George Morland: Sixteen examples in colour of the artist's work

by E. D. Cuming

He was not idle in the ordinary sense of the word. Gifted with extraordinary facility, he painted numerous pictures which, if sold in business-like fashion, would have produced enough to raise him to affluence; but he had inherited from his father, in intensified form, a singular lack of common sense. He sold his pictures for any sum that might be offered, regardless of the fact that the purchasers took them direct to dealers in the certainty of disposing of them for double the money. Even while working on these lines his prolific brush and steadily increasing reputation enabled him to make a good income; but success, if the expression may be used, "went to his head." He launched out into the wildest extravagance, regulating his expenditure by the ease with which he could borrow rather than by the ease with which he could earn, and while he had cash in his pocket he would not work. As his reputation grew, largely through the medium of the engravings made from his pictures, the anxiety of dealers and others to secure works from his easel grew in ratio with it; his natural readiness to borrow was encouraged on every side by those who intended, or hoped, to obtain in pictures more than the equivalent of the money they advanced, and Morland gave promissory notes with joyful recklessness, absolutely indifferent to the load of debt he was rolling up.

The inevitable crash came in 1789, when for the first time he found it expedient to fly from his creditors. There is evidence in the shape of pictures to show that he sought refuge in the Isle of Wight; but he did not long remain there. His legal adviser, Mr. Wedd, took his affairs in hand, and he returned to London to go into temporary hiding while matters were adjusted by means of a "Letter of Licence," a document which secured him from arrest by making terms with his creditors. Under this bond he pledged himself to pay off his liabilities at the rate of £120 a month. How his credit declined in subsequent years is proved by the series of "Letters of Licence" procured for him. These respectively pledged him to pay £100, £50, and the last only £10, per month.

Perhaps the most pathetic feature of Morland's career is the circumstance that the period which saw his greatest exertions to escape from creditors coincided with that during which he produced his finest work. "Inside of a Stable" (now in the National Gallery, and known as "The Farmer's Stable") attracted universal attention when exhibited at the Royal Academy of 1791, and raised the painter's fame to its zenith. Commissions for pictures, with advances of money, were pressed upon him on all sides; Morland accepted the cash, promised the pictures, and launched out into wilder extravagance. He kept eight horses, or more, for the country excursions on which his friends joined him; he entertained lavishly; he drew round him a disreputable crew of prize-fighters and similar characters, who lived upon him; and he scattered money with a reckless hand. He could always find those who were eager to lend, and, revelling in the ease with which he could raise money, would not paint until he felt the pinch of need. When out of funds he would work, and did so with the amazing speed and deftness that stamp him a genius. There is no doubt that he drank at this time, but his love of riding and outdoor life enabled him to throw off the effects of over-indulgence.

His career from 1791 to 1799 was one long series of flights from one place to another to avoid the creditors who pressed for money. From time to time Mr. Wedd arranged his affairs in such wise that he could show his face in London; and at other times men who wanted pictures relieved him from his difficulties to the same end; but viewing these nine years as a whole, the general impression left on the mind is one of a hunted animal—now in hiding in the Isle of Wight, now in Leicestershire, now in mean lodgings in a poor part of London, now out of sight. It is only occasionally that we can trace his place of abode. He would go into hiding, with friend or servant sworn to secrecy, and while in hiding would work, and his companion would bring his paintings up to London and dispose of them.

In 1798 he spent six months at Hackney, comparatively free from the attentions of creditors, and during this brief period he executed some pictures which compare favourably with those painted in his best years (1790-1793).

The improvement was not maintained. Morland, whose nerves were now suffering from the periodical debauches in which he indulged, and also, no doubt, from the ceaseless pressure of creditors, left Hackney and found refuge first in London and then in the Isle of Wight; and from the Island he came, in December, 1799, to seek escape by procuring his own arrest at the hands of friends. Nominally a prisoner in King's Bench, he was "granted the rules," and took a house in St. George's Fields, where he lived for a couple of years with his wife and his brother Henry. When granted his release under 41 Geo. III., he remained in St. George's Fields for a few months, and then, for the sake of change, went to Highgate. From this time, during the few remaining years of his life, Morland was an irreclaimable drunkard. His constitution was undermined, he could no longer take horse exercise, and his excesses told upon him rapidly. To the fact that he was now unable to work until he had taken stimulant is due the common report that he "painted best when drunk." Nevertheless, his reputation remained, and he was overwhelmed by attentions from those who wanted pictures. The great aim of these patrons now was to induce him to live with them that they might exercise some control over his propensity for liquor, and keep him at work. His brother Henry was most successful in this regard; for some considerable time George lived with him, and, during his frequently broken stay, painted a very large number of pictures, Henry paying him a specified sum per day. This has been stated as £2 2s. and £4 4s., but in either case Henry's profits must have been great.

Collins, one of Morland's biographers, has given us a melancholy word-picture of the artist in these, his later days—besodden with drink, his face showing every sign of excess; nerves gone, sight failing, one hand palsied; yet able to produce works for which everyone clamoured.

Leaving his brother's house, he went from one friend to another. For many months he occupied lodgings in a sponging-house in Rolls Buildings, kept by a sheriff's officer named Donatty; here he was free to come and go as he pleased, yet was secure from arrest, and Donatty became the owner of a number of fine pictures.

It was soon after he left Rolls Buildings to reside with some other friend that he was arrested for the last time. The sum due was trifling, but Morland had no means of discharging it, and was conveyed to a sponging-house in Eyre Place, Eyre Street Hill, Hatton Garden. Refusing the offers of friends to pay the debt, he insisted on remaining in custody. He had frequently shown bitter resentment at the way his quondam friends worked him for their own advantage, and preferred to stay where he was. He strove to work; but the overtaxed brain and body refused, and while at his easel he fell from his chair in a fit. For eight days he lay almost insensible with brain fever, and then, without recovering consciousness, he died.

George Morland's was a singular character. His love of flattery and dread of affront may account for his choice of companions; he shrank from association with his social superiors, finding congenial friends among pugilists, grooms, sweeps, and persons whom he suffered to profit by his recklessness in money matters. Endowed with a keen sense of humour, whose artistic expression found vent in caricature, he found his principal amusement in playing schoolboy practical jokes. George Dawe hits off his character in a sentence when he says that Morland "never became a man"; throughout his life his faults were the faults of a boy and his virtues the virtues of a boy.