An Autobiography

The early days of that July had their pleasant festivities, such as a dinner, with Alice, at Lady Londonderry’s (she who was our mother’s godmother on the occasion of her reception into the Catholic Church) and the Academy soirée, where Mrs. Tait invited me and Dr. Pollard to a large garden party at Lambeth Palace. There I note: “The Royalties were in full force, the Waleses, as I have heard the Prince and Princess called, and many others. It was amusing and very pleasant in the gardens, though provokingly windy. I had a curiously uncomfortable and oppressed feeling, though, in that headquarters of the – what shall I call it? – Opposition? The Archbishop and Mrs. Archbishop, particularly Mrs., rather appalled me. But dear Dr. Pollard, that stout Protestant, must have been very gratified.”

On July 4th Colonel Browne, C.B., R.E., who took the keenest interest in my “Quatre Bras,” and did all in his power to help me with the military part of it, had a day at Chatham for me. He, Mrs. B. and daughters called for me in the morning, and we set forth for Chatham, where some 300 men of the Royal Engineers were awaiting us on the “Lines.” Colonel Browne had ordered them beforehand, and had them in full dress, with knapsacks, as I desired.

They first formed the old-fashioned four-deep square for me, and not only that, but the beautiful parade dressing was broken and accidenté by my directions, so as to have a little more the appearance of the real thing. They fired in sections, too, as I wished, but, unfortunately, the wind was so strong that the smoke was whisked away in a twinkling, and what I chiefly wished to study was unobtainable, i. e., masses of men seen through smoke. After they had fired away all their ammunition, the whole body of men were drawn up in line, and, the rear rank having been distanced from the front rank, I, attended by Colonel Browne and a sergeant, walked down them both, slowly, picking out here and there a man I thought would do for a “Quatre Bras” model (beardless), and the sergeant took down the name of each man as I pointed him out very unobtrusively, Colonel Browne promising to have these men up at Brompton, quartered there for the time I wanted them. So I write: “I shall not want for soldierly faces, what with those sappers and the Scots Fusilier Guards, of whom I am sure I can have the pick, through Colonel Hepburn’s courtesy. After this interesting ‘choosing a model’ was ended, we all repaired to Colonel Galway’s quarters, where we lunched. After that I went to the guard-room to see the men I had chosen in the morning, so as to write down their personal descriptions in my book. Each man was marched in by the sergeant and stood at attention with every vestige of expression discharged from his countenance whilst I wrote down his personal peculiarities. I had chosen eight out of the 300 in the morning, but only five were brought now by the sergeant, as I had managed to pitch upon three bad characters out of the eight, and these could not be sent me. We spent the rest of the day very pleasantly listening to the band, going over the museum, etc. I ought to see as much of military life as possible, and I must go down to Aldershot as often as I can.

“July 16th.– Mamma and I went to Henley-on-Thames in search of a rye field for my ‘Quatre Bras.’ Eagerly I looked at the harvest fields as we sped to our goal to see how advanced they were. We had a great difficulty in finding any rye at Henley, it having all been cut, except a little patch which we at length discovered by the direction of a farmer. I bought a piece of it, and then immediately trampled it down with the aid of a lot of children. Mamma and I then went to work, but, oh! horror, my oil brushes were missing. I had left them in the chaise, which had returned to Henley. So Mamma went frantically to work with two slimy water-colour brushes to get down tints whilst I drew down forms in pencil. We laughed a good deal and worked on into the darkness, two regular ‘Pre-Raphaelite Brethren,’ to all appearances, bending over a patch of trampled rye.”

I seem to have felt to the utmost the exhilaration produced by the following episode. Let the young Diary speak: “The grand and glorious Lord Mayor’s banquet to the stars of literature and art came off to-day, July 21st, and it was to me such a delightful thing that I felt all the time in a pleasant sort of dream. I was mentioned in two speeches, Lord Houghton’s (‘Monckton Milnes’) and Sir Francis Grant’s, P.R.A. As the President spoke of me, he said his eye rested with pleasure on me at that moment! Papa came with me. Above all the display of civic splendour one felt the dominant spirit of hospitality in that ever-to-me-delightful Mansion House. It was a unique thing because such aristocrats as were there were those of merit and genius. The few lords were only there because they represented literature, being authors. Patti was there. She wished to have a talk with me, and went through little Italian dramatic compliments, like Neilson. Old Cruikshank was a strange-looking old man, a wonder to me as the illustrator of ‘Oliver Twist’ and others of Dickens’s works – a unique genius. He said many nice things about me to Papa. I wished the evening could have lasted a week.”

The next entries are connected with the “Quatre Bras” cartoon: “Dreadful misgivings about a vital point. I have made my front rank men sitting on their heels in the kneeling position. Not so the drill book. After my model went, most luckily came Colonel Browne. Shakes his head at the attitudes. Will telegraph to Chatham about the heel and let me know in the morning.

“July 23rd.– Colonel Browne came, and with him a smart sergeant-major, instructor of musketry. Alas! this man and telegram from Chatham dead against me. Sergeant says the men at Chatham must have been sitting on their heels to rest and steady themselves. He showed me the exact position when at the ‘ready’ to receive cavalry. To my delight I may have him to-morrow as a model, but it is no end of a bore, this wasted time.”

“July 24th.– The musketry instructor, contrary to my sad expectations, was by no means the automaton one expects a soldier to be, but a thoroughly intelligent model, and his attitudes combined perfect drill-book correctness with great life and action. He was splendid. I can feel certain of everything being right in the attitudes, and will have no misgivings. It is extraordinary what a well-studied position that kneeling to resist cavalry is. I dread to think what blunders I might have committed. No civilian would have detected them, but the military would have been down upon me. I feel, of course, rather fettered at having to observe rules so strict and imperative concerning the poses of my figures, which, I hope, will have much action. I have to combine the drill book and the fierce fray! I told an artist the other day, very seriously, that I wished to show what an English square looks like viewed quite close at the end of two hours’ action, when about to receive a last charge. A cool speech, seeing I have never seen the thing! And yet I seem to have seen it – the hot, blackened faces, the set teeth or gasping mouths, the bloodshot eyes and the mocking laughter, the stern, cool, calculating look here and there; the unimpressionable, dogged stare! Oh! that I could put on canvas what I have in my mind!

“July 25th.– A glorious day at Chatham, where again the Engineers were put through field exercises, and I studied them with all my faculties. I got splendid hints to-day. Went with Colonel Browne and Papa.

“July 28th.– My dear musketry instructor for a few more attitudes. He has put me through the process of loading the ‘Brown Bess’ – a flint-lock – so that I shall have my soldiers handling their arms properly. Galloway has sold the copyright of this picture to Messrs. Dickenson for £2,000! They must have faith in my doing it well.”

On August 11th I see I took a much-needed holiday at home, at Ventnor; and, as I say, “gave myself up to fresh air, exercise, a little out-of-door painting, and Napier’s ‘Peninsular War,’ in six volumes.” Shortly before I left for home I received from Queen Victoria a very splendid bracelet set with pearls and a large emerald. My mother and good friend Dr. Pollard were with me in the studio when the messenger brought it, and we formed a jubilant trio.

It was pleasant to be amongst my old Ventnor friends who had known me since I was little more than a child. But on September 10th I had to bid them and the old place goodbye, and on September 11th I re-entered my beloved studio.

“September 12th.– An eventful day, for my ‘Quatre Bras’ canvas was tackled. The sergeant-major and Colonel Browne arrived. The latter, good man, has had the whole Waterloo uniform made for me at the Government clothing factory at Pimlico. It has been made to fit the sergeant-major, who put on the whole thing for me to see. We had a dress rehearsal, and very delighted I was. They have even had the coat dyed the old ‘brick-dust’ red and made of the baize cloth of those days! Times are changed for me. It will be my fault if the picture is a fiasco.”

During the painting of “Quatre Bras” I was elected a member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colour, and I contributed to the Winter Exhibition that large sketch of a sowar of the 10th Bengal Lancers which I called “Missed!” and which the Graphic bought and published in colours. This reproduction sold to such an extent that the Graphic must have been pleased! The sowar at “tent-pegging” has missed his peg and pulls at his horse at full gallop. I had never seen tent-pegging at that time, but I did this from description, by an Anglo-Indian officer of the 10th, who put the thing vividly before me. How many, many tent-peggings I have seen since, and what a number of subjects they have given me for my brush and pencil! Those captivating and pictorial movements of men and horses are inexhaustible in their variety.

I had more models sent to me than I could put into the big picture – Guardsmen, Engineers and Policemen – the latter being useful as, in those days, the police did not wear the moustache, and I had difficulty in finding heads suitable for the Waterloo time. Not a head in the picture is repeated. I had a welcome opportunity of showing varieties of types such as gave me so much pleasure in the old Florentine days when I enjoyed the Andrea del Sartos, Masaccios, Francia Bigios, and other works so full of characteristic heads.

On November 7th my sister and I went for a weekend to Birmingham, where the people who had bought “The Roll Call” copyright were exhibiting that picture. They particularly wished me to go. We were very agreeably entertained at Birmingham, where I was curious to meet the buyer of my first picture sold, that “Morra” which I painted in Rome. Unfortunately I inquired everywhere for “Mr. Glass,” and had to leave Birmingham without seeing him and the early work. No one had heard of him! His name was Chance, the great Birmingham glass manufacturer.

“November 27th.– In the morning off with Dr. Pollard to Sanger’s Circus, where arrangements had been made for me to see two horses go through their performances of lying down, floundering on the ground, and rearing for my ‘Quatre Bras’ foreground horses. It was a funny experience behind the scenes, and I sketched as I followed the horses in their movements over the arena with many members of the troupe looking on, the young ladies with their hair in curl-papers against the evening’s performance. I am now ripe to go to Paris.”

So to Paris I went, with my father. We were guests of my father’s old friends, Mr. and Mrs. Talmadge, Boulevard Haussmann, and a complete change of scene it was. It gave my work the desired fillip and the fresh impulse of emulation, for we visited the best studios, where I met my most admired French painters. The Paris Diary says:

“December 3rd.– Our first lion was Bonnat in his studio. A little man, strong and wiry; I didn’t care for his pictures. His colouring is dreadful. What good light those Parisians get while we are muddling in our smoky art centre. We next went to Gérôme, and it was an epoch in my life when I saw him. He was at work but did not mind being interrupted. He is a much smaller man than I expected, with wide open, quick black eyes, yet with deep lids, the eyes opening wide only when he talks. He talked a great deal and knew me by name and ‘l’Appel,’ which he politely said he heard was ‘digne’ of the celebrity it had gained. We went to see an exhibition of horrors – Carolus Duran’s productions, now on view at the Cercle Artistique. The talk is all about this man, just now the vogue. He illustrates a very disagreeable present phase of French Art. At Goupil’s we saw De Neuville’s ‘Combat on the Roof of a House,’ and I feasted my eyes on some pickings from the most celebrated artists of the Continent. I am having a great treat and a great lesson.

“December 4th.– Had a supposed great opportunity in being invited to join a party of very mondaines Parisiennes to go over the Grand Opera, which is just being finished. Oh, the chatter of those women in the carriage going there! They vied with each other in frivolous outpourings which continued all the time we explored that dreadful building. It is a pile of ostentation which oppressed me by the extravagant display of gilding, marbles and bronze, and silver, and mosaic, and brocade, heaped up over each other in a gorged kind of way. How truly weary I felt; and the bedizened dressing-rooms of the actresses and danseuses were the last straw. Ugh! and all really tasteless.”

However, I recovered from the Grand Opera, and really enjoyed the lively dinners where conversation was not limited to couples, but flowed with great ésprit across the table and round and round. Still, in time, my sleep suffered, for I seemed to hear those voices in the night. How graceful were the French equivalents to the compliments I received in London. They thought I would like to know that the fame of “l’Appel” had reached Paris, and so I did.

We visited Detaille’s beautiful studio. He was my greatest admiration at that time. Also Henriette Browne’s and others, and, of course, the Luxembourg, so I drew much profit from my little visit. But what a change I saw in the army! I who could remember the Empire of my childhood, with its endless variety of uniforms, its buglings, and drummings, and trumpetings; its chic and glitter and swagger: 1870 was over it all now. Well, never mind, I have lived to see it in the “bleu d’horizon” of a new and glorious day. My Paris Diary winds up with: “December 14th.– Papa and I returned home from our Paris visit. My eye has been very much sharpened, and very severe was that organ as it rested on my ‘Quatre Bras’ for the first time since a fortnight ago. Ye Gods! what a deal I have to do to that picture before it will be fit to look at! I continue to receive droll letters and poems (!). One I must quote the opening line of:

‘Go on, go on, thou glorious girl!’

Very cheering.”

CHAPTER X

MORE WORK AND PLAY

SO I worked steadily at the big picture, finding the red coats very trying. What would I have thought, when studying at Florence, if I had been told to paint a mass of men in one colour, and that “brick-dust”? However, my Aldershot observations had been of immense value in showing me how the British red coat becomes blackish-purple here, pale salmon colour there, and so forth, under the influence of the weather and wear and tear. I have all the days noted down, with the amount of work done, for future guidance, and lamentations over the fogs of that winter of 1874-5. I gave nicknames in the Diary to the figures in my picture, which I was amused to find, later on, was also the habit of Meissonier; one of my figures I called the “Gamin” and he, too, actually had a “Gamin.” Those fogs retarded my work cruelly, and towards the end I had to begin at the studio at 9.30 instead of 10, and work on till very late. The porter at No. 76 told me mine was the first fire to be lit in the morning of all in The Avenue.

One day the Horse Guards, directed by their surgeon, had a magnificent black charger thrown down in the riding school at Knightsbridge (on deep sawdust) for me to see, and get hints from, for the fallen horse in my foreground. The riding master strapped up one of the furious animal’s forelegs and then let him go. What a commotion before he fell! How he plunged and snorted in clouds of dust till the final plunge, when the riding master and a trooper threw themselves on him to keep him down while I made a frantic sketch. “What must it be,” I ask, “when a horse is wounded in battle, if this painless proceeding can put him into such a state?”

The spring of 1875 was full of experiences for me. I note that “at the Horse Guards’ riding school a charger was again ‘put down’ for me, but more gently this time, and without the risk, as the riding master said, of breaking the horse’s neck, as last time. I was favoured with a charge, two troopers riding full tilt at me and pulling up at within two yards of where I stood, covering me with the sawdust. I stood it bravely the second time, but the first I got out of the way. With ‘Quatre Bras’ in my head, I tried to fancy myself one of my young fellows being charged, but I fear my expression was much too feminine and pacific.” March 22nd gave me a long day’s tussle with the grey, bounding horse shot in mid-career. I say: “This is a teaser. I was tired out and faint when I got home.” If that was a black day, the next was a white one: “The sculptor, Boehm, came in, and gave me the very hints I wanted to complete my bounding horse. Galloway also came. He says ‘Quatre Bras’ beats ‘The Roll Call’ into a cocked hat! He gave me £500 on account. Oh! the nice and strange feeling of easiness of mind and slackening of speed; it is beginning to refresh me at last, and my seven months’ task is nearly accomplished.” Another visitor was the Duke of Cambridge, who, it appears, gave each soldier in my square a long scrutiny and showed how well he understood the points.

On “Studio Monday” the crowds came, so that I could do very little in the morning. The novelty, which amused me at first, had worn off, and I was vexed that such numbers arrived, and tried to put in a touch here and there whenever I could. Millais’ visit, however, I record as “nice, for he was most sincerely pleased with the picture, going over it with great gusto. It is the drawing, character, and expression he most dwells on, which is a comfort. But I must now try to improve my tone, I know. And what about ‘quality’? To-day, Sending-in Day, Mrs. Millais came, and told me what her husband had been saying. He considers me, she said, an even stronger artist than Rosa Bonheur, and is greatly pleased with my drawing. That (the ‘drawing’) pleased me more than anything. But I think it is a pity to make comparisons between artists. I may be equal to Rosa Bonheur in power, but how widely apart lie our courses! I was so put out in the morning, when I arrived early to get a little painting, to find the wretched photographers in possession. I showed my vexation most unmistakably, and at last bundled the men out. They were working for Messrs. Dickinson. So much of my time had been taken from me that I was actually dabbing at the picture when the men came to take it away; I dabbing in front and they tapping at the nails behind. How disagreeable!”

After doing a water colour of a Scots Grey orderly for the “Institute,” which Agnew bought, I was free at last to take my holiday. So my Mother and I were off to Canterbury to be present at the opening of St. Thomas’s Church there.

“April 11th, Canterbury.– To Mass in the wretched barn over a stable wherein a hen, having laid an egg, cackled all through the service. And this has been our only church since the mission was first begun six years ago, up till now, in the city of the great English Martyr. But this state of things comes to an end on Tuesday.”

This opening of St. Thomas’s Church was the first public act of Cardinal Manning as Cardinal, and it went off most successfully. There were rows of Bishops and Canons and Monsignori and mitred Abbots, and monks and secular priests, all beautifully disposed in the Sanctuary. The sun shone nearly the whole time on the Cardinal as he sat on his throne. After Mass came the luncheon at which much cheering and laughter were indulged in. Later on Benediction, and a visit to the Cathedral. I rather winced when a group of men went down on their knees and kissed the place where the blood of St. Thomas à Becket is supposed to still stain the flags. The Anglican verger stared and did not understand.

On Varnishing Day at the Academy I was evidently not enchanted with the position of my picture. “It is in what is called ‘the Black Hole’ – the only dark room, the light of which looks quite blue by contrast with the golden sun-glow in the others. However, the artists seemed to think it a most enviable position. The big picture is conspicuous, forming the centre of the line on that wall. One academician told me that on account of the rush there would be to see it they felt they must put it there. This ‘Lecture Room’ I don’t think was originally meant for pictures and acts on the principle of a lobster pot. You may go round and round the galleries and never find your way into it! I had the gratification of being told by R.A. after R.A. that my picture was in some respects an advance on last year’s, and I was much congratulated on having done what was generally believed more than doubtful – that is, sending any important picture this year with the load and responsibility of my ‘almost overwhelming success,’ as they called it, of last year on my mind. And that I should send such a difficult one, with so much more in it than the other, they all consider ‘very plucky.’ I was not very happy myself, although I know ‘Quatre Bras’ to be to ‘The Roll Call’ as a mountain to a hill. However, it was all very gratifying, and I stayed there to the end. My picture was crowded, and I could see how it was being pulled to pieces and unmercifully criticised. I returned to the studio, where I found a champagne lunch spread and a family gathering awaiting me, all anxiety as to the position of my magnum opus. After that hilarious meal I sped back to the fascination of Burlington House. I don’t think, though, that Mamma will ever forgive the R.A.’s for the ‘Black Hole.’

“April 30th.– The private view, to which Papa and I went. It is very seldom that an ‘outsider’ gets invited, but they make a pet of me at the Academy. Again this day contrasted very soberly with the dazzling P.V. of ‘74. There were fewer great guns, and I was not torn to pieces to be introduced here, there, and everywhere, most of the people being the same as last year, and knowing me already. The same furore cannot be repeated; the first time, as I said, can never be a second. Papa and I and lots of others lunched over the way at the Penders’ in Arlington Street, our hosts of last night, and it was all very friendly and nice, and we returned in a body to the R.A. afterwards. I was surprised, at the big ‘At Home’ last night, to find myself a centre again, and people all so anxious to hear my answers to their questions. Last year I felt all this more keenly, as it had all the fascination of novelty. This year just the faintest atom of zest is gone.

“May 3rd.– To the Academy on this, the opening day. A dense, surging multitude before my picture. The whole place was crowded so that before ‘Quatre Bras’ the jammed people numbered in dozens and the picture was most completely and satisfactorily rendered invisible. It was chaos, for there was no policeman, as last year, to make people move one way. They clashed in front of that canvas and, in struggling to wriggle out, lunged right against it. Dear little Mamma, who was there nearly all the time of our visit, told me this, for I could not stay there as, to my regret, I find I get recognised (I suppose from my latest photos, which are more like me than the first horror) and the report soon spreads that I am present. So I wander about in other rooms. I don’t know why I feel so irritated at starers. One can have a little too much popularity. Not one single thing in this world is without its drawbacks. I see I am in for minute and severe criticism in the papers, which actually give me their first notices of the R.A. The Telegraph gives me its entire article. The Times leads off with me because it says ‘Quatre Bras’ will be the picture the public will want to hear about most. It seems to be discussed from every point of view in a way not usual with battle pieces. But that is as it should be, for I hope my military pictures will have moral and artistic qualities not generally thought necessary to military genre.