The hand of the master must be entirely subservient to the brain. No obstacle should intervene between the inspiration and its complete expression, but the hand must not force the imagination; and it is true that command of technic—mere digital dexterity—does lead the performer, whether painter or musician, to speak when he has nothing to say.
Happily for the reputation of Reynolds, he painted now and then a portrait in which he took more interest, and these have some—possibly not many—of the qualities that live. For the most part his reputation rests on mere volume of brilliant and high-grade work,—very much as one factory has a greater reputation than another. And he did more than any man who ever lived to reduce “portrait-painting” to a trade, a mechanical pursuit.
In the modern sense of the phrase, he was one of the greatest of “portrait-painters;” certainly the most “successful”—again in the modern sense—the world has known, of talent supreme, in genius wanting.
But there are portraits and portraits,—to illustrate:
There are portraits.
There are portraits that are also pictures.
There are pictures that are also portraits.
The first-named are mere likenesses,—photographs on canvas. This sort is very common and very popular; they are made with great facility by the professional “portrait-painters” and they are greatly applauded wherever seen. They have their fixed prices,—so much for half, three-quarters, or full-length,—and they are quite a matter of commerce, with a maximum of dexterity and a minimum of art. There are those who can and do paint great portraits, who turn out endless numbers of these mechanically-made things to the detriment of their art. Of the best of this sort were the most of Reynolds’s portraits,—superficially brilliant and attractive likenesses that ought not to be seen outside the family circle for which they were intended. Of this same sort are most of those startling people who issue from the studios of the popular “portrait-painters” of to-day, to thrust the nonentity of their individualities upon us. The identity of the “Blue-Boy,” by Gainesborough, is quite immaterial; the identity of the “Shrimp-Girl,” by Hogarth, is likewise immaterial; the identity of the “Child with a Sword,” by Manet, is of no importance,—for these are pictures, though at the same time portraits.
But the identity of the “portraits” by the popular “portrait-painter” is, in ninety-nine instances out of a hundred, a matter of great importance, the value of the canvas being enhanced by the celebrity or notoriety of the sitter.