Sculpture, Richard Westmacott Architecture, Sydney Smirke ASSOCIATES (in the order of their election as such). George Patten Thomas Sidney Cooper Frederick Goodall Edward William Cooke Henry O'Neil Win. Chas. Thos. Dobson ASSOCIATE-ENGRAVERS. Richard Ansdell Baron Carlo Marochetti (One vacancy, vice Richard James Lane, Robert Graves, and James Tibbetts Willmore. (New Class) Lumb Stocks, and John Henry Robinson. 280 CHAPTER XVIII. ROYAL ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER THE PRESIDENTSHIP OF SIR C. L. EASTLAKE. President: Sir C. L. EASTLAKE. Painters: Sir J. W. GORDON, THOMAS CRESWICK, RICHARD REDGRAVE, Sculptors: W. C. MARSHALL, and J. H. FOLEY. Academician-Engravers: SAMUEL COUSINS, and G. T. Doo. BEFORE we peted the present tenure EFORE we proceed to give an account of the Acade micians elected during the present President's tenure of office, we have first to speak of his own career, so far as his personal history as an artist is distinguished from his proceedings in the position he occupies at the head of the Royal Academy. Sir CHARLES LOCK EASTLAKE, P.R.A., was born on the 17th November, 1793, at Plymouth, where his father, Mr. George Eastlake, was solicitor to the Admiralty and Judge Advocate. He was a warm friend to the cause of popular education, and was the founder of the public library at Plymouth. Sir Charles was his youngest son, and was educated, first at the grammar schools of Plymouth and Plympton (the birthplace of Sir J. Reynolds), and afterwards at the Charterhouse in London. Stimulated by the example of his fellow-townsman, B. R. Haydon (to whom he happened to pay several visits while painting his Dentatus'), he decided on becoming a painter, and entered the schools of the Academy as a student in 1809. At that time Fuseli was Keeper, and under his guidance and instruction he made rapid progress. He also consulted Haydon, who was then endeavouring to establish a school of his own for young artists. After leaving the Academy schools, he painted a picture of 'The raising of the Daughter of Jairus,' which was purchased by Mr. J. Harman, and at his request (after painting other pictures and several portraits) Eastlake went to Paris to examine and copy from the works of the great masters collected by Napoleon in the Louvre; but the Emperor's return from Elba put a sudden stop to this occupation, and compelled him to come back to England. He then established himself as a portrait painter at Plymouth, and subsequently, when the Bellerophon was lying off the Citadel, with Napoleon on board of her, Eastlake, from a boat, made sketches of him as he walked the deck, and from these he painted the last portrait taken of the Emperor in Europe. The likeness was admirable, to which the French officers, to whom it was afterwards shown, bore testimony. In 1817 he visited Italy, in company with the late Sir C. Barry, the architect, and Brockedon, the artist. In 1818 he made a series of sketches, on commission, for Mr. Harman, of the architectural ruins and scenery of the classic land of Greece. He visited Malta and Sicily on his way back, and after his return to England painted a picture of 'Paris receiving the Apple from Mercury,' the figures being life-size. His father died shortly afterwards, and he then returned to Rome, where he subsequently spent several years. In 1823 he became for the first time an exhibitor at the Royal Academy, his pictures being views taken in Rome and its vicinity-St. Peter's, the Castle of St. Angelo, &c., and sketches of the peasantry of Italy and Greece. Among his early works were several pictures of banditti, which were very popular at the time. In 1825 he exhibited A Girl of Albano leading a Blind Woman to Mass;' in 1827 The Spartan Isidas repelling the Thebans,' a commission from the Duke of Devonshire-a work so bold and spirited, and displaying so much artistic excellence, that it doubtless led to his election as an Associate of the Royal Academy in that year. In 1828 he exhibited Peasants. on a pilgrimage to Rome first coming in sight of the Holy City,' which indicated great refinement of thought, deep poetic feeling, and growing power of execution. It was exceedingly popular, and was quickly engraved on a large scale. The original version is the property of the Duke of Bedford. The artist has been since called upon to make several replicas, in which there are some slight alterations ; and he was so constantly solicited to repeat his principal pictures that he was at length obliged to decline to make them. He quitted Italy in 1829, and the next year was elected a Royal Academician, having sent to the exhibition of the previous year a picture entitled 'Byron's dream,' a landscape in which the poet is represented asleep amidst some of the ruins of ancient Greece--the only landscape, strictly speaking, painted by the artist. For some years afterwards his subjects were derived from the history and people of Greece and Italy: among them were the 'Contadina and Family returning from a Festa,' 'Prisoners to Banditti,' Gaston de Foix before the Battle of Ravenna,' 'The Salutation of the aged Friar,'An Italian family,' 'Greek Fugitives,' Italian Peasant Girls,' 'A Pilgrimage,' 'La Svegliarina,' Greek Peasants,' &c. 6 He commenced another and higher class of subjects in 1839, when he exhibited 'Christ blessing little Children,' a fine work, since engraved in line by Watts. In 1841 appeared his masterpiece, Christ weeping over Jerusalem,' engraved in mezzotint by Cousins-a work which will take its place among the best historical paintings of the modern school-treated with great simplicity, replete with purity of thought and refinement, finished with great care, but not too elaborately, and the whole, with its subdued richness of colour, conveying a deep sentiment 6 of earnestness and solemnity, which is imparted to the beholder, and which could only be the production of a mind filled with religious reverence for the theme which has been so successfully represented. In the same style, he exhibited, in 1843, Hagar and Ishmael,' a work of great merit, displaying the same purity of feeling and characteristic expression, but which did not equal the former in interest or beauty. In the next year appeared a scene from "Comus," painted by command of the Queen, in fresco, for the Royal summer-house at Buckingham Palace. In 1845 he exhibited a female head of 'Heloise,' painted with much sweetness; in 1846 A Visit to the Nun,' now in the Royal collection; in 1847 An Italian Peasant Family prisoners with Banditti; in 1849 Helena;' in 1850 The Good Samaritan,' purchased by the Queen; and The Escape of the Carrara Family from the Duke of Milan;' in 1851 Ippolite Torelli;' in 1853 Violante,' and Ruth sleeping at the feet of Boaz;' in 1854 Irene;' and in 1855 Beatrice;' since which time none of his works have appeared in the exhibitions. Among his portrait pieces and figures of single heads, "The Sisters,' in the Royal collection, and "The Greek Girl,' in the Vernon Gallery, may be cited as specimens of the exquisite grace and tenderness with which the artist deals with such subjects. The nation happily possesses some of his best works: a duplicate of Christ weeping over Jerusalem,'The Escape of the Carrara Family,' and the head of Haidee, a Greek Girl' (1831), are in the Vernon Collection: two of his early works, 'An Italian Contadina and her Children,' painted at Rome in 1823, and 'A Peasant Woman fainting from the bite of a Serpent,' exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1831, are in the Sheepshanks Collection. Sir Charles Eastlake paints with all the grace and poetic feeling, and with the vigour of tone and harmony of colour, of the old masters of the Venetian school: the treatment of his subjects appeals rather to the approbation |