These remarks, though now illustrated chiefly by reference to its founder, are applicable more or less to the English school of portraiture generally. Indeed, down to the masters of the present day, these precepts operate, and often not less decidedly than in the works of those who were the contemporaries of Sir Joshua. Of the latter, the names of a few of the principal may now be enumerated.
Romney, who died in 1802, ten years after the death of Sir Joshua, was an original, and to a great degree, self-taught artist. His style of design is simple, his coloring warm and rich, but his affectation of breadth has frequently induced a neglect of form, with often too vague a generalization of sentiment. The great failing of Romney—one common, indeed, to all men, in every profession, who have not been regularly educated—is something defective in his general management, so that the whole is rendered imperfect or displeasing from some peculiarity or immethodical management, which early instruction would easily have enabled him to avoid.
Opie has carried the principles of Sir Joshua to the very verge of coarse and indistinct, from which the force of his own genius has scarcely secured him. His portraits have frequently not more detail than a sketch, yet are usually heavy and laboured in effect. Though undoubtedly possessing high talent, Opie's success was owing not less to the circumstances under which he rose, than to intrinsic merit. He is, however, a very unequal artist, sometimes attaining great beauty, at others falling beneath himself, which renders it difficult to pronounce generally; besides, he has several manners, though in each, the large and unfinished style predominates. Great allowance is, however, undoubtedly to be made for him, whose first portrait was painted by stealth, in moments snatched from the menial occupation of carrying offals to the house-dog of his first employer. Such was his employment as house-boy in the family of Walcott, the portrait being that of the butcher, and which there is reason to believe was painted in the shambles. No where in the history of mind, do we find such amazing instances of the power of talent over circumstances as in art. From painting likenesses at seven and sixpence in Truro, 'the Cornish boy' came to London with thirty guineas in his pocket, and, with hardly any instructions, save advice from Sir Joshua, made his way to fame and fortune. Next to Sir Joshua, of the contemporary painters, Romney and Opie supported undoubtedly the first rank, though many others, of considerable merit, would deserve notice in a more extended narrative. We shall therefore now direct attention to Historical and Landscape Painting.
The excellence and amazing number of its portraits, has occasioned the merits of the English school of history to appear less than they really are. Indeed, where portraiture is practised on the principles of grand art, as in this country, there must be excellence in all the departments of the profession; and the opinion so prevalent, that portrait is an inferior branch, has seriously prejudiced both divisions of the art. It has withdrawn the historical painter, as, by way of exclusive eminence, he was solicitous to be named, from the careful study of nature in her individual modes and forms—the only true source of ideal perfection; while it has damped the precious enthusiasm which arises from the consciousness of dignified pursuit, by placing the portrait painter in the degraded rank of a secondary artizan.
The more elevated the standard to which, in any study, the mind is taught to aspire, the nobler will be the fruits of exertion; but where less is expected, less will be accomplished. The portrait painter, feeling that he would not receive credit for beauties of which his art was deemed incapable, has been too ready to take the public at their own word, and to remain contented with the inferiority they were thus willing to accept. But the very reverse of all this is the truth. No essential principle of high art may not be exhibited, and indeed every one is to be found, in a first-rate portrait. Such works, too, are equally, perhaps even more rare, and by the same authors, as the masterpieces of historical composition. Hence we are conducted to our first premise as a conclusion, that where portraiture has been successfully practised, history must also flourish. A reference to the annals of the latter will prove this to be the case among ourselves, at least to a greater extent than is the general impression.
Even from the time of Henry VIII. we find historical painting in repute; some of Holbein's works from history remain even more admirable than his portraits. In the reign of Mary, Antonio More was eminent, though against his inclination employed chiefly in portraiture. Elizabeth, in like manner, patronized Zucchero; and the portraits of Hilliard, one of the first English artists of merit, are in some instances, though of small size, almost historical, as Donne bears witness:
——Or hand or eye
By Hilliard drawn is worth a history
By a worse painter made.
The labours of Rubens and Vandyke under Charles, especially the Banqueting-House at Whitehall by the former, continue to show that history was not unpatronized. Still no English school can properly be said to have been formed till the eighteenth century, when Sir James Thornhill, in the reign of Queen Anne, was appointed historical painter to the court. The works of this artist are numerous, and we are disposed to rank them higher than they are commonly appreciated. Those in St. Paul's and at Greenwich are well known; and though it be questionable whether they could have been much better executed by any other artist at that time in Europe, yet so miserable was the encouragement, that Thornhill is reported to have been paid for some of these labours by the square yard for two pounds.
Thus the annals of historical painting in England furnish little to reward research or to interest the reader, previous to the appearance of Hogarth, born 1698, in the Old Bailey, the son of a schoolmaster, and died in 1764, being the first native artist who proved that there existed subject in our manners, and talent in our land, for other painting than portrait. Hogarth claims the highest praise of genius; he was an original inventor; nay, more, he both struck out a new path, and qualified himself to walk therein. From an engraver of armorial bearings and ornaments on plate, he taught himself to be a painter. The aim of no artist has been more mistaken, at least estimated on principles more opposed, than that of Hogarth. Some have ranked him as a satirical, some as a grotesque painter, while others have not scrupled to rate him merely as a caricaturist. If, however, historical painting consist in the delineation of manners, in the expression of sentiment, and in striking representation of natural character, few names in art will stand higher than Hogarth; while, beyond most painters, he has extended the bounds of the art, in the alliance which he has formed between the imagination and the heart,—between amusing of the external sense and the profound reflections thus awakened. His pictures are not merely passing scenes, or momentary actions; they are profound moral lessons. It is this which raises him far above the Dutch or Flemish school, with whose general imitation of national customs, his firm and individual grasp of the morality of common life has with great injustice been confounded. From the lofty abstractions of the Italian masters, again, he differs widely, but not, as usually supposed, because he represents low, but because he paints real life. In this respect, the observation of Walpole, that, 'Hogarth's place is between the Italians, whom we may consider as epic poets and tragedians; and the Flemish painters, who are as writers of farce, and editors of burlesque nature,' is founded in utter mistake, or misrepresentation; he never forgave the artist's independence of his connoisseurship. Hogarth's place is not between, but above and apart. He 'holds the mirror up to nature,' not to exhibit graphic powers of mimicry, not to depict the sublimity of mind, or the idealities of form, but 'to show Vice her own features,' man 'his own image.'