Romney

National Gallery]

at that of portrait-painting in other countries besides. Taking the latter view first, we find that the only name, which readily occurs to us, of an artist who painted nothing but portraits, is that of Holbein. In all the greatest schools of painting, since the days of Cimabue, portraiture was, as it were, a “bye-product,” and with a few exceptions like Holbein, Velasquez, or Vandyck, there is no great painter who is as well known for his portraits as for his other works. In England, until the arrival of Reynolds, there was no school of painting at all, and the only reason for any painter coming to England was the business, rather than the art, of making likenesses of its vigorous inhabitants. In England, consequently, when a school of painting was at last established, it is hardly surprising to find that the painting of portraits was the most considerable branch of it, not only in the early days of its commencement, but throughout almost the whole of its development; and it was not until comparatively late in its history that landscape assumed considerable proportions and finally outgrew the other branch.

Had Reynolds and Romney, like Gainsborough, been landscape painters at heart, it is probable that such a combination of great talent would have resulted in a much earlier triumph for the landscapist, and that we should not have had to wait for Turner and Constable to restore the balance. For Richard Wilson, the actual founder of the English School of landscape, only failed to establish it from want of recognition, and there were many others who were fit to achieve great works in landscape if it had not been that they were compelled to comply with the popular demand for portraiture without regard to their artistic inclinations.

But there was a third branch of the art on which, though unheeded alike by the patron and the public, the minds of Romney and of many more of the most accomplished artists of the time were bent, namely, the historical; and so long as the market was closed to their achievements in this direction, it was impossible for even the greatest among them to exist without making portraiture their regular business.

Reynolds was wise, or fortunate, enough to satisfy his historical or classical aspirations by working them in, so to speak, with his portraits; and while his purely allegorical or poetical compositions have added little to his reputation, he is never so great, or so attractive, as when painting portraits in terms of romance. Nor is he less deservedly popular when realising some idyllic fancy like The Age of Innocence, or The Strawberry Girl, The Infant Samuel or _Robinetta_--all of which are, in fact, portraits of a single model. Benjamin West, on the other hand, though fortunate in obtaining Royal approval, and truly royal payment, for his historical compositions, found little encouragement from the public in taking to this branch of the profession. “As any attempt in history was at that period an almost unexampled effort,” wrote James Northcote, R.A., on the exhibition of West’s Pylades and Orestes at the Exhibition of 1766, “this picture became a matter of much surprise. West’s house was soon filled with visitors from all quarters to see it; and those amongst the highest rank who were not able to come to his house to satisfy their curiosity, desired to have his permission to have it sent to them; nor did they fail, every time it was returned to him, to accompany it with compliments of the highest commendation on its great merits. But the most wonderful part of the story is that notwithstanding all this bustle and commendation bestowed upon this justly admired picture, by which Mr. West’s servant gained upwards of thirty pounds by showing it, yet no one mortal ever asked the price of the work, or so much as offered to give him a commission to paint any other subject. Indeed there was one gentleman who spoke of it with such praise to his father, that he immediately asked him the reason he did not purchase, as he so much admired it, when he answered, ‘What could I do if I had it? You surely would not have me hang up a modern English picture in my house unless it was a portrait?’”

It was in this year that John Singleton Copley exhibited his first picture, a boy with a squirrel, in England. He, too, was obsessed with the

Col. C. W. Napier Clavering]

historical idea, and carried it so far that he is better known for his grand compositions, like the Death of Chatham, than for the many very excellent portraits he painted. Angelica Kauffmann is remembered only by her well-intentioned but rather boneless classical compositions; and Fuseli, so far as he is remembered at all, by his weird nightmare effects in historical pieces.

Broadly speaking, history was a thankless mistress to the painters, and had it not been that Romney chose to paint portraits for the sake of accumulating enough money for the pursuit of his own artistic ambitions, his reputation as an artist would now be as totally forgotten as are those of many whose names it is almost unfair to them to mention in the present unappreciative days.

But there is fortunately another aspect of the question. A great deal is being said at the present time about the merits and demerits of a classical education for boys. On the one hand we hear that it is perfectly useless for the ordinary youth to spend the greater part of his time at school in the generally hopeless effort of acquiring some familiarity with the classical languages. On the other we are told that a boy must learn something, and that the training to the mind afforded by the study of Latin and Greek is more valuable in after life than the acquisition of any practically useful knowledge. Whichever side we may incline to in the case of the ordinary everyday boy who is to be sent out into the world to make his living in one of a dozen or more different walks of life, there can be no question that the whole-hearted pursuit of a beloved study, whether of Greek or Latin or Chinese, by a man of purpose and character, never fails to improve him in any other study which he may wish to undertake. For the higher walks of life, such as statesmanship, or the control of large interests, or the influence of considerable bodies of opinion, it is generally admitted that the school and university training is advantageous. An archbishop is not in these days required to address Convocation in Latin, nor is a Prime Minister expected to quote Horace in debate. But either can delegate the useful duties of life to others, while they themselves are better fitted by breadth of view to deal in the largest possible manner with public questions. It is for this reason, to return to our paradox, that I consider Romney’s excellence in portraiture was due, in a large measure, to the fact that he was not willingly a portrait painter. When we see that Reynolds came back from Italy filled with the ardour inspired by Michel Angelo and Raphael for great painting; when we see Gainsborough, torn from his beloved woods and fields to the painting room, both of them establishing their reputation with practically nothing but portraiture, I hope that the paradox will seem less paradoxical, and that it will be agreed that Romney, too, struggling to the last with the relentless Muse of his historical fancy, was in reality indebted to her for most of his excellence in the department of portraiture where we are ready to accord him so high a place. It is only another version of the old fable of the treasure which the father induced his boys to dig for in the vineyard. How many a fashionable painter would do well for himself and for his art by exchanging his brush for a spade!