CHARACTERISTICS, RETROSPECTIVE OPINIONS,

AND PERSONAL TRAITS.

CHARACTER OF GAINSBOROUGH, BY REYNOLDS.

WHEN Gainsborough had been lain in the grave about four months, Sir Joshua, in his Fourteenth Discourse, drew attention to the excellencies and defects of the deceased painter, observing: "If ever this nation should produce genius sufficient to acquire to us the honourable distinction of an English School, the name of Gainsborough will be transmitted to posterity, in the history of the Art, among the very first of that rising name."

Sir Joshua then refers to the customs and habits of Gainsborough, and the causes of his excellence, the love which he had for his art.

He had a habit of continually remarking to those who hap pened to be about him, whatever peculiarity of countenance, whatever accidental combination of figure, or happy effects of light and shadow occurred in prospects, in the sky, in walking the streets, or in company. If in his walks he found a character that he liked, and whose attendance was to be obtained, he ordered him to his house: and from the fields he brought into his painting-room stumps of trees, weeds, and animals of various kinds, and designed them, not from memory, but immediately from the objects. He even framed a kind of model of landscapes on his table, composed of broken stones, dried herbs, and pieces of looking-glass, which he magnified and improved into rocks, trees, and water.*

Sir Joshua then refers to Gainsborough's custom of painting by night, a practice very advantageous and improving to an artist. "Another practice Gainsborough had, which is worth mentioning, as it is certainly worthy of imitation: I mean his

* He made (says Jackson,) little laymen for human figures, he modelled his horses and cows, and knobs of coal sat for rocks-nay, he carried this so far, that he never chose to paint anything from invention, when he could have the objects themselves. The limbs of trees, which he collected, would have made no inconsiderable wood-rick, and many an ass has been led into his painting-room.

manner of forming all the parts of his picture together, the whole going on at the same time, in the same manner as Nature creates her works. Though this method is not uncommon to those who have been regularly educated, yet probably it was suggested to him by his own natural sagacity." Reynolds then briefly alludes to his last interview with Gainsborough, and resumes:

"When such a man as Gainsborough arrives to great fame, without the assistance of an academical education, without travelling to Italy, or any of those preparatory studies which have been so often recommended, he is produced as an instance how little such studies are necessary, since so great excellence may be acquired without them. This is an inference not warranted by the success of any individual, and I trust it will not be thought that I wish to make this use of it."

Reynolds then adverts to Gainsborough's method of handling, his habit of scratching.

"All these odd scratches and marks," he observes, "which, on a close examination, are so observable in Gainsborough's pictures, and which, even to experienced painters, appear rather the effect of accident than design; this chaos, this uncouth and shapeless appearance, by a kind of magic, at a certain distance assumes form, and all the parts seem to drop into their proper places; so that we can hardly refuse acknowledging the full effect of diligence, under the appearance of chance and hasty negligence. That Gainsborough himself considered this peculiarity in his manner, and the power it possesses of exciting surprise, as a beauty in his works, I think, may be inferred from the eager desire which we know he always expressed, that his pictures, at the Exhibition, should be seen near as well as at a distance."

PORTRAITS BY GAINSBOROUGH.

Among the famous portraits of famous men, painted by Gainsborough at Bath, was the first Lord Camden, a kind friend to the artist; Cramer, the metallurgist, the gilt buttons of whose coat are rendered with appropriate truthfulness; and the authors of Pamela and the Sentimental Journey. To Sterne's picture we may apply the words of Tristram Shandy: "Reynolds himself, great and graceful as he was, might have painted it." Richardson's head is a splendid

performance; the parted lips and animated face seem to indicate that he must, when taken, have been discoursing on a favourite subject. Mr. Fulcher, whose Life we quote, adds: "it is said that Chatterton also sat to Gainsborough, and that the portrait of the marvellous boy, with his long flowing hair and child-like face, is a master-piece."

Upon the latter, a Bristolian correspondent of Notes and Queries, Second Series, No. 35, states this presumed portrait was not painted for Chatterton, but some youth in Bristol, name unknown, and that it was picked up at an old-clothes shop in the Pithay, in that city. It has been also proved to be the son of a Mr. Morris, who painted it, the name upon the back having been altered to Chatterton. Mr. Fulcher received his information from a Mr. Naylor, the possessor of the portrait: it reached down to the boy's waist: he is dressed in green, apparently a charity-coat; this is worthy of note, for Chatterton was placed at Colston's Charity School, and remained there till July 1, 1767, when he had not quite attained the age of fifteen; so that, while he was in the garb of a charity-scholar, Chatterton may have sat to Gainsborough.

Gainsborough painted several portraits of himself, two of which stood in his gallery at the time of his death, but with their faces modestly turned towards the wainscot. Miss Gainsborough gave one to the Royal Academy,-its members presenting her with a silver vase, designed by West, "as a token of respect to the abilities of her Father." This vase is now in the possession of the painter's great-nephew, the Rev. Gainsborough Gardiner, of Worcester. (Fulcher.)

Two of his finest female portraits (whole lengths) are in the Dulwich Gallery: Mrs. Sheridan and Mrs. Tickell. Mrs. Sheridan was Maria Linley, the first wife of R. B. Sheridan. Madame D'Arblay said her beauty surpassed almost any she had ever seen, and Reynolds thought it nearly divine. Gainsborough, we have related, modelled Maria Linley, at Bath; he had often watched the wondrous grace of her light form; he had been charmed with the gentleness, the modesty, and feminine sweetness, of her who was "half-way between a woman and an angel."

All our living princes and princesses in Gainsborough's time were painted by him, the Duke of York excepted, of whom he had three pictures bespoken.

Gainsborough painted, under interesting circumstances,

Master Heathcote, a little boy four years of age, holding in one hand his black hat and feathers, and in the other a bunch of flowers. The painter chanced to be on a visit at Bath, when a destructive sickness was raging in different parts of the kingdom. The parents of Master Heathcote, having lost their other children by the epidemic, were anxious to secure a portrait of the one yet spared to them. They applied to Gainsborough, who declined, as he had visited Bath for recreation; but, on hearing the circumstances of the case, he requested Mrs. Heathcote to let him see her son. The next morning, the boy, dressed in a plain white muslin frock, with a blue sash, was taken to Gainsborough. "You have brought him simply dressed," he said; "had you paraded him in a fancy costume, I would not have painted him; now I will gladly comply with your request."

Mr. Fulcher describes Gainsborough's portrait of Dr. Schomberg as one of the finest pictures in the world: he is looking towards the spectator, and is dressed in velvet, in colour something between pink and crimson; the landscape background is admirably painted.

DRAWINGS AND SKETCHES.

Of these Gainsborough made, perhaps, more than any other artist, ancient or modern. Jackson had seen, at least, one thousand, not one of which but possessed some merit, and some in a transcendent degree. These were executed in oil and water colours, in chalks-black, white, and coloured,-in leadpencil, sepia, bistre, and Indian ink. Many of these studies were in black and white, applied thus: a small bit of sponge, tied to a bit of stick, served as a pencil for the shadows, and a small lump of whiting, held by a pair of tea-tongs, were the instruments by which the high lights were applied,—a method of execution to which a lady applied the appropriate epithet of "mopping."

One of Gainsborough's finest drawings is a portrait of Pitt, in crayons, purchased by the Earl of Normanton at the sale of Sir Thomas Lawrence's pictures: on the portrait Sir Thomas had written the words, "unique and inestimable." These studies were executed with marvellous rapidity, Mr. Richmond has a head of young Dupont, in oil, which Thicknesse says, was painted in an hour, a work of most masterly execution, equal to anything by Vandyke.-Fulcher.

GAINSBOROUGH'S SEA-PIECES.

He painted but four. "He never pretended," observes Jackson, "to the correctness of rigging, &c., but I have seen some general effects of sea, sea-coast, and vessels, that have been truly masterly." He usually introduced the sea and a ship by way of background to his portraits of sailors, as in those of Admiral Vernon, Captain Augustus Hervey, and Captain Roberts, the companions of Captain Cook in his last voyage round the world. "In the Exhibition of 1781, he had," says Walpole, "two pieces of land and sea, so free and natural, that one steps back for fear of being splashed."

GAINSBOROUGH'S LANDSCAPES.

Finishing was not the painter's aim; for he usually painted with a very long and very broad brush, stood very far from his canvas, and in a room with very little light. Portraits were not his forte; yet, during fifteen years, he had contributed to the Artists' Society and the Academy, about fifty portraits, and but eleven landscapes, with some drawings. "Gainsborough's landscapes," says Sir William Beechey, "stood ranged in long lines from his hall to his paintingroom; and they who came to sit for their portraits, for which he was chiefly employed, rarely deigned to honour them with a look as they passed." To the Exhibition of 1780, however, Gainsborough contributed no less than five landscapes, which Walpole has characterised as charming, very spirited, &c., "one especially is worthy of any collection, and of any painter that ever existed."

The first master Gainsborough studied was Wynants, whose thistles and dock-leaves he has frequently introduced into his early pictures. The next was Ruysdael; but his colouring is less sombre, though the pencilling of the Englishman was less accurate than that of the Fleming. He has sometimes very happily seized upon the best manner of Teniers. In a view of company in St. James's Park, he even excelled Watteau.* He made Snyders his model for animals.

The late Sir William Curtis was so warm an admirer of

* The View in the Mall of St. James's Park, painted in 1786. Northcote says: "It is all in motion and in a flutter like a lady's fan. Watteau is not half so airy." Most of the figures are portraits, and Gainsborough has introduced himself, sketching the gay assemblage.