THE ART OF ROMNEY
Romney is almost exclusively known as a painter of portraits, his historical scenes attracting but little attention. In their way they were remarkable, but they were forced in their conception and over-sentimental in their design, as was the fashion of the day. In his portraits he struck a much truer note and by them his repute will stand.
It is almost impossible, taking into consideration the time in which he lived, to avoid comparing him with his great rivals Reynolds and Gainsborough, and perhaps it is well that it should be so, as by thinking of him in connection with these two men it will be possible to obtain a better impression of his capabilities and a knowledge of his faults.
He was, it is quite certain, a far less important man than Gainsborough, who must certainly be reckoned as the greatest of the three.
He lacked the colour sense that distinguished that great artist; he was by no means his equal in technical merit; and he had no ability to produce landscape-work that gave so great a charm to the pictures of the Sudbury artist.
The wonderful poetry that streamed from the brush of Gainsborough and refined all his works, the delicacy, the grace and the sweetness of his figures are all superior qualities to those which Romney possessed, whilst as a colourist Gainsborough stood head and shoulders above both his rivals.
When we come to draughtsmanship we are, however, on a different footing, as Romney was the superior both of Reynolds and Gainsborough in ability to draw with accuracy and truth, and he also surpassed both of them in the manner in which he obtained his effects.
Where Reynolds laboured Romney achieved the same effect with the greatest ease and simplicity; and, in fact, the word "simplicity" may be taken as the key-word in anything like a critical survey of Romney's work.
He was not so varied as was Reynolds. His pictures have a certain monotony about them which is more apparent than real. It is not that Romney, as has been unwisely said, made all his women alike, for that is not so; but the charm that constituted one of the chief merits of the artist was dependent to a great extent upon tricks of posture, glance and costume, and, having ascertained what these were, there was a danger on Romney's part of repeating them. There is further a certain monotony about his colouring, as he so greatly favoured the rich golden browns and deep roses that distinguish his best works.
He was, however, a true artist and could not avoid making his pictures beautiful. He had a keen sense of beauty, a passionate love of warm, rich, sunny colour, and when he came to deal with historical or dramatic scenes a very powerful imagination; but he was careless and wasteful of his powers, and was so overwhelmed with commissions that he did not put his best work into many of the pictures that he painted. They, however, always charm, and they are always pleasing and generally poetic, although they are in other respects very frequently open to grave criticism.
There are instances in which his ability reaches a very high plane. Some of his portrait figures are really sublime, and the superb dignity of such portraits as those of Lady Hamilton as Circe and Cassandra will not be easy to exceed.
Other important characteristics of this great artist were his love of children and his ability to paint them in all their brisk childish humour. The delicious piquancy of the bright little faces, so full of charm, delight all who behold them, and there is also an irresistible grace and sweetness about the figures of his children that is very noteworthy.
Mark how cleverly he depicts motion, how easily in the Stafford and Clavering groups of children the young people move, and in what graceful attitudes the artist has represented them. They hardly touch the ground as they gracefully glide around through the figures of the mazy dance, and the happiness of their faces and the grace of their postures are alike most charming.
Romney had a very real sense of grace. His ideas were circumscribed by the fashion for classic attire which ruled the day, and the delight which his sitters had in being represented, not in their usual garb and posture, but as some goddess or mythological creation, and clothed in the robes of Greece or Rome.
CHILDREN DANCING IN A RING: PORTRAITS OF
MEMBERS OF THE STAFFORD FAMILY.
Whatever position or costume, however, he adopted, it was always graceful, refined and decorous; but some of his sweetest pictures were those where the simplest of gowns and the most natural of attitudes were selected, as, for example, The Seamstress.
Lady Hamilton, by her ingenuity in placing herself in the most becoming and graceful of attitudes, and by the marvellous power of expression that she possessed, enabling her to show in her countenance the very thoughts of the creation that she was representing, delighted Romney, and over and over again he posed her in various ways, and painted with increasing delight her lovely face.
She, who lived upon adulation, and desired above all that her beauty should be admired, was never tired of sitting to the artist who above all men had the desire and the power to express her features in their wonderful sweetness, and so the memory of the graceful sitter and clever artist are handed down together.
There is no doubt that the fame alike of sitter and artist served to make more popular the Grecian style of costume seen in the pictures, and so served to banish the more formal long-waisted style of dress that had been so popular a short time before. Classic ideas became more and more the vogue, and to the grace of the drapery is to be attributed some of the charm of the pictures. Once this was realized it was not easy for the artist to alter his original suggestion, and all the great ladies of the day had to be painted in the style that suited Lady Hamilton, but was not bound to suit the different styles of beauty of those who desired to follow her example and be painted by the fashionable artist.
One of the great advantages which the portraits of Romney have over those of Reynolds consists in the fact that the colours in them have stood the test of time. Even in Reynolds's own time the colours were beginning to fly from many of his works, and it is recorded that, having displeased the great connoisseur Horace Walpole, by some disparaging remarks upon a picture of Henry VII. that had been shown to the President, Walpole had his revenge by saying that Sir Joshua was not very likely to admire any picture in which the colours had stood.
Even Hayley, addressing Sir Joshua in poetry, desires him to "teach but thy transient tints no more to fly," and so draws attention thus early to what is the great blemish of the art of the President.
Romney avoided the constant experiments which were the bane of his great rival. Reynolds was never satisfied with the result that he obtained, but desired something finer and richer, and he was therefore always experimenting with new media, fresh colours and subtle underpainting, in order to produce some unusually brilliant effect. Romney was of far simpler mind. He was able to obtain all the effect he desired in the plainest and most simple means, and, having found a scheme of colouring which delighted him and a technique which he considered sufficient, he rested content.
The use by Reynolds of such ephemeral colours as lake and carmine in his flesh tints had no attraction for Romney. He was never bitten with the desire which characterized the President to use bitumen or asphaltum in his backgrounds and shadows, or to employ wax in his medium; and by the avoidance of all these pitfalls he was able to secure for his colours that quality of secure tenure which those used by the President so lacked.
Doubtless the search by the President after greater excellence was a characteristic in his favour, and the regular method adopted by his rival was not so praiseworthy, but the result has been to the satisfaction of the present generation; and where the works of Reynolds are but wrecks of what they once were (especially in the early and middle parts of his career), albeit they are notable wrecks, those of Romney are as fresh to-day as when first painted.
There is also, it must be acknowledged, a greater force and brilliance in the faces of Romney's sitters than in those of Reynolds.
The President loved to express the aristocratic composure, the deep thoughtfulness, the calm placidity of many of his fair women, and the dignity, reserve and autocracy of the men of the day; but Romney's faces are more piquant, more brilliant, full of action in many instances, and running over with life and delight.
His colouring, as has already been noted, is very frequently the rich harmony of gold and brown with flushes of full rose in which he so delighted; but he was not afraid of painting the primary colours when it was desirable that he should do so, and in one of the National Gallery pictures this capability can be well seen.
There is a melting quality, a charming manner of soft modelling that is also characteristic, an agreeable manner by which each colour composes itself into its adjacent tint without any hardness of outline; but even this suavity could be replaced by a certain hard, even rugged force, if desirable, and the picture just mentioned will also represent this harshness of outline.
On the whole he possessed to an unusual degree the power to thrill and to delight. His pictures are melodious, charming, graceful. His grouping is delightful and expressive of the highest genius; his draperies are simply and slightly painted; while the modelling of the features is full of consummate dexterity.
He attached great importance to the painting of fingers and hands, and gave much expression to them. His faces are quiet, and have often a look of the deepest pathos about them, a look which even approaches to melancholy; but, on the other hand, the sprightliness of youthful joy was well expressed by him, and if in a phrase his qualities are to be summed up, they may be so by the words "grace, melody, sunshine and sweetness."