Drawings of David Cox

by A. J. Finberg

HE greatest artists have expressed themselves so completely in their works, that the story of their lives adds little or nothing to our knowledge of their personality. We know very little about the life of Turner—almost as little, indeed, as we know of Shakespeare’s—but in neither case do we seem to have missed anything that would add to our comprehension or enjoyment of their work. With Turner, as with Shakespeare, his art was the perfect organ of his spirit. His pictures enshrine more of the real personality of the artist than even a biographer of genius with unlimited opportunities could tell us. But though this is almost invariably true of the greatest artists, it is not true of all artists. It is hardly the case with David Cox. His hampered, thwarted art is indeed replete with glimpses and hints of the personality behind it; but without a commentary it is not very eloquent or very likely to arrest attention. The artist’s life furnishes the needed commentary. The beautiful simplicity and naïveté of the man’s character, the mean circumstances in which his life was cast, the fortitude, industry, and manliness with which he triumphed over his difficulties—these things explain much that seems at first sight futile in his art and colour even his worst failures with a glow of purely human sympathy. And the works of his old age—his most eloquent and self-subsistent productions, i.e., the works of Cox that stand least in need of a commentary—these lose nothing of their compelling power from the spectator’s consciousness of the difficulties through which the artist’s spirit had to struggle towards self-realisation and expression.

Cox was born on April 29, 1783, in a small house, surrounded by workshops and small forges in Heath Mill Lane, Deritend, a poor suburb on the south-east side of Birmingham. His father, Joseph Cox, followed the calling of a blacksmith and whitesmith, forging gun-barrels, bayonets, horse-shoes and similar articles. He appears to have been an industrious and thriving artificer, while Cox’s mother, who was better educated than his father, was a woman of forcible character, highly religious feelings and natural good sense.

When about six or seven years old Cox was sent to one of the day schools in Birmingham. At this time he fell over a door-scraper and broke his leg. This accident was the cause of his first introduction to art, for a cousin gave him a box of paints to amuse himself with during the confinement which he had to endure whilst his leg was in splints. David’s first artistic efforts were confined to daubing the kites which his school companions brought to him. But he was so delighted with the colours that when he recovered he procured some paper and set to work copying a number of small engravings.

After recovering from his accident he returned to school for a short time, but was soon withdrawn and set to work in his father’s shop. But he was by no means a strong lad, and a short trial convinced his father that he was not fitted for so laborious a craft. With the idea of qualifying him for apprenticeship to one of the toy-trades of Birmingham, he was sent in the evenings to a drawing school in the neighbourhood, where he is said to have made great progress. At the age of fifteen David was considered capable of assisting in the ornamentation of snuff-boxes, lockets, buttons and buckles. He was apprenticed to a locket and miniature painter named Fielder. The apprenticeship, however, only lasted about a year and a half, as it was brought to an abrupt termination by the suicide of his master.

After this tragical termination of his brief experience as a locket painter and decorator Cox’s cousin got him an engagement with the scene-painters employed at the Birmingham theatre. His business was to grind the colours and run errands for the painters. In the evenings he was enabled to resume his studies at his old drawing class.

The chief scene-painter at the theatre, which was leased and managed by the elder Macready, was an Italian named De Maria. Cox watched De Maria’s work with great admiration, and after a time he was allowed to assist him in painting the side scenes. Upon De Maria’s departure from the theatre Cox was permanently engaged with Macready as scene painter, touring with his company, and even playing small parts when occasion demanded it. At one small country place it is said that he played the part of the clown. However, the manager’s hasty temper led to quarrels, and these, together with his mother’s entreaties, led Cox to terminate his engagement about the year 1803.

Receiving an offer of employment from Astley, the proprietor of Astley’s circus, Cox, at the age of twenty-one, moved to London. Astley’s offer coming to nothing the artist had a hard time of it. He executed various odd commissions for scenery for provincial theatres and disposed of small drawings at the modest rate of two guineas a dozen to various London dealers. London, however, offered more opportunities for study than Birmingham, and Cox made the most of them. He managed to become possessed of a collection of indifferent etchings from paintings by Poussin, Salvator Rosa and Claude, which had been published by Pond between 1741 and 1746. These he copied and studied for the sake of their composition and arrangement of light and shade, and a dealer named Simpson, who kept a shop in Greek Street, Soho, allowed him to make a large copy in water-colour of a fine painting by Poussin which hung in his shop. Cox’s first important picture was based on the arrangement and effect of this Poussin. It is a drawing of Kenilworth Castle, an autotype of it being published in Mr. Neal Solly’s admirable “Memoir of the Life of David Cox” (Chapman & Hall, 1873), a volume to which we are indebted for the details of the artist’s early life. The Kenilworth in Mr. Solly’s opinion cannot be dated later than 1806 or 1807; and to judge from the photographic reproduction it is especially interesting as an example of the imitative methods which were rife among the artists of those days. The works of the older and more successful masters were accepted as models to be copied and imitated.

In this connection it may be not impertinent to recall the account which Edward Dayes (Girtin’s master) has left us of the method of education by which Turner’s powers were developed. “The ways he (Turner) acquired his professional powers was by borrowing where he could a drawing or a picture to copy from, or by making a sketch of any one in the Exhibition early in the morning, and finishing it at home.” So that Cox was not alone in devoting his early practice to works of art, rather than to the works of nature.

In pursuance of this plan of appropriating what he could from the practice and methods of the proficients in the art, Cox determined to take lessons from the living as well as from the dead. For some time his choice hesitated between John Varley, John Glover, and William Havell. He finally decided to go to Varley, who treated him with much kindness. Varley, who was only five years older than Cox, was one of the most successful teachers of the time, and, in addition to Cox, he numbered Mulready, W. H. Hunt, Linnell, Samuel Palmer, Copley Fielding, and De Windt among his pupils. His early manner was modelled largely on the practice of John Cozens and Girtin; and the simplicity, directness and dignity of much of Cox’s early work is certainly due to the thoroughness with which Varley had mastered the traditions of the earlier English water-colour painters, and to his capacities as a teacher. The second plate in this volume is a reproduction of one of Cox’s drawings of this period. The original water-colour, Old Westminster, is probably one of the most successful of Cox’s purely architectural drawings; it might almost pass for a Girtin.

In 1805, Cox made his first journey into Wales. He supported himself at this time by working up the sketches made on such tours, and by chance commissions for scenery. A bill is still in existence, dated February 15, 1808, for “painting 310 yards of scenery at 4s. per square yard.” The year when he executed this lucrative commission was the year of his marriage to the eldest daughter of the landlady in whose house at Lambeth Cox had lodged since his arrival in London. His wife, who was eight years his senior, is said to have been a slight, delicate woman, of a naturally cheerful disposition. The young couple rented a small cottage at the corner of Dulwich Common, “just past the College on the road to the right.” Dulwich Common at that time was a wild and lonely spot, much frequented by gypsies, whose donkeys and picturesque rags and surroundings formed excellent material for the young artist’s compositions.