1789. Dulwich Gallery
only know it from engravings. Tom Taylor considered it “a confused straggling picture, quite beyond the power of the painter to manage.” But this is scarcely the criticism it deserves, and we prefer the more adulatory notices of his contemporaries. In the Exhibition of 1788—the last but two in which Reynolds was represented—it was hung over the chimney-piece. “It was the first picture which presented itself on entering the room,” says Northcote, “and had the most splendid effect of any picture I ever saw.... It was a large and grand composition, and in respect to beauty, colour, and expression was equal to any picture known in the world. The middle group, which received the principal light, was exquisite in the highest degree.” James Barry was no less enthusiastic over it: “Nothing can exceed the brilliancy of light, the force and vigorous effect ... it possesses all that we look for and are accustomed to admire in Rembrandt, united to beautiful forms and to an elevation of mind to which Rembrandt had no pretensions; the prophetical agitation of Tiresias and Juno, enveloped with clouds, hanging over the scene like a black pestilence, can never be too much admired, and is, indeed, truly sublime.”
The Nativity, which he painted in 1779, was purchased by the Duke of Rutland at the then unheard of price of £1200. Unfortunately it perished in a fire at Belvoir Castle, and we only know it from the engraving, and from the rendering of it in glass by Jervas as the central part of the western window of New College, Oxford. But it is doubtful whether the loss is as great as it is deplorable, in view of the opinions expressed by at least two not unfriendly critics. Mason tells us that “the day of opening the Exhibition that year when the picture was in hand approached too hastily upon Sir Joshua, who had resolved that it should then make its public appearance. I saw him at work upon it, even the very day before it was to be sent thither; and it grieved me to see him laying loads of colour and varnish upon it....” Benjamin Haydon when the whole series was exhibited in 1821, allowing that they are unequalled by any series of allegorical designs painted by an English master, and that the Charity in particular is “very lovely,” and “may take its place triumphantly by any Correggio on earth,” is merciless to The Nativity. He condemns it for “having emptiness as breadth, plastering for surface, and portrait individuality for general nature.”
The Macbeth, which was commenced just a year after The Infant Hercules, was a commission from Alderman Boydell—half of which, by-the-by, was paid in advance—as part of the scheme for the Shakespeare Gallery. The Cardinal Beaufort was the same. Neither can be said to have advanced Sir Joshua’s reputation or even his popularity as much as the Puck, which was purchased by Boydell for inclusion in the Shakespeare series, although not originally intended for it.
The Continence of Scipio followed the Hercules to Russia. The Holy Family, which was commissioned by Macklin for a Bible illustration, has lately been restored and rehung in the National Gallery. It was for long supposed to have suffered beyond repair, but the restorer, if he has not done too much to it, has certainly not done too little, and it now presents an appearance which attracts to it a greater amount of attention from the casual visitor than from the student.
In his minor works of this class, however, there is much more both to charm and to satisfy. If his children have not quite the same spontaneous gaiety of Gainsborough’s, they have many other qualities and distinctions which Gainsborough’s lack. With the Heads of Angels and The Age of Innocence Reynolds is sure of his public in any period.
The Strawberry Girl, as Sir Joshua always maintained, was one of the “half-dozen original things” which he declared no man ever exceeded in his life’s work. He repeated the picture several times. Lord Carysfort bought the original from the Exhibition of 1773 for £50, but at the sale of Samuel Rogers’ collection it was bought by the Marquis of Hertford for 2100 guineas.
To realise the full extent of England’s debt to Reynolds one must read his “Discourses” as well as look at his pictures. It is in passages such as the concluding paragraph of his farewell address to the Academy students that we find the real secrets of his success. Speaking of Michel Angelo, he says: “It will not, I hope, be thought presumptuous in me to appear in the train, I cannot say of his imitators, but of his admirers. I have taken another course, one more suited to my abilities and to the taste of the times in which I live. Yet however unequal I feel myself to that attempt, were I now to begin the world
