angelo, and was intimate 
 with almost all the men of genius of his time. 
 
CHRIST IN THE SERU'i.ClIRE 
 
9 
 
 GUERCINO. 
 
 CHRIST IN THE SEPULCHRE. 
 
 This fine cabinet picture, by Guercino, is in the 
 British Gallery and came from the Borghese Palace; 
 it is painted on a plate of copper, and, though only 
 one foot five inches and a half long and one foot 
 two inches and a half high, it contains almost as 
 much beauty as can be well put into such small 
 compass. The subject was, during the best times 
 of art, a favourite with the great painters of Italy; 
 they have shewn us their notions of our Saviour in 
 youth and in manhood; they have limned him living, 
 dying, and dead; descending into hell, ascending 
 into heaven, or sitting in bright collateral glory ” 
 beside the superior angels. Yet, inspired as these 
 artists were with a sense of dignity and beauty above 
 all painters before or since, we cannot help feeling 
 that they have been less successful with this subject 
 than with almost any other. We have not had the 
 fortune to see either on the original canvass, or 
 through the medium of the graver, any figure of our 
 Saviour which, in divine majesty of spirit, and meek 
 beauty of person, we could recognize as personifying 
 what the Scripture has so simply described. The 
 Christian artists have failed to do for the divine head 
 
10 
 
 CHRIST IN THE SEPULCHRE. 
 
 of their church what the heathen artists accom¬ 
 pli^ hed for their mythology; the Apollo is yet un¬ 
 matched in beauty of form, and in that something 
 still diviner—that sentiment which connects it with 
 the gods. It is true that the personal beauty of 
 Christ is not, that we remember of, insisted upon in 
 Scripture: loveliness of mind is alone claimed for 
 him, nevertheless we look for a heavenly mind in a 
 heavenly habitation, and we cannot think of Jesus 
 Christ otherwise than as fair in person as he was 
 pure in spirit. The Christ of Guercino we are afraid 
 is no exception to these remarks; it is true that 
 Ottley says the naked figure of our Saviour is easy 
 and natural in the attitude, and drawn with great 
 boldness of outline.” In this we cordially concur, 
 but we cannot hide from ourselves that the hands 
 and feet are inclining to be large and coarse; an 
 elegant handling of the extremities seems not to 
 have been thought as necessary by Guercino as it 
 was by the ancient sculptors, who expended upon 
 hands and feet all their skill and power of finish. 
 
 The angels are, however, of great beauty; there 
 is a mournful resignation of look about them—a sub¬ 
 mission to the will of God—a sense of the divine 
 atonement which has been offered up for man. It 
 was scarcely necessary in the artist to add wings, 
 since their celestial origin is well enough expressed 
 in their looks. Painters have been, we think, much 
 more fortunate in the representation of angels than 
 in their pictures of Christ; though some are more 
 
CHRIST IN THE SEPULCHRE. 
 
 11 
 
 clumsy than seems proper for spirits af the upper 
 air, yet they are in g neral remarkable for the 
 celestial serenity of their looks and the elegance of 
 their forms. Some of these are evidently copied 
 from Nature; others are creatures of the artist’s 
 imagination; our English painters have not been 
 more than happy in such delineations; though 
 Fuseli, in one of his pictures, vowed he would make 
 his angel rise without wings, and communicated a 
 certain buoyant expression to the figure which he 
 considered equivalent to that infiammable air which 
 raises a balloon, yet the eye is scarcely reconciled 
 to the sight of a being with two legs and two arms, 
 and a heavy head, ascending into the heaven, or 
 saihng along the bosom of the air. 
 
 Blake, who always saw in fancy every form he 
 drew, believed that angels descended to painters of 
 old, and sat for their portraits. When he himself sat 
 to Phillips for that fine portrait so beautifully en¬ 
 graved by Schiavonetti, the painter, in order to 
 obtain the most unaffected attitude, and the most 
 poetic expression, engaged his sitter in a conversa¬ 
 tion concerning the sublime in art. We hear 
 much, ” said Phillips, of the grandeur of Michael 
 Angelo; from the engravings, I should say he has 
 been over-rated; he could not paint an angel so 
 well as Raphael. ” He has not been over-rated. 
 Sir,” said Blake, ‘^and he could paint an angel 
 better than Raphael.” Well, but” said the 
 other, you never saw any of the paintings of 
 
12 
 
 CHRIST IN THE SEPULCHRE. 
 
 Michael Angelo; and perhaps speak from the opi¬ 
 nions of others; your friends may have deceived 
 you.” I never saw any of the paintings of Michael 
 Angelo/’ replied Blake, but I speak from the 
 opinion of a friend who could not be mistaken.” 
 
 A valuable friend truly>” said Phillips, and who 
 may he be I pray?” The arch-angel Gabriel, 
 Sir,” answered Blake. A good authority surely, 
 but you know evil spirits love to assume the looks 
 of good ones; and this may have been done to 
 mislead you.” Well now. Sir,” said Blake this is 
 really singular; such were my own suspicions; but 
 they were soon removed—I will tell you how. I 
 was one day reading Young’s Night Thoughts, and 
 when I came to that passage which asks ^ who can 
 paint an angel,’ I closed the book and cried, Aye! 
 who can paint an angel ? ” A voice in the room an¬ 
 swered, Michael Angelo could.” And how do 
 you know,” I said, looking round me, but I saw 
 nothing save a greater light than usual. I hiow" 
 said the voice, for I sat to him: I am the arch¬ 
 angel Gabriel. ” Oho! ” I answered, you are, are 
 you: I must have better assurance than that of a 
 wandering voice ; you may be an evil spirit—there 
 are such in the land.” You shall have good assu¬ 
 rance, ” said the voice, can an evil spirit do this ?” 
 
 I looked whence the voice came, and was then 
 aware of a shining shape, with bright wings, who 
 diffused much light. As I looked, the shape dilated 
 more and more: he waved his hands; the roof of 
 
CHRIST IN THE SEPULCHRE. 
 
 13 
 
 my study opened; he ascended into heaven; he 
 stood in the sun, and beckoning to me, moved the 
 universe. An angel of evil could not have done 
 that —it was the arch-angel Gabriel.” The painter 
 marvelled much at this wild story; but he caught 
 from Blake’s looks, as he related it, that rapt poetic 
 expression which has rendered his portrait one of 
 the finest of the English school. 
 
 The character of the works of Guercino may be 
 read in this little picture: he considered that he 
 could not imitate Nature forcibly without the aid of 
 strong light and shade, and to obtain this, he painted 
 with what artists call a top-light which in some 
 degree exaggerates all seen under its infiuence. 
 Like Titian, he is more admired for the lucid bril¬ 
 liancy of his colouring, and for his mastery in light 
 and shade, than for his elegance of outline and 
 splendour of conception. It is said of him that he 
 defended his broad and powerful masses of light and 
 darkness by saying few can perceive or feel the 
 true dignity of a composition—few have souls capa¬ 
 ble of comprehending grandeur or sublimity—but 
 almost all can discern the force and beauty of 
 colouring.” There is too much truth in this: but 
 we may take the opinion of the painter as no incor¬ 
 rect estimate of his own powers; he has been 
 charged, and not unjustly, with a deficiency of ele¬ 
 vation and elegance, where neither would have in¬ 
 jured, but aided the richness of his colouring. He 
 was born at Cento, a village near Bologna, in the 
 
14 
 
 CHRIST IN THE SEPULCHRE. 
 
 year 1490 ; studied under Benedetto Gennari, and 
 completed his knowledge in the school of the Ca- 
 racci. One of his noblest works, is The Hagar and 
 Ishmael, ” which has such surprizing brilliancy, that 
 all other pictures which come near it seem feeble in 
 effect; another fine one is the history of St. Petro- 
 nilla in St. Peters at Rome. The painter died, aged 
 76. 
 
Gainsborougr li.Robi-ason 
 
 ' s '• o d S c I : 8 3 by J ohp M au or. 5 0. I J o et Street. 
 
 o idon, 
 
15 
 
 GAINSBOROUGH. 
 
 THE MARKET CART. 
 
 From the poetic conceptions of Titian and Guercino, 
 one replete with heathen elegance, the other with 
 Christian beauty, we come to the homely nature 
 and rustic truth of Gainsborough. And yet all is 
 not so imaginative in the two former, or so hteral 
 and fac-simile like in the latter as some may sup¬ 
 pose ; in the conceptions of the eminent Itahans, 
 we have no doubt that much of the living beauty of 
 their times mingled, and that they owed their 
 nymphs and their angels as much to literal flesh 
 and blood before them as they did to fancy : in the 
 Market Cart ” of the Enghshman we may see 
 something of the same use made of nature: it is 
 seldom indeed that a natural scene is worthy of 
 being expressly copied, and we may suppose that 
 the painter found somewhere a leading feature or 
 two of his picture, and invented, or transposed the 
 rest. Be that as it may, the picture before us is 
 one of singular truth, airiness and beauty; all is 
 home-bred about it—the stamp of Old England is 
 impressed upon it every where—the trees are in 
 their rough unpruned leafiness; the children have 
 an air of freedom and vigour; the dogs seem surly 
 
16 
 
 THE MARKET CART. 
 
 and attached; the uncombed and unwisped strength 
 of the horse; the quiet splendour of the little patch 
 of water with its flags and rushes; nay, even the 
 light struggling through the glades and lapses of the 
 luxuriant forest are all touched with the hue and 
 character of this land. We may add to this, too, 
 that unlike many other landscapes in which there 
 are at most 
 
 vacant shepherds piping in the dale,” 
 
 and a variety of other listless personages, we have 
 here a double picture of industry—the hands which 
 have collected the fruits of the earth, and placed 
 them in the cart, are carrying them to the market. 
 Gainsborough seldom painted a picture exhibiting 
 barren splendour alone : he peopled his landscapes 
 with peasants following their occupations, and some¬ 
 times stamped a stern severity upon them by con¬ 
 trasting their looped and windowed raggedness ” 
 with the glorious woods, fertile flelds, and far-seen 
 spires and domes of the houses of the rich and the 
 powerful. 
 
 The Market Cart was presented to the National 
 Gallery by the Members of the British Institution : 
 it is painted on canvass, and measures six feet one 
 inch and a half high by five feet wide, and is looked 
 upon by men of taste as one of Gainsborough’s 
 gayest pictures. The name tells in a great measure 
 the story; two girls, part of whose dress is laid 
 aside, from the warmth of the sun, are seated on 
 the top of a cart loaded with carrots, turnips, and 
 
THE MARKET CART. 
 
 17 
 
 other such homely vegetables; two boys, whose 
 coats are thrown into the cart, walk by its side, 
 along with a careful dog; the way they have come 
 seems to have been hot; the horse, allured by a 
 little quiet sheet of water, proceeds into it, either to 
 cool his hoofs or drink, while two wayfarers, in the 
 shadow of the forest, seem so overcome by the 
 burning sun beneath which they^have marched, that 
 they lie and enjoy the luxury regardless of what is 
 passing. ' Through the shafts and branches of the 
 trees the sun, evidently in his summer strength, has 
 forced his way and throws lines of straggling and 
 ineffectual hght on the water and on the banks. 
 Such is the best description which we can give of 
 this fine picture; those who know the original, 
 cannot be unaware that no words can express the 
 vigour of its light and shade, or place, as the paint¬ 
 ing does a living scene, fresh and sunny before you. 
 
 The picture ” says Ottley is richly and harmo¬ 
 niously coloured, and has otherwise great beauties: 
 but in respect of execution, it is not, we think, ex¬ 
 empt from the vice of manner. ” 
 
 Of Thomas Gainsborough, much has been said, 
 and much has been written; yet it is wonderful to 
 think how little is known respecting him on which 
 we can place full reliance. He did not five in days 
 when all the doings of men of genius are noticed 
 and noted down in a book; he differed too with 
 
 t 
 
 Reynolds, and had not therefore the notoriety which 
 clung long to those who belonged to his coterie; 
 
 c 
 
18 
 
 THE MARKET CART. 
 
 besides, he was a bold, free-spirited man, very inde¬ 
 pendent, and not a little eccentric, and never sought 
 to gain friends by fine words, or by smoothness of 
 demeanour. We are all going to heaven, and 
 Vandyke is of the party,” was his dying exclama¬ 
 tion, and in these words we may read the enthusi¬ 
 astic character of the man; Napoleon died giving 
 out orders of battle; Gainsborough, in forming a 
 party of Artists so select as only to admit one por¬ 
 trait painter to salvation. The ruling feeling of 
 life is strong in death; he had been annoyed by the 
 opposition of Reynolds whom he would never consi¬ 
 der otherwise than as a mere portrait painter, and, 
 excelhng too in that line himself, he had been a 
 good deal touched in spirit from the preference 
 which the world gave, and sometimes, we think, 
 hastily, to the likenesses of his rival. There are 
 few men who can despise misrepresentation or neg¬ 
 lect during life from a feeling that justice will be 
 done to their genius in death; a cold ear is lent we 
 are afraid to praise which is poured over the grave, 
 and there can be little doubt, whatever men of talent 
 may aver, that they would willingly hear the voice 
 of admiration in life at the risk of having it deducted 
 from the gross amount of their after fame. Gains¬ 
 borough felt that he had no rival in landscape save 
 Wilson, who was oppressed with poverty and under¬ 
 rated, and he, therefore, made head against the Pre¬ 
 sident, with the knowledge, that in case of failure, 
 he had his landscapes to fall back upon as a sure line 
 
THE MARKET CART. 
 
 19 
 
 of defence. We consider the fame of Gainsborough 
 to be established in nature, to be founded on such 
 subjects as will have an enduring interest, and in 
 this respect he stands on surer ground than if he 
 had acquired alone the reputation for portraits 
 which he longed for. The world will perhaps con¬ 
 tinue to admire a scene in which the wild woods, 
 the deep sea, the flowers of the field, the sun, the 
 air, and the sky together with the living creatures 
 which inhabit the whole, the two-footed, the four- 
 footed, and the winged, are all wrought up into one 
 magnificent picture; but we are not so certain that 
 such admiration will long follow 
 
 The unlettered nameless faces ” 
 
 which a portrait painter sends from his easel. 
 
 Gainsborough is in every thing English: he was, 
 in some measure, his own instructor; his academy 
 was nature; he imitated no one either in his con¬ 
 ceptions, or his style of colouring. As he had 
 never studied out of the island, he had not that fame 
 which clings to those who have studied in the eter¬ 
 nal city; but his reputation was all the better for 
 this; it came from an original source; there is 
 much truth in the sarcastic admonition of North- 
 cote to his pupils on departing for Italy, Go, my 
 lads, go, and remember that you cross the Alps to 
 steaV' The English disciples of art generally lose 
 their own island originality in gazing upon the 
 splendid works of Michael Angelo and Raphael; 
 
20 
 
 . THE MARKET CART. 
 
 they come home bringing with them all that'is 
 weak and leaving all that is strong ; they cannot 
 heir the genius which inspired those magnificent 
 works, and they have never fully succeeded in 
 mastering the skill of drawing and lucid • depth of 
 colour visible in all that is Italian. Of the man¬ 
 ners and conversation of this eminent ' person, 
 the hostility of Philip Thicknesse, and the good 
 natured friendship of Mr. Jackson of Exeter, have 
 given us some information ; but the descriptions of 
 the former must be taken with much abatement, 
 for he was a changeable and fickle man, and the 
 remarks of the latter are chiefly directed to mu¬ 
 sical matters of which the painter to his cost was 
 passionately fond. He bestowed a favourite daughter 
 upon a musician, who hved to misrepresent both 
 the artist and his wife, and he presented a favourite 
 picture to another of the craft, who played him a 
 tune of which he was particularly fond. He was 
 moreover a purchaser of harps, sackbuts, psalterys, 
 dulcimers, flutes, fiddles, and all manner of instru¬ 
 ments of music, and he often endeavoured to ex¬ 
 tract sounds from them which Jackson declares were 
 grating to the ear. He was in truth a whimsical but 
 a worthy man; he abounded in odd notions, but he 
 was nearly mad in all that regarded music and paint¬ 
 ing ; he took up his brush as he laid aside his fiddle, 
 and he threw away the brush to take up the flute,- 
 the theorbo, or the harp ; with him a fine artist was 
 the first of men, but a first-rate musician was as a 
 
THE MARKET CART. 
 
 21 
 
 god. First Giardini,” says Jackson, enchanted 
 him with the violin; he imagined the music lay in the 
 fiddle, and wondered when he purchased it that the 
 music remained with Giardini. He had scarcely re¬ 
 covered from the shock, when Abel, with the Viol 
 di Gamba, bewitched him ; the violin was hung on 
 the willows—Viol di Gamba was purchased : many 
 an adagio and minuet were begun, but none com¬ 
 pleted; this th^ artist thought wonderful, as Abel’s 
 own instrument ought to have produced Abels 
 own music. He heard a harper at Bath, Giardini 
 and Abel were forgotten; and there was nothing 
 like chords and arpeggios. He stuck to the harp 
 till he learned to play several airs with variations, 
 but a visit from Abel brought him back to the Viol 
 di Gamba.” Such are the words of Jackson, but all 
 men, save musicians, allowed that the artist had not 
 only fine taste in music, but could play well on 
 several instruments. ' Gainsborough was born at 
 Sudbury, in Suffolk, in 1727, and died in London, 
 August 2, 1788. 
 
The three works of art which we have endea¬ 
 voured to describe are, as our readers will observe, 
 to be found in the National Gallery. They were 
 at hand, were beautiful, and various in their cha¬ 
 racter, and could be readily seen by those who 
 might desire to compare the engravings with the 
 originals. Our undertaking, as may be seen in the 
 Prospectus, extends to all public and private gal¬ 
 leries, and is not at all confined in its range or in its 
 selections. The proprietor of this very cheap, and 
 it is to be hoped accurate work, has no wish, as may 
 well be supposed, of comparing or of measuring him¬ 
 self with the Society of Engravers, whose work is 
 on a large scale, and of unrivalled excellence; his 
 publication is cheap, and his limits comparatively 
 small, but he trusts to appear 
 
 Fine by degrees, and beautifully less, 
 
 and to produce a series of engravings not unworthy 
 of public favour, accompanied by letter-press, which 
 will be chiefiy directed to the task of description 
 and illustration. 
 
1 
 
 
 
 cq 
 
 cn 
 
 -4 
 
 1 
 
25 
 
 CLxlUDE LORRAINE. 
 
 THE MARRIAGE FESTIVAL OF 
 ISAAC AND REBECCA. 
 
 On this fine Landscape is written by the hand that 
 painted it, Claudio Gel. inv. Roma: 1648.” and it 
 is supposed by some men wise in such matters to 
 be a repetition of that celebrated picture in Prince 
 Doria’s Gallery, at Rome, known by the name of 
 
 La Molina,” or the Mill. I know not how this 
 may be, but I have heard those who know both say 
 that enough of difference exists to entitle them to 
 be considered as almost separate works. The lead¬ 
 ing features are much the same, and there is a mill 
 in both; but the mill in the picture in the National 
 Gallery is far from forming the main attraction of 
 the scene, nor in truth can the marriage feast be 
 regarded as the crowning beauty of the whole. The 
 broad and lake-like river lying calm in the sun¬ 
 shine ; the grand masses of pillared ruins rising on 
 either side, and telling of the waste of war or of 
 time ; and the hill 
 
 Whose sunbright summit mingles with the sky,” 
 towering lofty and blue in the distance; and cano- 
 
 D 
 
26 
 
 ISAAC AND REBECCA. 
 
 pied with one of those glorious firmaments which 
 Claude alone knew how to produce, unite and form 
 a harmonious combination, which renders secon¬ 
 dary all other parts of the picture. When we 
 have gazed our fill on the river, the ruins, the hills, 
 and the sun diffusing a subdued splendour over all, 
 we turn our eyes to more subordinate but still 
 beautiful things. We then observe a small stream 
 flung in foaming lines from the summit of a rugged 
 and precipitous rock; it first descends in an almost 
 unbroken sheet of water, then it is seen leaping 
 down from cliff* to crag, or flashing like gleams of 
 silvery light among the branches of the trees, which 
 grow there to reclaim the scene from a certain 
 savage grandeur not in strict keeping with the rest 
 of the composition. Far below, and close on the 
 river,-a busy mill-wheel is seen scattering a sort of 
 luminous spray from its buckets ; a tall tower is 
 beside it to chasten the mechanical look of the 
 mill; while nearer a herd of cows, chaced by the 
 burning sun from their pastures, are hurrying into 
 a shady pool for the twofold purpose of drinking and 
 cooling their hoofs. Nor should the trees in the 
 foreground be left unnoticed, for they are in truth 
 exceedingly beautiful, and the painter has employed 
 them in giving shade to the groups of wedding 
 guests, and in narrowing the prospect near to the 
 eye that he might open it up in boundless splendour 
 in the distance. 
 
 We now come to the gathered and gathering 
 
.ISAAC AND REBECCA. 
 
 27 
 
 groups which give the present name to the picture. 
 Under the shade of the trees, on the right hand, 
 the party of the bride are met; some are seated on 
 the ground, others stretched on the grass, a few are 
 standing or walking about; while to cheer them, 
 and maintain a look of joy, a girl and a youth 
 dance merrily on the green to the* sound of their 
 own .music. Nor have they come empty handed, 
 cups, beakers, and well filled baskets, are heaped 
 on the ground, and boats seem ready on the river 
 to add an excursion on the water to the other 
 pleasures of the bridal day. They are evidently 
 waiting for something, and on looking to the left 
 we soon see .what it is—-the bridegroom and his 
 train come on horseback down one of the glades of 
 the forest; some are hastening onwards, but the 
 leader is holding his hand above his brow that he 
 may see more clearly the loveliness of the land¬ 
 scape, or rather the party of the bride making 
 merry amongst the neighbouring trees. There is a 
 variety of objects in this picture. The wide wear, 
 or dam across the river, which breaks the mono¬ 
 tonous expanse of surface and adds a waterfall, and 
 the distant bridge'with its long succession of arches, 
 may be named as secondary yet beautiful things. 
 There are some objects however which seem little 
 akin to the ruling character of the whole ; of these 
 the mill is the most objectionable, but the objection 
 lies chiefly in the name; the painter, with that 
 poetic tact which distinguishes all his works, has : 
 
28 
 
 ISAAC AND REBECCA. 
 
 concealed in trees, or in fine ruins, ^all that is 
 vulgar or mechanical; we see little else than the 
 wheel dim among the spray and thick droppings, 
 and the stream which turns it falling in foaming 
 lines from the buckets. A high and antique tower 
 beside it leads the eye from La Molina,” and 
 induces the spectator to think of days when a 
 banner was on its summit and lights were in the 
 windows. 
 
 I cannot help imagining that either the historical 
 costume of this picture is incorrect, or that some 
 mistake has been made in naming it. The character 
 of the work speaks of a later day than that of 
 Isaac and Rebecca ; if we admit that the patriarch 
 lived sumptuously, though he dwelt in tents and 
 had his vessels of silver and gold, we cannot so 
 readily allow that he held his wedding festival 
 among ruins of cities and temples in the Grecian 
 style of architecture, or that the bridal train rode 
 over Roman bridges. The lofty porticoes, far-ex- 
 tending colonades, and the bridge with its many 
 semi-circular arches, bring our thoughts down rather 
 to the days of Constantine than carry them up to 
 the primitive times of the patriarchs. Schlegel 
 speaks of a painter who in a picture from Homer 
 made Priam follow the body of Hector into a Gothic 
 church. The present picture is not ,so far out of 
 harmony with history, but if the name be right and 
 what the painter meant, it would have been as well 
 had the architecture been more eastern in its looks; 
 
ISAAC AND REBECCA. 
 
 29 
 
 the scene has the look rather of Italy than of Judea; 
 in truth I suspect that the true name is lost, and 
 and that the present one is a sort of antiquarian 
 guess, and none of the happiest. 
 
 I shall have another opportunity of speaking of 
 the character of Claude as a man and an artist; 
 an engraving from one of his loveliest pictures 
 in the collection of His Majesty will grace a future 
 Number; I may content myself with briefly stating 
 that no one ever felt or expressed better the poetry 
 of a landscape. He made it his study to be ac¬ 
 quainted with the varying aspects of nature; the 
 changing hues of the sky in sunshine or in 
 storm; the shifting colours of a field of grass as the 
 wind sweeps over and dishevels it; the light and 
 shade of the forest, nay, the hues of the individual 
 trees which compose it; and the fleeting beauty of 
 the evening clouds, when 
 
 They turn their silver linings on the night,” 
 
 were all matters to him of curious thought. But 
 though an ardent admirer of nature, he had the 
 fine sense to perceive that even in her fairest pic¬ 
 tures there is much that cannot come within the 
 range of poetic composition; he therefore took what 
 he saw rather as materials to work upon, beautify, 
 and combine, than as scenes to copy as they stood^ 
 and to this we owe so many truly harmonious 
 landscapes. I look upon him as a sort of Spenser in 
 paint; the exquisite sense and feeling of the follow- 
 
30 
 
 .ISAAC AND REBECCA. 
 
 ing verses are in poetry ’svhat Claude is in composi¬ 
 tion and harmony of colours : 
 
 The joyous birds shrouded in chearful shade. 
 Their notes unto the voice attempered sweet. 
 The angelical soft trembling voices made 
 To the instruments divine respondence meet. 
 The silver sounding instruments did meet 
 With the base murmur of the water’s fall; 
 
 The water-fall with difference discreet. 
 
 Now soft, now loud, unto the wind did call; 
 
 The gentle warbling wind low answered to all. 
 
 The present picture was painted, it is said, for 
 the Duke de Bouillon; it belonged to the collection 
 of Angerstein, and is now in the National Gallery. 
 In length it is six feet seven inches, and in heighth 
 four feet eleven inches. 
 
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 V '-‘m 
 
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31 
 
 REYNOLDS. 
 
 THE HOLY FAMILY. 
 
 This is one of those pictures which originated in 
 Sir Joshua’s admiration of the great Italian painters ; 
 if he has not surpassed their divinity of air, he has 
 at least rivalled their beauty and repose. The sub¬ 
 ject has been often handled by artists; we have 
 Holy Families from almost all painters of all coun¬ 
 tries.^ The theme has great attractions—it is con¬ 
 nected with our faith, and a mother and an infant or 
 two are lovely things, and awaken images of house¬ 
 hold tenderness common to all bosoms. But in 
 treating the subject, maternal affection and infant 
 beauty require to be subordinate—a something 
 above the earth—an air celestial and a hue diviner 
 are demanded ; the Virgin mother must be little 
 lower than the angels, and the young Saviour should 
 have at least the dawn of that divinity which marked 
 his maturer years. Few artists have poetic grandeur 
 of soul enough to conceive such a group, and fewer 
 still have that happy knowledge of eye and hand to 
 embody it in true purity of form, and heavenly splen¬ 
 dour of colour. We have many Families, but very 
 few Holy ones ; we have probably all that can be 
 
32 
 
 THE HOLY FAMILY. 
 
 given as of this world, but little or nothing of that 
 sublime beauty of person and expression which we 
 may imagine, vydth the poets, that Eve wore when 
 she came first from the hands of her creator, and 
 carried as it were the finger marks of divinity upon 
 her. That Reynolds has done what other painters 
 failed to do cannot be asserted, yet he has suc¬ 
 ceeded in a great degree where we think no one has 
 had full success. 
 
 This picture presents,” says Ottley, a pretty 
 tranquil group, vnth an agreeable back groimd, and 
 is well engraved by Sharpe (he may now add by 
 Worthington.) The figures of the Madonna and 
 the two infants are richly coloured, but the head 
 and hands of Joseph appear to be somewhat faded, 
 a misfortune too often to be lamented in the works 
 of this great painter.” The artist in the concep¬ 
 tion of his picture has I fear made the Jesus and the 
 St. John much too youthful for the consciousness 
 which he has expressed in their looks, the latter is 
 more fit for his nurse’s knee than the task of crying 
 in the wilderness and carrying the cross; Joseph, 
 on the other hand, is an old grey bearded man, and 
 quite unsuitable for a companion to one so fresh 
 and blooming as Mary. Nor is this all, the scene 
 is not marked by aught which speaks of Judea; 
 the group may be taken as representing a repose 
 during the flight into Egypt, yet they are scarcely 
 in a wilderness, and though the high and abrupt 
 hill in the distance may be imagined to stand for 
 
THE HOLY FAMILY. 
 
 33 
 
 Carmel, we cannot help wishing that the painter 
 had settled the matter by giving us a more decided 
 image of the land. The quiet beauty of the mother 
 and child, and the splendour of the colouring, unite 
 in making this a popular picture. The subject is a 
 favourite one; Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Cor¬ 
 reggio, Michael Angelo, and others, all painted or 
 carved Holy Famihes. I happened to ask a clever 
 traveller what he thought of the merits of their 
 works as compared with the one by Sir Joshua. 
 
 All,” said he, may be called good, but the one 
 which moved me most was a Madonna and Child 
 by Correggio at Naples: in the others, one and all, 
 I thought of the fine colours; this one was finely 
 coloured, but the sentiment was better still—the 
 child lay asleep on the Madonna’s knees, the lips 
 were parted; I thought I heard them breathe and 
 saw them move. Over this vision of loveliness hung 
 the Virgin mother, with such a look of maternal 
 affection and entranced love as I never saw else¬ 
 where. What was remarkable too it was some time 
 before I saw a white rabbit much subdued in colour 
 which came out upon the scene, giving, as I was 
 told, an air of repose, but as I thought, an air of 
 innocence and divinity—for the timid creature could 
 not but see that the looks of the group were love.” 
 
 The faded colouring of this picture has given 
 much, it is believed, of the air of old age to Joseph 
 of which I have spoken ; the decay of the splendid 
 colours of Sir Joshua is much to be deplored, his 
 
34 . 
 
 THE HOLY FAMILY. 
 
 chief excellence lay in colour and character; the 
 outline, in which he was no great master, lay ob¬ 
 scure and undecided amid a thousand beauties which 
 sufficed for the spectator. These stratagems in 
 outline always appeared to me as a serious defect; 
 had the bounding line been visible the decay of the 
 colours would have seemed but as a change of dress 
 to a well made lady. He was constantly seeking 
 after the secret of the fixed and unfading colours of 
 Titian ; every fresh picture of his he imagined was 
 a proof that he had mastered the mystery; time 
 however has tried sorely the value of his discoveries; 
 many of his pictures are now 
 
 of faded lustre wan” 
 
 compared to what they looked when they came 
 from his easel. Fuseli laughed, or affected to 
 laugh, at the rich and glowing colours of the Pre¬ 
 sident : "" he will rue it, he will rue it,” said Sir 
 Joshua hastily—feeling perhaps, as many have felt, 
 that the want of such colouring in the pictures of 
 the other was a sore drawback upon their merits. 
 This picture of the Holy Family is six feet five 
 inches high, by five feet nine inches and a half 
 wide; and the painter’s price for it was five hun¬ 
 dred pounds. It was presented to the National 
 Gallery by the Governors of the British Institution. 
 
JP Ti^ C IK. 
 
 , I' : i'.vhfd Octf i, Viy .I.-ihn T/: i.ir. 50,^1* o’ ^ireet . i 
 
 1 
 
 j 
 
. 35 
 
 REYNOLDS. 
 
 PUCK. 
 
 The elfish expression and rainbow colours of this 
 little wondrous picture contrast strangely with the 
 quiet grace and solemn repose of the Holy Family. 
 In the latter the painter had to contend for mastery 
 with some of the chiefs of his calling, and their 
 genius lay like a spell upon him ; in the former he 
 had no rivalry, Fuseli had but just turned his fancy 
 upon elves and fairies ; the tricksy Puck had sat to 
 no artist; Shakspeare, though he describes his 
 pranks leaves his person to the imagination, and 
 Reynolds had all the honour of success to himself. 
 It is evident he could take little from the poet; 
 these are his words. 
 
 Either I mistake your shape and making quite. 
 Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite. 
 Call’d Robin Goodfellow : are you not he ? 
 
 That fright the maidens of the villag’ry; 
 
 Skim milk; and sometimes labour in the quern. 
 And bootless make the breathless housewife churn; 
 And sometime make the drink to bear no barm ; 
 Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm ? 
 
36 
 
 PUCK. 
 
 Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck, 
 You do their work, and they shall have good luck.” 
 
 The Puck of this passage resembles in a great de¬ 
 gree the character of the Brownie, the drudging elf 
 of Scottish superstition; he seems a sort of Will-o- 
 wisp, and is akin to the Lubber-fiend of Milton, 
 who thrashed the corn with a shadowy flail, and 
 when weary 
 
 stretch’d out all the chimney’s length, - 
 Bask’d at the fire his hairy strength.” 
 
 To picture forth a creature at once perverse and 
 obedient, mahcious and kind, a thing compounded of 
 earth and air, with power to do much good or great 
 evil, was no easy task. To create on canvas a spirit, 
 which like Ariel, could put a girdle round the globe 
 in fifteen minutes, and other feats equally perilous ; 
 
 To tread the ooze of the salt deep ; 
 To run upon the sharp wind of the north; 
 
 To do me business in the veins o’the earth 
 When it is bak’d with frost,” 
 
 required singular fancy and felicity of hand, and 
 neither seem to have been wanting in this work. 
 Puck is seated in a kind of merry majesty on the 
 top of a mushroom, and all around him are proofs 
 of his powers of amusing mischief. The honest 
 Weaver, with the ass’s head on, is perhaps enjoying 
 the luxury of a thistle, unconscious of the neigh¬ 
 bourhood of the gentle Titania, and fairies may be 
 
PUCK. 
 
 37 
 
 supposed sporting among the trees like squirrels in 
 the nut season. Nothing perhaps can surpass the 
 expression of the elf’s face, but the marvellous 
 colouring in which the whole is embodied, and 
 which seems to shed a sort of supernatural light 
 over the scene, in perfect keeping with his mis¬ 
 chievous drollery of look. This merry imp is the 
 portrait of a child, which was painted without any 
 particular aim as to character: when Alderman 
 Boydell saw it he said, Sir Joshua, if you will 
 make this pretty thing into a Puck for my Shak- 
 speare Gallery, I will give you an hundred guineas 
 for it.” The President smiled, and said little, as 
 was his custom: a few hours happy labour made 
 the picture what we see it. The knowledge of this 
 caused the critics to say that Puck was too much 
 like a chubby child, and resembled more a creature 
 requiring a nurse than a malicious elf who could, 
 like Ariel, 
 
 Fright me with urchin shows, pitch me i’ the mire. 
 Or lead me hke a firebrand in the dark.” 
 
 All this is matter of imagination, it is hard to say 
 how he should be painted; the fairies of the Scot¬ 
 tish mythology are described as fair haired chil¬ 
 dren ;” the Brownie seems of a forbidding look, and 
 we have no better fight than what fancy affords to 
 aid in the delineation. Northcote admired the 
 beauty of the work, and was not unaware of the 
 objections urged against it. Puck,” said he, in 
 
38 
 
 PUCK. 
 
 point of expression and animation is unparalleled, 
 and one of the happiest efforts of Sir Joshua’s pen¬ 
 cil, though it had been said by some cold critics not 
 to be perfectly characteristic of the merry wanderer 
 of Shakspeare.” When the pictures of the Shak- 
 speare Gallery were dispersed it was purchased by 
 Samuel Rogers, Esq. whose taste in painting almost 
 equals his genius in poetry; on which, occasion it 
 is said West exclaimed, O! the Poet has the sense 
 to buy nought but the finest things.” 
 
 Of the character of Sir Joshua as a man, and his 
 genius as an artist, much has been written and more 
 said ; respecting the first, it is enough to observe 
 that his friends thought him an indulgent compa¬ 
 nion and an accomplished gentleman, while to some 
 who looked perhaps too closely, he appeared more 
 narrow and economical than became his station and 
 fortune. With regard to the second, time has only 
 sanctioned the applause of his contemporaries, and 
 extended and confirmed his fame. Of all the emi¬ 
 nent portrait painters who have flourished since his 
 day, none have surpassed him in truth and freedom 
 of character, and none have equalled him in glow¬ 
 ing vigour of colour, and in the harmony of light 
 and shade. -To say as one of the most eminent of 
 his brethren said, that he united the local colour¬ 
 ing of Titian with the chiaro ’scuro of Rembrandt,” 
 would be to proclaim a truth which none but 
 those who are well acquainted with the best works 
 of these artists can understand. In taste,” says 
 
PUCK. 
 
 39 
 
 Burke, who always wrote to be understood, in 
 grace, and facility, in happy invention, and in the 
 richness and harmony of colouring, he was equal 
 to the great masters of the renowned ages. In 
 portrait he went beyond them; for he communi¬ 
 cated to that description of the art in which English 
 artists are the most engaged, a variety, a fancy, and 
 a dignity, derived from the higher branches which 
 even those who professed them in a superior manner 
 did not always preserve when they delineated indi¬ 
 vidual nature: His portraits remind the spectator of 
 the invention of history, and the amenity of land¬ 
 scape. In painting portraits he appeared not to be 
 raised upon that platform, but to descend to it from 
 a higher sphere ; his paintings illustrate his lessons 
 and his lessons seem to be derived from his paint¬ 
 ings.” Such were the words written by an eloquent 
 friend when the corpse of the painter was scarcely 
 cold, and had the comparison been confined to the 
 portraits of his native contemporaries, I should 
 have adopted the eulogium as at once elegant and 
 accurate. But the portraits of Titian and of Van¬ 
 dyke are recalled to our fancy by the description of 
 Burke, and few I think will contend that in poetic 
 conception, in manly dignity, or in deep harmonious 
 colouring they have been excelled by our eminent 
 countryman. The best pictures of Vandyke seem 
 to me to have a freedom of posture and a loftiness 
 of sentiment which Reynolds has oftener approached 
 than reached; it is true that the short cut locks. 
 
40 
 
 PUCK. 
 
 and the ridiculous taste in dress, which prevailed in 
 Sir Joshua’s time, are less poetic and picturesque 
 than the masses of ringlets and the flowing mantles 
 of the times of Sir Anthony ; but it is not of that 
 alone I speak—I allude to the soul and mind visible 
 in eye and brow. 
 
 If Reynolds had to obey fashion in his large por¬ 
 traits, and be ruled by the taste of sitters who chose 
 postures not always natural or according to cha¬ 
 racter, he was left to the freedom of his own will in 
 his inimitable pictures of children. These I have 
 always looked upon as the most graceful and unaf¬ 
 fected creations of his pencil; they are part portrait 
 and part fancy, and form the connecting link be¬ 
 tween reality and fiction. Sometimes they are made 
 to assume the characters of poetry, and charm us 
 as boy-Mercuries, Ariels, and Pucks ; again, it is the 
 pleasure of the painter to mimic history ; a lord on 
 his nurse’s knee takes upon him one of the tasks of 
 the infant Hercules; a baby earl enacts Moses in 
 the bulrushes; a marquis, nine years old, lays his 
 hand on a sword, and swears as a Hannibal; and a 
 duke in swaddling bands assumes the port of a child- 
 Jupiter. Nor do I like him less, but rather better, 
 when he retires from heroics and Mount Olympus, 
 and makes his lisping sitters be content to figure as 
 the rustic offspring of the cottage; his shepherd- 
 boys, his beggar-imps, and his whole progeny of 
 children busied in domestic things, are full of truth 
 and nature and elegance. 
 
PUCK. 
 
 41 
 
 His historical works are much less to my liking, 
 he could see but not conceive character; some of 
 his pictures of that kind want blood and life, the 
 dead refused to rise from their graves at the call of 
 his fancy. Friends however have not, been want¬ 
 ing to describe his historic pictures as unequalled 
 by all other efforts of the pencil. My own opi¬ 
 nion of the Macbeth is,” says Northcote, that the 
 visionary and awful effect produced both in the 
 conception and execution of the back-ground is 
 certainly without a parallel in the world ; its novelty 
 and its excellence bid defiance to all future attempts 
 at rivalry.” 
 
 The dignity of the personal character of Rey¬ 
 nolds, the eminence of such friends as Johnson and 
 Burke, and the unquestioned beauty and truth of 
 his numerous portraits, united to render his name 
 and influence great in the land, but the example 
 of his personal character terminated with his life ; 
 the lips of some of his most eloquent friends were 
 closed nearly as soon or sooner than his own, and 
 of all those on whose looks he laid out his skill none 
 survive to say how little labour it cost him to paint 
 heads, and with what happy readiness of hand 
 he spread out the fascination of his colours. With 
 painters the fame of Reynolds arises from the general 
 view which they take of his works ; they see high 
 merit in heads which are without any other recom¬ 
 mendation than what the pencil has bestowed ; the 
 public take a more limited view, they look only at 
 
 E 
 
42 
 
 PUCK. 
 
 the portraits of his men of note and genius, and at 
 his gracefiil women, and his lovely children ; at the 
 men, because they are images of the form and mind 
 of the chief heirs of fame; and at the others, not 
 as portraits, but as delineations of beauty and love¬ 
 liness. 
 
 He was born at Plympton, in Devonshire, 16th 
 July, 1723, and died in London, 23rd February, 
 1792. 
 

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43 
 
 VANDYKE. 
 
 GASPAR GEVARTIUS. 
 
 Anthony Vandyke was bom at Antwerp, 22 March, 
 1599; his father was a merchant, some say a 
 worker in stained glass, and his mother excelled in 
 flower painting and embroidery. He studied with 
 Van Balen, and was admitted to the gallery of 
 Rubens, whose jealousy he is idly said to have ex¬ 
 cited by the elegance of his outlines and the har¬ 
 mony of his light and shade. He left his native place 
 in his twenty-first year, and on a horse of his great 
 master’s giving, departed for Rome ; he fell in love, 
 it seems, by the way, and setting up his easel at 
 Brussels, painted his mistress, and at her request 
 made an altar-piece for a church ; and then, but 
 not without a friendly remonstrance from Rubens, 
 continued his journey. In Rome he astonished the 
 artists, of even those palmy days for painters, by the 
 magnificence of his mode of living, and at Venice 
 he raised the wonder of the brethren by his skill in 
 imitating, and that with no servile hand, the hitherto 
 matchless colouring of Titian. His fame reached 
 Charles the first, almost the only British King that 
 has shewn a true taste for art, who persuaded him 
 
 F 
 
44 
 
 GASP4R GEVARTIUS. 
 
 to settle in London, where he painted the chief 
 men of his day, received the honour of knighthood, 
 and obtained to wife Mary Ruthven, grand-daughter 
 of the unfortunate Earl of Gowrie, and one of the 
 maids of honour to the Queen. By this lady, 
 whose portrait he has left us, he had one child, a 
 daughter, whose descendant was Stepney, called 
 by the courtesy of criticism, a poet. Vandyke died ^ 
 in the forty-second year of his age, and was buried 
 in old St. Paul’s. 
 
 Three artists of different countries stand undis¬ 
 puted masters in portrait painting: Titian for force 
 of colouring, Vandyke for elegance, and Reynolds for 
 freedom, are as yet without rivals. If Vandyke is 
 surpassed by the Venetian in light and shade, and 
 by the Englishman in natural ease, he excels them 
 both in heroic elegance and dignity of soul. It is 
 true that Walpole charges him with unfruitfulness 
 of fancy, Fuseli with imitating Titian, and Hazlitt, 
 abetter authority in painting than in poetry, accuses 
 him of a somewhat effeminate cast of colour and 
 expression,” and with wearing an air of faded 
 gentility.” I believe the opinion of the world differs 
 from the sentiments of the first and last of these 
 critics. Occasionally indeed a deficiency in natural 
 vigour maybe observed; nor has he always contrived 
 to conceal the labour which his compositions cost 
 him: a want too of unconscious loveliness and 
 grace may be urged as a defect in many of his 
 female heads. But all this is nothing compared with 
 
GASPAR GEVARTIUS. 
 
 45 
 
 the manly elegance and the heroic dignity of his 
 best works; in this he has surpassed all other artists, 
 he has no violent attitudes nor postures which re¬ 
 quire explanation; he is all energy and motion, but 
 then it is less the energy of body than of mind; 
 and when it is his pleasure to put his sitter in a 
 somewhat startling position, he brings his work 
 back to nature and beauty by the wondrous free¬ 
 dom of his pencil, and the command which he has 
 over all the movements of the human frame. 
 
 It is said by Dryden that Shakspeare never ven¬ 
 tured but once to paint a true gentleman; Vandyke 
 could delineate nothing else; his Dutch artists and 
 Burgo-masters look equal to the founding of aca¬ 
 demies and the establishment of empires; and the 
 splendid file of nobles and warriors whom he painted 
 during the days of Charles the first seem to have 
 been extinguished in the great civil war, for our 
 painters can seldom find such heads to limn in these 
 later days. There are some two hundred and odd 
 portraits in this country from the pencil of Vandyke: 
 it would be well to select the finest of these, and 
 exhibit them along with a hundred or so of the best 
 works of Reynolds for the use and admonition of 
 some of the face-painters of our own day, whose 
 likenesses are frequently tame both in posture and 
 expression. The true way to estimate the great 
 merit of Vandyke is to take up Clarendon, and 
 while we read the historian’s characters of the chiefs 
 of his time, compare them with the heads of the 
 
46 
 
 GASPAR GEVARTIUS. 
 
 painter; there is a singular resemblance between 
 them, which shews that the artist had something 
 more than outward shape in his mind when he 
 painted portraits. The heads of King Charles, Laud, 
 Villiers, Strafford, Newcastle, Pembroke, Percy, 
 Hay, Cottington, Richmond, Arundel, Derby, Go¬ 
 ring, Rupert, Maurice, Digby, Hamilton, Montrose, 
 Falkland, Lindsay, Warwick and others will be 
 found to correspond in no small degree with the 
 notions awakened by Clarendon in his all but living 
 descriptions. 
 
 Though, we have written Gevartius at the head 
 of this brief notice of the artist and his productions, 
 we must not conceal from our readers that the por¬ 
 trait has other names. It is not the least amusing 
 part of the history of this work to learn that Gaspar 
 Gevartius, or Gevaerts, is as little likely to be the 
 true name as that of Vander-Giest, though the anti¬ 
 quarians of Antwerp assert the one, and Dallaway, 
 in Major’s splendid edition of Walpole, contends 
 learnedly for the other. This wish to find a name 
 shews how much the world expects one in a por¬ 
 trait, and the readiness with which names have been 
 found warn us to put little faith in all that are 
 doubtful. It is much to the honour of the painter 
 that a portrait under the disgrace of an alias con¬ 
 tinues to rank with the finest of his productions. 
 It is painted on wood, and was originally little more 
 than the head with some indications of the should¬ 
 ers ; additions, we know not by what hand, have 
 
CASPAR GEVARTIUS. 
 
 47 
 
 been made, and the bust part is completely cloaked 
 up, not so much in strict keeping with the head 
 as to make it correspond with the character of 
 learned civilian and town-clerk of Antwerp,” 
 which the foreign authorities contend for. Hazlitt 
 says, it is not the best specimen of the painter; it 
 has,” he observes, too many streaks of blood co¬ 
 lour, too many marks of the pencil to convey an 
 exact idea of Vandyke’s characteristic excellence; 
 his most striking portraits are those which just look 
 like a gentleman or lady seen in a looking-glass— 
 and neither more nor less.” This is no unfair ac¬ 
 count of this fine portrait; but the critic has not 
 been so correct in his general estimate of the works 
 of Vandyke. Ottley dissents from his brother critic; 
 
 the picture before us,” says he, is painted in 
 Vandyke’s most studied and finished manner: the 
 face being admirably drawn and full of character: 
 the eyes having all the liquid lustre of reality, and 
 the carnations possessing the softness, the transpa¬ 
 rency and the animated glow of nature itself.” It 
 was the aim of that great master to paint more than 
 what he saw—to represent the qualities of mind; 
 moreover he considered it necessary to tamper with 
 living forms; he looked on them with a scientific 
 eye ; he lessened without hurting the character of 
 a large mouth or nose; he refused to perpetuate 
 what he considered the excesses of nature, and 
 sought to preserve individual likeness, while he 
 brought it closer to the rules of science. Had the 
 
48 
 
 CASPAR GEVARTIUS. 
 
 heads of Vandyke been confronted with the living 
 originals the compasses of mechanical criticism 
 might have shewn them incorrect as to exact quan- 
 \ ity, while true judgment would have felt the truth 
 and force of the mental expression. Many artists 
 will consider these remarks as flat heresy ; they are 
 true nevertheless; and the finest heads in modern 
 painting and sculpture are executed on these prin¬ 
 ciples. We shall touch on this topic again in a 
 succeeding number, when we intend to introduce 
 one of Vandyke’s most graceful female portraits 
 from a picture which has never till now been en¬ 
 graved. The Gevartius was sold by auction in 1796 
 for two hundred and thirty guineas ; was purchased 
 two years afterwards at the sale of Bryan’s collection 
 for three hundred and forty guineas; and finally 
 came into Angerstein’s keeping for five hundred 
 guineas. It is now at rest in the National Gallery. 
 

 
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49 
 
 COPLEY. 
 
 DEATH OF CHATHAM. 
 
 The scene of this picture reminds us of the brightest 
 names in English history ; here our greatest princes 
 presided, our ablest orators harangued, and our 
 wisest judges sat in judgment; before us is the 
 throne of our Edwards and Henrys, on either side 
 are represented the naval triumphs of our Howards, 
 our Drakes, and Raleighs, while the Thames flows 
 closely past unchanged in breadth and beauty 
 where all else is changed. Nor has the artist re¬ 
 lied for success on such associations alone—he has 
 chosen a momentous period of our annals, brought 
 the most eminent of our statesmen upon the scene, 
 and shewn him dying at the close of that brilliant 
 harangue in which he warned Britain against the 
 crime of shedding the blood of her children. Per¬ 
 haps in the choice of subject the painter’s thoughts 
 wandered to his own native America; at all events 
 he obtained the praise of the illustrious Washington. 
 
 This work,” said he, highly valuable in itself, is 
 rendered more estimable in my eye when I remem¬ 
 ber that America gave birth to the celebrated artist 
 who produced it.” Nor is it uninteresting to reflect, 
 that the son of the painter has in our own day filled 
 
50 
 
 DEATH OF CHATHAM. 
 
 the seat of Lord High Chancellor with honour to 
 himself and advantage to his country. 
 
 The death of Lord Chatham made a deep impres¬ 
 sion on the public mind—something of a supersti¬ 
 tious fear came upon many people ; they heard in 
 his last speech a prophetic admonition to Britain, 
 and looked on his fate as an omen to be explained 
 in blood. He had risen to reply to those who dis¬ 
 sented from his opening speech, 7th April, 1778, 
 when his voice faltered, a tremor came upon him, 
 he fell back in a faint, and was conveyed to his own 
 house, where he languished and died. To embody 
 this moving scene was the task which Copley un¬ 
 dertook—that he has not succeeded no one can say; 
 there is perhaps no other picture extant containing 
 such a multitude of portraits, where one deep and 
 absorbing interest is imprest on almost all faces. 
 Some indeed must bear the reproach of carelessness 
 or inattention, and it is more than likely that among 
 the spectators one or two might look on without 
 emotion. There is an earnestness stamped on the 
 performance which gives additional effect to the 
 portraitures. The painter has told the story of 
 Chatham’s death much in the same way that it 
 happened ; he is thrown back on the benches ; the 
 Duke of Cumberland supports his left side. Lord 
 Mahon is at his feet, whilst his relatives hasten 
 to afford their ineffectual aid. Near him is the 
 Duke of Portland, with Shelburne and Temple, 
 and there is considerable bustle on the woolsack 
 
. DEATH OF CHATHAM. 
 
 51 
 
 and among the bench of bishops. Though Copley 
 exhibits the divines more under the influence of 
 reason and religion than to be much excited at the 
 departure of a fellow worm, he thought it was neces¬ 
 sary that they should do something ; he accordingly 
 makes the Bishop of Peterborough slap his breast, 
 and Markham, Arehbishop of York, whisper in the 
 ear of Chief Baron Skinner a text probably of re¬ 
 signation and submission. On the right, in the 
 foreground are Richmond, Rockingham, Spencer, 
 Fitzwilliam, and Besborough ; beside the woolsack, 
 Bathurst and Mansfield, and behind it Thurlow 
 and Wedderburn ; while moving towards the dying 
 Earl come Dudley and Ward, Dartmouth, Amherst, 
 Sandwich, and Gower. The whole has been painted 
 with what artists call a firm pencil; the drawing 
 has been praised, so has the grouping, nor is the 
 light and shade without merit. The chief fault is 
 the too literal likenesses of the characters. 
 
 We consider that this work occupies a middle 
 place between mere portrait and historical painting. 
 It is a succession of portraits put into motion, and 
 endowed with sentiment—or in other words, an 
 accurate representation of the actual event, the 
 postures and employments of the actors, modified 
 according to the taste and judgment of the artist. 
 Now, some painters consider this work to be truly 
 historic; they say, can history be better enacted than 
 by the real persons who live in it ? Our answer is, 
 that all the best historical pictures are conceived in 
 
52 
 
 DEATH OF CHATHAM. 
 
 another way and executed on a different principle. 
 It is true that some of the persons who distinguish 
 themselves in history are both in shape and look 
 sufficiently dignified for the highest purposes of art, 
 but this cannot be said of the three-fourths of man¬ 
 kind. True historic painting is true heroic or poetic 
 painting. The eye must be pleased as well as the 
 mind, it tolerates nothing that is not noble in shape; 
 a warrior on the field of battle may be diminutive, 
 nay, mishapen, for having the spirit of a hero is 
 enough for the working day ; but without the port 
 and proportions of the heroic he is unsuitable for 
 historic painting. A mishapen statue is not, let its 
 looks be what they may, of the heroic class ; there 
 must be poetry, there must be science, and there 
 must be geometrical combination, else we shall 
 have a work literal, and like, and common, but 
 not such as elevates our minds and excites noble 
 sentiments. We have always considered that one 
 sentence in the Defence of Poesie is well worth 
 all Fuseli's lecture on the Ideal. Sir Philip Sidney, 
 in speaking of different classes of poets, whether 
 they be poets or no,” says he, let grammarians 
 dispute, and let us go to the right poets of whom 
 chiefly this question ariseth, betwixt whom and 
 these second is such a kind of difference as betwixt 
 the meaner sort of painters, who counterfeit only 
 such faces as are set before them, and the more ex¬ 
 cellent, who having no law but wit, bestow that in 
 colours upon you which is fittest for the eyes to see. 
 
DEATH OF CHATHAM. 
 
 53 
 
 as the constant though lamenting look of Lucretia 
 when she punished in herself another’s fault; 
 wherein he painteth not Lucretia, whom he never 
 saw, but painteth the outward beauty of such a 
 virtue.” 
 
 Of John Singleton Copley the little that is known 
 may be found in The Lives of the British Painters. 
 He stands high in the second rank of our artists, 
 and has left works which the world seems willing 
 to remember. He was of British parents, and 
 born at Boston in America, 3d July, 1737. At 
 an early age a love of art came on him; he had 
 neither models nor instructors, but the best educa¬ 
 tion is that which genius gives to itself. He began 
 to paint portraits and domestic groups, and on 
 sending them to the London exhibition they were 
 both noticed and praised. A painting of a boy and 
 squirrel established his fame; it was remarkable 
 for its nature and truth, and a vivid depth of colour. 
 In 1767 he came to England; he had sounded 
 West, and corresponded with Captain Bruce about 
 his chance of success in London; their cold 
 answers did not daunt him, he made the venture 
 for himself and succeeded. He became a member 
 of the Royal Academy, and painted a series of 
 national works, of which the death of Major Pierson, 
 a young hero, who fell in repulsing the French 
 from Jersey, and the death of Chatham, were the 
 best. He lived till he was seventy-eight years old, 
 nor did he lay aside the pencil till admonished by 
 
54 
 
 DEATH OF CHATHAM. 
 
 the success of some of his more youthful brethren. 
 His outlines were reckoned correct^ his conceptions 
 natural, and his early colouring deep and harmo¬ 
 nious. He has been accused of a certain coldness of 
 fancy ; a companion of his has represented him as 
 difficult to please and snappish in conversation, but 
 this might be said of the best natured were their im¬ 
 patient sallies noted down. The Death of Chatham 
 is ten feet long and seven feet six inches high; the 
 painter refused fifteen hundred guineas for it; it was 
 purchased, we know not at what price, by the late 
 Earl of Liverpool, who used to say that such a 
 work ought not to be in his possession, but in that 
 of the public : these words were not heard in vain 
 by the present Earl, who munificently presented it 
 to the National Gallery. 
 
WILSON. 
 
 LANDSCAPE. 
 
 This is one of those fine scenes of fancy in which 
 Wilson excelled. He was none of the literal copy¬ 
 ists of nature who, unless it please the earth, sea 
 and air, to unite into one splendid landscape, and ap¬ 
 pear before them really and truly, have no chance of 
 ever being heard of. He was one of the most poetic 
 painters of inanimate things that ever lived; he had 
 the rare faculty of extracting whatever was lovely 
 or grand from the aspect of nature, of uniting the 
 beautiful of what he saw with the beautiful of what 
 he imagined, and forming the whole into one magni¬ 
 ficent picture, in which all that was fair on earth 
 was blended with all that was sublime in heaven. 
 Nothing was to Wilson so depressing as a common 
 scene, nothing so elevating as a poetic one ; in this 
 he resembled our greatest poets. A landscape of 
 his reminds us as much, as the harmony of colours 
 can, of the scenes in the Seasons of Thomson ; all 
 with him was poetic, he admitted nothing amusing 
 or ordinary upon his canvas. He went out to the 
 valleys and to the mountains, not so much to look 
 at them as to hold conversation with them; with 
 him romantic glens lived, picturesque hills breathed, 
 haunted rivers spoke, and the assembled clouds of 
 heaven edged with sunshine, or touched with light¬ 
 ning, were as something spiritual which exalted his 
 
56 
 
 LANDSCAPE. 
 
 mind and communicated supernatural brilliancy to 
 his fancy. Yet if he is never wholly on the earth, 
 he is never altogether in the clouds; his most fan¬ 
 ciful scenes are linked to our feelings by a thousand 
 ties of nature, poetry or history real or fabulous. 
 If his clouds seem ever overcharged with their bur¬ 
 thens, figures of angry gods are seen dimly in 
 them discharging arrows at the sinning sons of men ; 
 if the scene threatens a barren magnificence, he 
 brings it back to our sympathy by the shepherd 
 hurrying his fiock over it, or by the figure of some 
 traveller bewildered in the splendour of hills heaped 
 upon hills, and Alps on Alps; or, if he chooses to 
 depict some quiet and lonely lake, with the heron 
 on its winding margin, and the shadows of lambs on 
 its bosom, he connects it with sterner times by the 
 rough outline of some castle or keep, standing like 
 a sentinel by the silent water, or with some now 
 neglected temple for worship, where gods of wood 
 or stone had niches and altars. 
 
 Of the latter kind of landscape the scene at¬ 
 tached to these pages is an example ; the quiet poetic 
 beauty which Wilson occasionally loved is there: 
 there are cattle on shore, anglers watching with 
 their rods, water lilies lying white on the lake, while 
 overlooking the whole a dark peaked mountain, 
 with a ruined fortress at its base, connects history 
 with natural grandeur. To interrupt the long ex¬ 
 tent of mountain, and give life to the slumbering 
 lake, the painter has dashed in a bold abrupt head¬ 
 land, rough with rocks, fringed to the waters edge 
 
LANDSCAPE. 
 
 57 
 
 with trees and shrubs, and crowned with an ivied 
 ruin, evidently the reliques of a feudal tower, which 
 in times of strife and commotion afforded shelter 
 and protection to the lords of the land. There are 
 few of Wilson’s landscapes without water, he had a 
 sort of island love for the element, and no one has 
 painted it with more truth and beauty. Indeed, he 
 would have backed a waterfall against a king’s coro¬ 
 nation at any time ; he loved whatever was immut¬ 
 able and undying. 
 
 The bright unchanging glory of the eternal hills” 
 
 he reckoned as something worth living for, while 
 men were but dust in the balance. It was this en¬ 
 thusiastic feeling which enabled him to triumph 
 in the race of future, not immediate fame, over all 
 opponents. 
 
 How little Sir Joshua Reynolds felt the excel¬ 
 lence of the works of his contemporary Wilson may 
 be gathered from those three depreciating pages in 
 his fourteenth discourse, written and spoken when 
 the great landscape painter’s head was in the dust; 
 he is speaking of the mixture of common nature 
 and classic ideality, which he imagined he saw in his 
 landscapes. To manage,” says Reynolds, ^^a subject 
 of this kind a peculiar style of art is required, and 
 it can only be done without impropriety, or even 
 without ridicule, when v/e adapt the character of 
 the landscape, and that too in all its parts, to the 
 historical or poetical representation. This is a very 
 difficult adventure, and it requires a mind thrown 
 
58 
 
 LANDSCAPE. 
 
 back two thousand years, and as it were naturalized 
 into antiquity, like that of Nicolo Poussin, to 
 achieve it.” Now, these are very just observations, 
 but more applicable to any other painter than to 
 Wilson ; his clouds and hills and ruins are all of the 
 poetic stamp which the President required; there is 
 nothing every day or common place in his compo¬ 
 sitions ; Reynolds must have shut his eyes against 
 the character of those magnificent landscapes, for 
 one cannot well accuse him of laying down rules so 
 profound that he could not perceive when they were 
 fulfilled. The critic wonders at seeing Apollo in 
 clouds, which he says have not the appearance of 
 being able to support him, and are besides deficient 
 in the romantic character appropriate to such a 
 subject. We marvel what kind of clouds are the 
 most suitable to support gods upon, and moreover 
 we would be glad to see a cloud of a romantic cha¬ 
 racter. It is not easy to account for the hostility of 
 Sir Joshua to the memory of a man who died 
 neglected, old, and poor. The fame of Wilson is 
 however quite safe, and what is better it is on the 
 ascent rather than on the fall; of his life and works 
 we shall yet find many occasions to speak. 
 
 The original of this landscape is in the collection 
 of T. E. Earle, Esq. of Holten Park, Oxfordshire ; 
 late the property of T. Biscoe, Esq. of the same place, 
 who permitted Mr. Havell to copy it for engraving. 
 

 
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 4 
 
59 
 
 ANNIBALE CARACCI. 
 
 ST. JOHN IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 Five of the name of Caracci rose to eminence in art: 
 viz. Ludovico, Agostino, Antonio, Francesco and 
 Annibale : they were kinsmen and flourished about 
 the same period: the first obtained distinction both 
 at home and abroad; Agostino was a poet of no mean 
 powers; but Annibale, though not the oldest, is 
 placed from superiority of genius, at the head of the 
 family. He was born at Bologna in the year 1560, 
 received a liberal education and studied painting 
 under his cousin Ludovico Caracci, who was one of 
 the disciples of the Bologna school. Annibale how¬ 
 ever did not confine his views to the masters of paint¬ 
 ing in his native place : he made himself acquainted 
 with the works of Correggio, Titian, Tintoretto, 
 Paulo Veronese and other skilful artists, and in copy¬ 
 ing them endeavoured to preserve his own original 
 feeling and taste. He was naturally desirous of dis¬ 
 tinction, and came to an early resolution to measure 
 his strength against those great masters with whom 
 the world was famihar; nor did he want powers to 
 fit him for the task; he had a fine imagination^ 
 much boldness of conception and a taste for the vdld 
 and the daring. The fame of his works reached 
 
 G 
 
60 
 
 ST. JOHN IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 Rome, and the Cardinal Farnese invited him to 
 employ his pencil on that Gallery \vhich bears his 
 own unworthy name ; the reputation of the antique 
 statues, those masterpieces of science and genius, 
 had fired his fancy before, and made him the more 
 willing to comply with the wish of the Cardinal,— 
 on his arrival in the Eternal City, the first step 
 he took was to the gallery which contained the 
 reliques of Grecian art. The sight and study of 
 those performances had an immediate effect upon 
 his style of drawing; the severe dignity of the 
 antique rebuked the flightiness of his imagination ; 
 he became more scientific, more correct; but what 
 he gained in purity he lost in vigour, and in taming 
 down his fancy he is accused of quenching some of 
 its fire. His kinsmen charged him with deserting 
 the manner of his native school, and with creating 
 a sort of medium style, which had a portion of all 
 schools, and belonged rightly to none. 
 
 The paintings in the Farnese Palace were the 
 work of ten years; men from all quarters, the 
 tasteful and the titled, flocked to see them; and 
 the painter hoped to stand equal in fame, with 
 Angelo and Raphael. That he executed his vast 
 task in a way worthy of his reputation, and showed 
 singular boldness of thought and readiness of imagi¬ 
 nation, has been allowed by almost all critics ; he 
 seems not however to have satisfied his patron, who, 
 influenced it is said by the sordid advice of his 
 favourite dependant, Don Gio, presented the painter 
 
ST. JOHN IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 61 
 
 with five hundred crowns fora work which^merited 
 more than as many thousands. Injustice regarding 
 this splended work • has not been confined to the 
 Cardinal; Fuseli, who only allowed one or two 
 painters to be great in poetic imagination, has re¬ 
 corded his opinion in these injurious terms. The 
 work on which Annibale rests his fame is the Gallery 
 of the Farnese Palace, a work whose uniform vigour 
 of' execution nothing can equal but its imbecility 
 and incongruity of conception. If impropriety of 
 ornament were to be fixed by definition, the sub¬ 
 jects of the Farnese Gallery might be quoted as the 
 most decisive instances. Criticism has attempted 
 to dismiss Paulo Veronese and Tintoretto from the 
 province of legitimate history with the contemp¬ 
 tuous appellation of ornament painters ; if this be 
 just, where shall we class him, who with the Capella 
 Sistina and the Vatican before his eyes, fills the 
 mansion of religious austerity and episcopal dignity 
 with a chaotic series of trite fable and bacchanalian 
 revelry, without allegory, void of allusion, merely to 
 gratify the puerile ostentation of dauntless execution 
 and academic vigour. If the praise given to a work 
 be not always transferable to its master; if, as Milton 
 says, ^ the work some praise and some the architect,’ 
 let us admire the splendour, the exuberance, the 
 concentration of powers displayed in the Farnese 
 Gallery, whilst we lament their misapplication by 
 Annibale -Caracci.” 
 
 Censure such as this from a painter whose chief 
 
62 
 
 ST. JOHN IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 fault was extravagance, may seem conclusive as to 
 the merits of Caracci’s great work; but Fuseli’s 
 opinions require to be considered before they are 
 adopted; he spoke and decided too much by mo¬ 
 mentary impulse to be a safe guide, and hazarded 
 strong sayings for the sake of their wit or their oddity. 
 Caracci’s classic groups were the offspring of learn¬ 
 ing and the age in which he painted. The heathen 
 mythology continued for a century after his time to 
 infest our literature, it is not yet wholly removed 
 from our art. Nor was it a church for which he 
 imagined those groups of bacchanalian revellers, nor 
 yet the mansion of religious austerity,” it was the 
 dwelling of a Cardinal, nowise desirous of having 
 his walls. painted with comments upon scripture, 
 and who was not averse to joyous company, and 
 the presence of heathen divinities. Agostino, in one 
 of his sonnets, indicates the character which his 
 cousin Annibale sought to impress on his works 
 —he imagined that by selecting the beauties and 
 correcting the faults of each school, he might form 
 a perfect system, such as would excite the wonder 
 of the world. Take,” says he, Roman design; 
 Venetian motion and shade ; Lombardy’s fine tone 
 of colour ; the terrible manner of Michael Angelo ; 
 the just symmetry of Raphael; the truth and nature 
 of Titian; the sovereign purity of Correggio ; the 
 duration and solidity of Tibaldi; the learned inven¬ 
 tion of Primaticcio; and a little of Parmigiano’s 
 grace—or, to save study and labour, imitate the 
 
ST. JOHN IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 63 
 
 works which our dear Nicolo has left.” That 
 Annibale attempted all this no one has said; it is 
 true, however, that in his latter works the severe 
 coldness of the Greek sculpture was more than 
 visible, and that in becoming more scientific, he 
 grew more dry and less natural both in invention 
 and colour. 
 
 The work before us may be said to have been 
 conceived in Bologna and painted in Rome. There 
 is something of the wild daring of Caraccfs youth- 
 fill imagination in it; and not a little of that severe 
 truth and scientific accuracy of outline which he 
 affected after removing to the capital. The savage 
 grandeur of the wilderness is stamped oh the back¬ 
 ground, where rock piled on rock, shagged with 
 trees and bushes, and moistened by a rivulet which 
 glimmers among the natural basins of the glen, form 
 a retreat suiting with St. John’s melancholy gran¬ 
 deur of soul. The picture tells its story at once, 
 and cannot well be looked on without being un¬ 
 derstood. In this work the painter is imagined 
 to have had Correggio in his mind, who was fond 
 of placing beauty in a desert. None of the super¬ 
 abundance of embellishment for which Fuseli cen¬ 
 sures his Farnese Gallery, has found its way into 
 the design; all is barren and savage; the seat of 
 the Saint is on the ground, his body is but partly 
 covered; the cross is in his left hand, and a 
 wooden cup in his right, with which he is procur¬ 
 ing water from the rock. Nor does he seem to be 
 
64 
 
 ST. JOHN IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 seeking the water to quench his thirst,^ the cup is 
 about flowing over, and he may be considered as 
 moralizing upon the element running to waste. 
 
 The figure,” says Ottley, is drawn and executed 
 with great academic power ; and the back-ground, 
 a wild picturesque landscape, is painted in Annibale’s 
 boldest manner.” Hazlitt, in his Sketches, had 
 nearly overlooked this picture. I forgot'to no¬ 
 tice,” said he, a St: John in the Wilderness, by 
 Annibale Caracci, which has much of the autumnal 
 tone, the sear and yellow leaf of Titian’s landscape 
 compositions.” 
 
 It is from the Orleans Collection, measures five 
 feet five inches high by four feet one inch wide, and 
 belongs to the National Gallery 
 
FERDINAND BOI 
 
 DUTCH LADY WITH FRUIT. 
 
 The best works of the Dutch masters are much 
 esteemed by the world, though it must be confessed 
 that most artists, who follow the grand or historic 
 style, look upon them as productions unworthy of 
 ranking with efforts of true genius. Fuseli sees no 
 merit among the painters of the States save in 
 Rembrandt .alone. If ever he had a master,” 
 says the professor of painting, he had no follow¬ 
 ers : Holland was not made to comprehend his 
 power. The succeeding school of colourists were 
 content to tip the cottage, the hamlet, the boor, 
 the ale-pot, the shambles and the haze of winter 
 with orient hues, or the glow of setting summer 
 suns.” Notwithstanding this wild fulmination, the 
 artists of that country have interested the hearts of 
 all ranks and of all lands by their fine natural de¬ 
 lineations of domestic life, and by their lively images 
 of household comfort and fireside love. They have 
 offended Fuseli and other teachers of the grand 
 style, not only by embalming in exquisite and last¬ 
 ing colours common and unpoetic pursuits, but by 
 their neglect of the scientific principles of historic 
 art—the bounding line of the human figure, and 
 
66 
 
 DUTCH LADY WITH FRUIT. 
 
 the harmonious union of all its parts. Those who 
 dislike the masters of the Dutch school must mean 
 that they are averse to any representation of ordi¬ 
 nary nature, for they cannot surely desire to see the 
 academic rules of beauty employed on those home¬ 
 lier subjects which their brethren have so frequently 
 embodied. The followers of Rembrandt seem to 
 have imitated him less than they did common life. 
 Though not ignorant of scientific rules of beauty and 
 proportion, they went out with their pallettes among 
 the hamlets and cottages of the land and took na¬ 
 ture as they found it. A cottage in which an old wo¬ 
 man sat spinning; or trimmed her evening fire ; or 
 prepared her frugal meal, was to them at once a sub¬ 
 ject and an academy ; and the limit of their ambi¬ 
 tion was to transfer it to canvass in perfect reality 
 and truth. That they were right no one can doubt 
 who knows how wide the range of art is ; for paint¬ 
 ing, like poetry, has many classes, all capable of 
 seizing the feehngs of mankind. So far then from 
 insulting, hke Fuseli, the painters of domestic hap¬ 
 piness and household thrift, we ought to be pleased 
 that artists are found who turn to such themes from 
 matters stern and tragic, and produce humble but 
 not unlovely things to please such hearts as care 
 not to be moved alone by poetic grandeur, or dazzled 
 by historic magnificence. 
 
 Those who look carefully at the works of the 
 masters of the Dutch school, will see the pecuhar 
 character and manners of the people stamped on 
 
DUTCH LADY WITH FRUIT. 
 
 67 
 
 every picture. Their portraits are not merely well- 
 dressed images of the listless and the idle, nor their 
 household groups bevies of men and women sitting 
 in attitude, all looking carefully towards the point 
 of light, like people anxious about their portraits 
 they are always employed; every one is doing 
 something that requires to be done, and doing it 
 neatly and gracefully. A Dutch painter would feel 
 as much ashamed to represent the ladies of the land 
 idle, as they would to be caught slumbering over 
 their knitting or their embroidery. Hence in all 
 the pictures of the States there is no idleness ; the 
 women are busied generally in some becoming 
 office, and the men are either at work or the wine 
 cup ; they keep moving. They have no men 
 sitting and neither working nor thinking, like some 
 of our island portraits ; nor have they such a thing 
 as a pattern-lady—on whose fine shape dress¬ 
 makers display their costliest silks and rarest 
 fashions. 
 
 The picture of the Dutch Lady with fhiit, which 
 has led us into this way of thinking, forms no ex¬ 
 ception to our remarks. The whole has the image 
 of honest and thrifty Holland upon it: she is fair 
 and comely; her dress is neat, with some small lean¬ 
 ing towards display ; she moves with ease, like one 
 at her own threshold, and bears a rich basket full 
 of ripe fhiit, which she probably intends to place 
 before her husband and some honoured guests. 
 At all events the lady is well to do in the world. 
 
68 
 
 DUTCH LADY WITH FRUIT. 
 
 nor unconscious that neatness and elegance are ac¬ 
 ceptable things even to a husband. Her rich head 
 gear and party-coloured gown fastened with em¬ 
 broidered bands, speak of argosies, and her looks 
 full of good nature and affection are assurances of 
 domestic love and fireside happiness. This we 
 think a very good way of painting portraits, and we 
 ought to thank Holland for the example. . The 
 likenesses of many of our ladies in the exhibitions 
 seem, like the dame in Hogarth, as much inclined 
 to sport with the marriage ring as to busy them¬ 
 selves with thrift and economy. 
 
 Of Ferdinand Bol, who painted this young Dutch 
 matron, not much is known in this country. He 
 was born,” says Pilkington, at Dort in 1611 ; 
 educated at Amsterdam, and placed as a disciple in 
 the. school of Rembrandt.” There he soon distin¬ 
 guished himself in history and portrait; and more 
 particularly for works which, like the one before 
 us, embodied something of domestic character. 
 He .studied Rembrandt’s style, and imitated it with 
 success ; but his genius was of a milder mood than 
 that of his great master, and his affections dwelt 
 much with the sweet and the graceful. He painted 
 his portraits,” continues the same authority, in a 
 free, bold, manner, but not with that clearness of 
 flesh and remarkable relievo by which his master 
 was rendered deservedly famous : his colouring had 
 frequently too great a tinge of brown in the carna¬ 
 tions ; though notwithstanding that particularity. 
 
DUTCH LADY WITH FRUIT. 
 
 69 
 
 his portraits had a great look of life and nature.” 
 The way he employed his characters gave much of 
 the look of life and nature, which his biographer 
 perceived. Though his colouring was nothing like 
 so vivid as that of Rembrandt, this is less seen in 
 engraving—which obscures defects of that nature, 
 while it preserves sentiment and expression. 
 
 In Bol’s historic compositions, the defects of his 
 school are sufficiently visible : he had truth, nature 
 and expression for the humbler incidents of life, but 
 he was deficient in grandeur of style and accuracy 
 of outline. In the Council Chamber of Dort there 
 is a large picture by him, of which the subject is 
 the Appointment of the Seventy Elders in the Camp 
 of the Israelites ; also one of Moses breaking the 
 Tables of Stone ; both well designed and well exe¬ 
 cuted ; likewise in the Chamber of the Burgo¬ 
 masters there is a picture of his representing Fabri- 
 cius in the presence of Pyrrhus, which is much 
 admired. In some of his designs,” says Pil- 
 kington, we see a great deal of correctness, 
 with easy and natural attitudes; but in others— 
 perhaps from negligence—the outline of his figures 
 is defective, and the air is not delicate.” In truth 
 he had little academic elegance or feeling for the 
 neroic order of beauty about him; his eye never 
 passed the limits of Holland ; he took nature as he 
 found her, and loved her in spite of her Dutch dress 
 and provincial manners ; nor did he seem to desire 
 greater fame than the successful delineation of her 
 
70 
 
 DUTCH LADY WITH FRUIT. 
 
 charms brought him. Nature exalted by poetry 
 and refined by science he did not appear to know 
 or to care about. He lived in his native land to the 
 age of seventy years, and died respected for his 
 talents and probity. 
 
 This fine domestic picture is in the keeping of 
 Robert Ludgate, Esq., from whose collection we 
 have the promise of other rare works of equal or 
 superior beauty. It is our wish to show what 
 varied treasures of art our country possesses, we 
 give engravings of a large size and of a quality 
 which the age demands, and all from the best works 
 of the best masters. 
 
V'''. .’r : ■ 
 
 "■"'v.y'' 
 
 
 
 ; 
 
 
 lii'jfp 
 
 I'i 
 
71 
 
 GAINSBOROUGH. 
 
 LANDSCAPE. 
 
 The fine landscape from which our engraving is 
 made, belongs to Robert Vernon, Esq. who kindly 
 allowed it to be copied for the Cabinet Gallery of 
 Pictures ; those who wish to see with what success 
 the graver has done his task should look at the 
 original, now in the winter exhibition in the Suffolk 
 Street Gallery, where, amid many noble works of 
 the English masters, it sustains the high character 
 of Gainsborough. 
 
 The scene, like all the works of the painter, is 
 truly English, and is said to belong to Suffolk ; the 
 season seems to be summer, and the time of the 
 day nigh sunset. Some peasants who have been 
 at market with the produce of their farm, are on 
 their way home with the empty waggon, drawn 
 by four horses. They are evidently hurrying back, 
 and have all three been riding, though one of them 
 is now on foot guiding the horses; and on looking 
 at the spot where the halt has taken place, we 
 cannot but feel that his precaution is necessary. 
 The road in which they are journeying descends 
 suddenly in a sort of abrupt and winding line into 
 a deep and wooded dell, down which a clear broad 
 
72 
 
 LANDSCAPE. 
 
 brook seems scarcely moving^ while over the stream 
 a bridge has been constructed by rustic hands for 
 foot passengers. The horses, weary and warm with 
 their sultry journey, gladly halt in the ford to drink ; 
 the waggoner leans over the rail of the bridge, 
 and with suspended whip seems to admonish his 
 horses, the foremost of which turns its head up the 
 brook and drinks of the purest, while the second, 
 glad to get water on any terms, takes it where it is 
 readiest; the other horses stand impatient to be in 
 the stream. The waggoner’s watchful attitude shows 
 that it requires care to prevent an upset, for the 
 bank is precipitous and the way difficult. 
 
 Such are the central features of the scene ; else¬ 
 where the landscape is remarkably picturesque. On 
 the left the ground rises rugged and abrupt, with 
 trees growing down to the side of the stream; while 
 on the right the reliques of a majestic oak hang 
 gnarled and hollow over the road, which passes on 
 to the ford. This old desolate tree is a sight well 
 worth going into Suffolk to look at. It had grown 
 up to immense size, watered at the root by a deep 
 stream, and seeking its sustenance far and wide in 
 the loamy bank; beneath its boughs wild deer in 
 other days had ran, when the outlaw drew his arrow, 
 but now hollow and branchless, it is but the ruin of 
 of what it was, and the > sun going down behind it 
 holds it out to our contemplation as a subject 
 whereon to moralize. What we have described 
 would in the opinion of almost any other painter 
 
LANDSCAPE. 
 
 73 
 
 have formed landscape enough; but Gainsborough 
 felt that he had still another attraction to lend to 
 the scene—one indeed which it required, vs#; The 
 upper part of the wood is tenantedfby a horde of 
 gypsies; their asses are grazing among the glades; 
 the party-coloured coverings of their wandering camp 
 are visible among the shafts of the trees, and a thin 
 and.scarcely distinguished smoke curls slowly away 
 amid the boughs of the forest. This is one of the 
 painter’s marks to indicate great natural beauty of 
 scene; he knew that the taste of that roving people 
 was, as far as regarded a feeling for the charms of 
 external nature, essentially poetic. If a lovely 
 spot lies within seven miles of their line of march, 
 there will they fix their tents and make their abode 
 for the night; were landscape painters to follow 
 their footsteps, and paint the scenes in’ which 
 they establish themselves—they could not fail to 
 produce a series of fine poetic compositions. All 
 that we have to add to this imperfect description 
 of a very fine landscape is, that it is an example of 
 the vigour of conception and harmony of colouring, 
 as well as of the natural truth and splendor, which 
 distinguish the best paintings of this favourite 
 master. 
 
 Fuseli, in his edition of Pilkington’s Dictionary of 
 Painters, indulges in some ironical remarks on 
 the fame which Gainsborough acquired, and on 
 the character which the biographer bestowed on 
 his compositions. But with all his genius, the 
 
74 
 
 LANDSCAPE. 
 
 Swiss had a very peculiar and limited taste—it took 
 in the grand and the sublime, and admitted little 
 else ; for pictures embodying humble scenes from 
 life or nature he had no sympathy ; of the lights of 
 heaven he admired but the sun, and of the flowers 
 of the garden he loved but the rose. There are 
 other lights worthy of our admiration, and other 
 flowers deserving to be loved; and the man who 
 can only bestow his affection on what is lofty 
 or noble, has not all the taste which belongs 
 to true genius — he resembles Touchstone’s egg, 
 which was roasted but on one side. Reynolds^ in 
 his discourses, did the justice to Gainsborough 
 which he refused to Wilson : it is likely that he did 
 not feel the poetic sublimity of the latter. At all 
 events he was fully sensible of the natural grace, 
 the great force of colour and fine harmonies of the 
 other. His excellence,” he said, was his own; 
 the result of his particular observation and taste. 
 For this he was certainly not indebted to the Fle¬ 
 mish school, nor indeed to any school; for his 
 grace was not academical or antique, but selected 
 by himself from the great school of nature; and 
 there are yet a thousand modes of grace which are 
 neither theirs nor his, but lie open in the multiplied 
 scenes and figures of life to be brought out by skilful 
 and faithful observers. The peculiarity of his man¬ 
 ner, or style, or we may call it the language in 
 which he expressed his ideas, has been considered 
 by many as his greatest defect. But without alto- 
 
LANDSCAPE. 
 
 75 
 
 gether wishing to enter into the discussion whether 
 this peculiarity was a defect or not, intermixed as 
 it was with great beauties, of some of which it was 
 probably the cause, it becomes a proper subject of 
 criticism and enquiry to a painter. It is certain 
 that all those odd scratches and marks, which, on 
 a close examination, are so observable in Gainsbo¬ 
 rough’s pictures, and which, even to experienced 
 painters, appear rather the effect of accident than 
 design—this chaos—this uncouth and shapeless ap¬ 
 pearance, by a kind of magic, at a certain distance 
 assumes form, and all the parts seem to drop into 
 their proper places ; so that we can hardly refiise 
 acknowledging the full effect of diligence under the 
 appearance of chance and hasty negligence.” 
 
 The landscapes of Gainsborough obtained merited 
 fame in the days of the artist, and in this he was 
 happier than his great cotemporary Wilson. For 
 this reasons may readily be given. His pictures 
 unite the lower with the higher qualities of land¬ 
 scape, and speak to common, as well as to uncom¬ 
 mon, minds. They have great natural force and 
 truth, and are doubly interesting by the human 
 life with which he has inspired them. In this 
 union of man with the land which belonged to him, 
 lay the strong charm of Gainsborough. By these 
 means he endowed the still and barren landscape 
 with a spirit, and gave it a tongue with which it 
 addressed the spectator, and moved his heart while 
 he pleased his eye. There are groups in the land- 
 
 H 
 
76 
 
 LANDSCAPE. 
 
 / 
 
 scapes of this painter which have all the tenderness 
 and pathos of Burns. On his young children he 
 has impressed health and joyousness amid all their 
 rags and privations ; but when he paints a cottage 
 girl or boy sixteen years old or so, he considers 
 that their eyes are opened to the hard lot which is 
 their inheritance, and he stamps a gathering sadness 
 on their brows which accords with the rude cottage, 
 the scanty flocks and the marks of privation around. 
 To Wilson, human beings were as nothing; with 
 Gainsborough every thing. 
 
77 
 
 WILLIAM VANDERVELDE. 
 
 A BRISK GALE. 
 
 Four painters of the name of Vandervelde rose to 
 distinction among the artists of Holland. Adrian 
 painted landscape, animals, and history; Esaias, 
 battle-pieces and landscape ; WilHam, the elder, sea 
 scenes and sea fights; and his son, William, the 
 younger, storms, calms, and battles. To the latter 
 we owe, among many noble pieces, the Brisk 
 Gale,” of which we give a very clever engraving. 
 William, the younger, was born at Amsterdam in 
 the year 1633 ; and as his father was patronized in 
 England by the two last of the Stuarts, he came 
 over to try his fortune as a marine painter among 
 the best maritime warriors, and the worst maritime 
 artists, in the world. Nature had united with study 
 to ensure his success in this line; he had a fine eye 
 for the picturesque, a ready power of combination, 
 and a taste which was inherited rather than acquired. 
 His instruction too in his art had commenced early; 
 his father directed for a time his eye and his hand, 
 and Simon de Vleiger, a painter skilful in the re¬ 
 presentation of shipping and shores, impressed upon 
 him the beauty, as well as necessity, of accuracy 
 and neatness. Besides all this, he studied a little 
 
 I 
 
78 
 
 A BRISK GALE. 
 
 in a school of his own. It was his practice, we are 
 informed, to roam about the shores of Holland, 
 watching the going or returning sails of vessels of 
 war or merchandize : nay, he oftentimes made ex¬ 
 cursions in sloops or in boats, sketching all the while 
 the changing aspect of the sea under the influence 
 of the sun or the wind. This mode of study enabled 
 him to communicate that natural hue and look of 
 reality to his works, which all works must have 
 that are intended for hereafter. 
 
 This last of the Vanderveldes had risen to emi¬ 
 nence as an artist in his native country before he 
 removed to England; here his genius was not only 
 admired, but rarer still, rewarded. The beauty and 
 truth, and harmonious unity of his maritime pictures, 
 were felt at once. So naturally did he agitate the 
 water, and so gracefully did he construct and move 
 his ships, that he obtained the immediate patronage 
 of King Charles, the Duke of York, and the chief 
 nobility. It must however be remembered, that 
 Charles was a naval architect of great talent; that 
 James was one of our ablest admirals ; and that 
 our nobility at that period had a love for maritime 
 adventures, which has subsided in their descendants. 
 Though all this was in favour of marine painting, 
 it was also in favour of the truth and beauty of the 
 delineations, for none but a skilful and accom¬ 
 plished artist might hope for success in the sight of 
 men who were judges of naval architecture, and 
 acquainted with the looks of the sea, and of ships 
 
A BRISK GALE. 
 
 79 
 
 under sail. To such eminence did Vandervelde rise 
 in England^ that his pictures painted before he left 
 Holland were eagerly sought after by Englishmen, 
 and purchased at large prices ; this accounts for 
 the rarity of his compositions in his native land and 
 their abundance here. One of his pictures, repre¬ 
 senting a calm, and another a ship of war encoun¬ 
 tered by a fire ship, are accounted master-pieces. 
 He was skilful in all maritime matters; his ships 
 are looked upon as models of beauty, and the ease 
 with which they glide through the water has been 
 remarked by mariners. It seems alike to him to 
 delineate the sea in a sort of slumbering tranquil¬ 
 lity ; or when 
 
 “ The waves roll multitudinous, and the foam 
 Uplashed by angry gusts, fills all the air.” 
 
 In depicting the fleets of rival nations contending 
 for naval empire on the sea, he was still at his 
 ease and ever natural, animated and elegant. 
 
 The paintings of this master,” says Pilkington, 
 
 have in every respect such a degree of perfec¬ 
 tion as is not to be discovered in the productions 
 of any other artist. And whether we consider the 
 beauty of his design, the correctness of his draw¬ 
 ing, the graceful figures and positions of his vessels, 
 the elegance of his disposition, the lightness of 
 his clouds, the clearness and variety of his serene 
 skies, as well as the gloomy horror of those that 
 are stormy, the liveliness and transparency of his 
 
80 
 
 A BRISK GALE. 
 
 colouring, the look of genuine nature that appears 
 in his agitated or still waters, and the lovely grada¬ 
 tion of his distances, as well as their perspective 
 truth, we know not what principally to admire; 
 they are all executed with equal nature, judgment, 
 and genius—they all are worthy of our highest com¬ 
 mendation—they are truly inimitable.” He died in 
 1707, in the seventy-fourth year of his age. The 
 picture from which our engraving is copied, under 
 the care of Mr. Hofland, is the property of N. W. 
 Ridley Colborne, Esq. and is valued by the skilful 
 in such compositions at five hundred guineas. 
 
 Since the days of the younger Vandervelde our 
 island school has produced many noble maritime 
 paintings by artists, dead and living; but though 
 we have pictures uniting sea and land of surpassing 
 beauty, we have few or none which show the evo¬ 
 lutions of ships of war, or the agitation or vicissi¬ 
 tudes of battle in a way much to our liking. Few 
 or none of our painters are well acquainted with 
 maritime affairs, or at least they have not gone 
 down to the sea when the contest was fierce and 
 bloody, as the elder Vandervelde did, when he 
 made his sketches of the memorable fight of three 
 days duration between Monk and de Ruyter. The 
 naval battles which we fight on canvas are generally 
 failures ; a cloud of rolling smoke, with a few sharp 
 sticks rising through it, a tattered flag hanging 
 overboard, and a seaman or two drowning, are the 
 usual materials of such compositions. The real battle 
 
A BRISK GALE. 
 
 81 
 
 forms a sterner and nobler picture. Though some of 
 the most heroic and daring actions in the history of 
 the world have been performed by Blake, Monk, Nel¬ 
 son, and other of our mariners, and though painters, 
 with and without name, have laboured to commu¬ 
 nicate to canvas a lively image of their deeds, we 
 have obtained nothing worthy of our fame as a 
 nation. Poets have sung and Chroniclers have told 
 of our actions at sea in inspired and picturesque 
 language ; Campbell in verse and Southey in prose, 
 have commemorated, in words not likely to be for¬ 
 gotten, the fortunes of Nelson and his comrades; but 
 in painting, though nobles have desired and kings 
 commanded, we are still sadly deficient. There 
 is probably something in the monotony of groves 
 of masts, volcanoes of smoke, tiers of volleying guns, 
 and far extended expanses of water, which alarms or 
 deadens the fancy of artists, and interposes between 
 them and that freedom of distribution and hand¬ 
 ling allowed in works of genius. We know not 
 how this may be, but we know that no one has de¬ 
 lineated any of our late maritime victories in a way 
 either natural or poetic. The untillable and barren 
 deep ” has itself been painted, and that with fine 
 effect; but no one has shown in truth and in beauty 
 Britannia in all her glory,—when 
 
 Her march is o’er the mountain wave. 
 
 Her home is on the deep.” 
 
 Our naval pictures seem more the offspring of 
 
82 
 
 A BRISK GALE. 
 
 other pictures than of original remark and concep¬ 
 tion ; as there are artists who sit in London and 
 delineate mountains and towers and streams in 
 Circassia and Coelo-Syria, so there are others who 
 behold only in fancy the wonders of the Lord on 
 the deep/’ or are content to see through the eyes 
 of their elder brethren of art; and hence all this 
 coldness and tameness in our national pictures 
 of battles fought for the dominion of the sea. 
 

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 V 
 
 
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 '■'J' 
 
S3 
 
 VANDYKE. 
 
 HENRIETTA, QUEEN OF CHARLES I. 
 
 Vandyke,” says Walpole, imbibed so deeply 
 the tints of Titian, that he is allowed to approach 
 nearer to the carnations of that master even than 
 Rubens. Sir Anthony had more delicacy than the 
 latter; but like him never reached the grace and 
 the dignity of the antique. He seldom or ever 
 arrived at beauty; his Madonnas are homely ; his 
 ladies so little flattered that one is surprized he 
 had so much custom; he has left us to wonder 
 that the famous Countess of Carlisle could be 
 thought so charming; and had not Waller been a 
 better painter, Sacharissa would make little im¬ 
 pression now.” The truth of his delineations, 
 mental and bodily, was one of the many charms of 
 Vandyke ; he considered it his duty perhaps to re¬ 
 present woman as he found her, and was satisfied 
 with showing Sacharissa in her natural lineaments 
 and unaffected hues, without seeking to paint up to 
 the splendid flatteries of Waller. As true’beauty 
 cannot be encreased any more than the lily can be 
 dyed in fairer hues, all the ladies who had loveliness 
 on their side were safe with the painter, they ap- 
 
84 HENRIETTA, QUEEN OF CHARLES I. 
 
 / 
 
 peared on the canvas as they looked in life,—while 
 those inferior in beauty could hope no supplemental 
 charms from a pencil which either would not or 
 could not flatter. We may consider the flne por¬ 
 trait, of which the engraving is a faithful copy, as a 
 true record of the looks and air of a queen whose 
 charms exercised perhaps too much influence over 
 a monarch, whom all lovers of art and literature must 
 admire for his taste and liberality. 
 
 When this portrait was painted Henrietta was 
 young, her beauty and her levity brought around 
 her the thoughtless and the giddy; her foreign 
 manners and influence with Charles displeased the 
 sedate and the wise; while her open fondness for 
 the Catholic religion alarmed the Puritans, then a 
 brave and a numerous sect. In spite however of 
 all the private levities of the palace, it cannot be 
 denied that the external decorum and outward de¬ 
 cencies of life were maintained at court. The King 
 had fine taste both in painting and in poetry, and 
 loved to converse with learned men, or to walk in 
 his magnificent galleries and look on the works of 
 genius, now for the first time collected under the 
 roof of an English prince. The Queen too, at 
 times, attended by her trains of ladies, would follow 
 the King, and look at some new Rubens or Raphael, 
 or in her own apartments hsten to the music of 
 voice and instrument, or sit an hour for one of 
 those many portraits which we owe to the pencil 
 of Vandyke. The time soon came when all those 
 
HENRIETTA, QUEEN OF CHARLES I. 
 
 85 
 
 pageantries were to be dissolved like the visions of a 
 morning dream; the Commons asked much, the 
 King would concede little, and that war commenced 
 which promised more for hberty than it performed. 
 When this portrait was taken neither sorrow nor 
 suspicion had stained her looks or her name, 
 and it must be confessed that she seems beauti¬ 
 ful and blameless. Her dark tresses, and her 
 bright and pure face, form one of those fine con¬ 
 trasts fi*equent in nature yet difficult to paint; 
 while her blue silken dress and her snowy bosom 
 are redeemed from a charge of coldness by the 
 ease and truth with which both are represented; 
 contrasts which are not chilly in nature will not look 
 freezing in painting, if the artist has the skill to 
 manage his colours wisely. Nature abounds in, 
 nay, loves such violent contrasts ; the bright white 
 bloom and the dark green leaf on a blossomed pear- 
 tree are in the truest harmony; so are the clear 
 piercing stars in the dark blue firmament; in truth, 
 the varied hues of universal nature unite in one 
 harmonious combination though the colours are 
 strong and even violent in their opposition. 
 
 Female portrait painting in England cannot be 
 said to have improved much since the days of 
 Vandyke. The ladies of Reynolds are cold and 
 clever ; those of Lawrence have too much of fashion 
 and too little of simplicity. As men feel so do 
 they paint; Sir Joshua looked on woman not as a 
 matter to reverence and to love, but as a commodity 
 
86 HENRIETTA, QUEEN OF CHARLES I. 
 
 / 
 
 with strong light and shade, on which he could lay 
 out his colours so as to surprize and astonish ; Sir 
 Thomas regarded her as something which he had 
 to endow with all the attractions fit to captivate in 
 a ball-room or a court; he heightened the hues, he 
 corrected the bounding lines, and communicated to 
 the eyes that eloquence bestowed by the girdle of 
 the Goddess, 
 
 Which from the wisest wins their best resolves. 
 
 Reynolds acted upon the precept of Mudge, that 
 beauty is a medium; his women are splendid works 
 of art; we admire their exquisite colour and true 
 harmony of parts. Lawrence imagined that women 
 should always look as if music and poetry had 
 united to give a diviner colour to their cheeks and 
 more captivating light to their eyes. 
 
 The portrait which has called forth these re¬ 
 marks is a very masterly one, and the property of 
 Robert Vernon, Esq. who has kindly allowed it to 
 be engraved for this work. 
 
i&’lSS' 
 
 ■V?'' 
 

87 
 
 TENIERS. 
 
 THE FARM YARD. 
 
 The Farm Yard of Teniers is one of those pictures 
 which never fail to recall images of rustic industry 
 and rural comfort to the most careless observer. 
 The economy of the stackyard, the management of 
 the barn, the care which cows require, and the 
 stable demands; together with the management of 
 sheep, pigs and poultry, and various other matters 
 on which the heads and hands of an opulent farmer’s 
 establishment employ themselves from light to dark, 
 are all of that kind on which fashion has little influ¬ 
 ence, for they are of nature, and cannot be changed. 
 It is that which makes most of the pictures of this 
 eminent artist look like creations of yesterday. The 
 work of a farmer goes hand in hand with nature; 
 changing but with the change of seasons, it is 
 therefore ever the same, or seemingly so: in truth 
 the scene before us, though painted two hundred 
 years ago, looks as Enghsh or as Scotch as a paint¬ 
 ing can look; and were it not for some slight na¬ 
 tionality in the costume of the cowherd and the 
 sheepboy, it might pass with the multitude for an 
 image all our own. The whole is in perfect keep¬ 
 ing—all is farm-like. Here are houses for the 
 
88 
 
 THE FARM YARD. 
 
 accommodation of the farmer and the protection 
 of his cattle : a maiden has filled her pitcher, and is 
 looking round to a boy—her master’s son, perhaps, 
 —who, weary and thirsty with bringing his httle 
 flock of sheep from their distant pasture, desires 
 to taste the water, which, as the length of the 
 line in her hand indicates, has been drawn out 
 of a deep well. She is looking complacently on 
 the boy, and it is plain she will indulge him, 
 though pots and porringers are there requiring 
 her purifying hand. The cows—three very fine 
 ones—have just been brought home by a careful 
 herdsman: beside one of them a milkmaid has 
 taken her seat, and whilst baring her hands for 
 their task the cowherd leans over his staff beside 
 her, and seems to be telling her on what fine grassy 
 banks his herd have fed, and how pleased they must 
 b6 to yield their milk to the agreeable pressure of 
 her long white fingers. His dog looks the same 
 way with its master, as all trained dogs do : a hind 
 makes his appearance with a wicker hamper, con¬ 
 taining perhaps the evening meal of the cows, and 
 the whole establishment seems in the full enjoyment 
 of the hour of sunset, when the latest note of the 
 bird is in the air and the dews begin to fall. 
 
 A little cottage with its quota of peasants at the 
 door stands on the other side of a quiet stream: 
 the spire of the parish church rises among the dis¬ 
 tant trees, while the lofty gable of a peel or fortalice 
 close to the farmer’s hall, speaks of protection 
 
THE FARM YARD. 
 
 89 
 
 afforded not lately, but of old; at least so we inter¬ 
 pret the absence of smoke from the chimney head, 
 and the bare and snaggy top of a dead tree, show¬ 
 ing like the horns of a deer, between the houses of 
 the husbandman and warrior. The quiet beauty 
 and rustic composure about the whole scene indi¬ 
 cate happiness and plenty. The original is in the 
 possession of Mrs. West, and was lately under the 
 eye of the public at the British Institution. 
 
 Of the eminent artist who painted it much is 
 known, for he hved near our own times, and was so 
 acceptable to the world in his works, that his pictures 
 found their way into almost every gallery in Europe. 
 It is true that some artists, and Lawrence amongst 
 them, excluded his sketches from their collections, 
 and refused to rank him with those distinguished 
 men whom academies consented to call The 
 Masters.” But, as Pope said of his Homer in com¬ 
 parison to that of Tickell, if he had not the court 
 he had the mob on his side. The honours with¬ 
 held from him by professors had no influence on 
 the world, and his name stands deservedly high 
 with all who admire original talent and variety of 
 character. He may be safely classed with those 
 who have contributed largely to the amusement, 
 nay, the happiness of mankind. 
 
 David Teniers was born at Antwerp in the year 
 1610, and received instructions in drawing and 
 colouring from his father, an artist of some note, 
 who is said to have invented that; natural and 
 
90 
 
 THE FARM YARD. 
 
 / 
 
 vigorous style of painting in which his son after¬ 
 wards excelled. He studied also under Adrian 
 Brouwer, and had the advantage of the precepts and 
 example of Rubens. His style was new ; his con¬ 
 ceptions were opposed to those ideas called histori¬ 
 cal, and it was so long before his merit was regarded, 
 that he had to travel to Brussels to dispose of his 
 works among judges who know no rule but nature’s, 
 and had the mortification to see the works of 
 artists now forgotten, purchased with avidity, and 
 at high prices. It happened that the Archduke 
 Leopold saw one of his pictures; he requested to 
 see more, and was so struck with the originality 
 every where visible, that he not only promoted the 
 interests of the painter in all matters connected with 
 art, but made him gentleman of his bed-chamber, 
 and bestowed upon him the care of his fine gallery 
 of paintings. 
 
 The fame of his works soon fiew over Europe ; 
 the King of Spain admired them so much that he 
 invited Teniers into his service, employed him for 
 several years, and ordered a gallery to be built ex¬ 
 pressly for the purpose of exhibiting his paintings. 
 Don John, of Austria, likewise patronized him; nor 
 were his merits unfelt by Christina, Queen of 
 Sweden, who gave him, among other marks of 
 favour, a chain of gold, with her portrait set in 
 diamonds. This lavish patronage arose from the 
 originality, truth, and vigour, of his performances ; 
 and from the subjects which he selected being fami- 
 
THE FARM YARD. 
 
 91 
 
 liar to all ages, and adapted to the comprehension 
 of all capacities. He studied nature,” says Pil- 
 kington, in every shape, with a most curious and 
 critical observation ; and as he generally composed 
 his subjects from persons in low stations, he accus¬ 
 tomed himself to frequent their meetings at feasts, 
 sports, and pastimes ; and by that means had an 
 opportunity of remarking the simplicity of their 
 manners, and the various actions, attitudes, cha¬ 
 racters, and passions of every age or sex.” From 
 the lowest and most barren topics he could extract 
 the richest materials for his productions; and in 
 scenes where other artists saw nothing but vulgar 
 riot and coarse debauchery, he perceived unlimited 
 humour, boundless fun, and inextinguishable mer¬ 
 riment. 
 
 His study was mankind, and his scene of ac¬ 
 tion the world around him. He sometimes more 
 than approached the gross; he loved indeed to 
 delineate the tipsy termination of a wedding or a 
 fair, in a manner free and vivid; his pictures of 
 drunken gravity, intoxicated fury, boisterous mer¬ 
 riment, or social and sedate glee, are all to the life, 
 and quite unequalled in their way. He has been 
 accused of making his figures short and clumsy; he 
 cared little for the elegance of his figures ; in truth, 
 much of the character which he desired to depict 
 lay in the squat shapes and ludicrous proportions of 
 his rustics ; academic forms, and the graces of out¬ 
 line, would have been wasted on such clods of the 
 
92 
 
 THE FARM YARD. 
 
 valley—nay^ would have lessened the jollity and 
 rustic conviviality of his groups. Had he changed 
 his Dutch-built boors into tipsy Adonises, he would 
 have quenched all mirth, and extinguished all 
 humour. 
 
 Teniers,” says Pilkington, had a ready and 
 lively invention, and was full as ready to execute as 
 to invent; he made nature his model perpetually, 
 and imitated it with astonishing exactness and truth. 
 His pencil is free and dehcate ; the touching of his 
 trees is light and firm ; his skies are admirable; and 
 though not very much varied, are clear and bril¬ 
 liant. His pictures are generally clear in all their 
 parts, with a beautiful transparence, and it is ob¬ 
 served of him that he possessed the art of relieving 
 his lights by other lights without employing deep 
 shadows, and yet produced the unlimited effect in a 
 surprising manner.” He died in the eighty-fourth 
 year of his age ; and his works are in all British 
 collections save the National Gallery. 
 

 
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93 
 
 SALVATOR ROSA. 
 
 LANDSCAPE. 
 
 The merits of Salvator Rosa are of a high order; 
 his works have all a bold, free, and poetic character; 
 they are original, and shew among ordinary land¬ 
 scapes like thistles in beds of lilies, or a ruined 
 tower in the midst of a flower-knot. He is like no 
 one, and no one is like him; few have the poetic 
 elevation of soul to equal 
 
 What savage Rosa dashed; ” 
 
 and our professors usually warn their pupils against 
 imitating one whose works they hardly consider as 
 ranking with the more regular and scientific compo¬ 
 sitions of the academies. His history is brief and 
 instructive. He was born at Naples in 1614, and 
 received instructions in drawing and colour from 
 his kinsman, Francesco Francanzano. The too early 
 death of his father exposed him when young to 
 many hardships; to obtain subsistence he was 
 obliged to make sketches on paper, and sell them, it 
 is said, in the public streets, to such purchasers as 
 charity or accident sent. Some of these designs, 
 together with a picture of Hagar and Ishmael, so 
 
 K 
 
94 
 
 LANDSCAPE. 
 
 affected Lanfranc the painter, that he sought Sal¬ 
 vator out, encouraged and aided him, and procured 
 his admission to study in the school of Spagnoletto. 
 The works of that eminent master, together with 
 the battle scenes of Falcone, had some influence 
 upon his mode of grouping and style of handling. 
 His mind expanded with his fortune ; he soon dis¬ 
 tinguished himself by daring conceptions, bold 
 freedom of hand, and gloomy splendour of colour¬ 
 ing. His soul naturally delighted in scenes of savage 
 magnificence and ruined grandeur; his spirit loved 
 to stray in lonely glens, and gaze on mouldering 
 castles. The bloom of summer, the ripe abundance 
 of autumn, or the chearful fires and merry pastimes 
 of winter had no charms for him; he kindled his 
 summer clouds with lightning, he sent firebrands 
 and whirlwinds among the standing corn, and 
 brought winter famished and gaunt from the north, 
 scattering snow and hail among the shivering chil¬ 
 dren of man. 
 
 It is in this light that Lanzi views him when he 
 says savage scenery, Alps, broken rocks and 
 caves, wild thickets, and desert plains, are the kind 
 of landscapes in which he chiefly delighted ; his trees 
 are shattered, torn, and dishevelled, and in the at¬ 
 mosphere itself he seldom introduced a cheerful 
 hue, except occasionally a solitary sun-beam. He 
 observed the same manner too in his sea views. 
 His style was original, and may be said to have 
 been conducted on a principle of savage beauty, as 
 
LANDSCAPE. 
 
 95 
 
 the palate of some persons is gratified with austere 
 wines. His pictures too were rendered more ac¬ 
 ceptable from the small figures of shepherds, ma¬ 
 riners, or banditti, which he has introduced in almost 
 all his compositions, and he was reproached by his 
 rivals with having continually repeated the same 
 ideas, and in a manner copied himself.” That Rosa 
 was accused of imitating himself is less to be won¬ 
 dered at, than at the charge which has been urged 
 against him, that he borrowed most of his excel¬ 
 lence from Spagnoletto and Caravaggio. An artist 
 so decidedly original in conception, and handling, 
 could only be compared with himself^ 
 
 None but himself could be his parallel.” 
 
 And with respect to his imitation of other masters, 
 there is no doubt that he profited by contemplating 
 the strong natural style and dark colouring of his 
 predecessors; but his ideas are all of a different 
 order, and his scenes are his own. To a man of his 
 strong genius imitation was far more difficult than 
 original composition ; his spirit was too buoyant to 
 work in fetters. His genius was indeed compre¬ 
 hensive, and perhaps more strictly poetic than that 
 of most painters. In contemplating a scene he 
 seemed to see only those strong and leading points 
 which a poet would select for song. His pictures 
 are perhaps less difficult to describe than any other 
 works of art; there is an allusion or a story in all 
 he touches upon ; the stormy beauties of his land- 
 
96 
 
 LANDSCAPE. 
 
 scapes are generally united with human actions; 
 for the wildest scenes he finds deeds equally wild; 
 the storm in the sky is matched by the tempest of 
 human passion on the earth ; the roughest rock he 
 delineates is scarcely more rugged than its rude 
 inhabitant, who, with pistols in his belt, his hand 
 on a sword, and his ears open to all sounds, stands 
 ready for deeds of violence. 
 
 The genuine works of this great master are ex¬ 
 ceedingly rare, and of course valuable. A few of 
 them are in the galleries of our British nobility ; the 
 fine picture from which the landscape before us is 
 engraved is in the very select collection of Robert 
 Ludgate, Esq. and like all the other productions of 
 Salvator, it mingles human action with the stern 
 magnificence of nature. At the base of hills, rising 
 rugged, abrupt, and blue, to a great height, lies 
 a smooth quiet lake, on the bosom of which the 
 sun throws the outline of the neighbouring hills, 
 and the shadows of a group of men and women, who 
 are enjoying the secluded beauty of the scene, or 
 preparing to bathe. On the other side two figures 
 are seated on the ground, one old, the other young, 
 and their image is expressed in the two trees be¬ 
 hind them—one green and luxuriant, the other 
 faded, decayed, and broken. The ruins of a castle 
 intimate that the vale was once permanentlypeopled, 
 while the presence of travellers in the distance marks 
 it as an object of curiosity. The colouring is what 
 Byron calls darkly bright,” and the whole scene 
 
LANDSCAPE. 
 
 97 
 
 strikes the fancy—a merit which distinguishes in a 
 great degree all the works of this master. 
 
 Though Rosa chiefly painted landscape, he was 
 equally eminent for battle scenes and storms at 
 sea; he knew the passions and feelings of human 
 nature, and loved to introduce them in his com¬ 
 positions. He did not look upon inanimate na¬ 
 ture, however magnificent, as all that was worthy 
 of his pencil; earth he was aware had its inha¬ 
 bitants, and he accordingly peopled the rock and 
 the ruin, the wilderness and the cavern. He 
 composed all his subjects,” says Pilkington, in a 
 grand taste, and was singularly correct in his design ; 
 but he principally delighted in landscape, which he 
 always enriched with elegant figures, representing 
 some memorable incident related by the Roman, 
 Grecian, or fabulous historians. The^style in which 
 he painted was formed by his own elevated genius, 
 nor was he indebted to any preceding artist for any 
 of his ideas, or for any traces of the manner which 
 he always follows.” Among his chief compositions 
 we may mention the Regulus, in the Colonna pa¬ 
 lace ; Saul and the Witch of Endor, at Versailles; 
 a Martyrdom of Saints, at Rome ; the Purgatory, 
 in Milan ; and the Cataline, in Florence. 
 
 He left his native Naples in the twentieth year, 
 and established himself at Rome, where he lived to 
 the age of sixty. His remains,” says Lanzi, 
 
 were placed in the church degli Angeli, with his 
 portrait and eulogy ; and another portrait of him 
 
98 
 
 LANDSCAPE. 
 
 is to be seen in the Chigi Gallery, which does not 
 seem to have been recognized by Pascoli; the pic¬ 
 ture represents a savage scene ; a poet appears in 
 a sitting attitude, the features are those of Salvator.” 
 Though another interpreter says this is the god 
 Pan inspiring the poet Pindar, we must not rashly 
 allow an ingenious solution to overturn the testi¬ 
 mony of Lanzi, or to rob the painter of the honour 
 of the allusion. He had a right to appear in the 
 character of a poet, for he was a sharp satirist and 
 writer of songs, which he took pleasure in singing. 
 He was likewise a musician, a humourist, a dealer 
 in those dubious sort of jokes called practical, 
 and such an admirer of liberty, that he declined 
 serving any of the princes of the earth. In painting 
 he has had many followers abroad ; the most suc¬ 
 cessful of his imitators here was Mortimer, who, 
 with much of his master’s peculiar wildness of fancy, 
 wanted his command of colour to give force and 
 brilliancy to his conceptions. 
 

 
 
 
99 
 
 N. POUSSIN. 
 
 CEPHALUS AND AURORA. 
 
 We have already endeavoured to describe 
 What savage Rosa dashed,” 
 we must now try to delineate what 
 Learned Poussin drew.” 
 
 But the pen is an imperfect interpreter of the 
 heavenly hues and divine forms of the painter; 
 in truth, art is employed in accomplishing what 
 words cannot perform. Poussin is a learned artist; 
 his knowledge comes frequently to the aid of his 
 designs, and he loves so much the gods and god¬ 
 desses of Greece, that he has been accused of op¬ 
 pressing his landscapes with mythology. Without 
 denying that he is more learned sometimes than 
 what seems necessary, we may, without much fear 
 of contradiction assert, that his genius triumphs over 
 his knowledge, and that in all his best pictures na¬ 
 ture is the ruling power. We remember his pic¬ 
 ture of Polyphemus piping on a mountain to his 
 flocks, scattered along the acclivity; the blind 
 giant is seated on the summit; the sound of his 
 pipe seems to soothe him; his herds are not un¬ 
 conscious of the melody, and the whole scene is 
 at once mournful and pleasant. Other men paint 
 
100 
 
 CEPHALUS AND AURORA. 
 
 ogreSj PoUvSsin alone has painted a giant; there 
 is no vulgar exaggeration, all is elegant and beau¬ 
 tiful. He was indeed a great master ; his imagi¬ 
 nation equalled his other powers. 
 
 The Cephalus and Aurora is a good specimen of 
 this accomplished artist. It is small in dimensions, 
 and was bequeathed to the nation by Mr. Chol- 
 mondeley. Other painters have delineated on ceil-' 
 ings Aurora carrying her lover through the air; 
 Poussin desired to add sentiment, and pictured them 
 on the ground, awakened by the morning light. 
 Reflection appears to have come to Cephalus with 
 the dawn ; thoughts of Procris rush upon his fancy; 
 he turns from the goddess, who with arms around 
 him endeavours by gentle force, and probably plea¬ 
 sant words, to hinder his departure. He regards 
 neither her looks, which diffuse gladness and light 
 on all things else, nor the sly industry of an intri¬ 
 guing cupid, who is spreading the couch for Aurora; 
 but Axes his eyes ruefully on the portrait of his wife, 
 held up to him by an urchin god, who may be sup¬ 
 posed to represent domestic love. The winged steed 
 of the morning is at hand ; a fountain deity slum¬ 
 bers over his urn unconscious of what is doing be¬ 
 side him, and a nymph starts from her couch, and 
 gazes dazzled on the brightening sky. The atmo¬ 
 sphere is glistening and dewy; and the sides of the 
 figures and trees which stand towards the east are 
 touched with the hues of day. 
 
 The colouring of this picture,” Ottley says, is 
 
CEPHALUS AND AURORA. 
 
 101 
 
 feeble, nor is it in other respects in the artist’s best 
 manner. Still there are parts of it of considerable 
 merit, especially the head of Aurora, which is very 
 beautiful. We wish the old freezing river god had 
 been placed farther from the principal group, or en¬ 
 tirely omitted.” The river god we think aids the 
 imagination, and carries the mind back to the days of 
 the legend; we are not at all disposed to dispute the 
 taste of Aurora in spreading her couch by the side 
 of a romantic stream. The chief blemish in the 
 composition is the conceit of the cupid shewing 
 Cephalus the portrait of his wife in order to recall 
 him to his allegiance. The contrivance is an awk¬ 
 ward one, and can only be justified on the principle 
 that the painter intended the image of Procris to be 
 presented to the mind rather than the eye. He is 
 however looking stedfastly upon it, and more than 
 seems disposed to go. Hazlitt perceived ‘^life of 
 mind and great dexterity of invention” in all the 
 works of Poussin. 
 
 It was the practice of painters, English as well as 
 Italian, to indulge in mythology ; and the walls and 
 ceilings of our principal mansions and palaces still 
 glow with the acts and deeds of the old dwellers on 
 Olympus. The fine genius and equally fine colours 
 of Titian, were employed in recording the amours 
 of the gods ; some of the best of these compositions 
 may be seen at Blenheim; taste is now alike pleased 
 and offended in contemplating them, but the taste of 
 his times was tolerant; the Italian patrons of the 
 
102 
 
 CEPHALUS AND AURORA. 
 
 muse of art desired to see flesh and blood in prefer¬ 
 ence to satin and velvet. It is one of the charges 
 which foreign nations bring against us that we have 
 no conception what the austere majesty of naked 
 beauty is^ and are weak enough to fear for virtue if 
 our statues are undressed^ and the figures in our 
 historic pictures without cloak or mantle. We 
 are perhaps a little too rigid in this matter ; but we 
 cannot help feeling that our countrymen are right 
 to a certain extent. The Apollo is naked, yet few 
 are ashamed to look on that most god-like of all 
 statues ; the feeling would be different, we believe, 
 were the naked statue of any of our heroes of the 
 last Gazette to be set up in a public place ; the 
 divinity of the first raises it out of the low region of 
 qualms and scruples—looking on him we think of 
 heaven ; looking on the statue of a mere man, we 
 think of earth and become fastidious, as if we 
 dreaded to be seen in fallible company. The decorum 
 of dress is generally well maintained by Poussin; he 
 takes the medium course, and pleases many and 
 offends few. 
 
m 
 
 . V> 
 
 
 
 #'V • 
 
 
103 
 
 REYNOLDS. 
 
 MRS. SIDDONS AS THE TRAGIC MUSE. 
 
 This picture is one of the best of those numerous 
 compositions which unite the dignity of the historic 
 style with the visible truth and individual accuracy 
 of living life. In the production of such a work 
 imagination must unite with skill in portraiture ; a 
 natural grace of form and fitness of expression are 
 required in the person whom art has thus to raise 
 into the regions of fancy; and no one ever united 
 those qualities more happily than did Mrs. Siddons : 
 her majestic person and grandeur of soul may be 
 hoped for again on the stage, or in painters’ studies, 
 but cannot surely be expected. Of the same cha¬ 
 racter as this noble picture, is the Kemble as Hamlet, 
 by Lawrence; we must not however shut our eyes 
 to the circumstance that the eminent sister and 
 brother having forms and looks of the heroic order, 
 their painters had little more to do than make a 
 fine transcript of what they saw before them. The 
 success of the artist, therefore, depended mainly on 
 the fine looks and dignified expression of his sitters ; 
 with a less noble countenance Reynolds would not 
 have had the like luck ; half of the fame of the picture 
 belongs of right to the actress ; nor can it on that 
 
104 
 
 MRS. SIDDONS AS THE TRAGIC MUSE. 
 
 account ever have the high reputation it would have 
 enjoyed had it sprung wholly from fancy and been 
 called simply the Tragic Muse. 
 
 It is however in this class of half imaginary 
 and half portrait pictures that some of the finest 
 works of the English school are to be found. In 
 this way Romney produced his Cassandras, Circes, 
 and Mirandas ; Lawrence too made history borrow 
 looks from living life ; but no one equalled Sir 
 Joshua himself in managing and modifying the 
 countenances of the young and the beautiful, so as 
 to pass for Mercurys, Pucks, Hebes, and Muses, 
 tragic or comic. This circumstance of itself be¬ 
 tokens a deficiency of poetic power among the 
 painters of England ; the truth is, that no artist of a 
 very high order of imagination has yet been pro¬ 
 duced in our schools; they have too little of that 
 almost divine faculty of shaping their pictures in 
 air, and commanding the splendid visions to abide 
 till they invest them with form and colour. We 
 have poetic landscapes of a high order; pictures 
 of domestic life, equal or superior to those of any 
 other nation; portraits, particularly those by Rey¬ 
 nolds, of great excellence, and works of the same 
 rank as the Tragic Muse worth a prince’s ransom; 
 but we have few pictures of the high historic class 
 worthy of the name ; we have no Chaucers, Spen¬ 
 sers, Shakspeares, or Miltons, in art. 
 
 The Tragic Muse, with all its merit, must be re¬ 
 garded therefore as only a better sort of portrait. 
 
MRS. SIDDONS AS THE TRACxIC MUSE. 
 
 105 
 
 Barry scarcely knows in what light to look upon it. 
 
 Sir Joshua’s portrait/’ said he, of Mrs. Siddons, 
 is both for the ideal and the executive the finest pic¬ 
 ture of the kind perhaps in the world. Indeed, it is 
 something more than a portrait, and may serve to 
 give an excellent idea of what an enthusiastic mind 
 is apt to conceive of those pictures of confined his¬ 
 tory, for which Apelles was so celebrated by the 
 ancient writers; but this picture of Mrs. Siddons, or 
 the Tragic Muse, was painted not long since, when 
 much of his attention had been turned to history.” ^ 
 It was of historic studies that Reynolds complained 
 when he said they cost him too much; his imagi¬ 
 nation was not so ready in producing shapes and 
 looks as the polite world; and a man who had many 
 young countesses to paint was not likely to put his 
 fancy to the pain of calhng up ideal forms. We 
 cannot help thinking that the picture would be im¬ 
 proved by the omission of the dark attendants, who 
 seem so ready with the dagger and the bowl. The 
 look of the Tragic Muse is so intensely—so loftily 
 mournful, that the sentiment is rather caricatured 
 than strengthened by the presence of those ministers. 
 We may imagine that ^^the Tragic Muse” is really 
 waited upon by two such despairing damsels ; but 
 we cannot exert the same stretch of fancy for Mrs. 
 Siddons; flesh and blood never keeps company with 
 airy abstractions. 
 
 This noble picture was painted in the year 1784, 
 the great actress was then in the prime of youth and 
 
lOG MRS. SIDDONS AS THE TRAGIC MUSE. 
 
 power ; when it was finished Reynolds wrought his 
 name in the border of the robe, subduing it down 
 at the same time, so that it might seem at a distance 
 a mere piece of ornamental embroidery. He valued 
 it, we are informed by Northcote, at a thousand gui¬ 
 neas,* yet sold it, according to Hazlitt, for two or 
 three hundred pounds, to a Mr. Calonne.” From 
 the first proprietor, who was a large purchaser of 
 British pictures, it passed to Mr. Desenfans, then 
 into the hands of Mr. William Smith, Member 
 of Parliament for Norwich, and finally, found a 
 resting place in the Grosvenor Gallery, at an ex¬ 
 pense of £1760. It has been five times sold, and 
 always at an advance of price. While it was in 
 the possession of Mr. Desenfans,” says Hazlitt, a 
 copy was taken of it by a pupil of Sir Joshua’s, of 
 the name of Score, which is now in the Dulwich 
 Gallery, and which we always took for an original. 
 The size of the original is larger than the copy. 
 There was a dead child painted at the bottom of it, 
 which Sir Joshua afterwards disliked, and he had 
 the canvas doubled upon the frame to hide it. It 
 has been let out again, but we did not observe 
 whether the child was there ; we think it had better 
 not be seen.” The critic whom we have quoted was 
 no great admirer of the works of Reynolds, whom 
 he charged with want of imagination and loftiness 
 of sentiment. He says nothing in praise of this truly 
 noble work, and seems insensible to the breadth of 
 style and vigorous harmony of the colouring. 
 
MRS. SIDDONS AS THE TRAGIC MUSE. 
 
 107 
 
 When the admirers of Reynolds talk of his 
 equality with Michael Angelo—and this has been 
 done by Northcote, Lawrence, and others, the 
 Tragic Muse is one of the pictures which they in¬ 
 stance as an example. That the eminent English¬ 
 man had singular breadth of style and great‘force 
 of colouring all must acknowledge, but he wanted 
 that strength of imagination which lifts the illus¬ 
 trious Florentine so high into the regions of poetry. 
 The conceptions of Reynolds are almost exclusively 
 allied to portraiture, and when we look on the no¬ 
 blest of his men and the loveliest of his women, we 
 never regard them as other than creatures of flesh 
 and blood, with whom we may converse and asso¬ 
 ciate ; the creations of Michael Angelo are of ano¬ 
 ther order; his men and women seem to belong to 
 a higher race of beings than the present inhabitants 
 of the earth; they have the lineaments of the gods, 
 and looks which belong to Olympus. To all this 
 Northcote resolutely shut his eyes when he pro¬ 
 nounced the ancient masters beasts” compared 
 to Sir Joshua ; nor was Lawrence less than wilfully 
 blind when he ranked him with the Angelos, the 
 Correggios, and the Raphaels. The former in his 
 admiration remembered his friend and master, and 
 the latter, in extolling the first President of the 
 Academy for his power in portrait, supported his 
 own dignity and productions. Posterity will make a 
 large abatement in such overstrained praise, and yet 
 
108 MRS. SIDDONS AS THE TRAGIC MUSE. 
 
 / 
 
 leave Sir Joshua at the head of the British school 
 of portrait painting. 
 
 We have no desire to lower Reynolds as an 
 artist; we beheve these remarks are more in ac¬ 
 cordance with the sentiments of the country at 
 large than many artists believe. Professional men 
 are apt to entertain opinions regarding the import¬ 
 ance of their own pursuits and the collective talent 
 of the brotherhood, in which the world refuses to 
 share; nor was Sir Joshua himself free from the 
 reproach of spreading delusions when he said I am 
 now clearly of opinion that a relish for the higher 
 excellences of art is an acquired taste, which no 
 man ever possessed without long cultivation, and 
 great labour and attention.” To men of ordinary 
 minds this may apply, but not surely to those who 
 have any imagination or sensibility. 
 
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109 
 
 JACOB RUYSDAAL. 
 
 DUTCH VILLAGE. 
 
 Two of the name of Ruysdaal hold places in the 
 history of art; they were Dutchmen and brothers^ 
 and painters of landscape. The compositions of 
 Solomon, the elder brother, are cold and dry; his 
 hills and dales want the graceful undulation—^his 
 rivers the serpent-hke motion, and his atmospheres 
 the mingled airiness and sunshine common to the 
 landscapes of the best masters. The pictures of 
 Jacob Ruysdaal are free from these faults—his 
 scenes are all life and nature ; he has sometimes no 
 little grandeur in his delineations, and he is never 
 without a singular transparency of colour. 
 
 He was born at Haerlem in the year 1636 ; his 
 instructor in art is not named, yet it is affirmed by 
 his biographers that before he was twelve years old 
 his productions surprised, by their force and truth, 
 the ablest painters of his native land. He became 
 in his youth intimate with Berchem, and it has been 
 alleged that he caught not a little of his friend’s spirit 
 by contemplating his compositions. There is no 
 doubt that the works of the one distinguished painter 
 had an influence on those of the other; good judges 
 
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 DUTCH VILLAGE. 
 
 have traced a resemblance not only in their styles, 
 but in their mode of drawing and colouring ; at the 
 same time they claim for Ruysdaal a truth and a 
 vigour all his own, and also a certain grandeur 
 which he inherited from nature—a quality far from 
 common in what is called the Dutch school. 
 
 Writers are not wanting who account for the 
 varied beauty of Ruysdaal’s landscapes—they send 
 him to complete his studies in Italy ; in his solemn 
 woods and groves, his romantic hills, foaming cas¬ 
 cades, and winding and wooded river banks, they 
 imagine they perceive the presence of Italian sce¬ 
 nery. Others give him nature alone for his guide 
 and instructress, and refuse to share the merits of his 
 compositions with any other country than his own. 
 His scenes—the trees, skies, and rivers, of which 
 they are composed, seem all taken from nature ; 
 and are said to have been sketched on the spot. 
 The painter loved to wander by the wild wood and 
 the foaming river, and note down the varied aspects 
 of the landscape under the influence of sunshine 
 or rain, according to the character of the season. 
 Laying the foundation of his compositions in the 
 nature around him, he had only to make use of his 
 taste, poetic feeling, and fancy, in giving harmony 
 and elevation to his materials, and this is proba¬ 
 bly what his biographers have mistaken for Italian 
 study. It was not necessary to travel to Rome to 
 do all this ; in tmth, his pilgrimage to the Eternal 
 City has no better support than the suspicion that 
 
DUTCH VILLAGE. 
 
 Ill 
 
 his ideas of grand and elegant nature could have been 
 found nowhere else, and least of all about Haerlem. 
 
 If we look to the picture before us for some of the 
 leading excellencies of Ruysdaal, we shall not be dis¬ 
 appointed ; truth is the groundwork of all his com¬ 
 positions. His country, after a war in which she 
 triumphed over the most warlike nation in Europe, 
 established her independence, and the States of 
 Holland, from a battle field covered with unburied 
 bones, were become a garden ; their ports were filled 
 with ships of war or merchandize, their cities, to use 
 the words of their native writers, were paved with 
 silver, and their walls hung with velvet and cloth of 
 gold, and their husbandmen were happy, indus¬ 
 trious and wealthy. The domestic comfort, and 
 fireside happiness of the people, are the chief themes 
 on which the masters of the Dutch school lay out 
 their colours; weddings, fairs, merry-makings, and 
 feasts in public and private, abound; all this is no¬ 
 thing more than a sort of silent rejoicing and dumb 
 thankfulness for their condition among nations. 
 
 The Dutch village” as exhibited by the painter, 
 is a perfect image of repose; the rising sun is calling 
 the humble inmates from their beds; smoke is already 
 rising into the air from the chimneys; doors are 
 opened and opening, and a villager is on his way 
 with his faithful dog to some distant field, where he 
 has a fiock to watch or a plough to hold. The 
 houses are scattered about at random—dropt in na¬ 
 ture’s careless haste, like the poet’s knolls ; and 
 
112 DUTCH VILLAGE. 
 
 / 
 
 though all is rustic and lowly, there is nothing 
 squalid or mean ; it is just such a place as one 
 would desire to halt at for a week during a journey, 
 to get acquainted with the wise old men of the land, 
 and see how much worth and virtue can be con¬ 
 cealed in such rude abodes. 
 
 To the faithfulness of his delineations, and the 
 cheering as well as elevating pictures which he gave 
 of his own country, must be imputed the public 
 esteem and admiration bestowed during his lifetime 
 on Ruysdaal. The'blameless life too which the 
 painter led had some share in this ; for Holland in 
 those days was of strict morals, and looked for 
 purity and devotion in all her children. In England 
 he is admired for the diversified grounds of his land¬ 
 scapes, the clearness of his skies, and the delicate 
 handling of his trees ; every leaf has a distinct touch, 
 and what is equally necessary, the shape and hue 
 of the particular species have not been unattended 
 to. He shews,” says Pilkington, that he per¬ 
 fectly understood the principles of the chiaro-scuro, 
 and also of perspective ; for his distances have al¬ 
 ways a fine effect, and his masses of light and sha¬ 
 dow are distributed with such judgment, and con¬ 
 trasted vdth such harmony, that the eye and 
 imagination are equally delighted. His works are 
 distinguished by a natural and pleasing tone of co¬ 
 lour ; by a free, light, firm, and spirited pencil, and 
 also by a very agreeable choice of situations. His 
 general subjects were views of the banks of rivers ; 
 
DUTCH VILLyVGE. 
 
 113 
 
 hilly ground, with natural cascades; a country in¬ 
 terspersed with cottages and huts ; solemn scenes 
 of woods and groves, with roads through them ; and 
 water-mills ; but he rarely painted any subject with¬ 
 out a river, brook, or pool of water, which he ex¬ 
 pressed with all possible truth and transparency. 
 He likewise particularly excelled in representing 
 torrents and impetuous falls of water, in which sub¬ 
 jects the foam in one part, and the splendid ap¬ 
 pearance of the water in another, were described 
 with force and grandeur, and afforded a true image 
 of beautiful nature.” All foreign writers who have 
 seen the chief works of the painter speak in similar 
 terms of his compositions. 
 
 Something of the same defect which we observe 
 in our own Wilson and Turner, may be perceived 
 in the compositions of Ruysdaal; he could lay down 
 the inanimated landscape with all its hills, and trees, 
 and streams, but he was unequal to the task of peo¬ 
 pling it when flesh and blood were required. Wilson, 
 originally a portrait painter, had acquired little mas¬ 
 tery over human character; and though Turner 
 often gives us groups and single figures, the poetic 
 beauty of his landscapes proves too strong for the 
 common forms and features which he bestows on 
 men and women. The grandeur of his conceptions in 
 still nature is not supported by his delineations of 
 living nature. Ruysdaal was aware of his own defi¬ 
 ciency, and often called in the aid of Ostade, Adrian 
 Vandervelde, and Wouvermans. The contributions 
 
114 
 
 DUTCH VILLAGE. 
 
 of these distinguished painters have added much to 
 the charm which has not yet departed from his works 
 —indeed, his pictures are in most of the British col¬ 
 lections, and much esteemed; they are likewise 
 to be found in Italy; the cabinet of the Grand 
 Duke at Florence contains some of his best land¬ 
 scapes. 
 
 The picture which has called forth this brief 
 and imperfect account of the painter and his la¬ 
 bours, is in the fine collection of Sir Abraham Hume. 
 The engraver has striven to communicate to his 
 work the peculiar tone and character of the original; 
 the aim of the proprietor of the Cabinet Gallery is to 
 give a fac-simile of the manner as well as the matter 
 of each painting ; and this is the secret of some of 
 the faults which have been found with the prints. 
 Engraving a picture is like translating a poem, the 
 style and peculiarities of the poet must be preserved, 
 and so should those of the painter. 
 
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115 
 
 RUBENS. 
 
 ST. MARTIN DIVIDING HIS CLOAK. 
 
 St. Martin as a military saint may be allowed a 
 horse, armour and weapons ; nor is there particular 
 elegance of action required perhaps, in dividing his 
 cloak with a public beggar; we consider it however 
 as necessary to nature and truth, that he should look 
 at what his sword is doing, instead of which, he is 
 looking on the group of half clad mendicants, who, 
 with faces practised in expressing woe and dolour, 
 have beset his path. He could not well choose to do 
 otherwise, for the group is in all respects a remark¬ 
 able one. The beggar, seated on the ground, enact¬ 
 ing the part of a cripple, has a back like Hercules, 
 powerful and sinewy, and seems altogether a sort of 
 person likely to procure alms by force which refused 
 to come through supplication; the other kneeling, 
 with his head bandaged to cover wounds, real or 
 pretended, might do for a portrait of the ancient 
 mendicant, Irus, who contested with Ulysses, on the 
 threshold of his own palace, for the crumbs which 
 fell from the table of the suitors; but the woman 
 seems in sincerity, her woes are not artificial and 
 assumed, her naked children, haggard looks and 
 
116 
 
 ST. MARTIN DIVIDING HIS CLOAK. 
 
 dishevelled hair, cannot fail to direct the Saint’s 
 hand to his pocket as soon as he has disposed of the 
 moiety of his cloak. The flush of colour, the fine 
 freedom of handling, wonderful breadth of manner, 
 and vigorous character of the original picture, have 
 been admired by many: it is in His Majesty’s col¬ 
 lection. 
 
 Subjects of this nature are common to the earlier 
 painters, they were labourers in the cause of the 
 church, gave form and colour to her creed, and ex¬ 
 plained her legends and her miracles in a manner 
 so beautiful and noble, as to obtain the admiration 
 of the world. They were believers too in the won¬ 
 ders which they embodied; the miracles of the 
 Catholic Church had not been publicly questioned; 
 belief in divine influences and interpositions had not 
 been abated by knowledge and scepticism, and there 
 can be no doubt, that this, aided in the inspiration 
 and helped to confer on those productions a shape 
 and a hue all but divine. The first converts to 
 Christianity among the barbarians were made by 
 mystic signs and relics, nor were these laid aside 
 when the missionaries acquired the language of 
 their proselytes. Paintings and Statues and Crosses, 
 the offspring of the relics and emblems, became as 
 scripture to the church, and were seen by all, 
 while the Bible and Testament were kept shut. 
 Knowledge which followed printing, opened the 
 scriptures to all nations : the sentiments and stories 
 which painting and sculpture told, were no longer 
 
ST. MARTIN DIVIDING HIS CLOAK. 
 
 117 
 
 regarded; the people desired to see what God had 
 written, with their own eyes, and refused all further 
 aid from science and fancy. It is to this we must 
 ascribe the decreasing love for scripture pieces all 
 over the world. No such works are necessary now 
 To justify the ways of God to man.” 
 
 One of the chief apostles for scripture pictures in 
 this country, was Northcote the painter; he ex¬ 
 ecuted many altar-pieces, and wrote and spoke 
 much in favour of an art, in which he believed he 
 excelled. He however set down our coldness regard¬ 
 ing such productions to the declining taste for his¬ 
 toric painting, and the encreasing love of the land 
 for portraiture. Haydon too imputes our apathy to 
 our defective taste; he will not see that the artist 
 is not wanted; we know as much of the word of 
 God or of his Apostles, as the ablest painter is likely 
 to teach us, and we care not for either his inter¬ 
 pretations or his glosses. Had we been dwelling 
 in dark ignorance, we would have been thankful for 
 any hand to let in light; but now we have light in 
 abundance. There are other difficulties in the way— 
 artists seem not sufficiently aware, how doubtful a 
 task it is 
 
 To paint the finest features of the mind. 
 
 And to most subtle and mysterious things 
 
 Give colour, strength and motion.” 
 
 Mere picturesque groups will not give us what we 
 want; we must have at least, something as divine 
 
118 
 
 ST. MARTIN DIVIDING HIS CLOAK. 
 
 / 
 
 as aught that Raphael drew, and where is the artist 
 whose genius is of such quality. 
 
 The scripture pieces of even the accomplished 
 Rubens, are deficient in that divinity of sentiment 
 and majesty of conception, which the subject de¬ 
 mands. With all his wonderful power in character, 
 vigorous freedom of hand, and almost miraculous 
 glow of colour, he has failed in elevating us; and 
 looking at what Raphael and Michael Angelo have 
 done, we see that he has more of earth in him and 
 less of inspiration. There is no question that in 
 his day, as the church had been obliged to take a 
 step or two down from her high estate, that scrip¬ 
 ture painting had descended with her. Men of 
 genius generally work in the spirit of their time, 
 especially those who have to live by their labours, 
 and before the days of Rubens, the Pope who for¬ 
 merly held the keys of the regions of bliss or woe 
 in his hand, had seen not only one half of his 
 dominions separated from him, but a religion which 
 impugned his own, and called him by the opprobri¬ 
 ous name of the Anarch old,” take the field 
 against him with other arms than those of logic 
 and invective. The charm which had bound the 
 nations together began to dissolve; that part of the 
 spell, which had been wrought by art, was unloosed 
 by knowledge, and we lost the chance of becoming 
 the greatest of all nations in historic painting, by wel¬ 
 coming the reformation, and preferring the Scripture 
 in the English tongue, to pictures and statues. 
 
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G. POUSSIN. 
 
 A LANDSCAPE. 
 
 The landscapes of Gaspar Poussin are generally 
 imaginative, but they are brought down to nature 
 by a thousand indescribable touches, which genius 
 alone can bestow. The picture before us besides 
 the harmony and beauty of the scene, contains 
 much matter for reflection. The tranquil love¬ 
 liness of the stream, the deep shade of the trees, 
 the rugged and caverned-like rocks rising on either 
 side, buildings which seem to be tombs as much 
 as the abodes of men, a shaggy hill pinnacled, 
 and inaccessible to all save the eagles, overlooking 
 the scene, while on the other side, a palace, or 
 town on fire, throwing up a volume of mingled smoke 
 and flame far into the air, are the materials out of 
 which, the painter has made this noble work. The 
 figures which he has introduced, can only be con¬ 
 sidered as furnishing a scale, by which, to measure 
 the magnitude of the landscape. Neither the gra¬ 
 ver nor the pen can do justice ro such a production, 
 and when we examined the painting in the collection 
 of Robert Ludgate, Esq. we felt how unable we 
 were to describe its transparent colours, or give any 
 idea of its harmonious splendor. As we looked on 
 
120 
 
 A LANDSCAPE. 
 
 it, we felt more than ever, how closely poetry and 
 painting are allied: but the beauty of true poetry 
 no art can effectually embody, and the beauty of 
 true painting can neither be described in poetry nor 
 prose. The best painter never fell further below 
 Milton and Shakespeare in expressing their senti¬ 
 ments, than the ablest writer falls below the noblest 
 painting in explaining it. 
 
 In the story of the painter’s life, there is a touch 
 of the romantic. When Nicholas Poussin fixed his 
 residence in Rome, he married a French lady of the 
 name of Dughet; on receiving a visit from her 
 brother Caspar, the latter discoursed on painting 
 with so much taste and enthusiasm, that Poussin 
 advised him to lift the pencil and make a trial in 
 the art which he so much admired. He did so; 
 and though his first attempts were rude and un¬ 
 regulated, they were not without touches of that 
 fine sensibility which showed true genius. Poussin 
 watched over his progress with care and wonder, 
 and when his hand was well disciplined, and he had 
 acquired knowledge sufficient to work from his own 
 imagination, he produced pictures every way so 
 worthy of his instructor, that he was advised to 
 continue in Rome, drop his family name, and adopt 
 that of his master. Such is the story of the early 
 days of Caspar Poussin. A less poetic version is 
 however current. Sandrart says that he was em¬ 
 ployed at first, only to prepare the palette, pencils 
 and colours for his brother, but in process of time. 
 
A LANDSCAPE. 
 
 121 
 
 the precepts and example of Nicholas, wrought so 
 with him, that he tried landscape for himself, and 
 succeeded so wondrously as to rival the fame of his 
 master. The labours of which the biographer 
 speaks are common to students: both versions 
 agree in the material fact, and cannot be considered 
 as different. It is more difficult to settle the places 
 and dates of his birth and burial. Most writers say 
 that he was born in France, in 1600, and died at 
 the age of 60; but the Authors of the Abrege 
 de la Vie des Peintres” make Rome his birthplace, 
 and fix his death in 1675, when he was 62 years 
 old; no authority for this contradiction is cited, and 
 the matter is left more in doubt than we could wish. 
 Lanzi claims him for a pupil of the Roman School, 
 but leaves the question of his birthplace where he 
 found it. 
 
 Wherever he was born, Rome is the place where 
 he acquired all his glories. Like his brother 
 Nicholas, he united nature with fancy, and never 
 thought of giving a mere fac-simile of a scene; this 
 he reckoned to be the duty of a land surveyor, 
 rather than of a painter; he was of opinion that 
 unity and harmony were required in all true land¬ 
 scape, and he arranged his materials after the man¬ 
 ner of a poet. The wonderful quickness of his 
 hand equalled the elegance of his taste. Like 
 Salvator Rosa he sometimes commenced a picture 
 in the morning, and finished it, with all its woods, 
 waters, ruins and inhabitants, in the same day. 
 
122 
 
 A LANDSCAPE. 
 
 Some of his biographers accuse him of want of skill 
 in the human figure, while others make it a matter 
 of reproach, that he called in the pencil of his 
 brother Nicholas to such delineations, marring 
 thereby the fine unity which appears in pictures 
 solely from his own hand. There is no doubt that 
 this is a defect; figures inserted by one artist in the 
 landscape of another, show the marks of different 
 pencils and feelings and injure the effect by dis¬ 
 turbing the harmony; on the other hand, when 
 the same artist paints the landscape and peoples 
 it also, the work may be compared to a gothic 
 abbey, where the lofty aisles, splendid screens, and 
 rich recesses are occupied by sculpture in the ex¬ 
 press spirit and style of the architecture : when it 
 is otherwise, it may be likened to Westminster 
 Abbey, where the monuments are generally out of 
 harmony with the building, and seem to oppress rather 
 than to beautify it. Though Caspar Poussin had a 
 strong passion for grace and beauty, and though his 
 best landscapes are composed in the same way that 
 Milton described Paradise, by concentrating all his 
 own notions of the elegant and lovely, he did not 
 hesitate to paint what was fair in nature : he 
 copied,” says Lanzi, all the enchanting scenery of 
 the Tusculan or Tiburtine territory, and of Rome, 
 where, as Martial observes, nature has combined 
 the many beauties which she has scattered singly 
 in other places.” 
 
 He never crouds his scenes with figures, nor 
 
A LANDSCAPE. 
 
 123 
 
 huddles rock on rock, or hill on hill; all is simple ; 
 the eye is never detained in the investigation of some¬ 
 thing curious or far fetched; his peasants are not 
 dressed for show but for sentiment; he introduces 
 nothing that can be called common or vulgar in his 
 compositions. He is one of the most celebrated 
 painters of landscape,” says Pilkington, that ever 
 appeared; and it is generally thought no painter ever 
 studied nature to better purpose, or represented the 
 effects of land storms more happily than Gaspar; 
 every tree shows a proper and natural degree of agi¬ 
 tation : every leaf is in motion. His scenes are always 
 beautifully chosen, as also are the sites of his build¬ 
 ings, and those buildings have a pleasing effect by 
 a mixture of simplicity and elegance. His distances 
 recede from the eye with abundance of perspective 
 beauty; his grounds are charmingly broken, and 
 his figures, trees and other objects are so judici¬ 
 ously placed and proportioned to the distance as to 
 create a most agreeable deception. lie had a free 
 and delicate manner of pencilling, and was exceed¬ 
 ingly expeditious in his work, for his imagination 
 was scarcely more ready to invent than his hand was 
 to execute.” 
 
 The pictures of this great painter are numerous, 
 bring large prices, and are seldom to be sold; there 
 are several in the National Gallery. It is to be re- 
 gi'etted that one of these, a landscape, representing 
 Eneas and Dido in the storm, has become so dark ^^in 
 consequence perhaps,” says Ottley, of the destruc- 
 
124 
 
 A LANDSCAPE. 
 
 tive nature of the earth used in priming the canvas, 
 and the small body of colour employed in painting 
 it, that little idea can be formed of its pristine 
 beauty.” Gaspar Poussin has had few followers: 
 Crescenzio di Onofrio is alone considered his true 
 imitator; but let all those who desire to follow, not 
 to lead, lay the fact to heart, that though this artist 
 executed many works, both in Rome and Florence, 
 few of them are to be found in any collection. 
 
125 
 
 ANNIBALE CARACCL 
 
 CHRIST APPEARING TO ST. PETER. 
 
 This fine picture is not scriptural, as some have 
 imagined : it embodies a tradition of the Romish 
 Church. The New Testament tells us that Christ 
 after his resurrection appeared to St. Peter : but it 
 was more consistent with the aim and practice of 
 the Church, when losing its simplicity, to give cur¬ 
 rency to obscure or doubtful legends, rather than 
 draw attention to the true and accredited narrative 
 of the gospel. Peter, says the tradition, not find¬ 
 ing at the time any liking for martyrdom, made his 
 escape from Rome, and was hurrying along the 
 Appian way, when he met Jesus bearing the Cross, 
 Lord where goest thou ? ” enquired the astonished 
 saint; I am going to Rome to be crucified a 
 second time,” was the answer, for I find that my 
 disciples are afraid of attesting the truth of my 
 cause with their blood.” The rebuked saint re¬ 
 turned and suffered martyrdom. The legend is a 
 very beautiful one ; it is in keeping with the timid 
 character of Peter ; and serviceable too to the 
 Church of Rome, which claimed supremacy over 
 all Christian churches. Those who imagined the 
 
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126 
 
 CHRIST APPEARING TO ST. PETER. 
 
 legend, found an admirable interpreter in Caracci: 
 it is admitted by very fastidious critics that this pic¬ 
 ture is one of the best studied and effective of all 
 his performances in this country. 
 
 Annibale excelled in the serenely graceful—in an 
 austere simplicity which too few have imitated. 
 The Christ of this picture is an example of this : he 
 is equally elegant in form, and divine in expression, 
 and the action is perfectly simple and natural— 
 there is no straining to make the body aid the mind. 
 There is a deep lustre of colour also ; almost, as an 
 artist said, more than mortal; it is scarcely of this 
 world, and reminds us of the super-human hues of 
 the Christ in the Garden” of Correggio. The fine 
 colouring is not thought superior to the consum¬ 
 mate skill displayed in the fore-shortening of the 
 figure : the advancing posture, the moving limbs, 
 and the extended arm, are the wonder of all artists 
 whose eyes are not closed by vanity on all excel¬ 
 lence save their own. Of the general impression 
 which this fine vision makes, Ottley says, The 
 effect is not more the result of the correctness of 
 that figure in respect of outline and lineal perspec¬ 
 tive, than of the judicious arrangement of its lights 
 and shadows.” The rest of the picture has many 
 beauties : the landscape which forms the back 
 ground, would make any living artist a fair reputa¬ 
 tion alone : St. Peter has a rebuked and startled 
 air : the propriety of his posture has been ques¬ 
 tioned ; but it seems consistent enough—he is re- 
 
CHRIST APPEARING TO ST. PETER. 
 
 127 
 
 presented suddenly receding, as from a vision which 
 had burst upon him at once—nay, he is about to 
 kneel, or at least bow the knee—his marvelling 
 looks and held up hand testify the impression made 
 upon him. 
 
 When Baglione said that Annibale Caracci re¬ 
 stored the true art of colouring from nature, which 
 had been lost; introduced a sort of antique beauty 
 of form into his compositions, and revived the art 
 of landscape painting, afterwards imitated by the 
 Flemings, he was thinking of pictures such as this, 
 where those beauties are all united. But though 
 this is perhaps one of the finest pictures of our 
 Saviour which we possess, in point of beauty of 
 form and propriety of expression, we are less sure 
 that it comes up to that image of divine loveliness 
 and celestial mildness and grace of manner which 
 the New Testament raises in the mind. It must 
 always be so, we fear, when the art of man aspires 
 to embody things immortal: fancy, at first bright, 
 grows dim : the inspiration of the first impulse 
 subsides, and we obtain, at last, a mortal, instead 
 of an immortal, thing. A divine being can, in 
 truth, be in shape but a perfect man : his beauty 
 is of earth, and his lustre is tried by comparison 
 with colours, the richest which the world affords, 
 but still not heavenly : outwardly, therefore, when 
 we see the noblest shape which art can supply, we 
 have but a fine human being before us—the divinity 
 is yet to be bestowed. To breathe an expression 
 
128 
 
 CHRIST APPEARING TO ST. PETER. 
 
 into it which shall lift it among the celestials, and 
 give the grandeur of a God, is a power bestowed on 
 few, and in that the mastery of the invention lies ; 
 but how few are they in number who can, to a form 
 of perfect elegance and graceful unity, communicate 
 a sentiment which raises it to the skies. In truth, 
 the Christian religion is in its principle averse to 
 intercourse with art. In scripture, the personal 
 beauty of Christ is nowhere insisted on, nor is it 
 argued that his disciples were men of dignity of 
 exterior : humility and meekness are their attri¬ 
 butes—their doctrine is addressed to the mind and 
 not to the eye; and in this it differs from the re¬ 
 ligion of the heathen, and from all other forms of 
 worship which insist on the importance of external 
 things. The painters of the palmy times of the 
 Romish church brought as much of heaven into their 
 pictures as art could accomplish; that they failed 
 often in sublime and immortal subjects must be ac¬ 
 cepted as a proof that man’s skill cannot embody 
 the noblest visions of his mind. 
 
 It would be unjust, however, to the merit and 
 fame of Caracci, if we shut our eyes to the fact that 
 his serious pictures are more highly admired by the 
 members of the Catholic Church than by those of 
 the Protestant. Lanzi thus speaks of his works : 
 
 His Taking down from the Cross, at the Church 
 of the Capuccini, in Parma, may challenge the most 
 distinguished followers of the Parmese school. His 
 picture of St. Rocco is still more celebrated, com- 
 
CHRIST APPEARING TO ST. PETER. 
 
 129 
 
 prising the perfections of different artists, a piece 
 engraved in aqua forte by Guido Reni; it was exe¬ 
 cuted for Reggio, thence transferred to Modena, 
 and from the last place to Dresden. He repre¬ 
 sented the saint standing near a portico, on a base¬ 
 ment, and dispensing his wealth to poor mendicants; 
 a composition not so very rich in figures as in 
 knowledge of the art. A throng of paupers, as dif¬ 
 ferent in point of infirmity as in age and sex, is ad¬ 
 mirably varied, both in the grouping and the ges¬ 
 tures. One is seen receiving with gratitude, another 
 impatiently expecting, a third counting his alms 
 with delight: every object is misery and humilia¬ 
 tion, and yet every thing seems to display the abun¬ 
 dance and dignity of the artist.” Mengs, a writer 
 whose authority is daily decreasing, says, that Ca- 
 racci checked his natural fire when he beheld the 
 wondrous works in Rome: imitated Raphael, and 
 retained, at the same time, a portion of the style of 
 Correggio, to support the dignity of his manner.” 
 
 The pencil of Annibale Caracci was not confined 
 to devout subjects alone. The Roman galleries 
 show many of his works taken from ancient history 
 and mythology; and Lanzi particularly describes 
 one painted in colours, of which glue and the yolk 
 of an egg are what artists call the vehicle.” It 
 is a Pan teaching Apollo to play upon the pipe : 
 figures at once designed, coloured, and disposed, 
 with the hand of a great master. They are so finely 
 expressive, that we see in the countenance of the 
 
130 
 
 CHRIST APPEARING TO ST. PETER. 
 
 youth humility, and apprehension of committing an 
 error; and in that of Pan, turning another way, 
 peculiar attention to the sound, his pleasure in pos¬ 
 sessing such a pupil, and his anxiety to conceal 
 from him his real opinion, lest he might happen to 
 grow vain. No other pieces, so exquisitely finished, 
 are found from his hand at Bologna.” We have 
 wandered a little from the picture before us, but 
 we imagined that our readers might like to hear 
 something more of the eminent person whose name 
 stands last of the list of painters who formed what 
 has been called the golden age of art in Italy. 
 
 The Christ appearing to St. Peter is painted on 
 wood, measures two feet six inches high, by one foot 
 ten inches wide, and came to the National Gallery 
 from the collection of the Prince Aldobrandini, in 
 the Borghese Palace. 
 

131 
 
 RUBENS. 
 
 LANDSCAPE. 
 
 Peter Paul Rubens,” says Fuseli, was a me¬ 
 teor of art. Endowed with a full comprehension 
 of his own character he wasted not a moment on 
 the acquisition of excellence incompatible with its 
 power, but flew to the centre of his ambition, 
 Venice, and soon compounded from the splendour 
 of Paolo Veronese and the glow of Tintoretto that 
 florid system of mannered magniflcence which is 
 the element of his art and the principle of his 
 school. He first spread that ideal pallet which re¬ 
 duced to its standard the variety of nature, and 
 once methodized whilst his mind tuned the method, 
 shortened or superseded individual imitation.” We 
 can see little of the true character of the works of 
 Rubens in these fine sentences: let us turn our 
 eyes from the hazy page of the Swiss professor and 
 look at the great Fleming by the milder, clearer 
 light of Walpole. His pictures were equally ad¬ 
 apted to please the ignorant and the connoisseurs. 
 Familiar subjects, familiar histories, treated with 
 great lustre and fulness of colouring, a richness of 
 nature and propriety of draperies, recommend 
 
132 
 
 LANDSCAPE. 
 
 themselves at first sight to the eyes of the vulgar. 
 The just boldness of his drawing, the wonderfiil 
 chiaro scuro diffused throughout his pictures, and 
 not loaded like Rembrandt’s to force out one pecu¬ 
 liar spot of light, the variety of his carnations, the 
 fidelity to the manners and customs of the times he 
 was representing, and attention to every part of his 
 compositions, without enforcing trifles too much or 
 too much neglecting them, all this union of happy 
 excellencies endear the works of Rubens to the 
 best judges: he is perhaps the single artist who at¬ 
 tracts the suffrages of every rank. One may 
 justly call him the Popular Painter; he wanted 
 that majesty and grace which confine the works of 
 the greatest masters to the fewest admirers.” These 
 are words as intelligible as the pictures of Rubens, 
 and are more to our taste, as they are fitter for 
 our purpose, than the mystical language of Fuseli. 
 
 On looking at the picture in the National Gallery 
 which forms the subject of our present sketch, we 
 feel sensible that it would require uncommon hap¬ 
 piness of sentiment and felicity of words to give 
 anything like a correct notion of such a splendid 
 landscape. It seems part real and part imaginary; 
 the painter seldom indulged in fancies strictly or 
 exclusively poetical; the men and women of his 
 pictures were copied from the breathing, substan¬ 
 tial denizens of the world around him, and his 
 scenes were chiefly found in his native country, 
 for he could exalt the meanest thing into magnifi- 
 
LANDSCAPE. 
 
 133 
 
 cence, and raise the most ordinary subjects into 
 historical dignity by the force of his drawing and 
 the splendour of his colours. The present land¬ 
 scape has been assigned by good judges to 
 Flanders. Those who hold this belief point to 
 the rich pastoral district extending level and ver¬ 
 dant as far as the eye can reach, covered with 
 flocks and herds, studded with farm houses and 
 villages, and divided into irregular, though not 
 picturesque, enclosures by rows of those hapless 
 trees called in England pollards: nor do they fail 
 to observe the intersecting ditches and all the 
 other symptoms of a productive soil, yielding milk 
 and butter, honey and corn, sheep and poultry, 
 and watched over by numerous hinds and maidens 
 and old men conversant with both tillage and pas¬ 
 turage. It is only,” says Reynolds, in large 
 compositions that the powers of Rubens seem to 
 have room to expand themselves.” The fulness 
 of his mind could not be restrained within small 
 space; groups and incidents, and things picturesque, 
 came crowding upon his fancy, demanding admis¬ 
 sion into his work; he was unable to get rid of 
 them on easier terms, and so he set them down. 
 This may be observed in the picture before us'; 
 there is as much introduced as would form several 
 common landscapes, and yet it is likely that the 
 painter could not insert the half that was pre¬ 
 sent to his mind. 
 
 On the left, in the middle ground, stands a cas- 
 
134 
 
 LANDSCAPE. 
 
 tellated mansion with towers and pinnacles, and 
 bosomed deep in trees, through which the morn¬ 
 ing sun makes its way in scattered lines dropping 
 here and there on the windows. Ladies are in the 
 walks: one of them is seated with a child beside 
 her, while the lord of the place is near and seems to 
 be enjoying the splendour of the brightening morn. 
 A moat surrounds the chateau; a man is fishing, 
 and a waggon drawn by a couple of horses is pass¬ 
 ing rapidly, as if the rustic driver felt afraid of 
 giving offence to the lordly inhabitant by lingering 
 nigh his gate. A handsome young woman in a 
 scarlet jerkin and blue kirtle is seated in the waggon : 
 near her is a fat calf tied by the legs, which with 
 other produce of the land is on its way to market. 
 A rivulet has overflowed the road, and the shod 
 hoofs of the horses and the broad v/heels of the 
 waggon are plunging and splashing the water 
 into the air: the level sun throws a few as it 
 were accidental rays upon the road, and the drip¬ 
 ping fellies and spokes and agitated water seem 
 as real and vivid as nature. In the very centre of 
 the foreground stands the trunk of an old fantastic 
 tree rising but a few feet from the surface, but 
 throwing out a profusion of drooping branches, be¬ 
 neath which flowers are blooming and birds sport¬ 
 ing : towards the tree a fowler with his gun comes 
 crouching, for he is not unaware that a covey of part¬ 
 ridges are enjoying themselves in the sunshine under 
 the shelter of a neighbouring bush : he restrains 
 
LANDSCAPE’. 
 
 135 
 
 his impatient dog with one hand and seems about 
 to raise his piece with the other, for he has nearly 
 reached the proper distance: the poor birds are 
 however a little scattered, and not likely all to be¬ 
 come victims. 
 
 A rivulet, which is partly hidden by its banks, 
 and partly shown as it descends a declivity after 
 passing under a rustic bridge, intersects the picture 
 from right to left, but the trees rising on its sides 
 interrupt the monotony, and render the whole line 
 beautiful. Beyond the rivulet farms and farm 
 houses, and cattle and hedge-rows abound. Every 
 field has something peculiarly its own, and every 
 row of trees has a distinguishing character arising 
 from their own quality, or from the nature of the 
 soil in which they are growing. Of the skill dis¬ 
 played by Rubens,” says Ottley, in the details of 
 this extraordinary performance, especially those in 
 the distance, it is perhaps not possible by words to 
 convey any just idea. We cannot however omit to 
 notice a passage near a triangular field, with cattle 
 feeding and a woman milking a cow on the right of 
 the picture: where he has represented a long row 
 of pollards in bold perspective shooting far into the 
 flat landscape, and in one part traversing a piece of 
 marshy ground with a truth of effect bordering on 
 illusion.” 
 
 The long continuous line where the landscape 
 mingles in the distance with the sky, broken only 
 by a solitary spire, has been regarded always as 
 
136 
 
 LANDSCAPE. 
 
 equally bold and beautiful; nor is the light the least 
 wonderful part of the genius of the composition : 
 over this magnificent scene the artist has shed the 
 first dewy outburst of the morning sun : the fight 
 comes streaming along in a horizontal gush, touch¬ 
 ing the shafts of the trees, the dewy backs of the 
 cattle, the plumage of the birds, and the curls of 
 the running streams. Nor is this all; the fight of 
 the sun is modified by the influence of the moving 
 clouds above: one part of a field has a full, another 
 a tempered lustre : the whole is painted with un¬ 
 common power of pencil and brilliancy of colouring, 
 and united into one vast and varied landscape. 
 
 It is Irom the Balbi palace at Genoa : it measures 
 seven feet nine inches long, four feet six inches and 
 a half high, and was part of the collection presented 
 to the nation by the munificence of the late Sir 
 George Beaumont. 
 
■■"■'’ i; ' 
 
 
 
 
 
 f’'iSS. 
 
T THl E JMr A m K" M T IM X .. 
 
 
 
137 
 
 MORLAND. 
 
 THE MARKET GIRL. 
 
 Those who love variety will not be unwilling to 
 leave the St. Peter of Caracci, the fowlers and 
 farmers of Rubens, and, turning their thoughts to 
 England, take a look at the country girl of Morland 
 on her way to market. It is true that George 
 wants the dignity of Annibale, has none of the 
 magnificence of Peter Paul, and that his work is of 
 an humble kind, representing a young rustic in her 
 homespun dress pursuing a very ordinary employ¬ 
 ment. Yet, though this is a scene such as we may 
 expect to see any day, it will perhaps be long 
 before we can see anything so perfectly graceful 
 and natural as that which the painter has placed 
 before us. The morning is sunny and warm; the 
 Market Girl has come perhaps a long way, with a 
 weighty basket, and gladly avails herself of a rest¬ 
 ing place by the road side, where she deposits for 
 a moment her load, and stands with her bonnet in 
 her hand, contemplating the remainder of her 
 journey. See with what ease and elegance she 
 stands; there is no constraint of posture, nor put 
 on expression of face; the spire of the town is in 
 
138 
 
 THE MARKET GIRL. 
 
 the distance where she must seek and find a market 
 for her rustic commodities, and probably see some 
 one to whom her quiet smile and happy looks will 
 be welcome. We have often in the days of our 
 youth found our way into the market place of our 
 native town, and looked with pleasure on the many 
 young, and innocent, and blooming faces, grouped 
 around, mildly anxious for customers for butter and 
 barn-door fowls. Such a figure and face as those 
 of Morland’s Market Girl we have not unfrequently 
 seen, and it is perhaps as good a compliment as 
 we can pay the discernment of the painter, to add 
 that they soon found a market to themselves : a few 
 years, and the blooming and bashful lass made her 
 appearance as a thriving and happy wife, presiding 
 over the in-door economy of a farmer’s household. 
 
 To Londoners, and one so dissipated as Morland, 
 it is next to a wonder that images of country sim¬ 
 plicity and rustic modesty should have presented 
 themselves: he was when very young, made inti¬ 
 mate with much of the folly and vice of the town; 
 he assumed the dress of the fop, and copied the 
 manners of the man of pleasure, and in all, save his 
 paintings, was artificial and affected. The moment 
 he took up the pencil, folly resigned her rule and 
 nature reigned in her stead: his mind wandered 
 from the wine vaults and the gin shops to homely 
 cottages, barn-yards, calf-cribs and piggeries ; he 
 forgot the hungry creditor, the griping pawnbroker 
 and the drouthy companion, and saw but a horde 
 
THE MARKET GIRL. 
 
 139 
 
 of gypsies bivouacked with theii’ motley tents, 
 tawny children and tethered asses. The perfect 
 nature of Morland’s works will always maintain 
 their popularity; the very names are not unpleasing 
 to read; they indicate the sort of entertainment to 
 be expected; there is nothing of the high-flown or 
 the historical in the list, and yet there is much in 
 the pictures which, from the singular vigour of con¬ 
 ception and ease and happiness of handling, raise 
 emotions akin to the poetic. The Sailors’ Conver¬ 
 sation. The Country Butcher. Dog and Cat flght- 
 ing. Fighting Dogs. Watering the Cart Horse. 
 The Farm Yard. The Farmer’s Stable. The 
 Fisherman’s Hut. Selling Fish. Fishermen. Smug¬ 
 glers. The Peasants’ Repast. The Ale-house door. 
 Ale-house Kitchen. Public House door. Labourers 
 at Lunch. Stable Amusement. Sportsman Re¬ 
 freshing. The Rabbit Warren. Cottage Family. 
 Shepherd’s Meal. The Storm. The Dram. Fisher¬ 
 men going out in the morning. Fishermen return¬ 
 ing. Milkmaid and Cowherd. Peasant and Pigs. 
 A Conversation. The Corn-bin. A Horse Feeder. 
 Feeding the Pigs. Return from Market. Gathering 
 Wood. Gathering Fruit. The Straw Yard. Shep¬ 
 herd and his Flock. The Market Girl. 
 
 We have heard of men whose notions of art 
 are so sublimely high, that they hesitate to admit 
 Morland into the list of painters. Perhaps his 
 dissipated way of life induced those judges to con¬ 
 clude that the artist was as low in all respects as 
 
140 
 
 THE MARKET GIRL. 
 
 the man, but this would have been amply refuted 
 by a look at his works, where nature, which those 
 critics imagined they worshipped, triumphed. There 
 is no doubt that the public had no sympathy with 
 such exclusive fancies. Crowds of patrons,” 
 says Collins, sought every opportunity of pos¬ 
 sessing themselves of his pictures. Some very few 
 striking portraits were produced by him as a 
 great favour: but the offers he received of con¬ 
 stant employment at his own prices, and to be 
 exonerated from all the pecuniary difficulties in 
 which his imprudence had involved him, were 
 equally rendered abortive by the levity and per¬ 
 verseness of his conduct.” In truth Morland cared 
 little for the opinions of his brethren in art: he 
 courted not their company, and probably never 
 thought of instituting a comparison between his 
 representations of rustic groups and gypsies with 
 asses and panniers, and the grand stile, which so 
 many artists worship. To ride on a high trotting 
 horse, drive the Highgate or Hampstead stage 
 coach; serve as a parish constable ; get first tipsy 
 out of fifteen at table, and dash in a scene on 
 canvas to pay a large reckoning, were dearer to his 
 heart than all the honour which academies could 
 decree or princes bestow. 
 
 The fine picture, now for the first time engraved, 
 which has called forth these remarks, is in the pos¬ 
 session of Mr. Holland the painter, and the plate 
 has been executed under his superintendance. 
 
’ s a ad 
 
141 
 
 RUYSDAEL. 
 
 WATER-MILL. 
 
 Water-Mills are favourite subjects with painters 
 and poets. There is something attractive and pic¬ 
 turesque in a mill in motion. The water descend¬ 
 ing upon the outer wheel, the machinery revolving, 
 the white round grain running in above and coming 
 out in meal below, the dusty miller watching his 
 wheels moving and his maidens sifting the seeds or 
 chaff from the flour, together with the pleasing din 
 and agreeable sight of running water, the dust issu¬ 
 ing in gusts from crevice and wicket, and the sud¬ 
 den cessation of sounds melodious, or otherwise, 
 when the task is performed, all unite in forming a 
 picture addressed both to mind and eye. Nor is 
 the scene around the mill of inferior interest; the 
 shelling-hill is at hand whitened over with husks, 
 broken mill-stones lie about; one forms a rude 
 bridge over the race or trough that conducts the 
 water to the outer wheel, others are sunk nigh the 
 door as pavement, while perhaps the last pair which 
 fulfilled their term of service lean against the wall 
 along with fragments of discarded machinery. Then 
 there is the kiln where the corn is dried, with its 
 
 N 
 
142 
 
 WATER-MILL. 
 
 / 
 
 cowl above which turns with the wind; the kiln- 
 man too, as black as the miller is white, lying side¬ 
 long watching the result of his fire or turning the 
 warming grain on pierced iron plates, or more 
 perilous still, upon straw. If to this we add cocks 
 and hens to the shelling-hill, ducks to the mill-dam 
 and a vagrant boy frpng to lure the suspicious 
 trouts with a hook and worm, we may consider 
 the chief features of the scene as complete. 
 
 With scenes such as we have imperfectly des¬ 
 cribed the eye of Ruysdael was familiar. Of this 
 no other testimony need be required than the fine 
 work before us. The mill is a rudely picturesque 
 structure compared with the mills of these our lat¬ 
 ter days of invention and improvement, and might 
 form a not inapt illustration to the lively tale of 
 the Monk and the Miller’s Wife. The painter’s 
 mill is covered roughly with a sort of reed-thatch 
 with which a sharp wind seems to have sported; 
 the mill of our day is handsomely covered with pa¬ 
 tent slate; his outer wheel is a heavy affair and the 
 framework which sustains it is of a rude pattern; 
 our outer as well as inner wheels are constructed 
 with geometrical accuracy, revolve on polished 
 pinions without sound and the framework on which 
 they are supported is a model of scientific elegance. 
 In short the water-mill of Ruysdael though not 
 equal to that of the year 1833 for performing its 
 task is infinitely better adapted to the picturesque 
 purposes of art: a ragged house in which no one 
 
WATER-MILL. 
 
 143 
 
 would dare to live, and from whose bellying walls 
 the rats have instinctively run away, becomes more 
 the canvas of the artist than a trim and perpendi¬ 
 cular dwelling free from symptoms of decay. 
 
 We have some suspicion that the painter admits 
 the water to the wheel at an elevation much too low 
 for the purpose of fully commanding the machinery. 
 It must however be borne in mind that the land 
 where the scene is laid is level and inclining to be 
 marshy; the descent therefore of the mill-stream 
 could not be great, and so for want of what is 
 called fall ” he has made compensation in quan¬ 
 tity of water. The artist with a true sense of 
 the value of such things has constructed his mill 
 against the ruined and grass-crowned wall of some 
 castle or fortalice which lures the mind of the 
 
 I 
 
 spectator back to earlier and perhaps sterner days. 
 The mill is in motion, two hinds are busied among 
 the rushes which fringe the little lake into which 
 the water runs when it is thrown from the wheel, 
 and a comely housewife stands at the door, seem¬ 
 ingly as happy as the northern dame when she 
 sung. 
 
 Dusty was the coat 
 Dusty was the colour 
 And dusty was the kiss 
 I got frae the miller. 
 
 Of the life of Ruysdael we have already spoken; 
 and though we have more to say on that subject 
 
144 
 
 WATER-MILL. 
 
 / 
 
 we prefer at present saying something about his 
 works. One prominent feature is the perfect truth 
 and nature of all his delineations; his Italian stu¬ 
 dies did not deliver him over entirely to fancy; he 
 had a poetic attachment, that was all, to picturesque 
 things; he in no instance wished to please men 
 with the hope that he was doing something better. 
 His dreams were of this earth, he painted no land¬ 
 scapes with the belief that some more heavenly world 
 would be discovered to suit them. It is this which 
 makes us frequently think of Ruysdael as we wander 
 through forest glades, along lonely shores, and by 
 the banks of romantic streams; we see him every 
 where in nature, but we seldom see Claude or any 
 of those artists who have painted scenes of pure 
 imagination. The fine picture which has called forth 
 these hasty remarks is in the collection of Colonel 
 Hugh Baillie. 
 
1 
 
 
 HI®]LX FA MUTINY. 
 
 .1. ^ 1 ■ :.'i ■■ d iMay I li;',.'!. ldu'..r. M), Fipe: Sl^'eei. 
 
 A. Dtiu-c an. 
 
145 
 
 F. BAROCCIO. 
 
 THE HOLY FAMILY. 
 
 This beautiful picture, measuring three feet wide, by 
 three feet nine inches high, was long in the Cesare 
 Palace at Perugia; it passed into the collection of 
 Holwell Carr, and came from him by bequest into 
 the National Gallery, where it is distinguished by a 
 gracefulness of expression approaching to the gay, 
 and by a florid beauty of colour which induced a 
 writer to say that the painter fed his figures on roses. 
 Connoisseurs and critics have united in perceiving 
 and censuring what they call an unbecoming levity 
 of expression in the leading figures of the composi¬ 
 tion. Baroccio, say they, has made the infant St. 
 John alarm a bird and tantalize a cat, much to the 
 satisfaction of old Joseph, who leans forward and 
 seems to enjoy the joke mightily, and also to the 
 pleasure of Christ, who is nestled in his mother’s 
 bosom. We have ourselves, when critics were in a 
 surly mood, been suspected of seeing more in a pic¬ 
 ture than could well be seen, and to say the truth, 
 we have sometimes guessed at what was doing in¬ 
 side a house from what we saw outside ; but we 
 never indulged in conjectures injurious to the merit 
 
146 THE HOLY FAMILY. 
 
 / 
 
 of the painter or his work, we ventured only to 
 carry on the scene a little further in its own spirit. 
 It is not exactly in this way that the following re¬ 
 marks on this picture were written. In treating,” 
 says Ottley, the subject of the Madonna and 
 Child, or of the Holy Family, preceding artists had 
 seldom forgotten that a certain devoutness of senti¬ 
 ment and dignified deportment in the figures could 
 not properly be altogether dispensed with ; how¬ 
 ever, like Correggio, Titian, and even Raphael him¬ 
 self, they might often for the sake of picturesque 
 variety, depart more or less from that rigid system 
 of regularity in their distribution, which the painters 
 of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries had used 
 as best conducive to the solemnity of character be¬ 
 fitting sacred imagery; and though sometimes they 
 would allot secular employments to those venerated 
 personages, exhibiting Joseph at his carpenter’s 
 bench, or the Virgin filling a vase with water from 
 a streamlet; still they are careful to avoid any thing 
 like unbecoming levity.” 
 
 The unbecoming levity” which this critic re¬ 
 prehends, consists in the infant St. John holding up 
 a goldfinch towards an open window, out of the 
 reach of a cat, and in the approving looks of Christ 
 and Joseph. Now the picture is of a domestic 
 kind ; the scene is laid within doors, and the way 
 in which the inmates are employed is perfectly 
 consistent, and in strict keeping with the precept 
 which enjoins tenderness and mercy to all living 
 
THE HOLY FAMILY. 
 
 147 
 
 things. The work too is in its nature typical, and it is 
 evidently in this sense that the Virgin mother takes 
 it; she is pointing it out to the child at her bosom, 
 and though Joseph, an ordinary person, is looking 
 upon it perhaps as an ordinary matter, it has for the 
 other actors a mystic meaning. Such is the way 
 in which we interpret the picture, and we are borne 
 out in our views by the character of the painter, 
 who was a devout man and has never been re¬ 
 proached save in this instance with unbecoming 
 levity” in things holy. 
 
 Frederick Baroccio was born at Urbino in the 
 year 1528; he was allied by blood to a race of 
 artists : his studies and parentage united him with 
 the Roman school, and he was taught perspective 
 by his uncle Bartolomeo Genga; but he derived 
 his knowledge chiefly, it is said, from Batista 
 Franco, a Venetian by birth, and a Florentine in 
 style. In his twentieth year he went to Rome, 
 where he was so struck with the grandeur of the 
 works of Michael Angelo, that he was not satisfled 
 till he had copied all his statues and paintings in Flo¬ 
 rence as well as in the capital. Nor did he neglect 
 the antique ; but his admiration of outline and ex¬ 
 pression induced him too much to disregard colour¬ 
 ing, and when he sought to master this in after life 
 his roseate hues harmonized indifferently with his se¬ 
 vere and forcible drawing. In Rome he may be 
 seen,” says Lanzi, in some evangelical subjects 
 painted in fresco in a chapel in the Minerva, and 
 
148 THE HOLY FAMILY. 
 
 / 
 
 preferred by Vasari to any other of his works. He 
 also decorated the choir of the metropolitan church 
 of Urbino in fresco, and there left a Madonna in oil 
 placed between St. Peter and St. Paul, in the best 
 Florentine style, except that the latter figure is ra¬ 
 ther attenuated. There is a grand picture in oil by 
 him in the tribune of St. Venanzio in Fabriano, con¬ 
 taining the Virgin, with the titular and two other 
 protecting saints. In the sacristy of the cathedral 
 of Osimo, I saw many small pictures representing 
 the life of Christ, painted by him in the year 1547, 
 as we learn from the archives of that church.” 
 
 Baroccio became eminent, lived to an old age, 
 and founded a school which had many scholars. He 
 was distinguished both for history and portrait, and 
 like other great artists, did not hesitate when he 
 found a living face full of expression and beauty to 
 introduce it into his historic pictures. Like our own 
 Wilkie, he rarely painted any figure without first 
 satisfying himself in a small model, a practice com¬ 
 mon to mostly all the great artists, including Raphael; 
 his sister was his model for his Madonnas, and her 
 child for his infant Saviours and St. Johns; a family 
 likeness may be traced in the picture before us. He 
 imagined that he imitated Titian, and it is certain 
 that for a time he wrought in the manner of Ra¬ 
 phael, of which his St. Cecilia, and more particularly 
 his St. Sebastian, considered by Mancini as his mas¬ 
 terpiece, may be looked upon as examples; but the 
 softness and gracefulness of his style led him insen- 
 
THE HOLY FAMILY. 
 
 149 
 
 sibly to the imitation of Correggio, in whose natural 
 and happy manner he executed many noble works, 
 such as the St. Simon and Judas in the church of 
 the Conventuals. 
 
 It must be confessed that he never equalled Cor¬ 
 reggio’s natural, graceful, and grand style of compo¬ 
 sition ; and it was well for his reputation that his 
 genius led him into a path more peculiarly his own. 
 Yet his works may be called fine imitations of that 
 great master. In the heads of his children,” ob¬ 
 serves Lanzi, and of his female figures, he ap¬ 
 proaches nearly to him ; also in the easy flow of his 
 drapery, in the pure contour, in the mode of fore¬ 
 shortening his figures; but in general design he is 
 not so grand, and his chiaro-scuro less ideal; his 
 tints are lucid and well arranged, and bear a resem¬ 
 blance to the beautiful hues of Correggio, but they 
 have neither his strength nor truth. It is however 
 delightful to see the great variety of colours he has 
 employed so exquisitely blended by his pencil, and 
 there is perhaps no music more finely harmonized 
 to the ear than his pictures are to the eye. This is 
 in a great measure the effort of the chiaro-scuro, to 
 which he paid the greatest attention, and which he was 
 the first to introduce into the schools of Lower Italy. 
 Having made his design he prepared a cartoon, 
 the size of his intended picture, from whence he 
 traced the contours on his canvas; he then on a 
 small scale tried the disposition of his colours, and 
 proceeded to the execution of his work. Perfection 
 
150 
 
 THE HOLY FAMILY. 
 
 was his aim in every picture, a maxim which en¬ 
 sures excellence to artists of genius.” 
 
 The life of Baroccio was written at some length 
 by Bellori, from which we gather that his pencil de¬ 
 lighted most in religious subjects : the portraits 
 which he painted are few, and his works on profane 
 story far from numerous. His burning of Troy, in 
 two pictures, adorns the Borghese Gallery. He died 
 in 1612, aged 84, leaving behind him a high name 
 for productions of a devout and tender character ; 
 his Repose in Egypt resembles in some degree the 
 Madonna del Gatto,” Joseph is plucking wild 
 cherries for the infant Saviour—a natural if not a 
 lofty action. 
 
151 
 
 CLAUDE LORRAINE. 
 
 A SEAPORT IN THE MEDITERRANEAN. 
 
 This truly splendid picture is in his Majesty’s Col¬ 
 lection ; it has the clear and serene poetic air of the 
 chief productions of the great painter, and bears no 
 faint resemblance to other works from his pencil in 
 London. We allude to those in the National Gal¬ 
 lery, the St. Ursula and, more particularly, the 
 Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba on her way to 
 visit Solomon. But though there is a resemblance 
 in the leading features of the landscape there are 
 some important points of difference. For saints and 
 eastern queens we have men familiar with barter, 
 brokerage, and pilotage, and for superbly carved 
 galleys with sails of silk, and diffusing from their 
 streamers 
 
 Sabean odours from the spicy shore 
 
 Of Araby the blest, 
 
 we have good ordinary sea-worthy ships returned 
 from some mercantile voyage and redolent of pitch 
 and bilge-water. If 'we examine the whole scene 
 we will see that all is nevertheless in strict keep¬ 
 ing. To deserted temples and forsaken towers 
 crowned with rank weeds instead of banners, Claude 
 
152 
 
 A SEAPORT. 
 
 / 
 
 could not well bring gondolas and galleys such as 
 those in which Cleopatra sailed down the Cydnus: 
 but he imagined what will sometimes be found 
 true, that mercantile industry survived aristocratic 
 splendour, and executed his picture accordingly. 
 The lustre of the slow descending sun is delineated 
 with astonishing force and truth; in the art of com¬ 
 municating a tranquil air, or an all but un-endur- 
 able splendour to his compositions he has never 
 been excelled. Though we are informed that the 
 painter had a Mediterranean seaport in his eye when 
 he painted this picture; it is chiefly a poetic concep¬ 
 tion, though more like something in existence than 
 is usual with Claude. He was a great master in 
 architecture; his porticos are very finely propor¬ 
 tioned, and one of the two in this picture with 
 square double columns, pannelled, ornamented, and 
 placed on single pedestals, is at once elegant and 
 original. 
 
 He was born in Lorraine in the year 1600; 
 so little was his genius anticipated that he was ap¬ 
 prenticed to a pastry cook and wrought till he 
 became almost a man at a work which he could 
 not but dislike. When he began to study art those 
 that undertook to teach him considered him rather 
 dull than otherwise: Agostino Tassi afterwards re¬ 
 lated that it was with great labour he taught him 
 how to prepare his colours or comprehend the 
 scientific rules of perspective. As soon however 
 as he began to master these preliminaries. his mind 
 
A SEAPORT. 
 
 153 
 
 expanded ; his eagerness to excel knew no bounds, 
 and his imagination delighted in poetic delineations, 
 in which some had the sagacity to perceive the ru¬ 
 diments of those matchless compositions which have 
 made him the delight of all nations. In his youth 
 he found his way to Rome, and endeavoured in the 
 academy to acquire a knowledge of the human 
 figure; he succeeded to a certain degree, but 
 never excelled; and his compositions carry with 
 them the reproach of being the work of various 
 hands. In truth the wonderful beauty of his land¬ 
 scapes requires loveliness equal or superior to that 
 of the Apollo and the Venus ; his ground seems fit 
 only to be touched by celestial feet, and his air to 
 be fanned by heavenly wings. His pictures are in 
 all things poetical; no one on a journey ever sees 
 a scene which recalls Claude ; we behold him some¬ 
 times in the summer skies, when 
 
 The air is mild, the wind is calm. 
 
 The stream is smooth, the dew is balm,” 
 
 but we know of .nothing earthly so passing fair and 
 lovely as his views of temples, streams, and valleys. 
 
 Let no one however suppose that he found all 
 this excellence in imagination alone, and that nature 
 had nothing to do with it. On the contrary, it is 
 related of him that he sought to explore the true 
 principles of painting by an incessant examination 
 of nature, for which purpose he studied in the open 
 fields, where he wrought from sunrise to twilight, 
 
154 
 
 A SEAPORT. 
 
 / 
 
 taking views of heaven and earth under every in¬ 
 fluence which he felt might be useful in his com¬ 
 positions. He noted every fine tinge of light; took 
 sketches of the sunbeams dropping from cloud to 
 cloud, and it was his chief delight to see the sun ris¬ 
 ing or setting on a wide tranquil sea, scattering its 
 long lines of dazzling light on wave and shore, 
 tinging the sea-fowl’s wing, the rock, the ruined 
 tower, or the passing sail. On such materials he set 
 his poetic fancy to work, and produced those bright 
 and glorious compositions which may have been 
 equalled, but surely were never surpassed. 
 
 Claude has the luck of being one of those land¬ 
 scape painters who pleased the difficult Fuseli; he 
 is of the ten singled out as heirs of fame. We have 
 sometimes differed with the Professor in matters of 
 taste or detail, but we agree with him cordially in 
 the following sentiments which we would advise 
 some of the landscape painters of these our later 
 days to read oftener than once. The last branch 
 of uninteresting subjects is that kind of landscape 
 entirely occupied with the tame delineation of a 
 given spot; an enumeration of hill and dale, clumps 
 of trees, shrubs, water, meadows, cottages, and 
 houses, what is commonly called views. These, if 
 not assisted by nature, dictated by taste, or chosen 
 for character, may delight the owner of the acres 
 they enclose, the inhabitants of the spot, perhaps 
 the antiquary or the traveller, but to every other 
 eye they are little more than topography. The 
 
A SEAPORT. 
 
 155 
 
 landscape of Titian, of Mola, of Salvator, of the 
 Poussins, Claude, Rubens, Elzheimer, Rembrandt, 
 and Wilson, spurns all relation with this kind of 
 map-work. Heighth, depth, solitude, strike, terrify, 
 absorb, bewilder in their scenery; we tread on 
 classic or romantic ground, or wander through the 
 characteristic groups of rich congenial objects.” It 
 is quite certain that an accurate transcript of a scene 
 is not enough for true art, unless the scene is in it¬ 
 self poetic. Nature is excellent, but something more 
 is required; we every day see delineations which 
 we cannot deny are natural, while at the same time 
 we perceive that they want that fine conception 
 and vital warmth and lustre which belong to works 
 of genius. 
 
 No one has done more justice to the merits of 
 Claude than Pilkington : his skies,” he observes, 
 are warm and full of lustre, and every object pro¬ 
 perly illumined. His distances are admirable, and, 
 in a very delightful union and harmony, not only 
 excite our applause, but our admiration. His inven¬ 
 tion is pleasing, his colouring delicate, and his tints 
 have such an agreeable sweetness and variety as 
 have been but imperfectly imitated by subsequent 
 artists, but were never equalled. He frequently 
 gave an uncommon tenderness to his finished trees 
 by glazing ; and in his large compositions which he 
 painted in fresco he was so exact that the distinct 
 species of every tree might readily be distinguished.” 
 He conceived the general character of his pictures 
 
156 
 
 A SEAPORT. 
 
 / 
 
 at once; he laboured upon them with unremitting 
 care; and where he failed to please himself at first, he 
 touched, and re-touched till he came up to the image 
 existing in his mind. He has been observed to hurry 
 home from the fields to communicate to his canvas 
 some fresh beauty which he had just picked up from 
 nature. His pictures are very rare, especially such 
 as are uninjured by time : and though the price they 
 bring is enormous, it is not considered by the world 
 as superior to their merit. He died at the age of 
 eighty-two, leaving a fame which will not likely 
 suffer an early eclipse. 
 
/ 
 
 S 1!=AT^X S 111 JPiE A S A XT T ■ ■ B ;^T. 
 
157 
 
 MURILLO. 
 
 SPANISH PEASANT BOY. 
 
 We have hitherto selected our pictures from the 
 Dutch, the English, and the Italian schools: on 
 the work before us the stamp of a different school 
 and the character of another people are visible. 
 It is said that Wilkie the painter visited Spain 
 chiefly for the purpose of examining the produc¬ 
 tions of Velasquez and Murillo, and comparing 
 them with the land, the people, and the remains of 
 the old Spanish spirit and manners. How it was 
 with Velasquez we have not heard, but Murillo and 
 nature were found to be the same. He is a truly 
 national painter, and the express image of the time 
 and the people is on all his productions : those who 
 are intimate with his pictures have observed a touch 
 of the Moorish character in them: the Moors com¬ 
 municated, as the inimitable ballads of Lockhart 
 sufficiently testify, something of an eastern warmth 
 and glow to the Spanish poetry; touching with 
 light the darker parts like sunshine scattered over a 
 clouded landscape : a drop or so of their impetuous 
 blood mingled with the calmer Castilian and left a 
 shade of that swart people in the face of many 
 
 o 
 
158 
 
 SPANISH PEASANT BOY. 
 
 Spaniards. Strangers who visit our National Gal¬ 
 lery will be at no loss to single out the work of 
 this eminent painter. The pictures of that collec¬ 
 tion are connected wdth each other by kindred 
 ties; there is a general lineament of brotherhood: 
 the Dutch school unites with the Flemish, the 
 Flemish with the English, and the English with the 
 Italian : but there is one picture which in character, 
 colour and handling, differs from all around and 
 unites with none—it is from the pencil of Barto¬ 
 lomeo Estevan Murillo. 
 
 This accomplished artist was born at Seville on 
 the first day of January, one thousand sIn hundred 
 and thirteen; of the condition of his parents we 
 have no account: a visit to the studio of his relative 
 Juan del Castillo made him a painter, and to him 
 he was indebted for instructions in the use of colours 
 and the science of art. His kinsman seems to have 
 been something of a patron to him, which counte¬ 
 nances the supposition that his parents were poor; 
 for when Juan removed to Cadiz, Murillo was 
 obliged, say his biographers, to earn subsistence by 
 painting banners and small pictures for exportation 
 to South America. But the emblazoning of banners 
 was in the earher days of art a part of the profes¬ 
 sion, and honourable too and profitable: the small 
 pictures spoken of were chiefly of a religious kind, 
 and ordered by the government, or purchased by 
 wealthy merchants for the churches of the New 
 World. The vigour of his delineations and the 
 
SPANISH PEASANT BOY. 
 
 159 
 
 natural freshness and force of his colouring began 
 to be widely noticed when Pedro de Moya on his 
 way through Seville to Cadiz exhibited some of his 
 pictures painted in the manner of Vandyke. Murillo 
 was so struck with the beauty and force of those 
 compositions that he resolved to study for the 
 future in the same school: he availed himself of 
 such instructions and aid as de Moya could give 
 him, and finding these insufficient, resolved to 
 repair to Rome, the fountain head of art, and seek 
 improvement among the great masters. He was 
 now twenty-nine years old; the exportation trade 
 had given him bread without augmenting his fortune, 
 he was too poor for an expensive journey and his 
 friends looked upon it as a wild undertaking and 
 withheld their help. Murillo was not of a nature to 
 be daunted with common obstacles; he bought a 
 quantity of canvas, divided it into squares of various 
 sizes, and painted many little pictures of flowers, 
 miracles, angels ascending and descending, and on 
 the produce of these reached Madrid on his way to 
 Italy. 
 
 On his arrival in the metropolis he found Velas¬ 
 quez in a fair way of obtaining permanent fame as 
 well as fortune; Murillo made himself known to 
 his distinguished brother and informed him of his 
 history and of his plans; Velasquez was struck 
 with the talents and pleased with the enthusiasm of 
 the young painter; he treated him with great 
 kindness—he did more, he persuaded him to seek 
 
160 
 
 SPANISH PEASANT BOY. 
 
 art in nature instead of looking for it in pictures/ 
 and, to enable him to do this more eiFectually, ob¬ 
 tained him full employment in the Escurial and the 
 various palaces of Madrid. The colouring of his 
 new patron pleased him so well that he kept his 
 works in his eye in many of his compositions, and' 
 soon succeeded in satisfying his countrymen that 
 a painter rivalling Velasquez and Vandyke in force 
 of colour and freedom of handling had arisen 
 among them. He remained in Madrid three years; 
 so much had fortune smiled on him that on re¬ 
 turning to Seville he had no longer to make his 
 way smooth by manufacturing flower pieces, and 
 so much had his fame risen that he was welcomed 
 back to his native place as one whose talents con¬ 
 ferred honour. 
 
 He received immediate employment both from 
 the clergy and people of Seville; for the former he 
 painted the cloister of St. Francis, and so happily 
 did he handle the history of the saint that his coun¬ 
 trymen, say his biographers, could not suppress their 
 admiration and astonishment. His picture of the 
 death of St. Clara, and one finer still, St. James 
 distributing alms, carried his reputation high and 
 spread it far; in these he shewed himself worthy of 
 being named with the first masters of his country. 
 Commissions now poured in from all quarters: 
 church after church obtained attractions from his 
 hand: nor was he less skilful in portrait delineation 
 than in historic composition ; wealth followed fame. 
 
SPANISH PEASANT BOY. 
 
 161 
 
 and in a short while he acquired what was to him 
 an independent fortune. His success, however,” 
 says Pilkington, never led him to be careless of his 
 reputationhe gradually perfected his manner, by 
 giving more boldness to his pencil,- and without 
 abandoning that sweetness in his colouring which 
 distinguished him from all his rivals, encreasing.its 
 strength and giving greater freedom to his touch.” 
 
 He was invited to Cadiz, where, he painted the 
 grand altar of the Capuchins, and his more cele¬ 
 brated work the Marriage of St. Catherine. In 
 one of those moments when a man of genius minds 
 nothing save the subject which possesses his fancy 
 Murillo forgot that he was working on a lofty scaf¬ 
 fold, and fell and hurt himself so severely that he 
 continued a sufferer for years, till death relieved 
 him in the month of April, 1682. His works are 
 numerous and of various kinds; he was a painter of 
 history, landscape, flowers, and occasionally por¬ 
 traits. He is altogether of Spanish growth ; he 
 never studied out of his native land, and his works 
 bear witness that he went to nature chiefly for all 
 that has given him fame. This originality of 
 talent,” says one of his biographers, places him in 
 the first rank among the painters of every school. 
 He has neither the charming dignity of Raphael, 
 the grandeur of Caracci, nor the grace of Correggio, 
 but as a faithful imitator of nature he is second to 
 none; he is sometimes vulgar and incorrect, but he 
 is ever true and natural, and the sweetness, brilli- 
 
162 
 
 SPANISH PEASANT BOY. 
 
 / 
 
 ancy, freshness and harmony of his colouring make 
 us forget all his defects.” We refrain at present 
 from making remarks on the historic style of this 
 eminent painter, inasmuch as we have a noble, and 
 little known, scriptural picture of his in the hands 
 of the engraver, lately consigned from Spain to 
 W. W. Sharp, Esq. of Upper Berkeley street, 
 Portman-square, which will afford us an oppor¬ 
 tunity of doing his genius justice. 
 
 The picture to which these hasty remarks refer 
 was presented to the National Gallery by M. M. 
 Zachery, Esq., it measures one foot ten inches high, 
 by one foot four inches wide; is supposed to be a 
 portrait, and is painted with uncommon lightness of 
 pencil. 
 


163 
 
 LOUTHERBOURG. 
 
 LANDSCAPE AND FIGURES. 
 
 This picture belonging to the collection of John 
 Slater, Esq. is one of the best landscapes we have 
 seen from the pencil of Loutherbourg. He was 
 a great master in his way: no one knew better 
 how to make the little that nature had done for 
 him go far; his skill in theatrical scenery enabled 
 him to single out readily all the glittering materials 
 of the picturesque, and his academic experience 
 aided him in arranging them on his canvas in a 
 striking and imposing manner. His eye was familiar 
 with foreign nature and over-sea art, and something 
 of another land mingles in all his productions; yet 
 one or two of the leading features of our island 
 landscape may be traced in the work before us: a 
 picture resembling it in some degree is at present in 
 the Royal Collection where it is called a castle 
 in Wales. Nevertheless we are inclined to regard 
 it as a composition : nature seldom crowds so many 
 interesting matters into such small compass: Lou¬ 
 therbourg was intimate with all the resources and 
 commonplaces of art, and knew how to blend them 
 together and work them up with effect. Here we 
 
164 LANDSCAPE AND FIGURES. 
 
 / 
 
 have a ruined castle to recall past times, with archi¬ 
 tecture indicating the gothic race who raised it: a 
 mill formed among the ruined defences, with its 
 machinery turned by the stream which once filled 
 the fosse, to shew that peace and industry have 
 triumphed ; while shrubs and trees, like the vines 
 in the versified conceit of Addison 
 
 Anxious to conceal great Bourbon’s crimes,” 
 
 cover with their thick foliage those rents in the 
 shattered fortress which jarred with the general 
 harmony of the composition. Cattle are drinking 
 or cooling their hoofs in a little pond of quiet water; 
 rustics are removing their well filled sacks from the 
 mill, while a female mendicant with her child lingers 
 on the road feeling the fragrance, perhaps, of the 
 warm new-ground meal, or sensible, like most of 
 the wandering race, of the beauty of the scene 
 around. 
 
 Philip James de Loutherbourg was born at Stras- 
 burgh in the year 1740 ; his father, principal painter 
 to the Prince Hanau Darmstadt, had studied with 
 success under Largilliere; but though an artist 
 himself, he had no desire to see his son embrace 
 his precarious profession, and destined him for 
 the engineer department of the army, while his 
 wife, a devout and earnest Lutheran, wished to 
 have him trained up for the ministry of the church. 
 As a liberal education was required for both, Lou¬ 
 therbourg was placed in the college of Strasburgh 
 
LANDSCAPE AND FIGURES. 
 
 165 
 
 where he made progress in languages as well as 
 mathematics: nor was this all, he secretly bestowed 
 his attention upon art, and had acquired some skill 
 in drawing as well as the use of colours when his 
 parents made the unwelcome discovery, and seeing 
 both their schemes frustrated consented that he 
 should follow what his genius seemed to incline to. 
 He studied for some time under his father, and was 
 then sent to Paris where he found an instructor in 
 Carlo Van Loo. It is said that he displayed uncom¬ 
 mon quickness of eye and readiness of hand: that 
 he made great progress is beyond doubt, for at the 
 age of twenty-two he was elected, like our own 
 Lawrence, a member of the Academy of Painting 
 contrary to the fixed regulations which made thirty 
 the* age of admission. This breach of academic 
 rules was set down to the uncommon genius of the 
 painter; the world looked for wonders from his 
 hand, and it cannot be denied that he laboured to 
 show himself worthy; he was not however very 
 successful in Paris; he quitted it without reluctance; 
 studied in Germany, in Switzerland and finally 
 settled in Italy, where he painted with equal wil¬ 
 lingness and celerity, portraits, landscapes, and 
 battles by sea and land. Some of these were pur¬ 
 chased by English travellers : to vindicate their own 
 discemment and taste they praised them as mar¬ 
 vellous things of the kind: the name of Louther- 
 bourg began to be heard of in our island, and the 
 painter himself arrived in London in the year 1771. 
 
166 
 
 LANDSCAPE AND FIGURES. 
 
 At that period the two chief masters of British 
 landscape were living, and their merits acknow¬ 
 ledged: Gainsborough had obtained independence 
 by his marriage as well as by his talents, and 
 painted according to his own pleasure: Wilson was 
 too poor to follow the impulse of his genius and 
 occupied himself in the drudgery of copying his own 
 pictures when he longed to be creating something 
 new: but neither were much in the way of Louther- 
 bourg, he was a foreigner, and as such found favour 
 in the sight of all those, and they are not few, who 
 imagine that artists trained in over-sea academies 
 cannot fail to excel those educated at home, and who 
 have moreover a kind of twilight belief in the absurd 
 assertion of Winklemann that our climate is too cold 
 for producing either fine feeling or high imagination. 
 Garrick seems to have estimated his genius more 
 justly, he employed him to paint the scenery for 
 Drury Lane. Here his quickness of hand and his 
 powers of combination were called into life and 
 activity; cascades white with foam ; rocks shaggy 
 and wood-crowned; ruined temples with owls on 
 the roof; shattered castles with foxes looking out 
 of the windows; wide spreading lakes studded with 
 islets, the islets again inhabited by deer, robbers or 
 hermits, with moons unnaturally luminous and stars 
 more than naturally bright, together with agitated 
 oceans and foundering ships, were all things in which 
 the painter excelled and which he jumbled together 
 and reproduced in other landscapes as a sculptor 
 
LANDSCAPE AND FIGURES. 
 
 167 
 
 melts down many strange pieces of metal and 
 pouring the whole into one mould gives a new form 
 to old materials. These picturesque creations had 
 their admirers; the good people of the galleries 
 applaud whatever is portentous and glaring, and 
 the painter attributed, and with justice, some of 
 the praise showered upon Garrick when he tri¬ 
 umphed on the scene, to the charms of his own 
 pictorial compositions and the fascination of his 
 colours. 
 
 The approbation of the pit and galleries was not 
 lost on the Royal Academy; in the year 1782 
 Loutherbourg was admitted a member, and became 
 in rotation a visitor and one of the Council. His 
 success at the theatre emboldened him to try the 
 effect of a series of moving pictures in which he 
 sought to unite the machinist and the painter, by 
 giving motion as well as form; that nothing might 
 be wanting to allure and detain public attention, he 
 added music to the representation, and called his 
 entertainment Eidophusikon” or an imitation of 
 nature. At first the town wondered what all this 
 might be, painting, music, and an unpronounceable 
 name brought crowds for a space; but a strange 
 fish, which the ingenuity of a sailor tortured into 
 something like a mermaid, made its appearance 
 and the Eidophusikon was neglected and forgotten. 
 Loutherbourg after this exhibition, which brought 
 money, notwithstanding its brief fame, painted the 
 Review of Warley Camp, which found a place in 
 
168 LANDSCAPE AND FIGURES. 
 
 / 
 
 the Royal Collection; the victory of Earl Howe 
 and the siege of Valenciennes. He died at his 
 residence in Chiswick in the year 1812. 
 
 His genius as a painter was not of a high order: 
 his excellence lay in landscape; his scenery was 
 sometimes beautiful, but he delighted in violent 
 contrasts and in glaring colours. His pictures be¬ 
 long to the picturesque school; he was skilful in 
 composition, he knew where to plant a tree, pour 
 a cascade, drop his cattle, scatter his shepherds 
 and raise a ruined tower- or a crumbling temple. 
 In short he was one of those artists produced by 
 the cherishing heat of academies rather than by 
 nature’s genial warmth; he stood high in his day, 
 but every year is taking something from his fame; 
 such must be the fate of all in whom art is stronger 
 than nature. 
 
i.ondon. i'liblisbed JuTie 1,1833. by John Msjor. 50, Fleet Street. 
 
169 
 
 JOB BERKHEYDEN. 
 
 THE MERRY FIDDLER. 
 
 There are painters who seek to awe us by their 
 wild and supernatural flights: some who desire to 
 instruct us by their historical delineations: others 
 whose chief pleasure lies in depicting the varied as¬ 
 pect of inanimate nature: a vast number lay out 
 their time and their colours in preserving the looks 
 of the rich or the important; nor is the class small 
 who reprove vice and show folly her own con¬ 
 temptible likeness, but the artists who seem to have 
 satisfied the world most are those who embody 
 scenes of domestic joy, rustic dehght, and fire-side 
 happiness. Of this class not the least remarkable 
 was Job Berkheyden. We need not go further for 
 an example of his taste and his skill than the 
 scene before us: one no doubt that the painter 
 himself had seen and enjoyed. It is a picture which 
 belongs to a happy people: the sole inhabitant of 
 the canvas seems well to live in the world, is on 
 good terms with himself, and is in all probabi¬ 
 lity a jolly bachelor who in the cool contents of a 
 choice bottle, the inspiration of a ballad and the 
 
170 
 
 THE MERRY FIDDLER. 
 
 charms of music seeks consolation for the absence of 
 
 -dear deluding woman 
 
 The joy of joys.” 
 
 He has other materials of enjoyment scattered about: 
 a song whose heading is Minstrelsy above all things” 
 is stuck on the wall close to his bow-hand: on the 
 other side are some small Dutch-built volumes to 
 be opened perhaps when the fiddle is hung on the 
 nail behind him, and we see something like a chair 
 of state with arms and a canopy which indicate a 
 man of consequence in the village, whose word as 
 well as music is listened to. On looking at this 
 picture in the very interesting collection of R. 
 Ludgate, Esq. we were touched with the festive 
 character of the composition, the truth of the ex¬ 
 pression and the natural tone of the colouring. 
 
 Job Berkheyden was born at Haerlem—a city 
 distinguished for its brave resistance to the victorious 
 Spaniards—sometime during the year 1637. Little 
 is known here of his early life, and less of his works 
 than some of them seem to deserve: his instructor 
 is not named: his biographer contented himself 
 with giving him the picturesque banks of the Rhine 
 for his academy, from whose wooded sides and 
 hurrying waters he collected materials, we are told, 
 for many pretty landscapes. When he had taken 
 a number of sittings from inanimate nature he turned 
 his attention to men and animals, nor was he ill to 
 please in his models for he found them in boors, 
 innkeepers and shepherds, and in the ordinary 
 
THE MERRY FIDDLER. 
 
 171 
 
 drudging cattle which ply on the road, or are to be 
 seen in the fields. When he had acquired sufficient 
 skill in such delineations he then thought of uniting 
 landscape with life, and in imitation of Teniers, pic¬ 
 tured the peasants of his native land at feasts, wed¬ 
 dings, dances, drinkings and conversations. The 
 truth of character and agreeable colouring of these 
 compositions carried his name over the province 
 and he acquired both money and reputation. He 
 seems now to have associated his brother Gerard, 
 some seven years younger than himself, with his 
 labours : they painted many pictures in conjunction 
 and lived so happily together that they engaged in 
 a sort of romantic expedition which ended favour¬ 
 ably for their fortunes. 
 
 Their native place, it is said, was not sufficiently 
 generous or kind, and the two brothers determined 
 to seek more discerning patrons. They heard much 
 of the munificence of the Elector Palatine: how he 
 encouraged genius and rewarded art, and without 
 an introduction of any kind or a friend to aid them 
 they set out for the court of the Prince. They 
 wasted several days in wandering about the palace 
 or its neighbourhood: they were personally un¬ 
 known to all, and it would seem that their fame had 
 not yet penetrated to the throne. At last they fell 
 upon a scheme of making themselves known—a 
 scheme much resorted to by the painters of these 
 our latter days—they resolved to try what an exhi¬ 
 bition would do: Having often observed,” says 
 
172 
 
 THE MERRY FIDDLER. 
 
 Pilkington, the Elector going out to the chase, 
 Berkheyden took particular notice of all the nobility 
 in his train, and then with the aid of his brother 
 finished two pictures containing the portraits of the 
 prince and his principal attendants. When the pic¬ 
 tures were finished he prevailed with an officer of 
 the household to place them in a gallery through 
 which his highness passed at his return. The prince 
 no sooner saw them than he expressed the greatest 
 surprise and satisfaction at the performance: en¬ 
 quired after the artists, and ordering them to be 
 brought into his presence received them graciously, 
 rewarded them nobly for their work and made them 
 considerable presents besides, among which were 
 two medals of gold.” These are pleasing traits in 
 the characters of princes and painters: it is seldom 
 that biography has aught so romantic to relate of 
 either: the former rarely now favour the unfriended, 
 and the latter paint and complain without trying to 
 awaken slumbering generosity by any such poetic 
 attempts. The painter died in 1693: his works 
 are not common in this country. 
 

 
 
173 
 
 CANALETTO. 
 
 VENICE. 
 
 Venice has sat so often to our limners of late that 
 vve are almost weary of looking on her loveliness ; 
 we are familiar with the Bridge of Sighs, we have 
 been rated on the Rialto; we have sailed up her 
 canals in a gondola amid the music of many flutes, 
 and finally we have looked on her when, with 
 banners spread and her people rejoicing, she was 
 shown by Turner floating amid the Adriatic like a 
 city gone to sea. Of all those, and they are many 
 who have painted this Sea Wonder” of the poet, 
 no one has come up to Canaletto for perfect truth 
 and decided reality: he was a native of Venice; 
 he was familiar with all her palaces, arsenals and 
 canals; he had looked on her by the sun and by 
 the moon, and her perfect image was impressed on 
 his mind as legibly as a seal is on the melted wax. 
 In this he has excelled all other artists and in this 
 chiefly: for most of his pictures want that aerial 
 splendour with which artists of imagination know 
 how to invest their temples and towers. To ensure 
 accuracy of delineation he employed the Camera Ob- 
 scura, laid down the chief lines and leading features. 
 
 p 
 
174 
 
 VENICE. 
 
 / 
 
 and then throwing aside the instrument touched 
 the whole into elegance and beauty with the pencil. 
 His buildings have a rich and glossy look as if they 
 were raised of polished marble, and his water has 
 the natural gleam of the element, a demure sea- 
 green with a light glimmering below the surface. 
 The picture from which our engraving is taken 
 belongs to the collection of Lord Farnborough, and 
 not inaptly embodies the description of Byron. 
 
 She looks a Sea Cybele, fresh from ocean. 
 
 Rising with her tiara of proud towers 
 At airy distance with majestic motion 
 A ruler of the waters and their powers : 
 
 And such she was; her daughters had their dowers 
 From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East 
 Poured in her lap all gems in sparkling showers. 
 In purple was she robed and of her feast 
 Monarchs partook and deemed their dignity en- 
 creased.” 
 
 The works of Canaletto are numerous among us, 
 he was born at Venice in the year 1697, and as his 
 father Bernardo painted scenes for the theatres he 
 was early initiated into the details of perspective, 
 and the mysteries of colour, and acquired that won¬ 
 drous facility of hand for which all his biographers 
 have praised him. He grew weary of dashing in 
 cascades and ruined towers, and hermitages and 
 scenes of Tophet or Elysium for the playhouse, 
 and made his escape to Rome where he drew from 
 
VENICE. 
 
 175 
 
 nature—and the nature round the Eternal City is 
 lovely—and studied ancient ruins of which he found 
 but too many in the town and neighbourhood. 
 Having acquired the necessary science and skill he 
 returned to Venice and took many views of that 
 city—views which nature and art united to ren¬ 
 der magnificent. Others however he copied with 
 the utmost nicety from the scene before him, which 
 make them acceptable to men who have not been 
 so fortunate as to look upon the Queen of the 
 Adriatic: it is chiefly through pictures of this latter 
 class that Canaletto is known in England. By 
 the advice of Amicona he came to London, re¬ 
 mained with us for two years, and painted a 
 perspective view of the inside of King's College 
 Chapel, Cambridge, for Walpole, who placed it in 
 his curious gothic retreat at Strawberry-Hill: several 
 of his pictures found their way into Buckingham 
 Palace, but whether they were painted here or 
 purchased abroad, we happen not to know. 
 
 Canaletto seems to have found favour in the eyes 
 of Lanzi, for he dedicates two entire pages to his 
 history and works. He composed” says the histo¬ 
 rian of Italian art, a great number of inventive 
 pieces forming a graceful union of the modern and 
 the antique—of truth and of fancy together. Se¬ 
 veral of these he produced for Algarotti; but the 
 most novel and instructive of any, as it seems to 
 me, is the picture in which the grand bridge of 
 Rialto designed by Palladio, instead of that which 
 
176 
 
 VENICE. 
 
 / 
 
 at present is seen, overlooks the great canal, 
 crowned beyond with the cathedral of Vicenza and 
 the Palazzo Chericato, Palladio’s own works, along 
 with other choice edifices, disposed according to 
 the taste of that learned writer, who has so much 
 contributed to improve that of all Italy, and even 
 beyond Italy itself. For the greater correctness 
 of his perspectives Canaletto made use of the optic 
 Camera, though he obviated its defects especially 
 in the tints of the airs. The first indeed to point 
 out the real use of it, he limited it only to what was 
 calculated to afford pleasure. He- aimed at pro¬ 
 ducing great effect and in this partakes somewhat 
 of Tiopolo, who occasionally introduced figures 
 into his pieces for him. In whatever he employs 
 his pencil, whether buildings, water, clouds, or 
 figures he never fails to impress them with a vigo¬ 
 rous character ; always viewing objects in their most 
 favourable aspect. When he avails himself of a 
 certain pictorial licence he does it with caution, 
 and in such a way that the generality of spectators 
 consider it quite natural, while true judges only are 
 sensible of its art—an art which he possessed in a 
 very eminent degree.” 
 
 This is to look at the genius of Canaletto through 
 the medium of one class of his pictures, and there 
 is no question but something like the dawnings of 
 imagination may be observed even in his most 
 literal copies. It says little we fear for the taste of 
 this country that his Venetian fac-similes have been 
 
VENICE. 
 
 177 
 
 chiefly in request—scenes which our travellers 
 considered as beautiful they desired to brin^ with 
 them, in order to travel all their travels over again 
 at home, and in this way and no other can we ac¬ 
 count for the great number of his pictures in Eng¬ 
 land. His labours at the theatre, in which he was 
 often called upon to dash in half a dozen landscapes 
 in an incredibly short space of time, gave that almost 
 marvellous rapidity to his pencil over which so many 
 have wondered: we must however set down to his 
 own good taste the pains which he took to make 
 them accurate, and that air of reality which he 
 communicated to all he touched. His fastidious 
 accuracy of delineation has its drawbacks; men 
 lose the grand in the minute ; the majestic in the 
 neat, and in giving every pillar and pilaster, archi¬ 
 trave and coign of vantage, with the fidelity of a 
 Clerk of the works, the eye is called to these infe¬ 
 rior points from the general sweep and outline of 
 the performance. In many of our lesser landscapes 
 the trees of the forest sat sometimes for their indi¬ 
 vidual portraits ; the minutest matter is marked 
 without reflecting that it is the leading features 
 alone on which the eye of the spectator lingers. In 
 painting a birch, an ash, an elm or an oak the touch 
 which distinguishes their natures is wanted, and not 
 the detail of leaf and bark and bough. In all that 
 belongs to the elegant and the accurate Canaletto 
 was a master; he lived to a great age, established 
 something like a school, and instructed his nephew 
 
178 
 
 VENICE. 
 
 Bernardo Bellotto in his system of painting. He 
 has had few followers, the pains which he took 
 alarm all such students as expect to produce land¬ 
 scape by broad masses of colour and sudden bursts 
 of light and darkness; those who can only copy 
 nature must copy her exactly, for the moment they 
 forsake her they fail: those who have true imagina¬ 
 tion may do as they like, for in their hands the 
 wildest flights are united to truth and nature by the 
 spell which genius throws over all her works. Cana¬ 
 letto must be considered as the chief of the Archi¬ 
 tectural painters; many have his accuracy but few 
 his lucid depth of colour; fewer still can like him 
 endow a work of reality with the hues of imagina¬ 
 tion : he lived in Venice after he returned from 
 England, and died there in the year 1768. 
 
179 
 
 VANGOOL. 
 
 THE QUEEN OF HEARTS. 
 
 The works of this painter are not numerous in this 
 country; the picture before us belongs to the col¬ 
 lection of Mr. Hargrave of Liverpool. It tells its 
 own story very clearly, and is in its nature domes¬ 
 tic. Vangool has laid the scene during the grape 
 season, for some fine large bunches are plucked and 
 placed in a cooler; a cluster or two have already 
 been used, for so the artist means to let us under¬ 
 stand by strewing leaves on the floor. It is day¬ 
 time too, the sunlight is mild on the window, 
 nor is hunting an amusement without its attrac¬ 
 tions, for a handsome greyhound seems ready 
 for the chace. The house belongs to one of 
 some condition; the ceiling is high, the beams are 
 neatly squared, and all has a substantial if not an 
 opulent look. The party who give life to this scene 
 next merit attention ; four persons are at a table, 
 two men and two women ; a man and a woman are 
 engaged in a game at cards; the latter holds out 
 the ace with an air of quiet triumph, nor is the 
 former without his triumph too; he has not yet 
 seen v/hat his partner produces against him, but 
 
180 
 
 QUEEN OF HEARTS. 
 
 takes out the Queen of Hearts, and looking with a 
 quiet consciousness in the face of a young lady be¬ 
 side him seems to say, with his eye, what this is to 
 the pack so you are to me.” A man in a dark cloak 
 and the lady with the ace appear ignorant of all 
 this bye-play, and it must be confessed that the 
 young lady, the object of so much attention, bears it 
 with a sort of balanced equanimity of look; she ac¬ 
 knowledges the matter with her eyes and rests 
 content. The painter has impressed love, wine, 
 and the chase on his picture; all is simple, there 
 are no elaborate auxiliaries. 
 
 In scenes of this domestic nature the heart of 
 England feels an interest; the grand or high histori¬ 
 cal seems almost a flight above common sympathy. 
 We think portrait vfould work well in groups such 
 as this before us; and let it be borne in mind that 
 our early painters set the example; to go no higher 
 than Hogarth, his conversation pieces, as he called 
 them, though perhaps a little too literal have 
 great merit both in character and colour, and 
 might be imitated by some academicians with ad¬ 
 vantage to themselves. It is all very well to have 
 single heads when they are of any mark in the 
 country and can lay claim to something intellec¬ 
 tual; our Scotts, our Wordsworths, our Broughams, 
 and our Wellingtons need not be tied up in couples 
 nor yoked in conversation, but we cannot glance 
 round the walls of our exhibition rooms without 
 a consciousness that many heads there require the 
 
QUEEN or HEARTS. 
 
 181 
 
 additional charm which employment gives, to render 
 them worthy of a second look. In truth to give 
 an image of domestic life is to do something of 
 a high order. The well trimmed evening lire and 
 the well ordered house, the more youthful part 
 of the household busied in their various lessons, 
 the elder about some thrifty employment, the eye 
 of the matron superintending and directing all, 
 and the head of the house, like Ossian’s warrior, 
 on his own hill retired,” pondering over the 
 concerns of the day, or indulging himself with a 
 book, an instrument of music, or a game at cards, 
 like the well dressed gentleman in the work before 
 us would make a fair picture. Out of scenes, 
 such as life every hour presents an artist ‘of any 
 fancy might work whole galleries; half a dozen 
 human beings can take as many postures as so many 
 bits of glass in a kaleidoscope. 
 
 We were once present at the Exhibition when a 
 plain common-sense-minded person, who knew 
 little about how pictures were produced, but was 
 not insensible of their beauties when finished, en¬ 
 tered into conversation with an artist of some name 
 on the merits of the works around. The painter 
 complained that the high-history pictures spread 
 their colours and shewed their groups in vain to 
 the world. It is a very fine thing no doubt,” said 
 his friend, to look at a gTand picture made up of 
 princes and heroes, and heroines of other times— 
 where life is given to those who died four thousand 
 
182 
 
 QUEEN OF HEARTS. 
 
 years ago. But such a picture is out of the reach 
 of ordinary sympathies; what care I for Sesostris, 
 Pharoah Necho^ or Ptolomy Philadelphus: I can 
 look on Mutius Scaevola and his deeds or on the 
 exploit of Curtius without any emotion. If you 
 want to win my affections come into English 
 history, and shew me the actions of heroes ; there 
 you can charm me, unless you choose to paint the 
 druids or the kings of the Saxon Heptarchy. You 
 laugh and think because I care nothing for your 
 Egyptians or Romans that I admire yonder great 
 grey cart-horse, larger than life, so splendidly framed 
 and filling up one side of the room; no! I can see 
 a horse at any time almost that I choose to look 
 out of my window, so there was no use in bringing 
 the prodigious brute here—had you clapt a warrior 
 on his back, or put him into a gallop the thing had 
 been better; a horse at full speed, an eagle in full 
 flight, and a man thinking are three noble things. 
 Nor can I admire, some of these landscapes; trees 
 don’t think and meadows express no sentiment, and 
 that crow flying over them can at the best but croak. 
 I can see such matters without frames, for they are 
 constantly before my eyes. But look at this little 
 picture ; a young shepherd plays on his pipe, his dog 
 looks up well pleased, that shepherdess has an air 
 of grave delight, this one tosses her head, disposed 
 to mock both music and musician.—The picture 
 is of man and so I like it.” 
 
183 
 
 CUYP. 
 
 LANDSCAPE WITH CATTLE. 
 
 CuYP has gained the general favour of mankind by 
 delineating nature, and touching it gracefully with 
 the finger of poesie. It is not in his groups of cattle, 
 nor yet in the action and character of his shepherds 
 and husbandmen, that his chief power lies; it resides 
 in that calm loveliness of scene which gladdens all 
 who look, and cheers them with that wholesome 
 joy which brims the cup without overflowing it. 
 Not a little of this is visible in the fine picture be¬ 
 fore us; the air is quiet, there is not a breath in 
 the woods; the cows of a farmer, four in number, 
 seek at mid-day the side of a shallow pool; two 
 stand cooling their hoofs, two lie dov/n on the 
 marshy and moist ground; while two children 
 stand nigh them, in the shadow of the wood, and 
 enjoy themselves rather than keep watch. A few 
 sheep lie or nibble on a distant knoll; one shep¬ 
 herd sits on the ground, another stands leaning on 
 his staff or crook, enjoying the beauty of the bound¬ 
 less landscape, while a child kneels, in prayer appa¬ 
 rently, beside him. The sun, without being seen, 
 kindles up the whole, glancing on the shafts of the 
 
184 
 
 LANDSCAPE WITH CATTLE. 
 
 / 
 
 trees, on the dress of the shepherds, on the backs 
 of the cows, and on the sedgy pool. The painter 
 has indicated by flags and rushes that the water is 
 not'deep, and by the vicinity of the children that 
 the cattle are harmless. The painting from which 
 this engraving is copied, belongs to the fine collection 
 of W. Wells, Esq. of Redleaf-Park. 
 
 There is a professor of perspective in each 
 Academy, whose duty it is to lead the minds of the 
 students to the contemplation of scenes of natural 
 beauty and splendour; to teach them the art of per¬ 
 ceiving and combining the picturesque points of the 
 rough picture, which nature supplies, into one grand 
 and harmonious landscape ; touching it with light 
 here and with darkness there, and communicating to 
 the whole the hues of earth, or the lustre of heaven, 
 as the subject requires. It has never been our for¬ 
 tune to meet with any lectures on the art of land¬ 
 scape, or yet to listen to our own gifted professor 
 when he annually descants on an art to which he 
 has brought fine skill and a fair imagination. Look¬ 
 ing therefore on the hill, with its canopy of cloud, 
 the valley with its stream, the sky with its sun¬ 
 shine or its stars, and ocean with its wilderness 
 of waters, sleeping or agitated, and comparing 
 the raw materials of art with the finished pro¬ 
 ductions of the pencil, we are compelled to ac¬ 
 knowledge that landscape painters have less ho¬ 
 noured their maker in the imitation of inanimate 
 nature, than we think the grand historical artists 
 
LANDSCAPE WITH CATTLE. 
 
 185 
 
 have done in representing man with his deeds and 
 his passions. We have, we confess, never yet seen 
 any body of living men capable, from nobleness of 
 form and godlike grace of expression,"of enacting 
 Da Vinci’s last Supper, or some of Raphael’s Car¬ 
 toons : while we must acknowledge that we have 
 seen such splendour in the heavens above, and such 
 beauty on the earth beneath—such risings and such 
 settings of the sun—such tumultuous heavings of 
 the sea when thunder prevailed and fire was in the 
 air, as we have never yet seen any thing from a 
 painter capable of matching, save Wilson and Turner, 
 or Martin now and then. 
 
 We have ventured, in the absence of the lights 
 of Professors, to hazard this remark, and we shall 
 not be surprised to find that we have come to a hasty 
 conclusion, and without allowing enough for the 
 merits of Salvator Rosa, Claude, the Poussins, and 
 others : without therefore following further the will- 
 o’-wisp of our own fancy, let us see what one of the 
 masters in painting—one not unskilled in landscape 
 —says of the labours of the men whom Fuseli called 
 sworn land surveyors.” In his thirteenth dis¬ 
 course, Sir Joshua Reynolds speaking of an artist 
 with true imaginative powers, says, like Nicolas 
 Poussin, he transports us to the environs of ancient 
 Rome, with all the objects which a literary education 
 makes so precious and interesting to man ; or like 
 Sebastian Bourdon, he leads us to the dark anti¬ 
 quity of the pyramids of Egypt; or like Claude 
 
186 LANDSCAPE WITH CATTLE. 
 
 / 
 
 Lorraine, he conducts us to the tranquillity of Arca¬ 
 dian scenes and fairy land. Like the history painter 
 of landscapes in this style, and with this conduct, 
 sends the imagination back into antiquity; and like 
 the poet, he makes the elements sympathise with 
 his subject: whether the clouds roll in volumes, 
 like those of Titian or Salvator Rosa, or like those 
 of Claude are gilded with the setting sun : whether 
 the mountains have sudden and bold projections, or 
 are gently sloped: whether the branches of his trees 
 shoot out abruptly in right angles from the trunks, 
 or follow each other with only a gentle inclination. 
 All these circumstances contribute to the general 
 character of the work, whether it be of the elegant 
 or the sublime kind.” This we think a fine artist¬ 
 like passage, worthy of the consideration of all 
 painters who desire to introduce the grand and the 
 majestic of nature upon their canvas, and exclude 
 the mean and the common-place. Nor do we think 
 that the delineating of such scenes is more trouble to 
 an imaginative mind than to elaborate out a me¬ 
 chanical fac-simile of nature is to a painter blessed 
 with fine hands, but unaided by fancy. Such land¬ 
 scapes are his element; he has heroic visions 
 of mountains, and valleys, and mighty rivers : the 
 world before the flood is revealed: he sees Greece 
 with all her glory on, and Thebes opening her hun¬ 
 dred gates to her thousand chariots of war: or 
 better still, his mind ascends to heaven, he delineates 
 celestial cities; mountains where spirits dwell, the 
 
LANDSCAPE WITH CATTLE. 
 
 187 
 
 lands where the just men made perfect live ; the 
 immortal spires of the new Jerusalem ; scenes in 
 short to which those in Paradise of old are but 
 as a proverb. 
 
 Landscapes such as these but seldom appear to 
 hands skilful in arresting their glories on canvas^ and 
 humbler subjects are more acceptable to the bulk 
 of mankind ; for after all, much of the spirit of the 
 grazier is abroad, earth is looked upon less for its 
 beauty than for its productiveness. It is difficult to 
 direct the footsteps of the close copyist of nature, 
 of the unimaginative and literal minded, who thinks 
 no picture good unless he can swear to its accuracy. 
 Yet our isle teems with lovely and untrodden 
 nooks: fairy spots on mountain rivulet banks; 
 scenes by hoary and tottering castles; dells, where 
 you hear the moan of the cushat dove, and the 
 murmur of the brook ; and after looking downward 
 into the bosom of the darkness for a minute’s space 
 you see, or think you see, the sparkling of the run¬ 
 ning water, or the flitting of the startled bird, who 
 fears you are about to precipitate yourself upon 
 his domain. We could, in truth, in a couple of hours’ 
 walk in our own native land, select as many beau¬ 
 teous scenes renowned in song and story, as would 
 make the fortune and fame of any painter who is 
 capable of copying what is before him. Nor should 
 we forget that it was in England that Gainsborough 
 saw the scenes on which his glory is founded. 
 
 The style and department of art which he chose,” 
 
188 LANDSCAPE WITH CATTLE. 
 
 / 
 
 says Reynolds, and in which he so much excelled, 
 did not require tliat he should go out of his own 
 country for the objects of his study ; they were 
 every where about him ; he found them in the 
 streets and in the fields; and from the models thus 
 accidentally found, he selected with great judgment 
 such as suited his purpose. As his studies were 
 directed to the living world principally, he'.did not 
 pay a general attention to the works of various 
 masters, though they are in my opinion always of 
 great use, even when the character of our subject 
 requires us to depart from some of their principles. 
 If Gainsborough did not look on nature with a poet’s 
 eye, it must be acknowledged that he saw her with 
 the eye of a painter.” 
 
 The landscapes of Cuyp resemble those of 
 Gainsborough, inasmuch as they have more of the 
 real than of the poetic. They might be conceived 
 without much labour of imagination, though] no 
 one without fancy could have painted them. We 
 shall presently render some account of his life and 
 studies, and enter more fully into the merits of his 
 compositions—he has followers, and not unsuccess¬ 
 ful ones, in this country. 
 
LandiTia, IHiblishea. ATig.'' !, L833, by JoJm Msyar, 50, Fleet Sa-eet. 
 
189 
 
 REMBRANDT. 
 
 TOBIAS AND THE ANGEL. 
 
 To admit little light and give that little a wonderful 
 brilliancy is the chief merit which Reynolds notices 
 in the pictures of Rembrandt: to this he might have 
 added vigour of expression, though no doubt it is 
 subordinate to the effect of his light and shade. 
 There is a strange vigour impressed on all his works, 
 yet it is more startling than natural: he refused 
 indeed to take nature as he found her: her fine 
 amenities he could not improve, nor exalt her gran¬ 
 deur : it was his pleasure to look upon her as man 
 never looked before, and the consequence is that his 
 labours often astonish, but seldom entirely please 
 those who compare the offspring of talent with that 
 of truth. By admitting a strong light through a 
 small space—like a sunbeam through an auger bore, 
 he produced an unnatural mixture of the bright and 
 the dark, but in doing this Rembrandt was playing 
 tricks with light and shade and using the elements 
 of art rather as a slight-of-hand-man than a true 
 painter. When however the first flush of our sur¬ 
 prize is over we cannot fail to perceive that amid 
 all this legerdemain there is a vast deal of nature 
 
 Q 
 
190 
 
 TOBIAS AND THE ANGEL. 
 
 united with that astonishing splendour of colouring 
 which so many have tried to emulate. Amid all 
 the violence of his contrasts there is a well sustained 
 harmony: he reconciles the strongest oppositions. 
 He nevertheless made no experiments on the human 
 figure: he took man as he found him: his Dutch 
 proportions were to him what the Chinese rules of 
 sculpture are to them, producing deformity rather 
 than divinity. 
 
 The work before us is in the National Gallery: 
 the figures which it contains are not free from the 
 reproach which we have mentioned, while its light 
 and shade scarcely startle us so much as our descrip¬ 
 tion indicates. The demi-divine nature of the sub¬ 
 ject perhaps sobered down the extravagance of the 
 painter a little. It is taken from the book of Tobit 
 and embodies those verses of the fifth chapter in 
 which Tobias the son of Tobit and the angel Raphael 
 arrive at the banks of the Tigris on their way to 
 Ecbatana. It is true that the apochryphal scrip¬ 
 tures—if we may use such a term—represent the 
 angel as concealing his glories under the form and 
 garb of a servant hired for the journey, and allow 
 him nowhere save at the denouement of the adven¬ 
 ture to intimate his real character or the object of 
 his mission: the license of invention however per¬ 
 mitted him to appear what he was, in all other 
 eyes save those of his companion: and were it not 
 for his wings and a certain brightness of presence 
 we should not imagine him to be allied to aught 
 
TOBIAS AND THE ANGEL. 
 
 191 
 
 heavenly. Tobias is a squat person, and not at all 
 of a presence likely to attract the notice of maidens 
 difficult to please: but the lady for whom his 
 journey is undertaken had been widowed seven 
 times: her losses had made her easy to satisfy in 
 the matter of beauty and shape : besides as none of 
 her bridegrooms survived the first night she might 
 think that any shape was good enough for the evil 
 spirit to make such short experiments upon. The 
 passage which relates this is a singular one. 
 
 13. Then the young man answered the Angel, I 
 have heard, brother Azarias, that this maid hath 
 been given to seven men, who all died in the mar¬ 
 riage chamber. 
 
 14. And now I am the only son of my father, and 
 I am afraid, lest, if I go in unto her, I die, as the other 
 before: for a wicked spirit loveth her, which hurteth 
 nobody, but those which come unto her: wherefore 
 I also fear lest I die, and bring my father’s and my 
 mother’s life because of me to the grave vdth sorrow: 
 for they have no other son to bury them. 
 
 15. Then the Angel said unto him. Dost thou 
 not remember the precepts which thy father gave 
 thee, that thou shouldest marry a wife of thine own 
 kindred ? wherefore hear me, O my brother; for she 
 shall be given thee to wife; and make thou no 
 reckoning of the Evil Spirit; for this same night 
 shall she be given thee in marriage. 
 
 16. And when thou shalt come into the marriage 
 chamber, thou shalt take the ashes of perhime, and 
 
192 TOBIAS AND THE ANGEL. 
 
 / 
 
 shalt lay upon them some of the heart and liver of 
 the fish {one caught miraculously in the Tigris') and 
 shalt make a smoke with it: 
 
 17. And the Devil shall smell it, and fiee away, 
 and never come again any more: but when thou 
 shalt come unto her, rise up both of you, and pray 
 to God which is merciful, who will have pity on you, 
 and save you: fear not, for she is appointed unto 
 thee iOfom the beginning; and thou shalt preserve 
 her, and she shall go with thee. Tobit, Chap. vi. 
 
 This fine passage is worthy of a more imaginative 
 painter than Rembrandt; it was present to the 
 mind of Milton once at least in his noble poem 
 of Paradise Lost. The genuine works of this emi¬ 
 nent master are very rare: a considerable number 
 are in England: his portraits are in great request: 
 but though admirable for likeness and looks of life 
 they are deficient in grace and elevation though 
 touched with inexpressible fire and spirit. 
 
193 
 
 GAINSBOROUGH. 
 
 THE WATERING PLACE. 
 
 Of this fine picture presented by Lord Farnborough 
 to the National Gallery, a critic says : it is beauti¬ 
 ful and striking though all it contains is cows drink¬ 
 ing, children playing and trees growing beside a pool 
 of water.” Few of the pictures of Gainsborough 
 contain more: he had the art which formed noble 
 scenes out of common things: he sought no fame 
 from his subject, but gave fame to it: he was none 
 of those who desired to connect their names with 
 landscapes renowned in song and story : he selected 
 from nature rather than from history such subjects 
 as suited his pencil, and loved to triumph over rude 
 materials and lift them into the region of poetry. 
 We shall now say something of the life of this great 
 painter. 
 
 Thomas Gainsborough was born at Sudbury in 
 the year 1727 : his father, who died in good circum¬ 
 stances, was a clothier, a dissenter, a personable 
 man and of singular habits, for the peasants around 
 averred that he carried about his person a brace of 
 pistols and a dagger. While yet a boy it was ob¬ 
 served that the future painter loved to wander along 
 
191 
 
 THE WATERING PLACE. 
 
 the vales and down the glades and linger nigh the old 
 fantastic trees of his native Suffolk. It was in these 
 excursions that a love of art arose in his heart. He 
 took the leisure which school holidays afforded and 
 with pencil and paper sought to depict the scenery 
 around. Of these early sketches none now exists but 
 their merit was such as to astonish his father and 
 excite wonder among the neighbours. No fine clump 
 of trees, no picturesque stream, nor romantic glade 
 —no cattle grazing, nor flocks reposing, nor pea¬ 
 sants pursuing their pastoral occupations—escaped 
 his diligent pencil. In truth the scenes which first 
 arose on his sight were those which ever afterwards 
 kept possession of his fancy. He saw the hills and 
 dales around him peopled with shepherds and their 
 flocks, and husbandmen with their teams, and when 
 he grew up the pictures from which he hoped for 
 fame were transcripts of his native land exalted by 
 genius and embellished by art. 
 
 He had made some progress in the science of his 
 profession when at fourteen he was despatched to 
 London to study under a painter of more skill than 
 reputation—Hayman. With that witty and some¬ 
 thing dissolute person Gainsborough studied several 
 years: from whom he learned his force and his colour¬ 
 ing no one has told us: the style of his master was 
 deficient in vigour, nor was much to be gained from 
 Gravelot to whom Edwards ascribes the honour of 
 instructing him in the rudiments of art. His witty 
 remarks, his lively conversation, his good looks and 
 
THE WATERING PLACE. 
 
 195 
 
 his undoubted genius obtained him many friends. 
 He seemed not at all ambitious: to gain by his 
 pencil a comfortable livelihood and live undistin¬ 
 guished in a country village were the limits of his 
 wishes, and these seemed so easy of attainment that 
 he returned to his father’s house resolved to make 
 the experiment. He had not perhaps considered 
 ripely how all this was to be achieved, for he con¬ 
 tinued to reside with his father for some time, and 
 gave himself up entirely to landscape painting. 
 
 Accident sometimes performs for man what he is 
 slow in doing for himself. We have not heard that 
 Gainsborough had paid any addresses, farther than 
 with the pencil, to the ladies of Suffolk when he 
 happened to encounter a young woman in one of 
 his solitary walks who made an instant impression 
 on his heart. It appears that as he was making a 
 sketch of some fine spreading trees, with sheep 
 clustered below and wood-doves sitting above, he 
 was aware of an addition to the natural beauty of 
 the scene in the person of Margaret Burr, then in 
 her sixteenth year, and who with good looks inhe¬ 
 rited good sense, and was moreover said to be de¬ 
 scended from the exiled princes of the island. The 
 courtship of the susceptible is sometimes short: 
 soon after this wild-wood meeting they were manied, 
 left Sudbury for Ipswich, and on a small annuity 
 which his wife brought, the painter commenced a 
 career which conducted him to fame and indepen¬ 
 dence. 
 
196 
 
 THE WATERING PLACE. 
 
 Though landscape may be called the natural 
 offspring of Gainsborough’s heart he also excelled in 
 portrait. This sort of skill he found useful. Those 
 who could not admire a fine scene in which art and 
 nature strove for mastery, were capable enough of 
 admiring themselves, and employed the artist in a 
 sort of manufacture which has been carried to great 
 perfection here. One of those who chiefly admired 
 his own countenance was Thicknesse, governor of 
 Landguard Fort—^but then both the painter and 
 patron were eccentric sort of persons: they would 
 do nothing in an ordinary way: when the one was 
 ready to sit the other was not prepared to paint; 
 and when the pencil was wet and the palette in 
 order the sitter was not forthcoming. The Go¬ 
 vernor succeeded at last in offending the painter: 
 Gainsborough went to Bath in the year 1758 and 
 rose into sudden reputation both for landscape and 
 portrait and for pictures which united both. Thither 
 he was followed by Thicknesse, nay the latter had 
 the vanity to persuade himself that from his notice 
 the fame of Gainsborough had arisen, and assumed 
 the airs of one in whose train the rising genius of 
 the land was to be found. Pride in poets or in 
 painters is not accounted a sin, and in this the 
 artist was not deficient: offended with a patronage 
 which oppressed him, he escaped from beneath the 
 
 Upas tree” and set up his easel in London. 
 
 Freed from the fash of fools” the painter soon 
 vindicated his claim to take rank with the liighest 
 
THE WATERING PLACE. 
 
 197 
 
 spirits of the land. His portraits in the opinion of 
 many rivalled those of Reynolds : and some of them 
 indeed are vigorous in character and splendid in 
 colour: he was not however equal—he had his 
 happier hours less frequently than Sir Joshua and 
 never enjoyed any thing like his popularity. In 
 landscape he was without a rival: not but that 
 Wilson excelled him as he excelled all others, in 
 the splendour of his poetic scenes; but pictures of 
 the more imaginative kind were not then any more 
 than now the favourites of the world: the delinea¬ 
 tions of Gainsborough required neither history nor 
 fancy in the spectator: they appeared in the public 
 sight as a sort of landscape portraiture in which the 
 hills and trees and streams and the working popu- 
 lation of the land were represented with beauty as 
 well as truth. 
 
 Like some other artists of his day he had a dis¬ 
 pute with the Royal Academy, and there was a 
 coldness between him and Reynolds which continued 
 till Gainsborough was on his death bed. To Fuseli 
 his success seems to have given much offence, for 
 in that painter’s edition of Pilkington an injurious 
 character is given of his genius: with almost all 
 others of his brethren he was on friendly terms; 
 and indeed no one could well dislike him; his ready 
 wit, his generosity and openness of heart v/on on 
 the cold and the difficult. It was his practice to 
 paint standing: he loved too to work at a distance 
 from his canvas, and used pencils with shafts a 
 
198 
 
 THE WATERING PLACE. 
 
 couple of ells in length. He rose early, began 
 painting between nine and ten o’clock, wrought 
 diligently for four or five hours and then gave up 
 the rest of the day to domestic society and to music 
 of which he was passionately fond. He loved to 
 make sketches during the evenings : when he could 
 not please himself he threw the paper under the 
 table, when he satisfied his fancy he placed the 
 sketch in his portfolio, and if it pleased him after 
 many days he expanded it into a picture. His 
 reputation is on the rise rather than on the wane, 
 a consolation to all painters who passionately feel 
 the beauties of nature and can delineate them in 
 glowing colours. He died August 2, 1788, in the 
 sixty-first year of his age—Sheridan and Reynolds 
 accompanied his body to the grave. 
 
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199 
 
 TENIERS. 
 
 TRIG TRAC. 
 
 The works of David Teniers, junior,” says Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds, are worthy the closest attention 
 of a painter who desires to excel in the mechanical 
 knowledge of his art. His manner of touching, or 
 what we call handling, has perhaps never been 
 equalled: there is in his pictures that exact mix¬ 
 ture of softness and sharpness which is difficult to 
 execute.” The picture before us belongs to the 
 collection of Thomas Hope, Esq. and justifies by 
 its very peculiar beauty of workmanship the praise 
 of the president. It gives us a lively image of the 
 martial character of the times of Teniers: during 
 his day wars were waged which ended in the triumph 
 of the Protestant union over the Catholic league, 
 the whole continent was filled with armed men, and 
 he had opportunities enow of studying the warriors 
 of his country in peace and in war—or 
 
 On the rough edge of battle ere it joined.” 
 
 It was however his pleasure to look at soldiers en¬ 
 joying themselves : the guard room was a favourite 
 place of study, where relieved from duty nature 
 triumphed over discipline; songs were sung, drink 
 
200 
 
 TRIG TRAC. 
 
 flowed and riotous joy abounded. The scene of this 
 picture is the outer and inner room of guard: it is 
 composed of three distinct groups, all differing in cha¬ 
 racter and yet united in duty, and forming a perfect 
 whole. The men of the remotest group are huddled 
 round the fire, and though their backs are towards 
 us we can see that they are smoking and drinking 
 and engaged at cards. Games of chance are the 
 delight of soldiers. The second or central group 
 is composed of three soldiers—men of mark no 
 doubt in their regiment, for they stand in grave 
 deliberation, and are either discussing the plan of 
 the next campaign or lamenting the lack of disci¬ 
 pline and love of drink and gaming in their comrades. 
 Those of the third or foreground group are engaged 
 on the game which gives the name to the picture. 
 Two of them seem wily citizens, or are more pro¬ 
 bably members of the Commissariat: the other two 
 are officers, one of whom holds a small flagon in his 
 hand while the other is remonstrating with his 
 opponent in the game, and by his clenched hands 
 and serious visage seems to be on the point of losing 
 it. The varied expression and light and shade and 
 handling of the work are all masterly, and shew on 
 what grounds the reputation of the painter has been 
 established. 
 
 Pictures of this kind are the works which this 
 country loves. We desire the real and the natural, 
 and court representations rather of what we have 
 seen or may hope to see than scenes furnished 
 
TRIG TRAC. 
 
 201 
 
 by the fancy. We have little sympathy with art 
 which travels into the distant regions of thought. 
 We consider all such efforts as the attempts of 
 dreamers: of works of high imagination we talk 
 indeed but we do not tolerate them: we reckon 
 a fine portrait, or a close copied landscape as the 
 most exalted doings of art, and it never enters 
 our head that more than a good eye and a skilful 
 hand can be required in the manufacture of pictures 
 and statues. By works of a high kind we must not 
 be understood to mean subjects out of the reach of 
 human sympathy; on the contrary we mean what 
 comes within the limits of belief; pictures of a 
 poetic order, which have their origin in nature but 
 cannot be perfected without the aid of fancy. The 
 widest fame awaits works of the highest genius, for 
 these are rare productions and the world at last 
 bows to what is rare and follows in this the judg¬ 
 ment of the well informed and the wise. 
 
 With the works of the school to which Teniers 
 belongs no one was better acquainted than Reynolds, 
 for he made a picture-tour in Holland and Flanders; 
 made patient observations, took copious notes, and 
 passed no fine production without careful exami¬ 
 nation. Their merit,” he says, often consists in 
 the truth of representation alone : whatever praise 
 they deserve, whatever pleasure they give when 
 under the eye, they make but a poor figure in de¬ 
 scription. It is to the eye only that the works of 
 this school are addressed: it is not therefore to be 
 
202 
 
 TRIC TRAC. 
 
 / 
 
 wondered at, that what was intended solely for the 
 gratification of one sense succeeds but ill when 
 applied to another.” This is an unfair description 
 we think of the works of the Dutch School: had 
 any one told Sir Joshua that his portraits were 
 addressed but to the eye, he would have resented 
 it as an affront and with good reason. The pictures 
 of which he speaks are full of domestic gladness 
 and fire-side joy, and though copies—literal perhaps 
 —of what the painters saw, they supply the spec¬ 
 tator with matter for reflection and study. Their 
 object was not only to please the eye but to gratify 
 the mind. They are not exalted by genius, nor do 
 they excite any extraordinary ecstasy, yet they please 
 other senses than the sight—wherever human cha¬ 
 racter appears, and of this the Dutch compositions 
 are full—the mind is called into action. 
 
 It was one of the rules of study laid down by 
 Reynolds that a painter had to make up his idea of 
 perfection from the various excellencies dispersed 
 over the world. To Italy he said men must go for 
 dignity of thought and splendour of imagination and 
 for the higher branches of knowledge; but as a 
 poetical fancy and power of expression or even 
 correctness of drawing were seldom united with 
 such skill in colour as would set off these beauties 
 to the best advantage it would be necessary to go 
 to the Dutch to learn the art of painting, for in the 
 true use of colours they were unequalled. An 
 artist, he says, by a close examination of their works 
 
TRIG TRAC. 
 
 203 
 
 may in a few hours make himself master of the 
 principles on which they wrought which cost them 
 whole ages—and perhaps the experience of a suc¬ 
 cession of ages—to ascertain. 
 
 Works bearing the name of Teniers are numerous 
 in the world—three painters, a father and two sons 
 —and each skilful—may in some degree account 
 for this, but unquestionably there are counterfeits 
 in circulation. Skilful copies pass in the sight of 
 many for rare originals, or a slight change in a 
 figure or a piece of furniture enables the happy 
 proprietor to call it a first or a second thought of 
 Teniers and demand a high price. Their cabinet 
 size aids too in countenancing the imposture, for a 
 fine Teniers, or an Ostade, a Jan Steen or a Gerard 
 Dow will go into small space and may have been 
 contained in the hitherto unrummaged chamber of 
 some Dutch Burgomaster: all this is present to the 
 mind of the wily seller who is as ready with simu¬ 
 lated names and dates as with simulated com¬ 
 modities. 
 
 Those who visit Holland will still find the pictures 
 of Teniers plentiful, though the French reaped a 
 rich harvest of art in the land. The Dutch had 
 the taste to fill their cabinets with pictures not only 
 suitable in dimensions but also national with respect 
 to subject. Whatever gave a true and brilliant 
 image of the land and the people found favour in 
 their sight: nor were they averse to look on the 
 humblest scenes. Teniers was a painter after the 
 
204 
 
 TRIC TRAC. 
 
 / 
 
 people’s heart: he went but to the cottage or to the 
 market place or the barracks for subjects: a woman 
 spinning by a clear fire and well swept hearth: a 
 market girl holding up a hare for sale : an old man 
 repairing spectacles: boors drinking in the inside 
 of a change-house or quarrelling at the door: a 
 man blowing a trumpet or proving the strength of 
 a new brewing, or soldiers at cards on the drum¬ 
 head, or dancing on the dusty road side during a 
 march, or gambling in the guard room, as in the 
 present picture, were matters dear to the sight and 
 welcome to the pencil of this eminent master.