Raeburn

PLATE I.—LORD NEWTON (Frontispiece).
(National Gallery of Scotland.)
This chef-d'oeuvre, which dates from about 1807, represents one of the most celebrated characters who ever sat upon the bench of the Court of Session. Famous in his day for law, paunch, whist, claret, and worth, the exploits of Charles Hay, The Mighty, as he was called, have become traditions of the Parliament House. (See p. 79.)




When in 1810, Henry Raeburn, then at the height of his powers, proposed to settle in London, Lawrence dissuaded him. It is unnecessary, as it would be unjust, to insinuate that the future President of the Royal Academy had ulterior and personal motives in urging him to rest content with his supremacy in the North. Raeburn was fifty-five at the time, and, after his undisputed reign at home, even his generous nature might have taken ill with the competition inseparable from such a venture. Lawrence's advice was wise in many ways, and Raeburn, secure in the admiration and constant patronage of his countrymen, lived his life to the end unvexed by the petty jealousy of inferior rivals. Nor was recognition confined to Scotland. Ultimately he was elected a member of the Royal Academy, an honour all the more valued because unsolicited. Yet, had the courtly Lawrence but known, acceptance of his advice kept a greater than himself from London, and, it may be, prevented the perpetuation and further development of that tradition of noble portraiture of which Raeburn, with personal modifications, was such a master. For long also it confined the Scottish painter's reputation to his own country. Forty years after his death, his art was so little known in England that the Redgraves, in their admirable history of English painting, relegated him to a chapter headed The Contemporaries of Lawrence. Time brings its revenges, however, and of late years Raeburn has taken a place in the very front rank of British painters. And, if this recognition has been given tardily by English critics, the reason is to be found in want of acquaintance with his work. He had lived and painted solely in Scotland, and Scottish art, like foreign art, so long as it remains at home, has little interest for London, which, sure of its attractive power, sits arrogantly still till art is brought to it. But Raeburn's work possesses that inherent power, which, seen by comprehending eyes, compels admiration. The Raeburn exhibition held in Edinburgh in 1876 was quite local in its influence, but from time to time since then, at The Old Masters and elsewhere, admirable examples have been shown in London; and recent loan collections in Glasgow and Edinburgh, wherein his achievement was very fully illustrated, were seen by large and cosmopolitan audiences. And the better his work has become known, the more has it been appreciated. Collectors and galleries at home and abroad are now anxious to secure examples; dealers are as alert to buy as they are keen to sell; prices have risen steadily from the very modest sums of twenty years ago until fine pictures by him fetch as much as representative specimens of Reynolds and Gainsborough. Fashion has had much to do with this greatly enhanced reputation, but another, and more commendable cause of the appreciation, not of the commercial value but of the artistic merit of his work, lies in the fact that the qualities which dominate it are those now held in highest esteem by artists and lovers of art. Isolated though he was, Raeburn expressed himself in a manner and achieved pictorial results which make his achievement somewhat similar in kind to that of Velasquez and Hals.