[566] As illustrative see Isaac Oliver’s (1566–1617) portrait of Sir Philip Sidney who is represented as seated on a turf-covered rock, leaning against a broad tree-trunk, while in the rear is a formal arcaded garden with a distant row of trees sending up slender green spires against a sunset sky. (Reproduced in Gosse and Garnett, “An Illustrated History of English Literature.”) Compare also Oliver’s portrait of himself where is seen through the open window a broad river flowing at the base of castle-crowned crags. (Reproduced in Horace Walpole, “Anecdotes of Painting,” III, 176.)
[567] Among Vandyck’s contemporaries in England the one who made most successful use of landscape was Mytens (in England after 1618), another foreigner, to whom is attributed the interesting portrait of “Sir Jeffrey Hudson, the Dwarf” at Hampton Court. The diminutive figure is represented as standing in a full landscape in which there is an admirable effect of distance and of clear, harmonious coloring.
[568] Now in William III’s State Bedroom at Hampton Court but formerly in the Queen’s Bedchamber at Windsor Castle.
[569] The ablest of Lely’s pupils was John Greenhill (1649–76). One of his portraits at the Dulwich Gallery is described by Mr. Cartwright as “My first wife’s pictur, Like a sheppardess.” It shows a charming lady in low satin bodice and pearls, her right hand resting on the head of a sheep, while behind her is a landscape of brown trees and rough tower-crowned hills under a gray and misty sky. William Wissing (1656–87), another pupil of Lely, and a rival of Kneller in popular favor, also made some attractive use of vaguely indicated stretches of landscape, but usually his portrait accessories were pillars, heavily draped curtains, stormy skies, with, as the loveliest point, a flowering rose-bush, an elaborately painted thistle, a vase of flowers, in the foreground. Two characteristic portraits are those of Mrs. Knott and Mrs. Lawson at Hampton Court.
[570] Reproduced from engraving by Isaac Becket in Cyril Davenport, “Mezzotints,” p. 94.
[571] Engraved by J. Smith. Reproduced in Davenport, “Mezzotints,” p.100.
[572] In William III’s Presence Chamber at Hampton Court. “Lady Middleton” is No. 54.
[573] Reproduced in Mrs. Oliphant’s “The Reign of Queen Anne.”
[574] Reproduced in Walpole, “Letters,” IX, 484, and II, Frontispiece.
[575] Engraved by J. McArdell, a famous example of his work. Reproduced in Davenport, “Mezzotints.”
[576] Horace Walpole, “Anecdotes of Painting,” II, 442.
[577] Lord Ronald Sutherland Gower, F.S.A., “Sir Joshua Reynolds, F.R.A.,” p. 23.
[578] The last four portraits mentioned are in the National Gallery.
[579] Reproduced in Lord Gower’s “Sir Joshua Reynolds.”
[580] These pictures of women and children are for the most part in private galleries. But no artist has been more fully and adequately represented in engravings than Reynolds. In the Print Room of the British Museum there are twelve large albums of prints after his paintings. There are also numerous reproductions in books such as Cyril Davenport’s “Mezzotints,” Lord Gower’s “Sir Joshua Reynolds,” Alfred Whitman’s “The Print Collector’s Handbook,” Gordon Goodwin’s “British Mezzotinters,” and Julia Frankau’s “Eighteenth-Century Colour-Prints.” The most important of the engravers of Reynolds’ pictures were James McArdell (1729–65), Valentine Green (1739–1813), S. W. Reynolds (1773–1835), John Raphael Smith (1752–1812) and Caroline Watson (1761?–1814). Valentine Green began in 1780 a series of Reynolds’ “Beauties of the Present Age” on the plan of Lely’s and Kneller’s “Beauties.” These engravings were originally issued at fifteen shillings each, but they have increased enormously in value. At a recent sale a proof of the “Duchess of Rutland” brought a thousand pounds, nearly five times as much as Reynolds received for the original picture (Salaman, “Old Engravers of England,” p. 138).
[581] It seems strange that Reynolds did not do more in the way of pure landscape. In the South Kensington gallery is a pleasing little brown landscape, “The Entrance to Mrs. Thrale’s Park at Streatham.” Lord Gower in “Sir Joshua Reynolds, R.A.” reproduces a landscape in the possession of Lord Northcote and entitled “A Study from Sir Joshua’s Villa at Richmond Hill.” We find mention, also, of other landscapes, but they form no significant part of his work.
[582] Sir Walter Armstrong, “Gainsborough and His Place in British Art,” p. 171
[583] John C. Van Dyke, “Old English Masters,” p. 58.
[584] In the Wallace Gallery, London. Reproduced in Sir Walter Armstrong’s “Gainsborough,” p. 88.
[585] Owned by the Lord Rothschild. Reproduced in Sir Walter Armstrong’s “Gainsborough,” p. 124.
[586] These two pictures are in the Dulwich Gallery, London.
[587] Owned by the Lord Rothschild. Reproduced by Braun, Clement & Cie.
[588] Owned by Sir Algernon Neeld. Reproduced in Sir Walter Armstrong’s “Gainsborough,” p. 140.
[589] For an account of the engravings from Gainsborough’s pictures see H. P. Horne, “Engraved Works of Gainsborough and Romney,” 1891.
[590] Aside from the works of the Van de Veldes English public galleries have very few examples of landscape painting in England during the years 1660–1707. From Walpole’s “Anecdotes of Painting” and from standard dictionaries of art and biography a partial list of the foreigners painting in England at this time may be compiled. Chief among them were Hendrik Danckerts who, after painting landscapes in Italy, came to England about 1667 and was engaged by Charles II to paint views; Cornélius Bol who, during the same reign, was painting views of the Thames; John Looten (d. 1680), whose chosen subjects were “glades, dark oaken groves, land-storms, and waterfalls;” Henry Lankrink (1628–92), a successful imitator of Salvator Rosa in the depiction of rough country, was especially commended for “the beauty and freedom” of his skies, and employed by Lely to paint some of his backgrounds; John Sybrecht (1630–1703), a painter of pictures of the Rhine, who was in England after 1680, and whose “Prospect of Longleat” was one of the pictures at Newstead Abbey, Lord Byron’s home; Philip Boul who left a pocketbook of sketches of Derbyshire and the Peak, “worked out in the Salvator Rosa style;” Henry Verzagen who devoted himself to “ruins and landscapes;” Adrien Vandiest (1655–1704), who came to England in 1672 and seven of whose landscapes were in Sir Peter Lely’s collection; Jan Van Wyck (d. 1702) who painted “excellent landscapes” from scenes in Scotland and the isle of Jersey; and Jan Griffier (1645–1718) who painted mixed scenes of river and rich country in the manner of Ruysdael, and who was so much of an enthusiast that he bought a yacht and, “embarking with his family and pencils passed his whole time on the Thames.”
[591] Streater’s “Boscobel House,” one of the pictures in James II’s collection, is at Hampton Court. At Dulwich a picture described in Cartwright’s catalogue as “A large Landschift done by Streeker” is now ascribed to Streater.
[592] Francis Place is noteworthy as one of the first Englishmen, if not the very first, to practice the newly discovered art of mezzotint engraving (M. C. Salamon, “The Old Engravers of England,” pp. 52, 66).
[593] There are fourteen sea-pieces by him in the National Gallery; eight in the Wallace collection at Hertford House; and several at Hampton Court. At Dulwich are two pictures by him, “A Calm” and “A Brisk Breeze” that are especially attractive examples of his style.
[594] M. Rouquet was a French enamel painter who came to England in 1725.
[595] Afterward brought together in Buck’s “Antiquities,” published in 1774.
[596] “Humphrey Clinker” was published in 1771 and the supposed time of Matthew Bramble’s visit to Bath is not much earlier. Taverner was sixty-eight in 1771.
[597] Cosmo Monkhouse, “The Earlier English Water-Colour Painters.”
[598] Bequeathed by Miss Haines in 1898.
[599] See Print Room, British Museum, for prints from his paintings.
[600] Cosmo Monkhouse, “The Earlier English Water-Colour Painters,” pp. 35, 36.
[601] Cozens had a curious way of getting hints for landscape composition. He taught his pupils to splash paint on the bottoms of earthenware plates and to stamp impressions therefrom on sheets of damp paper. The accidental forms thus struck out were counted a help to invention. The early exhibitions record many bizarre attempts at landscapes such as “A landscape done in needlework and human hair” (1772), “three drawings made upon a board with a hot iron“ (1777), “flowers cut in cork,” “three small landscapes made in oil with Trees and Shrubs in sea-weed” (1780). These were apparently exhibited in all seriousness. In 1770 there was “A landscape in colored wax.”
[602] In the Print Room of the British Museum are sixty-eight small sketches made by Paul Sandby in the neighborhood of Edinburgh, but most of these are of figures.
[603] Allan Cunningham, “The Lives of the Most Eminent British Painters” (1879), II, 210.
[604] Brydall, “Art in Scotland.”
[605] Zucarelli (1701–88) on a first visit to London painted some landscapes but he was chiefly occupied as scene painter at the opera. The great vogue of his pictures belongs in his second visit (1752–73). Jan Griffier’s sons should perhaps be mentioned. Jan (d. 1750) was especially noted as a copier of Claude’s pictures. Robert, who painted in his father’s style, died in 1760.
[606] There is in the National Portrait Gallery, one of the more important of Wilson’s portraits before his Italian visit, entitled, “The Two Princes and their Tutor,” a stiff, formal, but not uninteresting picture. The most admirable portrait by Wilson, that of the artist Mortimer, deserves the high praise it has won from competent critics, and shows what Wilson could do with a congenial subject and after the enfranchisement of his art by his work as a landscape painter. Except for a portrait of himself this portrait of Mortimer is the only one done by him after his return from Italy. It came into the possession of Mr. John Britton who, in 1842, wrote a pamphlet about it and the paintings and merits of Wilson in general (Cunningham’s “British Painters,” I, 153). The portrait of Mortimer is now in the Gibson Gallery of the Royal Academy, London. Reproduced in Beaumont Fletcher’s “Richard Wilson.”
[607] T. Wright, “The Life of Richard Wilson, R.A.,” p. 72.
[608] Beaumont Fletcher, “Richard Wilson, R.A.,” p. 90.
[609] Sir Walter Armstrong, “Gainsborough and His Place in English Art,” p. 63.
[610] In 1755 there had been an exhibition started by Hogarth for the benefit of the Foundling Hospital. It was the success of this enterprise that led to the establishment of public exhibitions in 1760.
[611] Reproduced in Beaumont Fletcher’s “Richard Wilson, R.A.”
[612] Reproduced in “Magazine of Fine Arts,” November, 1805.
[613] Engraved by W. Watts in 1786. Print Room of British Museum.
[614] Engraved by W. Birch in 1779. Print Room of British Museum.
[615] Quoted by Beaumont Fletcher in his “Life of Wilson,” p. 24.
[616] There are several landscapes by Wilson in the public galleries of London. Two large canvases in the National Gallery, “The Villa of Maecenas” and “Niobe,” were painted for Sir George Beaumont and by him presented to the nation in 1726. They are heavy and dark pictures and do not so satisfactorily represent Wilson’s genius as do some of the eight smaller landscapes in the same gallery, notably the charming little picture “On the River Wye.” In the South Kensington Gallery there are six landscapes by Wilson with several others “by or after” him. The most effective of these is a “Landscape Composition” in the Italian style. At Dulwich is a fine Italian picture, “The Cascatella and Villa of Maecenas near Tivoli.” A more nearly adequate idea of Wilson’s work may be found in the Manchester Art Gallery where, besides a fine example of his Italian pictures, a large canvas entitled “Cicero’s Villa,” are one of Wilson’s most triumphant Welsh pictures, the “Welsh Valley with Snowdon Hill,” and a magnificent English scene, a “Landscape with Ruins.” The Art Gallery at Glasgow has one of the loveliest and most mysteriously suggestive of Wilson’s pictures, called “The Convent Twilight;” and a delicate little Scotch landscape (exhibited 1762) entitled “View of Holt Bridge on the River Dee.” It is apparent that most of Wilson’s pictures are in private galleries. In 1814 there was an exhibition of his works but they have not been brought together in any great number since. Some of his sketches had been published at Oxford in 1811 under the title “Studies and Designs by Richard Wilson, done at Rome in the Year 1752.” In 1825 appeared a book of forty etchings made by Mr. Thomas Hastings after the pictures in the Ford collection, a notable collection that came into the possession of Lady Ford through her brother and her husband both of whom had been admirers of Wilson’s work. In 1863 there appeared “Thirty-seven Sketches and Designs in Crayon” by Richard Wilson, R.A. (London, William Tigg). Probably the best place to study Wilson’s pictures as a whole is the Print Room of the British Museum where there are forty-five engravings from his work, several of these engravings being exceptionally fine reproductions. Wilson has been fortunate in the fact that his landscapes have appealed to the best engravers and etchers. Besides the “Six Views in Wales” already spoken of there were “Twelve Original Views in Italy” published by Boydell in 1776, and very many single pictures have been reproduced. The prices brought by Wilson’s pictures have been in modern times fairly large. In 1875 his “View on the Arno” brought 1,800 guineas. “An Evening Scene in Wales” brought 380 guineas. Some of the engravings also bring high prices, especially those of Woollett.
[617] John Ruskin, “The Art of England,” Lecture VI, “George Robson and Copley Fielding.”
[618] Sir Joshua Reynolds, “The Fourteenth Discourse.”
[619] In the “Magazine of Fine Arts,” November, 1805.
[620] C. R. Leslie, R.A., “Memoirs of the Life of John Constable” (ed. 1845), p. 110.
[621] William Boulton, “Thomas Gainsborough,” p. 47.
[622] George William Fulcher, “The Life of Thomas Gainsborough,” p. 175.
[623] William Boulton, “Thomas Gainsborough,” p. 249.
[624] Sir Walter Armstrong, “Gainsborough and His Place in English Art.”
[625] C. R. Leslie, R.A., “Memoirs of John Constable” (ed. 1845), p. 354.
[626] A letter to Pearce at Bath. William Boulton, “Thomas Gainsborough,” p. 277.
[627] Sir Walter Armstrong, “Gainsborough and His Place in English Art,” p. 149.
[628] A. E. Fletcher, “Thomas Gainsborough, R.A.,” p. 161.
[629] William Boulton, “Thomas Gainsborough,” p. 278.
[630] In a letter to William Jackson written about 1768.
[631] Algernon Graves, F. S. A., “The Society of Artists and the Free Society,” 1907; “The Royal Academy Exhibitors,” 1906.
[632] Thomas Gray in his “Journal” for October 13, 1769, says, “At the ale-house where I dined in Malham, Vivares, the landscape painter, had lodged for a week or more; Smith and Bellers had also been there, and two prints of Gordale have been engraved by them.”
[633] Horace Walpole in “Anecdotes of Painting” (pub. 1762–71), II, 717 (ed. 1826), suggested hop-fields as new picturesque material for artists. Scott in his “Essay on Painting” reiterated the idea, giving Walpole credit as its originator. They apparently did not know George Smith’s picture.
[634] There is a fine collection of Sandby’s drawings in the Print Room of the British Museum. For particulars of his life see William Sandby, “Thomas and Paul Sandby: Their Lives and Works.”
[635] Cosmo Monkhouse, “The Earlier English Water-Colour Painters,” p. 24.
[636] It is said that Gilpin’s landscape backgrounds were frequently put in by other men, notably by Barret.
[637] Wolcot (“Peter Pindar”) in his verse comments on the exhibitions of 1782, 1783, 1785, 1786, says in an apostrophe to De Loutherbourg:
[638] Walter Thornbury, “The Life of J. M. W. Turner, R.A.,” pp. 113–15.
[639] Cosmo Monkhouse, “The Earlier English Water-Colour Painters,” p. 62.
[640] Edmund Garvey, an inferior painter, had exhibited “Three Views of the Alps” in 1770, and an artist named Morris had in 1769 exhibited “A Waterfall in the Alps.”
[641] Cosmo Monkhouse, “The Earlier English Water-Colour Painters,” p. 38.
[642] Walter Thornbury, “The Life of J. M. W. Turner, R.A.,” p. 50.
[643] Of the twenty-seven pictures by Cozens in the South Kensington Gallery all but one or two are Italian scenes. Even more interesting for study is the fine collection of drawings by him in the Print Room of the British Museum.
[644] Cosmo Monkhouse, “The Earlier English Water-Colour Painters,” p. 86.
[645] Many of Girtin’s drawings are in the British Museum.
[646] J. T. Smith, “Nollekins and His Times,” II, 339 (London, 1828).
[647] James A. Manson, “George Morland,” p. 80.
[648] Many of Morland’s pictures have been engraved. There are numerous reproductions in “George Morland” by J. T. Herbert Baily (“Connoisseur,” Extra Number, 1906) and in “George Morland” by J. T. Nettleship (“The Portfolio,” December, 1898).
[649] Biese in “Die Entwickelung des Naturgefühls,” pp. 209–48, gives a brief résumé of the development of landscape painting in Germany. He calls Rubens and his school the first to make the painting of Nature an independent branch of art, while Ruysdael (1681) is the one in whom “die ganze Poesie der Natur” finds expression. His chapter closes with these words: “Alle diese grossen Niederländer eilen weit der Poesie ihrer Zeit voraus; Gebirge und Meer finden im Wort erst 100 Jahre später ihrer begeisterten Schilderer, und ein in sich stimmungsvoll, abgeschlossenes, lyrisches Landschaftsbild wird erst am Ende des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts in der deutschen Dichtung geboren.” In England, it will be observed, the love of Nature finds earlier and more abundant expression in poetry than in painting, and its completest expression in Wordsworth’s poetry precedes its complete expression in the great English landscape painters of the early nineteenth century. See also for brief résumé of “Landschaftsmalerei” as an indication mainly of the increasing knowledge of distant lands, new forms of vegetation, etc., Humboldt, “Kosmos,” II, 47–58.