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.