Famous European Artists

by Sarah Knowles Bolton

"The evident desire which Reynolds had," writes Northcote, his pupil and biographer, "to render his pictures perfect to the utmost of his ability, and in each succeeding instance to surpass the former, occasioned his frequently making them inferior to what they had been in the course of the process; and when it was observed to him that probably he had never sent out to the world any one of his paintings in as perfect a state as it had been, he answered 'that he believed the remark was very just; but that, notwithstanding, he certainly gained ground by it on the whole, and improved himself by the experiment;' adding, 'if you are not bold enough to run the risk of losing, you can never hope to gain.'

"With the same wish of advancing himself in the art, I have heard him say that whenever a new sitter came to him for a portrait, he always began it with a full determination to make it the best picture he had ever painted; neither would he allow it to be an excuse for his failure to say 'the subject was a bad one for a picture;' there was always nature, he would observe, which, if well treated, was fully sufficient for the purpose."

The portrait of his friend Admiral Keppel, standing on a sandy beach, and back of him a tempestuous sea, did much to establish the reputation of Reynolds. He painted eight other pictures of this brave man, who entered the navy at ten and at eighteen had been round the world.

"Keppel was the first of many heroes painted by Reynolds," writes Leslie, "who was never excelled, even by Velasquez, in the expression of heroism. So anxious was he to do all possible justice to his gallant friend, and so difficult did he find it to please himself, that after several sittings he effaced all he had done, and began the picture again....

"From an early period Reynolds adopted what he strongly recommended in his Discourses, the practice of drawing with the hair pencil instead of the port-crayon; and this constant use of the brush gave him a command of the instrument, if ever equalled, certainly never exceeded, for there are marvels of delicacy and of finish in his execution, combined with a facility and a spirit unlike anything upon the canvases of any other painter. I am far from meaning that in the works of other great masters there are not many excellences which Reynolds did not possess; but what I would note is that, though he was all his life studying the works of other artists, he could not, and it was fortunate that he could not, escape from his own manner into theirs."

Reynolds once said to Northcote, "There is not a man on earth who has the least notion of coloring; we all of us have it equally to seek for and find out, as at present it is totally lost to the art.... I had not an opportunity of being early initiated in the principles of coloring; no man, indeed, could teach me. If I have never been settled with respect to coloring, let it at the same time be remembered that my unsteadiness in this respect proceeded from an inordinate desire to possess every kind of excellence that I saw in the works of others, without considering that there are in coloring, as in style, excellences which are incompatible with each other; however, this pursuit, or, indeed, any similar pursuit, prevents the artist from being tired of his art.... I tried every effect of color; and, leaving out every color in its turn, showed every color that I could do without it. As I alternately left out every color, I tried every new color, and often, it is well known, failed....

"I considered myself as playing a great game; and, instead of beginning to save money, I laid it out faster than I got it, in purchasing the best examples of art that could be produced, for I even borrowed money for this purpose. The possession of pictures by Titian, Vandyck, Rembrandt, etc., I considered as the best kind of wealth." He said, in order to obtain one of Titian's best works he "would be content to ruin himself."

Reynolds was probably never surpassed in the drawing of the face, but was not always correct in the human form, because of insufficient knowledge of anatomy.

During Reynolds's second year in London, he had one hundred and twenty sitters, dukes and duchesses, members of Parliament, and reigning beauties. That of Mrs. Bonfoy, daughter of the first Lord Eliot, is, says Leslie, "one of his most beautiful female portraits, and in perfect preservation. The lady is painted as a half-length, in a green dress, with one hand on her hip, and the head turned, with that inimitable grace of which Reynolds was master beyond all the painters who ever painted women."

Already Reynolds had become the friend of the great-hearted, great-minded Dr. Samuel Johnson, who came and went at all hours to the artist's home, and who, when about to be arrested for trivial debts, was again and again befriended by the artist's purse. In 1756, Reynolds painted for himself a half-length of Johnson, with a pen in his hand, sitting at a table. This picture is used in Boswell's Life.