MARTIN’S “DELUGE.”
Sir E. Bulwer Lytton has written this eloquent criticism: “Martin’s ‘Deluge’ is the most simple of his works; it is, perhaps, also, the most awful. Poussin had represented before him the waste of inundation; but not the inundation of a world. With an imagination that pierces from effects to their ghastly and sublime agency, Martin gives, in the same picture, a possible solution to the phenomenon he records; and in the gloomy and perturbed heaven, you see the conjunction of the sun, the moon, and a comet. I consider this the most magnificent alliance of philosophy and art of which the history of painting can boast.”
SIR JOSHUA’S GOODNATURE.
In the year 1760, a youth named Buckingham, a scholar at Mr. King’s academy, in Chapel-street, Soho, presuming upon his father’s knowledge of Sir Joshua Reynolds, asked the President if he would paint him a flag for the next breaking-up of the school; when Sir Joshua goodnaturedly replied, if he would call upon him at a certain time, he would see what he could do. The boy accordingly went, accompanied by a school-fellow, named Williamson (the narrator of this anecdote), when Sir Joshua Reynolds presented them with a flag, about a yard square, on which he had painted the king’s coat of arms. This flag was carried in the breaking-up procession to the Yorkshire Stingo, an honour to the boys, and a still greater honour to him who painted it, and gave up his valuable time to promote their holiday amusements.
THOMAS SYDNEY COOPER “THE ENGLISH PAUL POTTER.”
The admirers of Mr. Cooper’s Cuyp-like pictures will be gratified with the following anecdote of the early recognition of the painter’s genius, pleasantly related by Miss Mitford, in her Belford Regis.
“Sometime in November, 1831, Mr. Cribb, an ornamental gilder in London, (King-street, Covent Garden,) was struck with a small picture—a cattle-piece, in a shop window in Greek-street, Soho. On inquiring for the artist, he could learn no tidings of him; but the people of the shop promised to find him out. Time after time, our persevering lover of the arts called to repeat his inquiries, but always unsuccessfully; until about three months after, when he found that the person he sought was a Mr. Thomas Sydney Cooper, a young artist, who had been for many years settled at Brussels, as a drawing-master, but had been driven from that city by the Revolution, which had deprived him of his pupils, among whom were some of the members of the royal family; and, unable to obtain employment in London as a cattle-painter, he had, with the generous self-devotion which most ennobles a man of genius, supported his family by making lithographic drawings of fashionable caps and bonnets, I suppose, as a puff for some milliner, or some periodical which deals in costumes. In the midst of this interesting family, and of these caps and bonnets, Mr. Cribb found him; and deriving from what he saw of his sketches and drawings additional conviction of his genius, he immediately commissioned him to paint a picture on his own subject, and at his own price, making such an advance as the richest artist could not scruple to accept on a commission, conjuring him to leave off caps and bonnets, and foretelling his future eminence. Mr. Cribb says, that he shall never forget the delight of Mr. Cooper’s face when he gave the order—he has the right to the luxury of such a recollection. Well! the picture was completed: our friend, Mr. Cribb, who is not a man to do his work by halves, bespoke a companion, and while that was painting, showed the first to a great number of artists and amateurs, who all agreed in expressing the strongest admiration, and in wondering where the painter could have been hidden. Before the second picture was half finished, a Mr. Carpenter, (I believe that I am right in the name,) gave Mr. Cooper a commission for a piece, which was exhibited in May, 1833, at the Suffolk-street Gallery; and from that moment orders poured in, and the artist’s fortune was made. It is right to add, that Mr. Cooper was generously eager to have this story made known, and Mr. Cribb as generously averse to its publication. But surety, it ought to be recorded for the example sake, and for their mutual honour.”