Chapter 4

[5] 'Chantrey esteemed highly the works of Roubiliac; he admired his busts; and thought the statue of Newton at Cambridge of the best character of portrait sculpture. The simplicity of the figure, united with the apparent intelligence and thought in the countenance, he considered as quite satisfactory; and although he generally disliked the imitation of any particular material in drapery, he was reconciled to the college dress of the philosopher. From its perfect arrangement, the imitation is so complete that the person who shows the statue at Cambridge always informs the visitor that it only requires to be black to render it a deception. He was inclined to tolerate anything that displayed ingenuity without violating possibility, yet he could never endure such extraneous and uninteresting matter as the shot, the barrel of powder, and the bent chamber of a piece of artillery in the monument to Lord Shannon, in Walton Church, which, with much to commend in the two figures, has a profusion of objects, and a grey marble background, representing a tent, altogether unnecessary and derogatory to the purity of sculpture. Still Roubiliac was rich in thought and reason, for, in his monument in Westminster Abbey, where he has represented Death as a skeleton, he felt that the thin and meagre bones would be as offensive as impracticable; therefore judiciously involved the greater part of the emblem in a shroud or drapery, adding thereby to his allegory and aiding his art. However hostile this style may be to the simplicity of sculpture, the ability of the artist in the conception and execution deserves high praise. The beadle of Worcester Cathedral informed a friend of Chantrey's, that when the sculptor was in that city he always went to see the monument to Bishop Hurd by Roubiliac, and remained a long time in intent observation of the work, for he thought the artist's power over the material surprising, though he disliked polishing the marble.'-_Recollections of Chantrey_, by George Jones, R.A.

The cast taken by Roubiliac from the face of Newton is in the Hunterian Museum, Glasgow.

There is no necessity for running through a list of Roubiliac's works. But his statue of Shakespeare is deserving of a passing notice. It of course fails to satisfy the students of the bard, who delight to pay equal homage to his philosophy as to his poetry. There is nothing of the sage about the work: it is wholly of the _stage_ indeed. It is replete with Roubiliac's established ecstatic super-elegant manner; with a strong tinge of theatricalism, possibly added by Garrick, for whose temple at Hampton the statue was undertaken; who attitudinized in aid, as he imagined, of the sculptor's labours, with a cry of 'Behold the swan of Avon!' and who, it must be said, at all times entertained a very 'footlight' view of the poet. The price paid for the work was three hundred guineas only. Roubiliac was to supply the best marble he could for the money. Unfortunately the block turned out to be much spotted and streaked; the head was especially disfigured with blue stains. 'What!' cried Garrick, 'was Shakespeare marked with mulberries?' It became necessary to sever the head from the shoulders and replace it with one of purer marble. The statue was completed in 1758. Under the terms of Garrick's will, it became, on the death of his widow, the property of the nation, and it now stands in the entrance-hall of the British Museum. After the purists and the exacting have said their worst against the statue, it will yet be found--from the spirit of its execution, its cleverness, and 'go,' to resort to a vulgarism--charming a very large class of uncritical examiners.

As Lord Chesterfield said of Roubiliac, 'he was the only statuary of his day; all other artists were mere stone-cutters.' It is very desirable, in estimating his merits, to bear in mind that he stood alone; his rivals, Rysbrach and Scheemakers, he had completely outstripped; and, apart from his following of Bernini, he was clearly an artist of an original and creative kind. What is hard to forgive in him, however, and what indeed has much detracted from his reputation, is the fact that a long list of allegorical monstrosities was in some sort the result of his example. Charmed with certain of his works, and possessed just then by particular memories it deemed deserving of monumental celebration, the nation rushed recklessly to its stone-cutters. The terrible works which blemish and blister the walls of our cathedrals and churches were the consequences. Verrio and Laguerre had long set the fashion of disfiguring ceilings and staircases with their incomprehensible compositions. Roubiliac carved similar parabolic productions in marble and set them up in Westminster Abbey and elsewhere. In these, heathen divinities jostle Christian emblems; Paganism is seen abreast of true religion. In the aisle of a Gothic abbey, John, Duke of Argyle and Greenwich, warrior and orator, expires at the foot of a pyramid, on which History, weeping, writes his deeds, while Minerva (or Britannia) mourns at the side, and Eloquence above, tossing white arms in the air, deplores the loss she has sustained. Here we find Hercules placing the bust of Sir Peter Warren upon a pedestal, while Navigation prepares to crown it with a laurel wreath; a British flag forming the background and a horn of plenty emptying its contents beside an anchor and a cannon. In the monument to Marshal Wade, Time is endeavouring to destroy a pillar adorned with military trophies, which fame as zealously protects. The famous Nightingale memorial represents a husband shielding a dying wife from the attack of Death: a grinning skeleton levelling a javelin as he issues from the opening iron door of a tomb. The admirable execution of these works cannot blind the critic to the utter unfitness and folly of their conception.

But Roubiliac's successors far outbid him in absurdity. To a number of people a precedent is always a point of departure--an example to be imitated with violent exaggeration. After our sculptor came a deluge of imbecility. We are then among stone-cutters who shrink from nothing; we are treated then to clouds that look like muffins--to waves that resemble pancakes. Apotheosis becomes preposterous; allegory goes fairly mad. Glancing at certain post-Roubiliac achievements, we long for an earthquake. Nicholas Read, the least competent of his pupils, upon the sculptor's death occupied his studio, advertised himself as successor to Mr. Roubiliac, and, strange to say, was largely employed: the execution of the monuments to Admiral Tyrrell and the Duchess of Northumberland, in Westminster Abbey, being intrusted to him. During his master's life the apprentice had boasted of the great deeds he would do when he had served his time. Roubiliac cried scornfully, in his broken English: 'Ven you do de monument, den de vorld vill see vot von d----d ting you vill make of it!' His words were justified by Read's monument to Admiral Tyrrell: possibly the most execrable work in stone in existence; which is saying a good deal. As Nollekens would often remark of it: 'Read's admiral going to heaven looks for all the world as though he were hanging from a gallows with a rope round his neck.'

As Roubiliac's first work was a statue of Handel for Vauxhall Gardens, so his last was a statue of the same great composer for Westminster Abbey. He died on the 11th January 1762, and was buried in St. Martin's Churchyard, 'under the window of the Bell Bagnio.' His funeral was attended by the leading members of the Society of Artists, then meeting at the Academy in Peter's Court, St. Martin's Lane: the room they occupied, it may be noted, having been Roubiliac's first workshop. The artists following the funeral were:--Mr. (afterwards Sir Joshua) Reynolds, Moser, Hogarth, Tyler, Sandby, Hayman, Wilton, Bartolozzi, Cipriani, Payne, Chambers (afterwards Sir William), Serres, Ravenet, the elder Grignon, Meyer, and Hudson; and the dead master's three pupils, John Adkins, Nicholas Read, and Nathaniel Smith.

Roubiliac died poor; indeed, seriously in debt. Yet he had married well, it would seem. An old newspaper, under date January 1752, records: 'Married Mr. Roubiliac, the statuary in St. Martin's Lane, to Miss Crossley of Deptford, worth £10,000.' No particulars of his married life have come down to us, however. It is probable that his wife predeceased him. The money was spent in any case. Perhaps she never possessed so much as the world gave her credit for. The sale of his effects, after payment of his funeral expenses, left only about one-and-sixpence in the pound to his creditors. Though constantly employed, the prices he received were small; and a thoroughly conscientious artist, he never spared time or labour upon the commissions he had undertaken. He was not, it is stated, extravagant in his habits; did not waste his means in the support of a pretentious establishment. On the contrary, his method of life was very modest: his tastes were simple enough. Society was not yet prepared to admit the professions to her _salons_; her somewhat costly caresses were reserved for the ingenious of a succeeding generation. Roubiliac was content to live that easy pleasant tavern life favoured by the men of letters and artists of the eighteenth century, and with which Johnson and Boswell have made us so intimately acquainted. A bottle of claret and a game of whist solaced his leisure hours; and these were not numerous: he was constantly to be found in his studio, late at night, hard at work long after his assistants had retired: a vivacious, honest, warm-hearted man, much and justly esteemed by his friends and contemporaries.

He was a familiar acquaintance of Goldsmith, who in his Chinese letters speaks of him kindly as 'the little sculptor.' He was fond of music, and Goldsmith would play the flute to him. As Sir John Hawkins records, the sculptor once tricked the poet by pretending to set down the notes on paper as Goldsmith played them. Goldsmith looked over the paper afterwards with seeming great attention, said it was quite correct, and that if he had not seen him do it he never could have believed his friend capable of writing music after him. Roubiliac had jotted down notes at random. Neither had any real knowledge of music, and Goldsmith played entirely by ear.

His intimate and fellow-sculptor--a painter also--Adrien Charpentier, executed a characteristic portrait of Roubiliac. He is represented at work upon a small-size model of his Shakespeare. He is touching the eye of the figure with his modelling tool, and the task, one of some delicacy and difficulty, adds to the animation of the operator. His head, where it is not covered by the fanciful loose head-dress affected by poets and artists of the period, is bald: possibly shaven, for the convenience of wig-wearing, after the custom of the time. His dress is disordered, his bosom bare, his wristbands loose. Had Roubiliac carved his own statue in stone, it would probably, in treatment, have closely followed Charpentier's picture.

A portrait of Roubiliac, painted by himself, was sold for three-and-sixpence only at the sale of his effects. The prices, indeed, at this sale seem to have been desperately low. There were no antiquities or objects of _virtù_ brought to the hammer: and Mr. Canto was not the auctioneer! A copy by Reynolds of the Chandos portrait of Shakespeare, with seven other pictures, was knocked down for ten shillings only, the father of John Flaxman being the purchaser. Reynolds had painted the picture as a present to his friend, Mr. Roubiliac. It afterwards became the property of Mr. Edmond Malone.

THE RISE OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY.

The famous artists of the Continent almost invariably organize schools of art, converting their studios into miniature academies, surrounding themselves with pupils and disciples who sit at their feet, listen to their teaching, assist them by painting for them the less important portions of their works, adopt their processes, and follow their styles of drawing and colouring. There is something to be said for the system. It is an advantage to the young student to be constantly brought into contact with a real master of the art; to have the opportunity of working under his supervision, and, on the other hand, of watching him at his labours, and of witnessing the birth, growth, and completion of his best pictures. The main objection to the plan is that it may develop merely imitative ability rather than stimulate genuine originality; that it inclines the student to follow too scrupulously a beaten track rather than strike out a fresh pathway for himself. He may reproduce the virtues of his exemplar's art, but he will certainly copy its vices as well. And then the difficult question arises: when is he to assert his independence? At what period in his career is he to cease leaning on his teacher, and to pursue his own devices unaided and alone? He may have tied his leading-strings so tightly about him that liberty of thought and action has become almost impossible to him, and the free use of his limbs, so to speak, has gone from him. It is quite true that the artist should be a student all his life; but then he should be a student of art generally, not of any one professor of art in particular, or he will be simply the pupil of a great master to the end of the chapter, never a great master himself.

Objection to a system of instruction that may tend to perpetuate mannerism, to cramp originality, and fetter genius, has of late years led to considerable opposition to art-academies generally, whenever more is contemplated by them than the mere school-teaching of the pupil, and the affording him assistance at the outset of his professional life. Haydon was fond of declaring 'that academies all over Europe were signals of distress thrown out to stop the decay of art,' but that they had failed egregiously, and rather hastened the result they had intended to hinder. Fuseli asserted that 'all schools of painters, whether public or private, supported by patronage or individual contribution, were and are symptoms of art in distress, monuments of public dereliction and decay of taste.' He proceeded afterwards to defend such schools, however, as the asylum of the student, the theatre of his exercises, the repositories of the materials, the archives of art, whose principles their officers were bound to maintain, and for the preservation of which they were responsible to posterity, etc. Dr. Waagen was of opinion that the academic system gave an artificial elevation to mediocrity; that it deadened natural talent, and introduced into the freedom of art an unsalutary degree of authority and interference. The late Horace Vernet entertained similar views, recommending the suppression of the French Academy at Rome. M. Say (the Adam Smith of France) held that all Academies were in truth hostile to the fine arts; and a report of a committee of the English House of Commons (1836) went far in the same direction, venturing to predict the probability 'that the principle of free competition in art as in commerce would ultimately triumph over all artificial institutions,' and that 'governments might at some future period content themselves with holding out prizes or commissions to the different but co-equal societies of artists, and refuse the dangerous gift of pre-eminence to any.'

In England the school of the individual great artist upon the continental plan seems to have had no counterpart. Favourite portrait-painters have, now and then, employed a staff of subordinates to paint the draperies, and fill in the backgrounds of their works, but the persons thus employed have been mechanicians rather than artists. Northcote was the pupil of Reynolds, and Harlowe was taught by Lawrence; but in neither case was there much attempt at maintaining a school of manner, as it would be understood out of England. The works of Northcote and Harlowe contain traces of the teaching of their preceptors little more than do the productions of their contemporaries, and they certainly bequeathed no distinct traditions of style to their successors. In England the foundation of a National Academy, or of an institution in any measure manifesting the characteristics of a National Academy, took place long subsequent to the rise of the foreign Academies. And the English Royal Academy, as at present constituted, cannot be said to occupy a position analogous to that of foreign academies. As was expressed in the Report of the Parliamentary Committee of 1836: 'It is not a public national institution like the French Academy, since it lives by exhibition and takes money at the door, yet it possesses many of the privileges of a public body without bearing the direct burthen of public responsibility.' Or, as was succinctly explained by Mr. Westmacott, himself an academician, before the commissioners appointed in 1863 to inquire into the position of the Royal Academy: 'When we wish not to be interfered with we are private, when we want anything of the public we are public;' and then he goes on to say: 'The Academy is distinctly a private institution, and, admitting it is not perfect, doing great public good all for nothing,' _i.e_., without charge. Mr. Westmacott was unconsciously pleading guilty to Haydon's accusation that 'the academicians constituted in truth a private society, which they always put forward when you wish to examine them, and they always proclaim themselves a public society when they want to benefit by any public vote.'

For long years the sentiment had prevailed in England that art was no affair of the State, had no sort of interest for the governing power of the country, or indeed for the general public; and it was, of course, left to those persons to whom an Academy of Art was in any way a matter of necessity or importance, to found such an institution for themselves. Certainly the encouragement given to the painter during the first half of the eighteenth century was insignificant enough. He was viewed much as the astrologer or the alchemist; his proceedings, the world argued, were sufficiently foolish and futile, but still harmless; he was not particularly in anybody's way, and therefore it was not worth anybody's while to molest or displace him. But as for patronizing, or valuing, or rewarding him, turning upon him the light of the royal countenance, or cheering him with popular applause, those were quite other matters. King, and Court, and people had vastly different things to think about. He was just suffered, not succoured in any way. He must get on as well as he could, educating, improving, helping himself. As for aid from the State, that was absolutely out of the question.

For the benefit of his brother artists and of himself, therefore, Sir Godfrey Kneller, who had lived in happier times, so far as art was concerned--for the Stuarts had some love for poetry and painting, though the Hanoverian sovereigns had not--instituted a private drawing Academy in London in the year 1711. Of this Academy, Vertue, who collected the materials for the 'Anecdotes of Painting,' which Walpole digested and published, was one of the first members, studying there some years; and it was probably of this institution that Hogarth wrote in 1760, describing it as founded by some gentlemen painters of the first rank, who, in imitation of the Academy of France, introduced certain forms and solemnities into their proceedings which were objectionable to several members, and led to divisions and jealousies in the general body. Finally, the president and his followers, finding themselves caricatured and opposed, locked out their opponents and closed the Academy.

Sir James Thornhill, who had headed the most important of the parties into which the institution had become divided, and who held the appointment of historical painter to George I., then submitted to the Government of the day a plan for the foundation of a Royal Academy which should encourage and educate the young artists of England. He proposed that a suitable building, with apartments for resident professors, should be erected at the upper end of the King's Mews, Charing Cross. The cost of carrying out this plan was estimated at little more than three thousand pounds; but although Lord Treasurer Halifax gave his support, the Government negatived the proposition, and declined to find the necessary means.

Sir James, not altogether daunted by his ill success, determined to do what he could on his own responsibility, and without aid from the Treasury. He opened a Drawing Academy, therefore, at his house in James Street, Covent Garden, on the east side, where, as a writer in 1804 describes the situation, 'the back offices and painting-room abutted upon Langford's (then Cock's) Auction Room in the Piazza,' and gave tickets to all who desired admission. It is to be feared that Sir James's generosity was somewhat abused. Certain it is that dissensions arose in his Academy as in Kneller's; that one Vandrebank headed an opposition party, and at length withdrew with his adherents to found a rival school. According to Hogarth, 'he converted an old meeting-house into an Academy, and introduced a female figure to make it more inviting to subscribers.' But this establishment did not last long, the subscriptions were not forthcoming, and the fittings and furniture of the school were seized for debt. Upon the death of Sir James, in 1734, his Academy was also closed.

But a school had now become indispensably necessary to the artists of the day. After a time they forgot their differences, and again united. Hogarth had become possessed of his father-in-law Sir James Thornhill's furniture, which he was willing to lend to an association of artists founding a new school; a subscription was accordingly arranged, and a room 'large enough to admit of thirty or forty persons drawing after a naked figure,' was hired in the house of Mr. Hyde, a painter in Greyhound Court, Arundel Street, Strand. Hogarth, attributing the failure of preceding academies to an assumption of superior authority on the part of members whose subscriptions were of largest amount, proposed that all members should equally contribute to the maintenance of the establishment, and should possess equal rights of voting on all questions relative to its affairs. For many years this academy, which, in 1738, removed to more convenient premises[6] in Peter's Court, St. Martin's Lane, existed in a most satisfactory manner. To this school of Hogarth's, as we may fairly consider it, the majority of the English painters of the reign of George II. and the early part of George III., owed much of their art education. Perhaps the success of the school was due in great part to the discretion and good management of the artist who had been nominated its chief instructor: George Michael Moser, a gold and silver chaser, enameller and modeller, Swiss by birth. Something also it owed to its unpretentious yet practical and utilitarian character. The artists were bound together by mutual convenience; their school, conferring no degrees, aiming at no distinction, was of equal advantage to all. It was strictly a private institution, in no way attracting to itself public notice or asking for aid from the public purse.

[6] Roubiliac's first workshop.