JAMES BARRY, R.A. (1741—1806), who was a contemporary of Benjamin West, and, like him, aimed at high art, formed a marked contrast to the favourite painter of George III. Whilst West was well fed and well clothed, rich, easy-tempered, and happy, Barry was often ragged, sometimes starving, always poor, and seldom out of a passion. He was born at Cork, the son of a small coasting trader who kept a tavern. From such uncongenial surroundings Barry made his way to Dublin, and exhibited The Baptism of the King of Cashel by St. Patrick. This work attracted considerable notice, and secured for the artist the patronage of Burke, who sent him to Italy. This was in 1765, but previously to this date Barry had already visited London, and lived by copying in oil the drawings of "Athenian Stuart," the Serjeant-Painter who succeeded Hogarth. Barry's studies in Italy confirmed his ambitious design to become a painter of high art subjects. With characteristic boldness he entered the field against the greatest masters, and whilst at Rome painted Adam and Eve, which he thought superior to Raphael's masterpiece of the same subject. Returning to England in 1770, Barry exhibited this picture, and began Venus rising from the Sea, which was exhibited in 1772; he was elected a R.A. in the following year. His undisciplined temper ensured him many enemies, and estranged his few friends; he even quarrelled with Burke. His pride and courage were indomitable, and he worked on through good and ill reports, never swerving from the course he had marked out, and contemptuously dismissing any chance sitter for a portrait to "the fellow in Leicester Square," as he styled Sir Joshua Reynolds. In 1777, Barry undertook to paint in the Great Room of the Society of Arts at the Adelphi a series of pictures illustrating Human Culture. He had previously offered to decorate the interior of St. Paul's. He began to work at the Adelphi with sixteen shillings in his pocket, and toiled there during seven years, being often in absolute want. The Society provided him with models and materials only, and Barry was to receive the proceeds of exhibiting his work in return for his unpaid labours. The hope of fame enabled "the little ordinary man with the dirty shirt" to support himself through the long years of want and semi-starvation, whilst he was working for the glory which never came. Barry finished the pictures at the Adelphi in 1783, and called them severally The Story of Orpheus: A Thanksgiving to Ceres and Bacchus; The Victors of Olympia; Navigation, or the Triumph of the Thames; Distribution of Premiums in the Society of Arts; and Elysium, or the State of Final Retribution. The luckless artist had been appointed Professor of Painting at the Royal Academy in 1772, but outbursts of passion and furious attacks on his brethren led to his removal from the post, and, in 1779, to his expulsion from the Academy. He died miserably, in 1806, at the wretched house he called a home, and the honours which had never blossomed for the living man were bestowed on the corpse, which lay in state at the Adelphi, surrounded by the work of his hands. He was buried in St. Paul's. "There he rests side by side with the great ones of his profession. Posterity had reversed the positions of West and his competitor, the first is last, and the last first; but it was hardly to be expected that the young would be anxious to follow Barry in a line of art in which neither ability nor perseverance seemed to succeed, or to start in a career for which not even princely patronage could obtain public sympathy, nor innate genius, with life-long devotion, win present fame, hardly indeed a bare subsistence." (Redgrave.)
Returning for a moment to Portrait Painters, we find two of that class who were contemporary with Sir Joshua Reynolds, and of whom the first nearly equalled the president in popularity.
GEORGE ROMNEY (1734—1802) was born near Dalton-in-Furness, North Lancashire, and for some years followed his father's craft of cabinet-making. The story of his life is one of marked success and singular selfishness. He first studied art with Edward Steele, of Kendal, a portrait painter of some skill and reputation, who had painted Sterne. Whilst assisting his master to elope with his future wife, Romney fell ill, and was nursed by young Mary Abbot. He rewarded the devotion of his nurse by marrying her, and when she was the mother of two children, by leaving her at home poor and alone, whilst he was rich and famous in London. During a long and successful career Romney only visited his family twice, to find on the second occasion his daughter dead, and his son grown up and in Holy Orders. The painter's strange, selfish life ended in imbecility, and the patient wife who had nursed the youth of twenty-three, soothed the last hours of the man of seventy, whose fame she had never shared. Romney was as eccentric in life as in his genius. Shunning the society of his fellow artists, he complained of their neglect, and refused to enter the Royal Academy. It was said of Sterne that "he would shed tears over a dead donkey whilst he left a living mother to starve." In like manner Romney wrote gushing words of sympathy for the widow of another man, whilst his own wife had been practically widowed for more than thirty years. Of the intercourse of Romney with the fair and frail Emma Lyon, who, as Lady Hamilton, exercised an influence for evil over him and over Nelson, it is not our province to speak. The fitful temper of the painter led him to begin numerous pictures he never finished, cart-loads of which were removed from his house at Hampstead. Romney's want of steadfastness often compelled him to abandon works of which the conception was greater than the power to carry it out. There was a want of thoroughness about him, and even the pictures which he finished seemed incomplete to those who did not understand them. Noteworthy among these are Ophelia, The Infant Shakespeare, and The Shipwreck, from "The Tempest." His portraits, however, form the greater class of his productions. In the National Gallery are Study of Lady Hamilton as a Bacchante, and The Parson's Daughter. "We may sum up all that is to be said of Romney in this: that whatever he did Reynolds had done much better; that his art did not advance the taste of the age, or the reputation of the school, and that it is quite clear, however fashion or faction may have upheld him in his own day, the succeeding race of painters owed little or nothing to his teaching." (Redgrave.) A harsh and unsympathizing judgment. Truer is it that he never offended the finest taste in art, that he was a very fair draughtsman, a sound and accomplished painter, who delineated ladies with the taste of a Greek, and children with exemplary sweetness.
JOSEPH WRIGHT (1734—1797) is, from his birth-place, commonly known as Wright of Derby. Quitting his native town, where his father was an attorney, he reached London in 1751 and became a pupil of Hudson, the portrait painter. Wright aimed at historical painting, but his works are chiefly single portraits, and conversation pieces. After revisiting Derby, he returned to Hudson's studio for a while, and then settled in his native town, where he practised his art with success. He often represented candle-light and fire-light effects, as may be seen in The Orrery, The Iron Forge, and The Experiment with the Air-Pump (National Gallery). Marrying in 1773, Wright went with his wife to Italy and remained there two years. He witnessed an eruption of Mount Vesuvius, and painted that event with success, as well as the display of fire-works at the Castle of St. Angelo, at Rome, which is known as the Girandola. Returning to England, Wright painted at first at Bath; but being unsuccessful, he returned to Derby, where he died in 1797. He contributed a few works to the Royal Academy after quitting Italy; Vesuvius, and the Girandola were exhibited there in 1778. Wright was elected an Associate in 1782, but removed his name from the Academy books two years later. This step was taken either because Edmund Garvey, a landscape painter, was elected a R.A. before him, or because Wright had refused to comply with one of the Academy rules, and present works to the society before receiving his diploma. He was said to be a shy, irritable man, always ill, or fancying himself so, and ready to take offence easily. Such are the unconfirmed statements of the advocates of the Academy. He painted landscapes in his latter days, The Head of Ulleswater was his last picture. Best known among his works are The dead Soldier, Belshazzar's Feast, Hero and Leander, The Storm (from "Winter's Tale"), and Cicero's Villa. Wright's most remarkable fire-light effects are The Hermit, The Gladiator, The Indian Widow, The Orrery, and, already mentioned, the Air-Pump. Like Hogarth and Copley, he painted in that solid old English method which insured the preservation of his works. "On the whole it cannot be said that Wright's pictures have added much to the reputation of the British school. As a portrait painter he is hardly in the second rank." His portraits have a heavy look; of his landscapes it has been averred that "they are large and simple in manner, but heavy and empty."
THE SUCCESSORS OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.
Portrait-painting, always popular in England, continued to flourish after the deaths of Reynolds and Gainsborough. Although the magic touches of these masters cannot be found in the art of their immediate followers, their influence produced several original and independent artists, who, though successors, were not imitators.
NATHANIEL DANCE (1734—1811) studied art under Frank Hayman, R.A., and visited Italy with Angelica Kauffman. Returning to England he achieved success as a painter, both of portraits and historic pieces. He was one of the original members of the Royal Academy, from which he retired in 1790, on marrying a wealthy widow: he took the name of Holland and was made a baronet ten years later. His best-known works are the Death of Virginia, Garrick as Richard III., Timon of Athens (Royal Collection) and Captain Cook (Greenwich Hospital).