Most of the leaders of the rank and fashion of the day sat for their portraits to the painter who "read souls in faces." In 1768 Joshua Reynolds was chosen first President of the Royal Academy, and was knighted by George III. He succeeded, on the death of Ramsay, to the office of Court Painter. His "Discourses on Painting," delivered at the Royal Academy, were remarkable for their excellent judgment and literary skill. It was supposed by some that Johnson and Burke had assisted Reynolds in the composition of these lectures, but the Doctor indignantly disclaimed such aid, declaring that "Sir Joshua Reynolds would as soon get me to paint for him as to write for him." A lesser honour, though one which caused him the greatest pleasure, was conferred on Reynolds in 1773, when he was elected Mayor of his native Plympton. In the same year he exhibited his famous Strawberry Girl, of which he said that it was "one of the half dozen original things" which no man ever exceeded in his life's work. In 1789 the failure of his sight warned Sir Joshua that "the night cometh when no man can work." He died, full of years and honours, on February 23rd, 1792, and was buried near Sir Christopher Wren in St. Paul's Cathedral.
Reynolds was a most untiring worker. He exhibited two hundred and forty-five pictures in the Royal Academy, on an average eleven every year. In the National Gallery are twenty-three of his paintings. Amongst them are The Holy Family (No. 78), The Graces decorating a Terminal Figure of Hymen (79), The Infant Samuel (162), The Snake in the Grass (885), Robinetta (892), and portraits of himself, of Admiral Keppel, Dr. Johnson, Boswell, Lord Heathfield, and George IV. as Prince of Wales. Mr. Ruskin deems Reynolds "one of the seven colourists of the world," and places him with Titian, Giorgione, Correggio, Tintoretto, Veronese, and Turner. He likewise says, "considered as a painter of individuality in the human form and mind, I think him, even as it is, the prince of portrait painters. Titian paints nobler pictures, and Van Dyck had nobler subjects, but neither of them entered so subtly as Sir Joshua did into the minor varieties of heart and temper."[H]
It is as "the prince of portrait painters" that Sir Joshua will be remembered, although he produced more than one hundred and thirty historic or poetic pieces. Messrs. Redgrave, speaking of his powers as an historic painter, declare that "notwithstanding the greatness of Reynolds as a portrait painter, and the beauty of his fancy subjects, he wholly fails as a painter of history. Allowing all that arises from 'colour harmony,' we must assert that, both as to form and character, the characters introduced into these solemn dramas are wholly unworthy to represent the persons of the actors therein." They argue that the Ugolino fails to represent the fierce Count shut up in the Tower of Famine, on the banks of the Arno, and that the children of the Holy Family "for all there is of character and holiness, might change places with the Cupid who fixes his arrow to transfix his nymph." The child who represents The Infant Samuel, delightful as it is, in common with all Sir Joshua Reynolds's children, has nothing to distinguish it as set apart to high and holy offices. We may mention as among the best known of the historic and poetic subjects of this master:—Macbeth and the Witches, Cardinal Beaufort, Hercules strangling the Serpents, painted for the Empress of Russia, and The Death of Dido. Famous, too, as portraits, are Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse (Duke of Westminster's and Dulwich Gallery), Garrick between Tragedy and Comedy, The Strawberry Girl, The Shepherd Boy, The Little Girl in a Mob Cap (Penelope Boothby), The Little Duke, and The Little Marchioness; many others which are scattered in the galleries and chambers of the English nobility and gentry, and which are now frequently seen on the walls of Burlington House as each "Old Masters" Exhibition passes by.
THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH (1727—1788), the son of a clothier, was born at Sudbury, in Suffolk. He early showed taste for art, and would linger among the woods and streams round Sudbury to sketch. Nature was his model, and to this fact we owe the pictures which make him and Wilson the founders of our school of landscape painting. The details of this master's life are few and uneventful. When between fourteen and fifteen years of age, his father sent Thomas Gainsborough to London to study art. His first master was Gravelot, a French engraver of great ability, to whose teaching Gainsborough probably owed much. From him he passed to Hayman in the St. Martin's Lane Academy, a drawing school only. Gainsborough began as a portrait and landscape painter in Hatton Garden, but finding little patronage during four years of his sojourn there, returned to his native town, and presently married Margaret Burr, who had crossed his line of sight when he was sketching a wood. The lady's figure was added to the picture, and in due course became the wife of the artist. For a man so careless as Gainsborough, an early marriage was good, and we owe the preservation of many of his works to the thoughtfulness of his wife. Settling in Ipswich, he began to make a name. Philip Thicknesse, Governor of Landguard Fort, opposite Harwich, became his earliest patron, and officiously maintained a friendship which was often trying to the painter. Gainsborough, at his suggestion, painted a view of Landguard Fort (the picture has perished), which attracted considerable attention. In 1760 he removed to Bath, and found a favourable field for portrait-painting, though landscape was not neglected. Fourteen years later Gainsborough, no longer an unknown artist, came to London and rented part of Schomberg House, Pall Mall. He was now regarded as the rival of Reynolds in portraiture, and of Wilson in landscape. Once, when Reynolds at an Academy Dinner proposed the health of his rival as "the greatest landscape painter of the day," Wilson, who was present, exclaimed, "Yes, and the greatest portrait painter, too." One of the original members of the Royal Academy, Gainsborough exhibited ninety pictures in the Gallery, but refused to contribute after 1783, because a portrait of his was not hung as he wished. A quick-tempered, impulsive man, he had many disputes with Reynolds, though none of them were of a very bitter kind. Gainsborough's Blue Boy is commonly said to have been painted in spite against Reynolds, in order to disprove the President's statement that blue ought not to be used in masses. But there were other and worthier reasons for the production of this celebrated work, in respect to which Gainsborough followed his favourite Van Dyck in displaying "a large breadth of cool light supporting the flesh." It is pleasant to think of the kindly minded painter enjoying music with his friends; and, rewarding some of them more lavishly than wisely, he is said to have given The Boy at the Stile to Colonel Hamilton, in return for his performance on the violin. It is pleasant, too, to know that whatever soreness of feeling existed between him and Sir Joshua, passed away before he died. When the President of the Royal Academy came to his dying bed, Gainsborough declared his reconciliation, and said, "We are all going to heaven, and Van Dyck is of the company." This was in 1788. Gainsborough was buried at Kew. The Englishness of his landscapes makes Gainsborough popular. Wilson had improved on the Dutch type by visiting Italy, but Gainsborough sought no other subjects than his own land afforded. Nature speaks in his portraits or from his landscapes, and his rustic children excel those of Reynolds, because they are really sun-browned peasants, not fine ladies and gentlemen masquerading in the dresses of villagers. Mr. Ruskin says of Gainsborough, "His power of colour (it is mentioned by Sir Joshua as his peculiar gift) is capable of taking rank beside that of Rubens; he is the purest colourist—Sir Joshua himself not excepted—of the whole English school; with him, in fact, the art of painting did in great part die, and exists not now in Europe. I hesitate not to say that in the management and quality of single and particular tints, in the purely technical part of painting, Turner is a child to Gainsborough."
Among the most popular pictures by this great master are The Blue Boy, The Shepherd Boy in the Shower, The Cottage Door, The Cottage Girl with Dog and Pitcher, The Shepherd Boys with their Dogs fighting, The Woodman and his Dog in the Storm (burnt at Eaton Park, engraved by Simon, and copied in needlework by Miss Linwood). There are thirteen pictures by Gainsborough in the National Gallery, including The Market Cart, The Watering Place, Musidora, Portraits of Mrs. Siddons, and Orpin, the Parish Clerk of Bradford-on-Avon. In the Royal Collection at Windsor are seventeen life-size heads of the sons and daughters of George III., of which, say the Messrs. Redgrave, "it is hardly possible to speak too highly."