In Russia, Verestchagin is the only name that has made any stir, but he, like Heffner, sees Nature topographically, and the only emotion caused by his “show” was called up by the oriental rugs.
Flemish Art.
Rubens and Van Dyck.
Rubens and Van Dyck we mention only to show we have not overlooked them. The work of both shows more regard for “getting on” and the “ancients” than for nature: it is lacking in feeling and in truth. Van Dyck is often wood itself. |Teniers and Van Ostade.| Teniers the younger as an artist is a long way ahead of either of these men, and in some ways he goes very far. Van Ostade is often good also. His portrait of a man lighting his pipe, a small picture to be seen at the Dulwich Gallery, is a masterpiece of painting, and as fine as anything of the kind done up to this period. This little gem is the work of a lover of nature and an artist. It is quite a small canvas, about 10 × 6, with no “subject,” nothing but a man lighting his pipe; yet it is perfect, and far surpasses all the sentimentalities of Raphael, or the tours de force of Rubens. The student must see this picture without fail.
English Art.
Hogarth.
The English painters of note begin with Hogarth, though the bad work of Lely and Kneller is cited as English, because executed in England, yet neither of these two men was English, and no lover of art would be proud of them if they were. Hogarth, then, was the father of English painting, and he began on good healthy lines, for he was a naturalist to the backbone, choosing his subjects from his own time; and though he affected to point a moral in his pictures, still there is the grip of reality and insight into essentials in his work which mark him as a great painter. The reader will probably have seen his work at the National Gallery; if not, he should do so at once.
Wilson.
We pass over Wilson, for in his work is not apparent any love of nature, but only a feeling for classicism. |Reynolds.| The next name is that of Joshua Reynolds. He was a mannerist, and, though successful in his own time, is very mortal. |Gainsborough.| Close on his knightly heels came one of the true immortals, Thomas Gainsborough, one of the best portrait-painters the world has ever seen. His landscapes, though better than any up to his time, are not good, and his reputation rests chiefly on his power in portraiture, in which he was certainly a master. Naturalism breathes from his canvas; he has seized the very essence of his sitters' being, and portrayed them full of life and beauty. See his portrait of Mrs. Tickell and Mrs. Sheridan in the Dulwich Gallery; you will never forget the charm and the beauty of the ladies, wherever you go afterwards. Mrs. Siddons, in the National Gallery, too, is wonderful. Study well these two, and then go and gaze on a portrait by Reynolds, and we doubt not you will have learnt something of the gulf that separated the two painters. Gainsborough was, to our mind, the first immortal in English art, and fit to rank with Van Eyck, Holbein, Da Vinci, Titian, and Velasquez. |Kauffman and Fuseli.| Leaving “the Kauffman” and Fuseli to those who can admire them, we pass on to poor George Morland, a genius in his own branch of art. |Morland.| This man studied and painted from life, and his pictures bear testimony that he did so, and notwithstanding the drawbacks caused by his unfortunate temperament, his name lives and grows more respected every day, for his study was nature, and so his work will always be interesting.
Bewick.