Painting, scholars and followers who were successful in his style, if success it may be called,-for it was only success in finding a vent for their productions,-these were Bourdouin, Mettai, Des Hayes, Fragonard, and Juliard, who was also a tolerable Landscape Painter, and Le Prince, a Painter of Pastoral pieces, &c.

ernet.

hardin.

reuze.

tour.

aloo

The names, however, which reflect the highest honour on the French School, in the middle of the XVIIIth century, are those of Vernet, Chardin, Greuze, and Latour.

The Sea pieces of Vernet, for the boldness of his design, and the strength and force of his effect, are beyond all praise; but he introduced, it must be confessed, a certain air of artificial peculiarity not only into the attitudes of all his figures, but even into his tone of colouring. He may truly be called a complete French

Painter.

Chardin painted Portraits, animals, fruits, figures, &c., all with the same true spirit of execution, happiness of touch, and fidelity to Nature. Greuze succeeded chiefly in his fortunate power of seizing and portraying the more common and familiar emotions of the soul; his subjects are not heroes or demigods, but are usually taken from the middling classes of common life, and there are few people that will not feel a sympathy in the scenes which he represents: he stands alone in the French School in this walk of Art. Latour excelled only in the use of the crayon, but by his spirit and truth of manner he gained a well deserved name. Louis XV., the Dauphin, Voltaire, and many other persons of rank and fame, were painted by his hand.

Under the name of Vanloo we have Charles, the son of a Painter at Nice, born in 1705, and who had completed his studies under Benedetto Luti at Rome. At Paris he soon excited public attention, received the honourable appointment of chief Painter to the King, and was decorated with the Order of St. Michel. The flaying of Marsyas, The chaste Susannah, The Three Graces, &c., are among those of his works which are most known, and best deserve to be so. He must be regarded, however, as a man shining in consequence of the weakness of his competitors and contemporaries in the profession, rather than by the vigour and force of his own ability. His scholars are Lagrene, (the elder,) Doyen, Julien, Olivier, &c. His brother, Charles Philip Vanloo, and his son, Louis Michel Vanloo, both were Painters of Portrait and History: but the chief glory of the family is derived from J. B. Vanloo, of Aix, born in 1684, but who of course does not belong to this School, at least if we regard the locality of his birth.

We may close the list of the School of France with the names of Nicolas Laneret, a successful Painter of familiar scenes, and a pupil of Watteau; J. Pillemont, a tolerable Painter of Landscape; Robert, a Painter of architectural ruins and picturesque compositions of that nature; and, though last not least, David. The works of the last are full of the restlessness of the style of Le Brun, and are familiar to all visitors at Paris of the present day. Yet here it is but fair to say, there appears to be more talent in the Painters now living, and more promise of honour to the French School in the Historical line, at least, than the latter part of this sketch would have led us to infer. They "must be allowed to have succeeded in some respects be yond their contemporaries, either in England or yet in Italy. If we were to hazard a critique upon them,

VOL, V.

The most diligent researches of the Historian afford but few notices of native British artists, or, at least, of such as deserve that name, previous to the XVIIIth century and certainly there are none who can, as to their style, boast of a character of their own, or who possess such merit as to enable us to speak of them as forming a School of Painters. From the earliest times it seems to have been the custom, both with the Court and with the Prelacy, to send for foreigners either from Italy or from the Low Countries, for the execution of any important pictorial decoration. Thus were introduced P. Cavallini, in the reign of Henry III., and in after-times John of Mabeuse, H. Holbein, Lucas de Heere, Marc Willems, Sir A. More, C. Ketel, F. Zucchero, Gentileschi, Honthorst, C. Jansen, Rubens, Vandyke, Vandevelde, Sir P. Lely, and Sir Godfrey Kneller; and a host of other foreigners, with whom it was difficult for the homeliness of native skill to maintain a struggle. The very names of the workmen and inferior artists employed in the more mechanical part of the works intrusted to the Painters just mentioned, appear in early times to have been generally foreign, and the Art seems to have been regarded as a mystery of a rather occult nature. We must suppose, however, that the example afforded by the labours of such illustrious strangers, and the extreme admiration excited by their works, would have some effect in exciting a spirit of emulation, or, at least, of imitation, amongst our Countrymen; and to this circumstance we are indebted for the formation of those few British artists who, though of an inferior description, are all that this Country can boast of in days of yore. Such was Master Walter, employed by Henry III. upon certain Paintings in the Palace at Westminster. Such was John Thornton, of Coventry, who painted the east window in York Cathedral, during the reign of Henry VI. Such were Andrew Wright and John Brown, Serjeant Painters, as they were called, and Members of a chartered Society, which was formed in the reign of Henry VIII. Such, in the succeeding reign, was John Bossam, of whom, however, we know nothing more than is to be gleaned from the commendatory remarks of a contemporary artist. Such, too, was Hilliard, in the reign of Elizabeth, who has some little claim to our notice, as being one of the masters of Oliver.

Isaac Oliver is the first British artist on record of Oliver. whom we can safely speak with any degree of commendation; and whencesoever his family was originally derived, for this is a disputed matter, he, at least, was certainly born on our soil. His province was Portrait Painting in miniature, many specimens of which are now preserved. Those of his works which are most known, are a head, supposed to be that of Mary Queen of Scots, and others of Queen Elizabeth, Ben Jonson, &c. He died in 1617, leaving a son, Peter Oliver, who imitated his father's style with much success.

3 s

Painting. Thomas and John Bettes also were living in this reign, and painted Portraits with much truth and fidelity of manner, their fashion being evidently built upon the taste introduced by Zucchero, or some other Italian. Lyne, Peake, Arnold, William and Francis Segar, and Peter Cole, also are chronicled as Painters of renown in this reign; but, as to their deserts, they may be passed over. We find that the munificence of Charles I. and his Court, called forth some latent sparks of genius from amongst our countrymen, but even these artists were formed after the examples and precepts of the foreigners who were then so largely employed in England. The decoration of the Banqueting-house at Whitehall, the purchase of the Pictures of the Duke of Montrose, and the encouragement and patronage given by the Court to such men as Rubens and Vandyke, inspired a new feeling into the People of England towards the Arts of design, and left an impression the effects of which were visible during the succeeding Age. William Dobson was born in 1610: he came to London while young, and some of his Pictures, exhibited for sale, having by chance attracted the attention of Vandyke, that great artist had the generosity to recommend him to the favour of King Charles. From that day his fortune was secured, for he had merit enough to ensure his success, as soon as an occasion of displaying his talent was offered him. He gave so much satisfaction to his Majesty, that he finally succeeded, at the death of Vandyke, to the place of Serjeant Painter. He painted both Portrait and History; and his General Monk, &c., at Chatsworth, and The Beheading of St. John, at Wilton, may be mentioned here as being among the best specimens of his skill in these two departments of Art: as to merit, he may be classed (and it is no small honour) among the most successful imitators of Vandyke.

Dobson.

Jameson.

A. Cooper.

Hoskins.

Fuller.

Streator.

George Jameson was a pupil of Rubens, whose manner he chiefly followed: most of his works are to be found in the seats of his Countrymen in Scotland, and, if not quite equal in beauty to the pieces of the lastnamed artist, they are of a degree of merit by no means to be despised.

Alexander Cooper, an excellent drawing by whom, representing Acteon and Diana, is preserved in the col lection of Pictures at Burleigh, was also an eminent native artist who flourished in this reign, as likewise did his uncle, John Hoskins, a Portrait Painter.

After these we may mention Robert Walker, a Portrait Painter, who was much noticed and patronised by Cromwell, during his usurpation. The Protector had his Portrait taken both by Walker, and another Painter of the name of Edward Mascall; as well as by Sir P. Lely, Samuel Cooper, and Gibson, the Dwarf.

Isaac Fuller's inimitable Picture of himself, when in a state of intoxication, will be called to mind by every one who has visited the Picture Gallery at Oxford. He showed more talent as a Painter of Portrait than of History; nevertheless, there is a Historical composition from his hand, executed in chiaro-oscuro, at the altar of Wadham Chapel in the same University, which shows no mean talent, even in that arduous and difficult province of Art.

We must have recourse to the same University, for illustration of the manner of the next Painter on record, namely, Isaac Streator, Serjeant Painter to his Majesty, who designed the pictured ceiling of the Sheldonian Theatre: it is a remarkable fact, that these men, who were two of the chief Painters of the reign of Charles II.,

made their early studies not in Italy, as was the general English fashion, but in France, the one placing himself under School Perrier, the other under Du Moulin. We may here also mention the name of Henry Anderton, though there is not much more to be said of him, except that he was a pupil of Streator, and obtained favour at the Court.

Sir P. Lely became in the latter part of the XVIIth Lely. century the great artist of the day, and though we cannot class him in a catalogue of British artists, (for he was a native of Westphalia,) he formed many scholars among the People with whom he settled, and influenced more, perhaps, than any other man the progress of the Art in Great Britain. Of these John Greenhill, of His pupil Salisbury, may be named as the best: specimens of his manner may be seen in any large collection of engravings; also Thomas Sadler, a favourite of Cromwell, who, upon the Restoration, was in the latter part of his life obliged to have recourse to the profession of a Painter for his subsistence; nor did he discredit the Art which thus adopted him. Davenport was another of his scholars, who, however, died young; another was John Dixon, a Painter in miniature and crayons. An imitator, too, if not a scholar, was Mrs. Beale, who painted several Portraits of distinguished personages of the Age, some of which are in the possession of Lord Ilchester, at Melburn. Richard Gibson, the Dwarf, was an imitator also of Lely, being almost wholly formed upon his model.

Of those who were formed on a more liberal system than the trammels which Court fashion and favour had imposed on the Art, we may quote the names of Michael Wright, a Scotchman, who was employed to paint the Judges in Guildhall; Henry Cocke, sometime a scholar of Salvator Rosa in Italy, the Painter of an equestrian Picture of Charles II., at Chelsea College; and John Riley, who came into notice at the death of Lely, to whom he can scarcely be said to be inferior. Both Charles II. and James II. sat to him for their Portraits; but perhaps his best Picture, after all, is that of Lord Keeper North, at Wroxton Abbey. Far beyond these, however, in fame, is the name of Samuel Cooper, S. Coope who is well described by H. Walpole, as "owing great part of his merit to the works of Vandyke, and yet an original genius, as he was the first who gave the strength and freedom of oil to Miniature Painting." He lived a long time in France and Holland, but died in London in the year 1672, and was buried at St. Pancras Church: he is, perhaps, the first instance of an English Artist who met with employment and favour at a foreign Court, as he is reported to have done at that

of Paris.

We now come to the opening of the XVIIIth century. Kneller The days of Sir Godfrey Kneller had passed away, but yet long cylinder waists, and balloon gowns, and branching caps, and five-curled perriwigs, remained; and the artist was incumbered with difficulties of dress that seemed almost insurmountable to a lover of the picturesque. Jervas, who had studied awhile under Jea this artist, seems, as we learn from Pope, to have stood highest in the public estimation in the reign of George I.; he deserves, however, but little credit: Richardson, Rich at least as far as painting a head may qualify him, was a better artist; and we may learn from his writings, that his ideas had attained a yet greater perfection than his hand was able practically to display. Jos. Highmore, Big another pupil of Kneller, is an artist now better known

Painting. Italian and French schools. In Portrait Painting he stands unrivalled, notwithstanding the very absurd and unpicturesque fashions and dresses which prevailed in his time, and which it required no small skill and ability to handle in a way fitted for the canvass. In his larger works, and generally in his attempts at Historical composition, we have to lament a want of skill in Drawing, which very materially detracts from the pleasure afforded by his Pictures: but there is still a grace of form, and a truth of character, together with a chaste and harmonious glow of colouring in all that he does, which forbids us to dwell too much on those faults which the keenness of criticism might detect.

Wilson.

Gainsborough.

The collection of his works in mezzotinto plates, now in course of publication by his namesake Reynolds, is a noble monument of native British talent and taste, creditable to the engraver as well as the painter himself; and be it remembered, that the very distinguished Portrait Painters of the present day, who raise our name so far above that of any other contemporary School in Europe, as to that branch of the Art, may chiefly be considered as followers of this great man.

Richard Wilson was a native of Wales, who was happily diverted from the profession of Portrait Painting, in which he had originally embarked, to the study of Landscape; and this change he is said to have been induced to make in consequence of the commendations which he received from Zuccarelli. The style he adopted was, indeed, an improvement upon the manner of that master; his principles and his objects are the same, but they are simplified as to light and shade, and even to colour, in a way to which the foreign artist was wholly a stranger; and hence arises that majesty in point of composition, that depth of tone and colour, and that sublime breadth of effect, which characterise the best Pictures of Wilson. In his journey to Italy, his Pictures excited the genuine admiration of the French artist, Vernet, who was at that time much in fashion at Rome: and this first made the English People sensible of the merits of one whom, perhaps, they overlooked, as being their Countryman. It was on the Italian soil alone that Wilson found scenery congenial to his taste, and having so found it, he soon discovered the way to perfect himself as an artist. The collection of his sketches, in the possession of the Earl of Dartmouth, and of Mr. Bowles, of North Aston, display certainly some of the finest samples of Classical elegance in Landscape, that ever were produced by any artist of this Country. Fortunately, however, we need not have recourse to private portfolios to enable us to scan his merits; many of his best pictures have been immortalized by the engravings of Woollet, and other samples of his noble genius are preserved in our National Gallery, by the generosity of his munificent friend and scholar, the late Sir George Beaumont.

Gainsborough excelled both as a Portrait Painter and as a Painter of Landscape: there are few better native Pictures than that of the Misses Linley, painted by this master at Knoll. But it is by his skill in the other line, that his great and deserved reputation was chiefly acquired. His works have, indeed, a peculiar charm in our eyes; because their beauties are purely of home growth, unadorned by Classical ideas of form, and stripped of all those pleasing but false associations, which so often attract our gaze in the compositions of other Painters; he pleases, because he presents us

School

with the true features of our own verdant Landscape; Engl he shows the swelling forms of our hills and dales, and exhibits faithfully and accurately the rusticity of our island habits; but to all these he has lent their own peculiar beauty and touch. He has given them that interest which truth of character never fails to impart, and by his possession of skill as an artist, he has blended them into one rich and harmonious whole. It was, indeed, remarkable how much Gainsborough rose in general estimation during the exhibition of the works of British Artists, some few years ago, at the Gallery in Pall Mall, and that, too, even in opposition to the more learned style, and to the acknowledged talent of Wilson. But the truth was, that the touches of his pencil came home to every man's own bosom, and we felt that we had, in every sense of the word, a British Painter.

Of other artists in this line we may mention Wright, Wright, of Derby, as one of very high power and attainments; his moonlight and firelight effect are inimitable in their way; though his Pictures are not much known, for they are not often to be met with except in the country-seats of gentlemen in his own part of the country. Webber, too, Webber. demands our notice; the artist who accompanied Captain Cook on his third voyage to the South Seas, and who has depicted the features of the Austral islands and their inhabitants with admirable fidelity. He died in 1793. Mortimer, of whom it is no small praise to say that he Mortimer. was a successful imitator of Salvator Rosa, is also an artist of whom his countrymen may be proud; his pictures are ill coloured and heavy, but his design, such as is seen in the common engravings, is full of energy and vigour of soul.

Francis Wheatley may be considered as one of Wheatley our most respectable artists, both in the department of Landscape and Portrait. We cannot close without allusion to the name of George Morland, Merland.” one who, in even the low and groveling line which he pursued, yet showed, by his manner of treating his subject, that abundance of picturesque beauty may be found, by a sagacious eye, in every object, however unpromising it be commonly considered. His character, that is, his character in a moral sense, is said to have been spoiled, and his education stinted, through the avariciousness of his father; and so far he deserves our pity, not blame: his mind felt its own unfitness for that rank in society to which his talents entitled him, and which his friends and admirers gladly invited him to assume; from this he was driven to low and profligate habits, and ultimately conducted to scenes of dishonesty, in which there seems to be some suspicion that he was but too deeply implicated. Under such circumstances, (for no man betrays his moral cha racter more than a Painter,) it must be supposed some pieces betray the idleness and carelessness of his habits; nevertheless, a well-finished Picture of Morland, and such many of his earlier works may be called, is a jewel in the cabinet of the connoisseur. He died in 1804.

Hamilton is as well known, or perhaps better known, Hamilto by his works at Rome, than in England or his native country; they are chiefly Historical compositions, filled with tall elegant figures, employed in the gentlemanlyheroic style. He died in 1801.

Historical Painting, however, is the great walk of Art, and there are few, in modern days, who may be consi dered as having attained even a commendable degree of

ting. advancement in their endeavours to abide this much neglected, but universally acknowledged, test of genius and of highest intellectual merit. If we except some ephemeral productions of the Panorama, exhibiting, not unfrequently, considerable power, and inducing us to regret the short period of existence that has been allotted them; the only efforts which we may consider as having been made on any large scale, the only opere di machina-are the Pictures of Barry, for the Society of Arts in the Adelphi. If, in point of colour, they neither equal the richness of the Middle Age of Italy, nor the severity of the earlier Italian Schools, they exhibit a grace of form, and, in some instances, a degree of energy, not unworthy the followers of Raffaelle. They well deserve the public attention. The works of Barry's pencil, like the eloquence of his great Countryman and early patron Edmund Burke, betoken splendid ability and no ordinary daring; and he seems to have been incited to most patriotic enthusiasm by a taunting assertion of his contemporary Winckelmann, that "the English are incapable of any great excellence in Art, from their natural deficiency of genius, and the unfavourable temperature of their climate."*

After an absence of four years in Italy, spent in the usual course of Academic study, Barry must have hailed at his return to England, in 1770, the establishment of the Royal Academy, founded in the preceding year. His labours, both as an authorf and a Painter, were incessantly directed towards the refutation of Winckelmann's severe aspersion. He advised a similar plan to that adopted of late years in the Academy, of employing the students, in addition to a course of drawing and study from the antique and from the life, to make copies under the eye of their Professor from Paintings of established merit. By this practice, they not only acquaint themselves with the matériel, or vehicle of their Art, but they also form a profitable acquaintance with the faults as well as excellencies of those masters, whose authority, indiscriminately followed, might mislead; and whose fascination of colouring might otherwise, not unfrequently, ensnare the youthful artist into palliation, or even imitation of glaring errors.

It was to be lamented, for his own sake, that the violence of Barry's temper hurried him into those contentions with his co-academicians, which impeded his projects, ruined his fortune, and seem, towards the close of life, to have impaired his reason. And yet, for the sake of his professional fame, perhaps his liability to excitement is to be considered fortunate. Had his personal character been less ardent, his pencil might have been less happy.

It has been doubted whether West, who, in 1791, succeeded Sir Joshua Reynolds in the Presidency of the above-named Royal foundation, should be numbered among the English School. He was a native of Pensylvania. But he was one of the first members and founders of the Academy in England, over which he afterwards presided. Placed over English artists, he

Histoire de l'Art chez les Anciens. Par Winckelmann. Traduite de l'Allemand, 4to. 3 vols. à Paris, 1790-1803. See p. 73 of the 1st Vol. at the end of Chap. iii. of Book i. where the author repeats the theory of Montesquieu (Esprit des Loix, lib. xiv. ch. ii. and xii. and lib. xix. ch. xxvii.) and of Du Bos. (Réflexions Critiques sur la Poësie et sur la Peinture, 2de Partie, ch. xiii, and xiv.)

Inquiry into the Real and Imaginary Obstacles to the Acquisation of the Arts in England. By James Barry, R. A., 8vo. Lond. 1775,

English School.

must be looked upon as having influenced, in proportion to the general respect for his undoubted talents, the progress of the Art of Painting in this Country. His was a learned style, formed, like that of Reynolds, Wilson, Barry, and Fuseli, after consummate study abroad of the sublime fathers in Art. His smaller and earlier Pictures are superior to his later and larger productions, in which his forms, though not deficient in simplicity or in correctness, generally want intellectual elevation. Opie, still less refined, is more vigorous. Opie, Opie, in design, betrayed the disadvantage of having wanted Academic initiation; but his pencil, true to individual Nature, was bold and unaffectedly impressive, and his colour excellent.

Of Fuseli we may observe, that he united much of Fuseli. sound classical learning, with much also of eccentricity and love of mysticism. He was born at Zurich about the year 1739. The lavish praise of Reynolds on some of this artist's early drawings, turned him from his intention of entering Holy Orders. He was the fellowstudent and friend of Lavater, a translator and correspondent of Winckelmann, and himself an author of Reflections, which appeared in 1765, on the Painting and Sculpture of the Greeks. His Lectures as Professor in the Royal Academy excited general attention, and, like those of Barry, Opie, and others, his predecessors in the Professorial chair, have been published. Towards Barry he entertained a mortal and, perhaps, national antipathy, which in his edition (1810) of Pilkington's Dictionary of Painters has betrayed him into most uncandid bitterness. Fuseli, however, was behind none of his contemporaries in zeal for the promotion of his Art. He continued to paint till within a week of his death, in April, 1825. He is generally believed to have suggested to Alderman Boydell the idea of a Gallery to illustrate scenes from Shakspeare.* * To this collection he contributed eight of his best Pictures; and afterwards being advanced, in 1790, to the rank of Academician, he painted a series of forty-seven subjects from Milton, exhibited under the title of the Milton Gallery.

The mind of Fuseli was replete with critical sagacity and inexhaustible invention, but he possessed also (and of this no man was more unconscious) a hand unequal to the difficulty of embodying his own conceptions. His characters are almost every where excessive. They are in perpetral torture. They never know repose. The instructions of Hamlet to a Player, that "in the very torrent, tempest, and whirlwind of passion, he must acquire a temperance that may give it smoothness," are no less importantly applicable by every Painter, and most especially by any worshipper, as Fuseli devotedly was, at the shrine of Michael Angelo.

The public taste, however, in England has never yet been so alive to the claims of Historical Painting, as to make it an object of universal interest and permanent favour; or a source of effectual and persevering emulation among artists in this Country. Notwithstanding the alleged bluntness and inaccessibility to flattery which have been said to stamp our national character, there is a has been found irresistible; which has called forth and refined species of adulation in the Art of portraiture which secured the almost exclusive patronage of the titled and the wealthy; and which, consequently, in this department of Painting, has raised the English School far above every other in modern Europe. For we may with

* Annual Biography for 1826.