Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 53, No. 331, May, 1843

Portrait-painting, at the commencement of Sir Joshua's career, was certainly in a very low condition. A general receipt for face-making, with the greatest facility seemed to have been current throughout the country. Attitudes and looks were according to a pattern; and, accordingly, there was so great a family resemblance, however unconnected the sitters, that it might seem to have been intended to promote a brotherly and sisterly bond of union among all the descendants of Adam. Portrait-painting, which had in this country been so good, was in fact, with here and there an exception, and generally an exception not duly estimated, in a degraded state: the art in this respect, as in others, had become vulgarized. From this universal family-likeness recipe, Reynolds came suddenly, and at once successfully, before the world, with individual nature, and variety of character, and portraits that had the merit of being pictures as well as portraits. He led to a complete revolution in this department, so that if he had rivals—and he certainly had one in Gainsborough—they were of his own making. The change is mostly perceptible in female portraits. They assumed grace and beauty. Our grandmothers and great-grandmothers were strangely vilified in their unpleasing likenesses. The somewhat loose satin evening-dress, with the shepherdess's crook, was absurd enough; and no very great improvement upon the earlier taste of complimenting portraits with the personation of the heathen deities. The poetical pastoral, however, very soon descended to the real pastoral; and, as if to make people what they were not was considered enough of the historical of portrait, even this took. We suspect Gainsborough was the first to sin in this degradation line, by no means the better one for being the furthest from the divinities. He had painted some rustic figures very admirably, and made such subjects a fashion; but why they should ever be so, we could never understand; or why royalty should not be represented as royalty, gentry as gentry; to represent them otherwise, appears as absurd as if our Landseer should attempt a greyhound in the character of a Newfoundland dog. A picture of Gainsborough's was exhibited, a year or two ago, in the British Institution, Pall-Mall, which we were astonished to hear was most highly valued; for it was a weak, washy, dauby, ill-coloured performance, and the design as bad as well could be. It was a scene before a cottage-door, with the children of George the Third as peasant children, in village dirt and mire. The picture had no merit to recommend it; if we remember rightly, it had been painted over, or in some way obscured, and unfortunately brought to light. Although Sir Joshua Reynolds generally introduced a new grace into his portraits, and mostly so without deviating from the character as he found it, dispensing indeed with the old affectation, we fear he cannot altogether be acquitted from the charge of deviating from the true propriety of portrait. Ladies as Miranda, as Hebe, and even as Thais, no very moral compliment, are examples—some there are of the lower pastoral. Mrs Macklin and her daughter were represented at a spinning-wheel, and Miss Potts as a gleaner. There is one of somewhat higher pretensions, but equally a deviation from propriety, in his portraits of the Honourable Mistresses Townshend, Beresford, and Gardiner. They are decorating the statue of Hymen; the grace of one figure is too theatrical, the others have but little. The one kneeling on the ground, and collecting the flowers, is, in one respect, disagreeable—the light of the sky, too much of the same hue and tone as the face, is but little separated from it—in fact, only by the dark hair; while all below the face and bosom is a too heavy dark mass. Portrait-painters are very apt to fail whenever they colour their back-grounds to the heads of a warm and light sky-colour; the force of the complexion is very apt to be lost, and the portrait is sure to lose its importance. The "General on Horseback," in our National Gallery, (Ligonier,) a fine picture, is in no small degree hurt by the absence of a little greyer tone in the part of the sky about the head. By far the best portraits by Sir Joshua—and, fortunately, they are the greater part—are those in real character. His very genius was for unaffected simplicity; attitudinizing recipes could never have been adopted by him with satisfaction to himself. Some of his slight, more sketchy portraits, as yet unexperimented upon by his powerful, frequently rather too powerful, colouring, his deep browns and yellows, are unrivalled. Such is his Kitty Fisher, not long since exhibited in the British Gallery, Pall-Mall. There the character is not overpowered by the effect.

Gainsborough was the only painter of his day that could, with any pretension, vie with Sir Joshua Reynolds in portrait. In some respects they had similar excellences. Both were alike, by natural taste, averse to affectation, and both were colourists. As a colourist, Gainsborough, as his pictures are now, may be even preferred to Reynolds. They seem to have been painted off more at once, and have therefore a greater freshness; his flesh tints are truly surprising, most true to life. He probably painted with a more simple palette. The pains and labour which Sir Joshua bestowed, and which were perhaps very surprising when his pictures were fresh from the easel, have lost much of their virtue. The great difference between these great cotemporaries lay in their power of character. Gainsborough was as true as could be to nature, where the character was not of the very highest order. Plain, downright common sense he would hit off wonderfully, as in his portrait of Ralphe Schomberg—a picture, we are sorry to find, removed from the National Gallery. The world's every-day men were for his pencil. He did not so much excel in women. The bent of Sir Joshua's mind was to elevate, to dignify, to intellectualize. Enthusiasm, sentiment, purity, and all the varied poetry of feminine beauty, received their kindred hues and most exquisite expression under his hand. Whatever was dignified in man, or lovely in woman, was portrayed with its appropriate grace and strength. Sir Joshua was, in fact, himself the higher character; ever endeavouring to improve and cultivate his own mind, to raise it by a dignified aim in his art and in his life, and gathering the beauty of sentiment to himself from its best source—the practice of social and every amiable charity—he was sure to transfer to the canvass something characteristic of himself. Gainsborough was, in his way, a gentle enthusiast, altogether of an humbler ambition. Even in his landscapes, he showed that he saw little in nature but what the vulgar see; he had little idea that what is commonly seen are the materials of a better creation. Gainsborough was unrivalled in his portraiture of common truth, Reynolds in poetical truth. Gainsborough spoke in character in one of his letters, wherein he said, that he "was well read in the volume of nature, and that was learning sufficient for him." It is said that he was proud—perhaps his pride was shown in this remark—but it was not a pride allied with greatness. The pride of Reynolds was quite of another stamp; it did not disagree with his soundest judgment; his estimate of himself was more true, and it showed itself in modesty. That such men should meet and associate but little, is not surprising. That Reynolds withdrew in "cold and carefully meted out courtesy," is not surprising, though the expressions quoted are written to disparage Reynolds. The man of fixed purpose may appear cold when he does not assimilate with the man of caprice, (as was Gainsborough,) in whose company there is nothing to call forth a congeniality, a sympathy; and it is probable that Gainsborough felt as little disposed as Sir Joshua, to preserve, or even to seek, an intimacy. Their final parting at the deathbed of Gainsborough was most honourable to them both; and the merit of seeking it was entirely Gainsborough's. It is singular that any facts should be so perverted, as to justify an insinuation that Reynolds, whose whole life exhibited the continued acts of a kind heart, was a cautious and cold calculator. Good sense has ever a reserve of manner, the result of a habit of thinking—and in one of a high aim, it is apt to acquire almost a stateliness; but even such stateliness is not inconsistent with modesty and with feeling; it is, in fact, the carriage of the mind, seen in the manner and the person. We make these remarks under a disgust produced by the singularly illiberal Life of Reynolds by Allan Cunningham; we think we should not err in saying, that it is maliciously written. We were reading this Life, and made many indignant remarks as we read, when the death of the author was announced in the newspapers. We had determined, as far as our power might extend, to rescue the name and fame of Reynolds from the mischief which so popular a writer as Allan Cunningham was likely to inflict. Death has its sanctity, and we hesitated; indeed, in regret for the loss of a man of talent, we felt for a time little disposed to think of the ill he may have done; nor was, on mature consideration, the regret less, that he could not, by our means, be called to review his own work—his "Lives of the British Painters"—in a more candid spirit than that in which they appear to have been written. It is to be lamented that he did not revise it. Its illiberality and untruth render it very unfit for a "Family Library," for which it was composed. Yet it must be confessed, that such regret was rather one of momentary feeling, than accompanied with any thing like conviction, or even hope, that our endeavour would have been successful. There was no one better acquainted with the life of one of the painters in his work than ourselves. His Life, too, was written in a most illiberal spirit, though purposely in praise of the artist. But it was as untrue as it was illiberal. In a paper in Blackwood, some years ago, we noticed some of the errors and mistatements. This, we happen to know, was seen by the author of the "Lives;" for we were, in consequence, applied to upon the subject; and there being an intention expressed to bring out a new edition, we were invited to correct what was wrong. We did not hesitate, and wrote some two or three letters for the purpose, and entertained but little doubt of their having been favourably received, and that they would be used, until we were surprised by a communication, that the author "was much obliged, but was perfectly satisfied with his own account." That is, that he was much obliged for an endeavour to mislead him by falsehood. For both accounts could not be true. There were, then, but small grounds to hope that Allan Cunningham would have so revised his work, as to have done justice to Sir Joshua Reynolds. Besides, after all, "respect for the dead" moves both ways. The question is between the recently dead and the long since dead. In the literary world, and in the world of art, both yet live; and the author of the Life has this advantage, that thousands read the "Family Library," whilst but few, comparatively speaking, make themselves acquainted with Sir Joshua Reynolds and his works. We revere this founder of our English school, and feel it due to the art we love, to condemn the ungenerous and sarcastic spirit of The Life, by Allan Cunningham. And if the dead could have any interest in and guidance of things on earth, we can imagine no work that would be more pleasing to them, than the removal of even the slightest evils they may have inflicted; thus making restitution for them. It is very evident throughout the "Lives," that the author has a prejudice against, an absolute dislike to, Sir Joshua Reynolds. We stay not to account for it. There are men of some opinions who, whether from pride, or other feeling, have an antipathy to courtly manners, and what is called higher society: jealous and suspicious lest they should not owe, and seen to owe, every thing to themselves, there is a constant and irritable desire to set aside, with a feigned, oftener than a real, contempt, the influence and the homage the world pays to superiority of rank, station, and education. They would wish to have nothing above themselves. How far such may have been the case with the writer of the "Lives," we know not, totally unacquainted as we have ever been, but by his writings. In them there appears very strongly marked this vulgar feeling. He has stepped out of his way in other lives, such as those of Wilson and Gainsborough, to attack Sir Joshua by surmises and insinuations of meanness, blurring the fair character of his best acts. The generous doings of the President were too notorious not to be admitted, but generally a sinister or selfish motive is insinuated. His courtesy was unpleasing, while extreme coarseness met with a ready apologist. In the several Lives of Sir Joshua Reynolds, there does not appear the slightest ground upon which to found a charge of meanness of character: it is inconceivable how such should have ever been insinuated, while Northcote's "Life" of him was in existence, and Northcote must have known him well. He was most liberal in expenditure, as became his station, and the dignity which he was ambitiously desirous of conferring upon the art over which he presided. To artists and others in their distresses he was most generous: numerous, indeed, are the recorded instances; those unrecorded may be infinitely more numerous, for generosity was with him a habit. In the teeth of Mr Cunningham's insinuations we will extract from Northcote some passages upon this point. "At that time, indeed, Johnson was under many pecuniary obligations, as well as literary ones, to Sir Joshua, whose generous kindness would never permit his friends to ask a pecuniary favour, his purse and heart being always open." That his heart as well as his purse was open, the following anecdote more than indicates. We are tempted to give it unaltered, as we find it in the words of Northcote:—

"Sir Joshua, as his usual custom, looked over the daily morning paper at his breakfast time; and on one of those perusals, whilst reading an account of the Old Bailey sessions, to his great astonishment, saw that a prisoner had been tried and condemned to death for a robbery committed on the person of one of his own servants, a negro, who had been with him for some time. He immediately rung the bell for the servants, in order to make his enquiries, and was soon convinced of the truth of the matter related in the newspaper. This black man had lived in his service as footman for several years, and has been portrayed in several pictures, particularly in one of the Marquis of Granby, where he holds the horse of that general. Sir Joshua reprimanded this black servant for his conduct, and especially for not having informed him of this curious adventure; when the man said he had concealed it only to avoid the blame he should have incurred had he told it. He then related the following circumstances of the business, saying, that Mrs Anna Williams (the old blind lady lived at the house of Dr Johnson) had some time previous dined at Sir Joshua's with Miss Reynolds; that in the evening she went home to Bolt Court, Fleet Street, in a hackney coach, and that he had been sent to attend her to her house. On his return he had met with companions who had detained him till so late an hour, that when he came to Sir Joshua's house, he found the doors were shut, and all the servants gone to rest. In this dilemma he wandered in the street till he came to a watch-house, in which he took shelter for the remainder of the night, among the variety of miserable companions to be found in such places; and amidst this assembly of the wretched, the black man fell sound asleep, when a poor thief, who had been taken into custody by the constable of the night, perceiving, as the man slept, that he had a watch and money in his pocket, (which was seen on his thigh,) watched his opportunity and stole the watch, and with a penknife cut through the pocket, and so possessed himself of the money. When the black awaked from his nap, he soon discovered what had been done, to his cost, and immediately gave the alarm, and a strict search was made through the company; when the various articles which the black had lost were found in the possession of the unfortunate wretch who had stolen them. He was accordingly secured, and next morning carried before the justice, and committed to take his trial at the Old Bailey, (the black being bound over to prosecute,) and, as we have seen, was at his trial cast and condemned to death. Sir Joshua, much affected by this recital, immediately sent his principal servant, Ralph Kirkly, to make all enquiries into the state of the criminal, and, if necessary, to relieve his wants in whatever way could be done. When Kirkly came to the prison he was soon admitted to the cell of the prisoner, where he beheld the most wretched spectacle that imagination can conceive—a poor forlorn criminal, without a friend on earth who could relieve or assist him, and reduced almost to a skeleton by famine and filth, waiting till the dreadful morning should arrive when he was to be made an end of by a violent death. Sir Joshua now ordered fresh clothing to be sent to him, and also that the black servant should carry him every day a sufficient supply of food from his own table; and at that time Mr E. Burke being very luckily in office, he applied to him, and by their joint interest they got his sentence changed to transportation; when, after being furnished with all necessaries, he was sent out of the kingdom."—P. 119.

"In this year Sir Joshua raised his price to fifty guineas for a head size, which he continued during the remainder of his life. His rapidly accumulating fortune was not, however, for his own sole enjoyment; he still felt the luxury of doing good, and had many objects of bounty pointed out to him by his friend Johnson, who, in one of his letters, in this year, to Mrs Piozzi, enquires 'will the master give me any thing for my poor neighbours? I have had from Sir Joshua and Mr Strahan.'"—P. 264.

"Sir Joshua, indeed, seems to have been applied to by his friends on all occasions; and by none oftener than by Dr Johnson, particularly for charitable purposes. Of this there is an instance, in a note of Johnson's preserved in his Life, too honourable to him to be here omitted.

'To Sir Joshua Reynolds.

'Dear Sir—It was not before yesterday that I received your splendid benefaction. To a hand so liberal in distributing, I hope nobody will envy the power of acquiring.—I am, dear sir, your obliged and most humble servant,

'SAM. JOHNSON.' 'June 23, 1781.'"—P. 278.

The following anecdote is delightful:—

"Whilst at Antwerp, Sir Joshua had taken particular notice of a young man of the name of De Gree, who had exhibited some considerable talents as a painter: his father was a tailor; and he himself had been intended for some clerical office, but, as it is said by a late writer, having formed a different opinion of his religion than was intended, from the books put into his hand by an Abbé who was his patron, it was discovered that he would not do for a priest, and the Abbé, therefore, articled him to Gerrards of Antwerp. Sir Joshua received him, on his arrival in England, with much kindness, and even recommended him most strongly to pursue his profession in the metropolis; but De Gree was unwilling to consent to this, as he had been previously engaged by Mrs Latouche to proceed to Ireland. Even here Sir Joshua's friendly attentions did not cease, for he actually made the poor artist a present of fifty guineas to fit him for his Hibernian excursion; the whole of which, however, the careful son sent over to Antwerp for the use of his aged parents."—P. 284.

"It is also recorded, as an instance of his prizing extraordinary merit, that when Gainsborough asked him but sixty guineas for his celebrated Girl and Pigs, yet being conscious in his own mind that it was worth more, he liberally paid him down one hundred guineas for the picture. I also find it mentioned on record, that a painter of considerable merit, having unfortunately made an injudicious matrimonial choice, was along with that and its consequences as well as an increasing family, in a few years reduced so very low, that he could not venture out without danger of being arrested—a circumstance which, in a great measure, put it out of his power to dispose of his pictures to advantage. Sir Joshua having accidentally heard of his situation, immediately hurried to his residence to enquire into the truth of it, when the unfortunate man told him all the melancholy particulars of his lot, adding, that forty pounds would enable him to compound with his creditors. After some further conversation, Sir Joshua took his leave, telling the distressed man he would do something for him; and when he was bidding him adieu at the door, he took him by the hand, and after squeezing it in a friendly way hurried off with that kind of triumph in his heart the exalted of human kind only know by experience whilst the astonished artist found that he had left in his hand a bank-note for one hundred pounds."

Of such traits of benevolence certainly many other instances may be recorded, but I shall only mention two; "the one is the purchasing a picture of Zoffani, who was without a patron, and selling it to the Earl of Carlisle for twenty guineas above the price given for it; and he sent the advanced price immediately to Zoffani, saying 'he thought he had sold the picture at first below its real value.'"

The other is—"the clergyman who succeeded Sir Joshua's father as master of the grammar-school at Plympton, at his decease left a widow, who, after the death of her husband, opened a boarding school for the education of young ladies. The governess who taught in this school had but few friends in situations to enable them to do her much service, and her sole dependence was on her small stipend from the school: hence she was unable to make a sufficiently reputable appearance in apparel at their accustomed little balls. The daughter of the schoolmistress, her only child, and at that time a very young girl, felt for the poor governess, and the pitiable insufficiency in the article of finery; but being unable to help her from her own resources, devised within herself a means by which it might be done otherwise. Having heard of the great fame of Sir Joshua Reynolds, his character for generosity, and charity, and recollecting that he had formerly belonged to the Plympton school, she, without mentioning a syllable to any of her companions, addressed a letter to Sir Joshua, whom she had never even seen, in which she represented to him the forlorn state of the poor governess's wardrobe, and begged the gift of a silk gown for her. Very shortly after, they received a box containing silks of different patterns, sufficient for two dresses, to the infinite astonishment of the simple governess, who was totally unable to account for this piece of good fortune, as the compassionate girl was afraid to let her know the means she had taken in order to procure the welcome present."—P. 307.

Mr Duyes, the artist, says—"malice has charged him with avarice, probably from his not having been prodigal, like too many of his profession; his offer to me proves the contrary. At the time that I made the drawings of the King at St Paul's after his illness, Reynolds complimented me handsomely on seeing them, and afterwards observed, that the labour bestowed must have been such, that I could not be remunerated from selling them; but if I would publish them myself, he would lend me the money necessary, and engage to get me a handsome subscription among the nobility."—P. 35l.

We will here mention an anecdote which we believe has never been published; we heard it from our excellent friend, and enthusiastic admirer of all that taste, good sense, and good feeling should admire and love, in art or out of it—now far advanced in years, and, like Sir Joshua, blind, but full of enjoyment and conversation fresh as ever upon art, for he remembers and hears, beloved by all who know him, G. Cumberland, Esq., author of "Outlines," &c. &c. He it was who recommended Collins, the miniature-painter, to Sir Joshua. Now poor Collins was one of the most nervous of men, morbidly distrustful of himself and his powers. Our friend showed us a portrait of Collins, painted by himself, the very picture of most sensitive nervousness. Well—Collins waited upon Sir Joshua, who gave him a picture to copy for him in miniature. Collins took it, and trembled, and looked all diffidence as he examined Sir Joshua's original. However, he took it home with him, and after some time came to Cumberland in great agitation, expressing a conviction that he never could copy it, that he had destroyed three attempts, and this, said he, is the best I can do, and I will destroy it. This Cumberland would not allow, and took possession of it, and an admirable performance it is. Soon another was done, and Collins took it to Sir Joshua, with many timid expressions and apologies for his inability, that he feared displeasure for having undertaken a work above him. Sir Joshua looked at it, declared it to be, as it was, a most excellent copy, and gave him more to do in the same way—telling him to go to his scrutoire, open a drawer, and he would find some guineas, and to take out twenty to pay himself. "Twenty guineas!" said Collins, "I should not have thought of receiving more than three!" This kindness and liberality set up poor Collins with a better stock of self-confidence, and he made his way to celebrity in his line, and to fortune.