CHAPTER XI.

SUBJECT PAINTERS.

Domestic subject, or _genre_, painting in England may be said to have originated with Hogarth, but it made slow progress after his death till the commencement of the nineteenth century. Historic pictures of a large size were neither popular nor profitable. Corporate bodies did not care to spend money on the adornment of their guild halls, and ordinary householders had no room for large pictures. Englishmen are essentially _domestic_, and pictures small enough to hang in small houses, and illustrative of home life, suit their necessities, and appeal to their feelings far more strongly than vast canvases representing battles or sacred histories. In _genre_ painting the Dutch school has ever been prominent; to it we doubtless owe much of the popularity of this branch of art in England, where our painters have chosen familiar subjects, without descending to the coarse or sensual incidents in which some old Dutch artists delighted. The _genre_ painters of this country have mainly drawn their subjects from our national poets and prose writers and the every-day life of Englishmen, sometimes verging on the side of triviality, but on the whole including pleasing works, which, as it has been well said, "bear the same relation to historic art as the tale or novel does to history."

DAVID WILKIE (1785--1841) was born in his father's manse at Cults, Fifeshire. It was fully intended that Wilkie should follow in his father's steps, and become a minister of the Scottish Kirk, but it was not to be so. He was placed, at his own earnest desire, in the Trustees' Academy, at Edinburgh, and there in 1803 justified the wisdom of this choice by gaining the ten-guinea premium for the best painting of the time, the subject being _Callisto in the Baths of Diana_. Next year young Wilkie visited his home, and painted _Piltassie Fair_, which he sold for L25. He painted portraits, and with the money thus acquired went to London in 1805. Having entered himself as a student at the Academy, Wilkie soon attracted attention by the _Village Politicians_, which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1806. One hundred of his paintings appeared from time to time on the Academy walls; each succeeding early work added to its author's fame. All his earlier works were _genre_ pictures. His favourite subjects are shown in _The Blind Fiddler_, _Card-Players_, _The Rent Day_, _The Jew's Harp_, _The Cut Finger_, _The Village Festival_, _Blindman's Buff_, _The Letter of Introduction_, _Duncan Gray_, _The Penny Wedding_, _Reading the Will_, _The Parish Beadle_, and _The Chelsea Pensioners_, the last painted for the Duke of Wellington. Wilkie was elected A.R.A. in 1809, and a full member in 1811. He went abroad in 1814, and again in 1825, when he visited Germany, Italy, and Spain. The study of the old masters, especially Correggio, Rembrandt, and Velazquez, had a marked effect on Wilkie, who changed both his style and subjects. He forsook _genre_ for history and portraiture, and substituted a light effective style of handling for the careful execution of his earlier works. _John Knox Preaching_ (National Gallery) is a good specimen of this second period of Wilkie's art. He succeeded Sir Thomas Lawrence in 1830 as Painter in Ordinary to the King, and was knighted six years later. In 1840 Wilkie visited the East, and painted the portrait of the Sultan Abdul Medjid. Next year, whilst far from home, on board a steamer off Gibraltar, he died, and found a grave in the sea. There are eleven of his pictures in the National Gallery. Her Majesty possesses most of the pictures painted by Wilkie in Spain, such as _The Guerilla Council of War_, and _The Maid of Saragossa_. Another Spanish picture, painted in England, is _Two Spanish Monks in the Cathedral of Toledo_, belonging to the Marquis of Lansdowne. In it we notice the painting of the hands, which are full of life and action, a characteristic in which Wilkie excelled. "His early art certainly made a great impression on the English school, showing how Dutch art might be nationalized, and story and sentiment added to scenes of common life treated with truth and individuality. As to his middle time, such pictures as the _John Knox_ also had their influence on the school, and the new mode of execution as supported by Wilkie's authority, a very evil influence, bringing discredit upon English pictures as entirely wanting in permanency. His methods and the pigments he used were soon discarded in England, but at the time they influenced, and have continued to influence, his countrymen long after his death." (_Redgrave._)

WILLIAM FREDERICK WITHERINGTON (1785--1865) combined landscape and subject painting in his art. He exhibited his first picture, _Tintern Abbey_, in 1811, and his succeeding works were principally landscapes and figure subjects in combination. Witherington was elected A.R.A. in 1830, and became a full member ten years later. Favourable specimens of his thoroughly English and pleasing pictures are _The Stepping Stones_ and _The Hop Garland_ in the National Gallery, and _The Hop Garden_ in the Sheepshanks Collection at South Kensington.

ABRAHAM COOPER (1787--1868), the son of an inn-keeper, was born in London, and early showed singular skill with his pencil. The inn stables furnished his first and favoured subjects, and the portrait of a favourite horse belonging to Sir Henry Meux gained him his first patron. In 1814 Cooper exhibited at the British Institution _Tam o'Shanter_, which was purchased by the Duke of Marlborough. In 1817 _The Battle of Marston Moor_ secured his election as an Associate of the Academy: he became a R.A. in 1820. There is little variety in the subjects of this painter's works. The best known are _The Pride of the Desert_, _Hawking in the Olden Time_, _The Dead Trooper_, _Richard I._ and _Saladin at the Battle of Ascalon_, and _Bothwell's Seizure of Mary, Queen of Scots_.

WILLIAM MULREADY (1786--1863), the ablest _genre_ painter in England except Wilkie, was born at Ennis, in the County Clare. Although his works are familiar to most of us as household words, few details of his life are known. We know that his father was a maker of leather-breeches, and that he came to London with his son when the latter was about five years old. The child is said to have shown very early the artistic power which was in him. He sat as a model for Solomon to John Graham, who was illustrating Macklin's Bible and probably the surroundings of the studio stimulated young Mulready's artistic instincts. By the recommendation of Banks, the sculptor, he gained entrance to the Academy Schools; at the age of fifteen he required no further pecuniary aid from his parents. Mulready worked in the Academy Schools, as he worked through life, with all his heart and soul. He declared he always painted as though for a prize, and that when he had begun his career in the world he tried his hand at everything, "from a caricature to a panorama." He was a teacher all his life, and this accounts, perhaps, for the careful completeness of his pictures. Mulready married when very young, and did not secure happiness. He began by painting landscapes, but in 1807 produced _Old Kasper_, from Southey's poem of "The Battle of Blenheim," his first subject picture. _The Rattle_ appeared a year later, and marked advance. Both pictures bear evidence that their author had studied the Dutch masters. In 1815 Mulready was chosen A.R.A., but before his name could appear in the catalogue he had attained to the rank of a full member. This was in 1816, when he exhibited _The Fight interrupted_ (Sheepshanks Collection). From this time he was a popular favourite, and his pictures, of which he exhibited on an average scarcely two a year, were eagerly looked for. We may specify _The Wolf and the Lamb_, _The Last in_, _Fair Time_, _Crossing the Ford_, _The Young Brother_, _The Butt_, _Giving a Bite_, _Choosing the Wedding Gown_, and _The Toyseller_ (all in the National Gallery or in the South Kensington Museum). "With the exception perhaps of some slight deterioration in his colouring, which of late years was obtrusively purple, he was in the enjoyment of the full powers of his great abilities for upwards of half a century. * * * He was distinguished by the excellence of his life studies, three of which in red and black chalks, presented by the Society of Arts, are in the Gallery." (_National Gallery Catalogue._)

ALEXANDER FRASER (1786--1865), a native of Edinburgh, exhibited his first picture, _The Green Stall_, in 1810. Having settled in London, he became an assistant to his countryman Wilkie, and for twenty years painted the still-life details of Wilkie's pictures. The influence of his master's art is visible in Fraser's pictures, which are usually founded upon incidents and scenes in Scotland, as, for example, _Interior of a Highland Cottage_ (National Gallery) and _Sir Walter Scott dining with one of the Blue-gown Beggars of Edinburgh_. Other examples are _The Cobbler at Lunch_, _The Blackbird and his Tutor_, and _The Village Sign-painter_.

CHARLES ROBERT LESLIE (1794--1859) was born in London, probably in Clerkenwell, of American parents. His father was a clockmaker from Philadelphia, who returned with his family to America when the future painter was five years old. The boy was apprenticed to a bookseller, but his true vocation was decided by a portrait which he made of Cooke, the English tragedian, who was performing in Philadelphia. This work attracted so much notice among Leslie's friends that a subscription was raised to send him to England, the bookseller, his master, liberally contributing. In 1811, Leslie became a student of the Royal Academy, and received instruction from his countrymen Washington Allston and Benjamin West. Leslie, however, considered teaching of little value. He said that, if materials were provided, a man was his own best teacher, and he speaks of "Fuseli's wise neglect" of the Academy students. Influenced, probably, by the example of Allston and West, Leslie began by aiming at classic art. He mentions that he was reading "Telemachus," with a view to a subject, and among his early works was _Saul and the Witch of Endor_. Even when he commenced to draw subjects from Shakespeare, he turned first to the historic plays, and painted _The Death of Rutland_ and _The Murder Scene from "Macbeth_." Unlike Wilkie and Mulready, Leslie did not strive to _create_ subjects for his pictures. He preferred to ramble through literature, and to select a scene or episode for his canvas. Wilkie invented scenes illustrating the festivities of the lower classes, Mulready chose similar incidents; it was left to Leslie to adopt "genteel comedy." Like his countryman and adviser, Washington Irving, he had visited, doubtless, many scenes of quiet English country life, and one of these is reproduced in his well-known picture of _Sir Roger de Coverley going to Church_, which was exhibited in 1819. He had previously shown his power in humorous subjects by painting _Ann Page and Slender_. Leslie had discovered his true vocation, and continued to work in the department of the higher _genre_ with unabated success. The patronage of Lord Egremont, for whom he painted, in 1823, _Sancho Panza in the Apartment of the Duchess_, was the means of procuring him many commissions. The picture in the National Gallery, of which we give an illustration, is a replica with slight alterations, executed many years later. He married in 1825, and became a full member of the Academy a year later. In 1831 he exhibited _The Dinner at Page's House_, from "The Merry Wives of Windsor"--one of his finest works. No painter has made us so well acquainted with the delightful old reprobate, Falstaff, with Bardolph, and the merry company who drank sack at the Boar's Head in Eastcheap. There is a repetition of _The Dinner at Page's House_ in the Sheepshanks Collection, slightly varied from the first, and bearing traces of Constable's influence. In 1833, Leslie was appointed teacher of drawing at the American Academy at West Point, and with his family he removed thither. It was a mistake, and the painter returned to England within a year. He illustrated Shakespeare, Cervantes, Goldsmith, and Sterne, the latter furnishing him with the subject of _Uncle Toby and the Widow Wadman_. In 1838, Leslie, by request of the Queen, painted _Her Majesty's Coronation_--which is very unlike the usual pictures of a state ceremonial. In 1841 he was commissioned to paint _The Christening of the Princess Royal_. The domestic life of Leslie was peaceful and prosperous, till the death of a daughter gave a shock from which he never recovered. He died May 5, 1859. Mr. Redgrave says of his art, "Leslie entered into the true spirit of the writer he illustrated. His characters appear the very individuals who have filled our mind. Beauty, elegance, and refinement, varied, and full of character, or sparkling with sweet humour, were charmingly depicted by his pencil; while the broader characters of another class, from his fine appreciation of humour, are no less truthfully rendered, and that with an entire absence of any approach to vulgarity. The treatment of his subject is so simple that we lose the sense of a picture, and feel that we are looking upon a scene as it must have happened. He drew correctly and with an innate sense of grace. His colouring is pleasing, his costume simple and appropriate."

GILBERT STUART NEWTON (1794--1835), connected with Leslie by friendship and similarity of taste, was a native of Halifax, Nova Scotia. In 1817, when travelling in Europe, Newton met with Leslie at Paris, and returned with him to London. He was a student of the Academy, and soon attracted attention by _The Forsaken_, _Lovers' Quarrels_, and _The Importunate Author_, which were exhibited at the British Institution. Newton began to exhibit at the Academy in 1823, and delighted the world with _Don Quixote in his Study_, and _Captain Macheath upbraided by Polly and Lucy_. In 1828 he surpassed these works with _The Vicar of Wakefield reconciling his Wife to Olivia_, and was elected an A.R.A. _Yorick and the Grisette_, _Cordelia and the Physician_, _Portia and Bassanio_, and similar works followed. In 1832 Newton became a full member of the Academy, and visiting America, married, and returned with his wife to England. The brief remaining period of his life was clouded with a great sorrow; his mind gave way, and having exhibited his last picture, _Abelard in his Study_, he became altogether insane.

AUGUSTUS LEOPOLD EGG (1816--1863) was born in Piccadilly, and on becoming a painter chose similar subjects to those of Leslie and Newton. He had not the humour of Leslie; indeed, most of Egg's subjects are melancholy. His first works were Italian views, and illustrations of Scott's novels, which attracted little notice. _The Victim_ promised better. Egg showed pictures in the Suffolk Street Gallery, and, in 1838, _The Spanish Girl_ appeared at the Royal Academy. Failing health compelled him to winter abroad, and on the 23rd of March, 1863, he died at Algiers, and was buried on a lonely hill. Three years before his death Egg had become a full member of the Academy. He is described as having a greater sense of colour than Leslie, but inferior to Newton in this respect. In execution he far surpassed the flimsy mannerism of the latter. His females have not the sweet beauty and gentleness of Leslie's. In the National Gallery is _A Scene from "Le Diable Boiteux_," in which the dexterity of Egg's execution is visible. He partially concurred with the pre-Raphaelites in his later years, and their influence may be traced in _Pepys' Introduction to Nell Gwynne_, and in a scene from Thackeray's "Esmond." Other noteworthy pictures are _The Life and Death of Buckingham_; _Peter the Great sees Catherine, his future Empress, for the First Time_; _The Night before Naseby_; and _Catherine and Petruchio_.

EDWIN HENRY LANDSEER (1802--1873) was eminent among English animal painters. No artist has done more to teach us how to love animals and to enforce the truth that--

"He prayeth best who loveth best All things both great and small."

Not only did Landseer rival some of the Dutch masters of the seventeenth century in painting fur and feathers, but he depicted animals with sympathy, as if he believed that "the dumb, driven cattle" possess souls. His dogs and other animals are so human as to look as if they were able to speak. The painter was the son of John Landseer, the engraver, and was born in London. He received art lessons from his father, and, when little more than a baby, would sketch donkeys, horses, and cows at Hampstead Heath. Some of these sketches, made when Landseer was five, seven, and ten years old, are at Kensington. He was only fourteen when he exhibited the heads of _A Pointer Bitch and Puppy_. When between sixteen and seventeen he produced _Dogs fighting_, which was engraved by the painter's father. Still more popular was _The Dogs of St. Gothard rescuing a Distressed Traveller_, which appeared when its author was eighteen. Landseer was not a pupil of Haydon, but he had occasional counsel from him. He dissected a lion. As soon as he reached the age of twenty-four he was elected an A.R.A., and exhibited at the Academy _The Hunting of Chevy Chase_. This was in 1826, and in 1831 he became a full member of the Academy. Landseer had visited Scotland in 1826, and from that date we trace a change in his style, which thenceforth was far less solid, true and searching, and became more free and bold. The introduction of deer into his pictures, as in _The Children of the Mist_, _Seeking Sanctuary_, and _The Stag at Bay_, marked the influence of Scotch associations. Landseer was knighted in 1850, and at the French Exhibition of 1855 was awarded the only large gold medal given to an English artist. Prosperous, popular, and the guest of the highest personages of the realm, he was visited about 1852 by an illness which compelled him to retire from society. From this he recovered, but the effects of a railway accident in 1868 brought on a relapse. He died in 1873, and was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral. On the death of Sir Charles Eastlake, in 1865, he was offered the Presidentship of the Royal Academy, but this honour he declined. In the National Gallery are _Spaniels of King Charles's Breed_, _Low Life and High Life_, _Highland Music_ (a highland piper disturbing a group of five hungry dogs, at their meal, with a blast on the pipes), _The Hunted Stag_, _Peace_ (of which we give a representation), _War_ (dying and dead horses, and their riders lying amidst the burning ruins of a cottage), _Dignity and Impudence_, _Alexander and Diogenes_, _The Defeat of Comus_, a sketch painted for a fresco in the Queen's summer house, Buckingham Palace. Sixteen of Landseer's works are in the Sheepshanks Collection, including the touching _Old Shepherd's Chief Mourner_, of which Mr. Ruskin said that "it stamps its author not as the neat imitator of the texture of a skin, or the fold of a drapery, but as the man of mind."

WILLIAM BOXALL (1800--1879), after study in the Royal Academy Schools and in Italy, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1829 his first picture--_Milton's Reconciliation with his Wife_--and continued to contribute to its exhibitions till 1866. Though his first works were historic and allegoric, he finally became famous as a portrait painter, and reckoned among his sitters some of the most eminent men of the time--poets, painters, writers on art, and others, _e.g_. Copley Fielding, David Cox, Coleridge, Wordsworth. In 1852 Boxall became an associate, and in 1864 a full member of the Royal Academy; he was Director of the National Gallery from 1865 to 1874; and received the honour of knighthood in 1871, in recognition of the valuable services which he rendered to art.

PAUL FALCONER POOLE (1810--1879), a painter of high class of _genre_ pictures as well as of history, exhibited his first picture at the Academy in 1830, _The Well, a Scene at Naples_. In 1838 he produced _The Emigrant's Departure_. Other pictures are _May Queen preparing for the Dance_, _The Escape of Glaucus and Ione_, _The Seventh Day of the Decameron_. Among the historic works of this artist are _The Vision of Ezekiel_ (National Gallery) and others. Poole became a full member of the Academy in 1860.

GEORGE HEMMING MASON (1818--1872), a native of Witley, Staffordshire, found art to be surrounded by difficulties. His father insisted on his following the profession of medicine, and placed him with Dr. Watts, of Birmingham. A portrait painter having visited the doctor's house, young Mason borrowed his colour-box, and, unaided, produced a picture of such promise that the artist advised him to follow art. Mason left the doctor's house, made his way to Italy, and, without any teacher, developed an original style which is marked by simplicity of design, refinement of colour, delicacy of chiaroscuro, and pathos of expression. He was elected A.R.A. in 1868, but died of heart-disease before becoming a full member. Mason's best-known works are _Campagna di Roma_, _The Gander_, _The Return from Ploughing_, _The Cast Shoe_, _The Evening Hymn_, and _The Harvest Moon_, unfinished.

ROBERT BRAITHWAITE MARTINEAU (1826--1869), son of one of the Masters in Chancery, nephew of Miss Martineau, commenced life as an articled clerk to a solicitor. After four years' study of the law he forsook it for the brighter sphere of art, and entered the Academy Schools. In 1852 Martineau exhibited at the Academy _Kit's Writing Lesson_, from "The Old Curiosity Shop," which indicated the class of subjects which he delighted in. His _Last Day in the Old House_, and _The Last Chapter_, by their originality of conception, and exquisite painting, won the artist a renown which he did not long live to enjoy. He died of heart-disease.

JOHN FREDERICK LEWIS (1805--1876), the son of an eminent London engraver, began his career in art by painting studies of animals, and in 1828 was elected a Member of the Society of Painters in Water-Colours. He afterwards travelled in Spain and Italy, painting many subjects, such as a _Spanish Bullfight_, _Monks preaching at Seville_, &c., and thence went to the East, where he stayed some years. He returned to England in 1851, and four years afterwards was made President of the Water-colour Society. In 1856 he exhibited _A Frank Encampment in the Desert of Mount Sinai_, which Mr. Ruskin called "the climax of water-colour drawing." In the same year he began to paint in oil colours, and frequently exhibited pictures of Eastern life, such as _The Meeting in the Desert_, _A Turkish School_, _A Cafe in Cairo_, &c. In 1859 he was made an Associate of the Royal Academy, and in 1866 a full member. In the South Kensington Museum there are two of Lewis's water-colour drawings, _The Halt in the Desert_ and _Peasants of the Black Forest_, and a few of his studies from nature.

EDWARD MATTHEW WARD (1816--1879) became a student at the Academy by the advice of Wilkie, who had seen his first picture, a portrait of Mr. O. Smith as Don Quixote. In 1836 Ward was a student in Rome. Thence he proceeded to Munich, and studied fresco-painting with Cornelius. In 1839 he returned to England, and exhibited _Cimabue and Giotto_. Joining in the competition for the decoration of the Houses of Parliament, he produced _Boadicea_, which was commended, but did not obtain a premium. _Dr. Johnson reading the MS. of Goldsmith's "Vicar of Wakefield"_, first brought him to notice. It was followed by _Dr. Johnson in Lord Chesterfield's Ante-Room_, and the painter was elected an A.R.A. This work as well as _The Disgrace of Lord Clarendon_, _The South-Sea Bubble_, and _James II. receiving the news of the landing of William of Orange_, are in the National Gallery. In 1852 and later Ward executed eight historic pictures in the corridor of the House of Commons. He was elected a Royal Academician in 1855. His pictures are too well known to need description; most popular among them are _Charlotte Corday led to Execution_, _The Execution of Montrose_, _The Last Sleep of Argyll_, _Marie Antoinette parting with the Dauphin_, _The Last Moments of Charles II._, _The Night of Rizzio's Murder_, _The Earl of Leicester and Amy Robsart_, _Judge Jeffreys and Richard Baxter_.

FREDERICK WALKER (1840--1875) died just as he had fulfilled the promise of his youth. After spending a short time in the office of an architect and surveyor, he left this uncongenial region to practise art. He occasionally studied in the Academy Schools, and began his artistic career by illustrating Thackeray's "Philip" in the "Cornhill Magazine," thus winning much praise. He became a member of the Old Water-Colour Society, and an A.R.A. A career full of promise was cut short by death at St. Fillan's, Perthshire, in 1875: the young painter was buried at his favourite Cookham, on the Thames. His chief works are _The Lost Path_, _The Bathers_, _The Vagrants_, _The Old Gate_, _The Plough_, _The Harbour of Refuge_, and _The Right of Way_. Mr. Redgrave said, "His genius was thoroughly and strikingly original. His works are marked by a method of their own; the drawing, colour, and execution, alike peculiar to himself. They are at once refined and pathetic in sentiment, and novel in their conception of nature and her effects. His figures have the true feeling of rustic life, with the grace of line of the antique."

GABRIEL CHARLES DANTE ROSSETTI (1828--1882), poet, and painter of sacred subjects and scenes inspired by the writings of Dante, was the son of an Italian patriot, a political refugee, who became Professor of Italian in King's College, London. He exhibited at the Portland Gallery his first picture, _The Girlhood of the Virgin_, in 1849, and became the founder of the pre-Raphaelite school, which included Millais, Holman Hunt, and other artists now celebrated. Rossetti's best-known pictures are _Dante's Dream_ (now at Liverpool), _The Damosel of the Sancte Graal_, _The Last Meeting of Lancelot and Guinevere_, _The Beloved_ (an illustration of the Song of Solomon), and _Proserpina_. He seldom exhibited his paintings in public, but they were seen by art-critics, one of whom wrote (in 1873)--"Exuberance in power, exuberance in poetry of a rich order, noble technical gifts, vigour of conception, and a marvellously extensive range of thought and invention appear in nearly everything Mr. Rossetti produces."

He was equally celebrated as a writer of sonnets and a translator of Italian poetry.

* * * * *

It is not within the province of this work to include notice of living artists. To give an account of all the celebrated painters would require another volume. During the past decade Art has advanced with steady progress, and we can confidently say that at no time have the ranks of the Royal Academicians and the two Water-Colour Societies been filled more worthily than at the present day. The last quarter of the nineteenth century is likely to be a golden era in the history of British Art.

PAINTING IN AMERICA.

BY S. R. KOEHLER.

PAINTING IN AMERICA.

INTRODUCTION.

The history of art in America is in reality the record only of the dying away of the last echoes of movements which had their origin in Europe. Although the western continent has given birth to new political ideas and new forms of government, not one of its States, not even the greatest of them all, the United States of North America, to which this chapter will be confined, has thus far brought forth a national art, or has exercised any perceptible influence, except in a single instance, on the shaping of the art of the world. Nor is this to be wondered at. The newness of the country, the mixture of races from the beginning, and the ever-continuing influx of foreigners, together with the lack of educational facilities, and the consequent necessity of seeking instruction in Europe, are causes sufficient to explain the apparent anomaly. Even those of the native painters of the United States who kept away from the Old World altogether, or visited it too late in life to be powerfully influenced, show but few traces of decided originality in either conception or execution. They also were under the spell, despite the fact that it could not work upon them directly. The attempt has been made to explain this state of things by assuming an incapacity for art on the part of the people of the country, and an atmosphere hostile to its growth, resulting from surrounding circumstances. These conclusions, however, are false. So far as technical skill goes, Americans--native as well as adopted--have always shown a remarkable facility of acquisition, and the rapidity with which carpenters, coach-painters, and sign-painters, especially in the earlier period of the country's history, developed into respectable portrait-painters, almost without instruction, will always remain cause for astonishment. Of those who went abroad at that time, England readopted four men who became famous (West, Copley, Newton, Leslie), and she still points to them with satisfaction as among the more conspicuous on her roll of artists. Nor has this quality been lost with the advance of time. It has, on the contrary, been aided by diligent application; and the successes which have been achieved by American students are recorded in the annals of the French Salon. There is one curious trait, however, which will become more and more apparent as we trace the history of art in America, and that is the absence of a national element in the subjects treated. If we except a short flickering of patriotic spirit in the art of what may be called the Revolutionary Period, and the decided preference given to American scenes by the landscape painters of about the middle of the present century, it may be said that the artists of the country, as a rule, have imported with the technical processes also the subjects of the Old World; that they have preferred the mountains of Italy and the quiet hamlets of France to the hills of New England and the Rocky Mountains of the West, the Arab to the Indian, and the history of the Old World to the records of their own ancestors. Even the struggle for the destruction of the last vestiges of slavery which was the great work entrusted to this generation, has called forth so few manifestations in art (and these few falling without the limits of the present chapter), that it would not be very far from wrong to speak of it as having left behind it no trace whatever. All this, however, is not the fault of the artists, except in so far as they are themselves part of the nation. The blame attaches to the people as a whole, whose innermost thoughts and highest aspirations the artists will always be called upon to embody in visible form. There is no doubt, from the evidence already given by the painters of America, that they will be equal to the task, should they ever be called upon to exert their skill in the execution of works of monumental art.

* * * * *

The history of painting in America may be divided into four periods:--1. _The Colonial Period_, up to the time of the Revolution; 2. _The Revolutionary Period_, comprising the painters who were eye-witnesses of and participators in the War of Independence; 3. _The Period of Inner Development_, from about the beginning of the century to the civil war; 4. _The Period of the Present_. It will be seen that the designations of these divisions are taken from the political rather than the artistic history of the country. And, indeed, it would be difficult to find other distinguishing marks which would allow of a concise nomenclature. As to the influences at work in the several periods, it may be said that the Colonial and Revolutionary were entirely under the domination of England. In the earlier part of the third period the influence of England continued, but was supplemented by that of Italy. Later on a number of American artists studied in Paris, without, however, coming under the influence of the Romantic school, and towards the middle of the century many of them were attracted by Duesseldorf. A slight influence was exercised also by the English pre-Raphaelites, but it found expression in a literary way rather than in actual artistic performance. In the fourth or present period, finally, the leadership has passed to the Colouristic schools of Paris and Munich, to which nearly all the younger artists have sworn allegiance.

FIRST, OR COLONIAL PERIOD.

The paintings which have come down to the present day from the Colonial Period, so far as they relate to America, are almost without exception portraits. Many of these were, as a matter of course, brought over from England and Holland; but that there were resident painters in the Colonies as early as 1667, is shown by a passage in Cotton Mather's "Magnalia," cited by Tuckerman. It is very natural that these "limners," to use a favourite designation then applied to artists, were not of the best. The masters of repute did not feel a call to dwell in the wilderness, and hence the works belonging to the beginning of this period are for the most part rude and stiff. Several of these early portraits may be seen in the Memorial Hall of Harvard University, at Cambridge, Mass.

The first painters whose names have been preserved to us were not born to the soil. The honour of standing at the head of the roll belongs to JOHN WATSON (1685--1768), a Scotchman, who established himself at Perth Amboy, N.J., in 1715. Of his portraits none are at present known, but at the Chronological Exhibition of American Art, held in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1872, there was shown an India ink drawing by him, _Venus and Cupid_, executed on vellum. A better fate was vouchsafed to the works of JOHN SMYBERT, another Scotchman, who came to Rhode Island in 1728 with Dean, afterwards Bishop, Berkeley, in whose proposed college he was to be an instructor--probably the first movement towards art education made in the Colonies. Smybert settled and married in Boston, where he died in 1751 or 1752. He was not an artist of note, although his most important work, _The Family of Bishop Berkeley_, a large group, in which he has introduced his own likeness, now in the possession of Yale College, at New Haven, Conn., shows him to have been courageous and not without talent. Not all the pictures, however, which are attributed to him, come up to this standard. A very bad example to which his name is attached may be seen in the portrait of _John Lovell_, in the Memorial Hall of Harvard University. The influence exercised by Smybert on the development of art in America is due to an accident rather than to actual teaching. He brought with him a copy of the head of Cardinal Bentivoglio, by Van Dyck, which he had made in Italy, and which is still preserved in the Hall just named. It was this copy which first inspired Trumbull and Allston with a love of art, and gave them an idea of colour. Of the other foreigners who visited the Colonies during this period, the more prominent are BLACKBURN, an Englishman, who was Smybert's contemporary or immediate successor, and is by some held to have been Copley's teacher; WILLIAMS, another Englishman, who painted about the same time in Philadelphia, and from whose intercourse young West is said to have derived considerable benefit; and COSMO ALEXANDER, a Scotchman, who came to America in 1770, and was Stuart's first instructor.

The earliest native painter who has left any lasting record is ROBERT FEKE, whose life is enveloped by the mystery of romance. Sprung from Quaker stock, and separated from his people by difference of religious opinion, he left home, and was in some way taken a prisoner to Spain, where he is said to have executed rude paintings, with the proceeds of which he managed to return home. Feke painted in Philadelphia and elsewhere about the middle of the last century, and his portraits, according to Tuckerman, are considered the best colonial family portraits next to West's. Specimens of his work may be seen in the collections of Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Me.; the Redwood Athenaeum, Newport, R.I.; and the R. I. Historical Society, Providence, R.I.

Nearest to Feke in date--although his later contemporaries, West and Copley, were earlier known as artists, and the first named even became his teacher in England--is MATTHEW PRATT (1734--1805), who started in life as a sign-painter in Philadelphia. Pratt's work is often spoken of slightingly, and does not generally receive the commendation it deserves. His full-length portrait of _Lieutenant-Governor Cadwallader Colden_, painted for the New York Chamber of Commerce in 1772, and still to be seen at its rooms, shows him to have been quite a respectable artist, with a feeling for colour in advance of that exhibited by Copley in his earlier work. Still another native artist of this period, HENRY BEMBRIDGE, is chiefly of interest from the fact that he is said to have studied with Mengs and Battoni, which would make him one of the first American painters who visited Italy. He seems to have painted chiefly in Charleston, S.C., and his portraits are described as of singularly formal aspect.

The most celebrated painters of this period, however, and the only ones whose fame is more than local, are John Singleton Copley and Benjamin West. But as both of them left their country at an early age, never to return, they belong to England rather than to America.

COPLEY (1737--1815) was a native of Boston, and did not go to Europe until 1774, when his reputation was already established. In 1760 he gave his income in Boston at three hundred guineas. He first went to Italy and thence to London, where he settled. Some speculation has been indulged in as to Copley's possible teachers. He must have received some aid from his stepfather, Peter Pelham, a schoolmaster and very inferior mezzotint engraver; and it has also been supposed that he may have had the benefit of Blackburn's instruction. This does not seem likely, however, judging either from the facts or from tradition. Copley was undoubtedly essentially self-taught, and the models upon which he probably formed his style are still to be seen. Several of them are included in the collection in the Memorial Hall of Harvard University. One of these portraits, that of _Thomas Hollis_, a benefactor of the university, who died when Copley was only six years of age, is so like the latter's work, not only in conception but even in the paleness of the flesh tints and the cold grey of the shadows, as to be readily taken for one of his earlier productions. In England Copley became the painter of the aristocracy, and executed a considerable number of large historic pictures, mostly of modern incidents. He is elegant rather than powerful, and quite successful in the rendering of stuffs. His colour, at first cold and rather inharmonious, improved with experience, although he has been pronounced deficient in this respect even in later years. Copley's most celebrated picture is _The Death of the Earl of Chatham_. Many specimens of his skill as a portrait-painter can be seen in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and in the Memorial Hall of Harvard University, the latter collection including the fine portrait of _Mrs. Thomas Boylston_. The Public Library of Boston owns one of his large historic paintings, _Charles I. demanding the Five Members from Parliament_.

BENJAMIN WEST (1738--1820) was born of Quaker parentage at Springfield, Pa., and was successfully engaged, at the age of eighteen, as a portrait-painter in Philadelphia. In 1760 he went to Rome, and it is believed that he was the first American artist who ever appeared there. Three years later he removed to London, where he became the leading historic painter, the favourite of the King, and President of the Royal Academy. His great scriptural and historic compositions, of which comparatively few are to be seen in his native country (_King Lear_, in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston; _Death on the Pale Horse_ and _Christ Rejected_, at the Pennsylvania Academy, Philadelphia), show him in the light of an ambitious and calculating rather than inspired painter, with a decided feeling for colour. His influence on art in general made itself felt in the refusal to paint the actors in his _Death of Wolfe_ in classic costume, according to usage. By clothing them in their actual dress, he led art forward a step in the realistic direction, the only instance to be noted of a directing motive imparted to art by an American, but one which is quite in accordance with the spirit of the New World. West's influence upon the art of his own country was henceforth limited to the warm interest he took in the many students of the succeeding generation who flocked to England to study under his guidance.

SECOND, OR REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD.

The Revolutionary Period is, in many respects, the most interesting division, not only in the political, but also in the artistic history of the United States. It is so, not merely because it has left us the pictorial records of the men and the events of a most important epoch in the development of mankind, but also because it brought forth two painters who, while they were thoroughly American in their aspirations, were at the same time endowed with artistic qualities of a very high order. Gilbert Stuart and John Trumbull, the two painters alluded to, have a right to be considered the best of the American painters of the past, and will always continue to hold a prominent place in the history of their art, even if it were possible to forget the stirring scenes with which they were connected.

GILBERT STUART was born in Narragansett, R.I., in 1755, and died in Boston in 1828. He was of Scotch descent, and it has already been mentioned that Cosmo Alexander, a Scotchman, was his first teacher. After several visits to Europe, during the second of which he studied under West, Stuart finally returned in 1793, and began the painting of the series of national portraits which will for ever endear him to the patriotic American. Among these his several renderings of Washington, of which there are many copies by his own hand, are the most celebrated. The greatest popularity is perhaps enjoyed by the so-called Athenaeum head, which, with its pendant, the portrait of _Mrs. Washington_, is the property of the Athenaeum of Boston, and by that institution has been deposited in the Museum of Fine Arts of the same city. The claim to superiority is, however, contested by the _Gibbs Washington_, at present also to be seen in the museum alluded to. It was painted before the other, and gives the impression of more realistic truthfulness, while the Athenaeum head seems to be somewhat idealized. Stuart's work is quite unequal, as he was not a strict economist, and often painted for money only. But in his best productions there is a truly admirable purity and wealth of colour, added to a power of characterization, which lifts portraiture into the highest sphere of art. It must be said, however, that he concentrated his attention almost entirely upon the head, often slighting the arms and hands, especially of his female sitters, to an unpleasant degree. Many excellent specimens of his work, besides the Washington portraits, are to be found in the Museum of Fine Arts at Boston and in the collection of the New York Historical Society, the latter including the fine portrait of _Egbert Benson_, painted in 1807. His _chef-d'oeuvre_ is the portrait of _Judge Stephen Jones_, owned by Mr. F. G. Richards, of Boston, a remarkably vigorous head of an old man, warm and glowing in colour, which, it is said, the artist painted for his own satisfaction. Stuart's most celebrated work in England is _Mr. Grant skating_. When this portrait was exhibited as a work by Gainsborough, at the "Old Masters," in 1878, its pedigree having been forgotten, it was in turn attributed to all the great English portrait-painters, until it was finally restored to its true author.

Still more national importance attaches to JOHN TRUMBULL (1756--1843), since he was an historic as well as a portrait-painter, took part in person as an officer in the American army in many of the events of the Revolution, and was intimately acquainted with most of the heroes of his battle scenes. America enjoys in this respect an advantage of which no other country can boast--that of having possessed an artist contemporaneous with the most important epoch in its history, and capable and willing to depict the scenes enacted around him. Colonel Trumbull, the son of Jonathan Trumbull, the Colonial Governor of Connecticut, studied at Harvard, and gave early evidences of a taste for art. At the age of nineteen he joined the American army, but in 1780, aggrieved at a fancied slight, he threw up his commission and went to France, and thence to London, where he studied under West. Trumbull must not be judged as an artist by his large paintings in the Capitol at Washington, the commission for which he did not receive until 1817. To know him one must study him in his smaller works and sketches, now gathered in the gallery of Yale College, where may be seen his _Death of Montgomery_, _Battle of Bunker Hill_, _Declaration of Independence_, and other revolutionary scenes, together with a series of admirable miniature portraits in oil, painted from life, as materials for his historic works, and a number of larger portraits, including a full-length of _Washington_. As a portrait-painter, Trumbull is also represented at his best by the full-length of _Alexander Hamilton_, at the rooms of the New York Chamber of Commerce. The most successful of his large historic pieces, _The Sortie from Gibraltar_, painted in London, is at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Goethe, who saw the small painting of _The Battle of Bunker Hill_ while it was in the hands of Mueller, the engraver, commended it, but criticized its colour and the smallness of the heads. It is true that Trumbull's drawing is somewhat conventional, and that he had a liking for long figures. But his colour, as seen to-day in his good earlier pictures, is quite brilliant and harmonious, although thoroughly realistic. In his later work, however, as shown by the Scripture pieces likewise preserved in the Yale Gallery, there is a marked decadence in vigour of drawing as well as of colour. Owing to an unfortunate concatenation of circumstances, Trumbull has not received the full appreciation which is his due, even from his own countrymen. Thackeray readily recognised his merit, and cautioned the Americans never to despise or neglect Trumbull--a piece of advice which is only now beginning to attract the attention it deserves.

Among the portrait-painters of this period, CHARLES WILSON PEALE (1741--1827) takes the lead by reason of quantity rather than quality. Peale was typical of a certain phase of American character, representing the restlessness and superficiality which prevail upon men to turn lightly from one occupation to another. He was a dentist, a worker in materials of all sorts, an ornithologist and taxidermist, rose to the rank of colonel in the American army, and started a museum of natural history and art in Philadelphia. But his strongest love seems, after all, to have been for the fine arts. Among the fourteen portraits of _Washington_ which Peale painted, according to Tuckerman, is the only _full-length_ ever done of the father of his country: it shows him before the Revolution, attired as an officer in the colonial force of Great Britain. A large number of Peale's portraits may be seen in the Pennsylvania Academy and in Independence Hall, Philadelphia. The New York Historical Society owns, among other works by his hand, a Washington portrait and a group of the Peale family comprising ten figures. Much of Peale's work is crude, but all of his heads have the appearance of being good likenesses.

Among a number of other painters of this period we can select only a few, whose names receive an additional lustre from their connection with Washington.

JOSEPH WRIGHT (1756--1793) was the son of Patience Wright, who modelled heads in wax at Bordentown, N.J., before the Revolution. While in England he painted a portrait of the Prince of Wales. In the year 1783 Washington sat to him, after having submitted to the preliminary ordeal of a plaster mask. Tuckerman speaks of this portrait as inelegant and unflattering, and characterizes the artist as unideal, but conscientious. Wright's portrait of _John Jay_, at the rooms of the New York Historical Society, authorizes a more favourable judgment. It is, indeed, somewhat austere, but lifelike, well posed, and cool in colour.

E. SAVAGE (1761--1817) seems to have been nearly as versatile as Peale, emulating him also in the establishment of a museum, at first in New York, then in Boston. His portrait of _General Washington_, in the Memorial Hall of Harvard University, is carefully painted and bright in colour, but rather lifeless. His _Washington Family_, in the Boston Museum (a place of amusement not to be confounded with the Museum of Fine Arts), which he engraved himself, has similar qualities. A little picture by him, also in the Boston Museum, representing _The Signers of the Declaration of Independence in Carpenters' Hall_, is interesting on account of its subject, but does not possess much artistic merit. The portrait of _Dr. Handy_, on the contrary, which is assigned to him, at the New York Historical Society, is a very creditable work, good in colour, luminous in the flesh, and simple in the modelling.

WILLIAM DUNLAP (1766--1839), finally, may also be mentioned here on account of his portrait of _Washington_--painted when the artist was only seventeen years old--although he belongs more properly to the next period, and is of more importance as a writer than a painter. He published, in 1834, a "History of the Arts of Design in the United States," a book now quite scarce and much sought after. A group of himself and his parents, painted in 1788, is in the collection of the New York Historical Society.

THIRD PERIOD, OR PERIOD OF INNER DEVELOPMENT.

The example of Trumbull found no followers. The only other American painter who made a specialty of his country's history seems to have been JOHN BLAKE WHITE (1782--1859), a native of Charleston, S.C., who painted such subjects as _Mrs. Motte presenting the Arrows_, _Marion inviting the British Officer to Dinner_, and the Battles of _New Orleans_ and _Eutaw_, placed in the State House of South Carolina. White's fame is quite local, however, and it is impossible, therefore, to judge of his qualities accurately. Had there been more painters of similar subjects, a national school might have resulted; but neither the people nor the Government took any interest in Colonel Trumbull's plans. It was necessary to employ all sorts of manoeuvring to induce Congress to give a commission to the artist, and the result was disappointment to all concerned; and when, later, the further decoration of the Capitol at Washington, the seat of government, was resolved upon, the artist selected for the work was CARLO BRUMIDI (1811--1880), an Italian artist of the old school. The healthy impetus towards realistic historic painting given by Trumbull thus died out, and what there is of historic and figure painting in the period now under consideration is mainly dominated by a false idealism, of which Washington Allston is the leading representative. To rival the old masters, to do what had been done before, to flee from the actual and the near to the unreal and the distant, to look upon monks and knights and robbers and Venetian senators as the embodiment of the poetic, in spite of the poet's warning to the contrary, was now the order of the day; and hence it was but natural that quite a number of the artists who then went to Europe turned to Italy. It was in this period, also, that the first attempts were made to establish Academies of Art in Philadelphia and New York--attempts which, while they were laudable enough in themselves, inasmuch as these institutions were intended to provide instruction at home for the rising generation, still pointed in the same direction of simple imitation of the expiring phases of European Art.

WASHINGTON ALLSTON (1779--1843) was a native of South Carolina, but was sent to New England at an early age, and graduated from Harvard College in 1800. The year following he went to England, to study under West, and thence to Italy, where he stayed four years, until his return to Boston in 1809. After a second absence in Europe of seven years' duration, he finally settled in Cambridge, near Boston. Allston's art covered a wide range, including Scripture history, portraiture, ideal heads, _genre_, landscape, and marine. It is difficult to understand to-day the enthusiasm which his works aroused, if not among the great public, at least within a limited circle of admiring friends. He was lauded for his poetic imagination, and called "the American Titian," on account of his colour; and this reputation has lasted down to our own time. The Allston Exhibition, however, which was held two years ago at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, has somewhat modified the opinions of calm observers. Allston was neither deep nor very original in his conceptions, nor was he a great colourist. One of his most pleasing pictures, _The Two Sisters_, is full of reminiscences of Titian, and it is well known that he painted it while engaged in the study of that master. In the case of an artist upon whose merits opinions are so widely divided, it may be well to cite the words of an acknowledged admirer, in speaking of what has been claimed to be his greatest work, the _Jeremiah and the Scribe_, in the Gallery of Yale College. Mrs. E. D. Cheney, in describing the impression made upon her by this picture after a lapse of forty years, says:--"I was forced to confess that either I had lost my sensibility to its expression, or I had overrated its value.... The figure of the Prophet is large and imposing, but I cannot find in it the spiritual grandeur and commanding nobility of Michel Angelo. He is conscious of his own presence, rather than lost in the revelation which is given through him. But the Scribe is a very beautiful figure, simple in action and expression, and entirely absorbed in his humble but important work. It reminds me of the young brother in Domenichino's _Martyrdom of St. Jerome_." The same lack of psychological power, here hinted at, is still more apparent in the artist's attempts to express the more violent manifestations of the soul. In _The Dead Man revived by touching Elisha's Bones_--for which he received a premium of 200 guineas from the British Institution, and which is now in the Pennsylvania Academy--the faces of the terrified spectators are so distorted as to have become caricatures. This is true, in a still higher degree, of the heads of the priests in the great unfinished _Belshazzar's Feast_, in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The unnatural expression of these heads is generally explained by the condition in which the picture was left; but the black-and-white sketches, which may be examined in the same museum, show precisely the same character. The unhealthy direction of the artist's mind is apparent, furthermore, in his love of the terrible--shown in his early pictures of banditti, and in such later works as _Saul and the Witch of Endor_ and _Spalatro's Vision of the Bloody Hand_; while, on the contrary, it will be found, upon closer analysis, that the ideality and spirituality claimed for his female heads, such as _Rosalie_ and _Amy Robsart_, resolve themselves into something very near akin to sweetness and lack of strength. In accordance with this absence of intellectual robustness, Allston's execution is hesitating and wanting in decision.

A somewhat similar spirit manifested itself in the works of John Vanderlyn (1776--1852), Rembrandt Peale (1787--1860), Samuel F. B. Morse (1791--1872), and Cornelius Ver Bryck (1813--1844).

JOHN VANDERLYN is best known by his _Marius on the Ruins of Carthage_, for which he received a medal at the Paris Salon of 1808, and his _Ariadne_, which forms part of the collection of the Pennsylvania Academy. Vanderlyn, as the choice of his subjects, coupled with his success in France, shows, was a very good classic painter, trained in the routine of the Academy. The _Ariadne_ is a careful study of the nude, although somewhat red in the flesh, placed in a conventional landscape of high order. A large historic composition by him, _The Landing of Columbus_, finished in 1846, fills one of the panels in the Rotunda of the Capitol at Washington. As a portrait painter Vanderlyn was most unequal.

REMBRANDT PEALE--the son of Charles Wilson Peale, best known through his portraits--deserves mention here on account of his _Court of Death_, in the Crowe Art Museum of St. Louis, and _The Roman Daughter_, in the Boston Museum. Technically he stands considerably below his leading contemporaries.

S. F. B. MORSE, whose fame as an artist has been eclipsed by his connection with the electric telegraph, was a painter of undoubted talent, but given somewhat to ostentation both in drawing and colour. Good specimens of his style are found in his _Dying Hercules_, Yale College, New Haven, and the rather theatrical portrait of Lafayette in the Governor's Room of the City Hall of New York. Morse essayed to paint national subjects, and selected for a theme the interior of the House of Representatives, with portraits of the members; but the public took no interest in the picture, although it is said to have been very clever, and the artist did not even cover his expenses by exhibiting it.

CORNELIUS VER BRYCK painted Bacchantes and Cavaliers, and a few historic pictures, with a decided feeling for colour, as evidenced by his _Venetian Senator_, owned by the New York Historical Society. He stands upon the borderland between an older and a newer generation, both of which, however, belong to the same period. Thus far the influence of Italy had been paramount; in the years immediately following Duesseldorf claims a share in shaping the historical art of the United States. The only names that can be mentioned here in accordance with the plan of this book, which excludes living artists, are Emmanuel Leutze (1816--1868), Edwin White (1817--1877), Henry Peters Gray (1819--1877), W. H. Powell (died 1879), Thomas Buchanan Read (1822--1872), and J. B. Irving (1826--1877).

LEUTZE was a German by birth, and his natural sympathies, although he had been brought to America as an infant, carried him to Duesseldorf. The eminence to which he rose in this school may be inferred from the fact that he was chosen Director of the Academy after he had returned to America, and almost at the moment of his death. Although of foreign parentage, he showed more love for American subjects than most of the native artists, but the trammels of the school in which he was taught made it impossible for him to become a thoroughly national painter. His most important works are _Washington crossing the Delaware_, _Washington at the Battle of Monmouth_, and _Washington at Valley Forge_; the two last named are at present in the possession of Mrs. Mark Hopkins of California. In the Capitol at Washington may be seen his _Westward the Star of Empire takes its Way_; _The Landing of the Norsemen_ is in the Pennsylvania Academy; _The Storming of a Teocalle_, in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

EDWIN WHITE, an extraordinarily prolific artist, who studied both at Paris and Duesseldorf, also painted a number of American historic pictures, among them _Washington resigning his Commission_, for the State of Maryland. The bulk of his work, however, weakly sentimental, deals with the past of Europe.

H. P. GRAY'S allegiance was given, almost undividedly, to the masters of Italy, and his subjects were mostly taken from antiquity. In his best works, such as _The Wages of War_, he appears in the light of an academic painter of respectable attainments; but there is so little of a national flavour in his productions, that the label "American School" on the frame of the picture just named is apt to provoke a smile. Gray's _Judgment of Paris_ is in the Corcoran Gallery at Washington.

W. H. POWELL is best known by his _De Soto discovering the Mississippi_, in the Rotunda at Washington, a work which is on a level with the average of official monumental painting done in Europe, in which truth is invariably sacrificed to so-called artistic considerations. As a portrait-painter he does not stand very high. T. B. READ, the "painter-poet," enjoyed one of those fictitious reputations which are unfortunately none too rare in America. Without any real feeling for colour, and with a style of drawing which made up in so-called grace for what it lacked in decision, he attained a certain popularity by a class of subjects such as _The Lost Pleiad_, _The Spirit of the Waterfall_, &c., which captivate the unthinking by their very superficiality. Several of his productions, among them his _Sheridan's Ride_, may be seen at the Pennsylvania Academy. J. B. IRVING, a student at Duesseldorf under Leutze, was a careful and intelligent painter of subjects which might be classed as historic _genre_, including some scenes from the past history of the United States.

Among the foreign artists who came to America during this period must be named CHRISTIAN SCHUeSSELE (1824--1879), a native of Alsace, who has exercised some influence through his position as Director of the Schools of the Pennsylvania Academy, in Philadelphia. His _Esther denouncing Haman_, in the collection of the institution just named, shows him to have been an adherent of the modern French classic school, in which elegance is the first consideration.

A place all by himself must finally be assigned to WILLIAM RIMMER (1816--1879), of English parentage, who spent much of his life in the vicinity of Boston. Dr. Rimmer, as he is commonly called, since he began life as a physician, is of greater importance as a sculptor than as a painter. He, nevertheless, must be mentioned here on account of the many drawings he executed. To an overweening interest in anatomy he added a somewhat weird fancy, so that his conceptions sometimes remind one of Blake. His most important work is a set of drawings for an anatomical atlas, in which special stress is laid upon the anatomy of expression. His oil-paintings, such as _Cupid and Venus_, &c., are marred by violent contrasts of light and dark, and an unnatural, morbid scheme of colour, which justifies the assumption that his colour-vision was defective. But Rimmer will always remain interesting as a brilliant phenomenon, strangely out of place in space as well as in time.

The same absence, in general, of a national spirit is to be noticed in the works of the _genre_ painters. Among the earliest of these are to be named CHARLES ROBERT LESLIE (1794--1859), many of whose works may be seen in the Lenox Gallery, New York, and at the Pennsylvania Academy, Philadelphia; and GILBERT STUART NEWTON (1794--1835), a nephew of Stuart, the portrait-painter, who is represented at the New York Historical Society and in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. These two artists are, however, so closely identified with the English school, and draw their inspiration so exclusively from European sources, that they can hardly claim a place in a history of painting in America.

The one American _genre_ painter _par excellence_ is WILLIAM SYDNEY MOUNT (1807--1868), the son of a farmer on Long Island, and originally a sign-painter. No other artist has rivalled Mount in the delineation of the life of the American farmer and his negro field hands, always looked at from the humorous side. As a colourist, Mount is quite artless, but in the rendition of character and expression, and the unbiassed reproduction of reality, he stands very high. His _Fortune Teller_, _Bargaining for a Horse_, and _The Truant Gamblers_, the last named one of his best works also as regards colour, are in the collection of the New York Historical Society; _The Painter's Triumph_ is in the gallery of the Pennsylvania Academy; the Corcoran Gallery, Washington, has _The Long Story_. Several inferior artists have shown, by their representations of scenes taken from the political and social life of the United States, how rich a harvest this field would offer the brush of a modern Teniers. But in spite of the popularity which the reproductions of their works and those of some of Mount's pictures enjoyed, the field remained comparatively untilled.

Of other painters of the past, HENRY INMAN (1801--1846), better known as a most excellent portrait-painter, executed a few _genre_ pictures based on American subjects, such as _Mumble the Peg_ in the Pennsylvania Academy; and RICHARD CATON WOODVILLE (about 1825--1855), who studied at Duesseldorf, became favourably known, during his short career, by his _Mexican News_, _Sailor's Wedding_, _Bar-Room Politicians_, &c.; while among the mass of work by F. W. EDMONDS (1806--1863) there are also several of specifically American character; but the majority of artists preferred to repeat the well-worn themes of their European predecessors, as shown by W. E. WEST'S (died 1857) _The Confessional_, at the New York Historical Society's Rooms, or the paintings of JAMES W. GLASS (died 1855), whose _Royal Standard_, _Free Companion_, and _Puritan and Cavalier_, are drawn from the annals of England.

The Indian tribes found delineators in GEORGE CATLIN (1796--1872) and C. F. WIMAR (1829--1863), while WILLIAM H. RANNEY (died 1857) essayed the life of the trappers and frontiersmen. None of these artists, however, approached their subjects from the genuinely artistic side. As an ornithological painter, scientifically considered, JOHN JAMES AUDUBON (1780--1851), the celebrated naturalist, occupied a high rank. The animal world of the prairies and the great West in general was the chosen field of WILLIAM J. HAYS (1830--1875). A large picture by him of an American bison, in the American Museum of Natural History at New York, shows at once his careful workmanship, his ambition, and the limitation of his powers, which was too great to allow him to occupy a prominent place among the animal painters of the world.

The skill in realistic portraiture, eminently shown by the American painters of the preceding century, was fully upheld by their successors of the third period. Most of the historic painters named above were well known also as portraitists, and their claims to reputation are shared with more or less success by J. W. JARVIS (1780--1851), THOMAS SULLY (1783--1872), SAMUEL WALDO (1783--1861), CHESTER HARDING (1792--1866), WILLIAM JEWETT (born 1795), EZRA AMES (flourished about 1812--1830), CHARLES C. INGHAM (1796--1863), J. NEAGLE (1799--1865), CHARLES L. ELLIOTT (1812--1868), JOSEPH AMES (1816--1872), T. P. ROSSITER (1818--1871), G. A. BAKER (1821--1880), and W. H. FURNESS (1827--1867). Specimens of the work of most of these artists, several of whom were of foreign parentage, will be found in the collections of the New York Historical Society, the Governor's Room in the City Hall of New York, the Pennsylvania Academy, and the Museum of Fine Arts at Boston. The most prominent among the later names is Charles Loring Elliott, who was born and educated in America, but whose work, when he is at his best, nevertheless shows the hand of a master. E. G. MALBONE (1777--1807), whose only ideal work, _The Hours_, is in the Athenaeum, at Providence, R.I., is justly celebrated for his delicate miniatures, a department in which R. M. STAIGG (1817--1881) likewise excelled. As a crayon artist, famous more especially for his female heads, SETH W. CHENEY (1810--1856) must be named.

* * * * *

The most interesting, however, because the most original, manifestation of the art instinct in this period is found in landscape. In this department also it seemed for a time as if the influence of the old Italian masters would gain the upper hand. But the influence of Duesseldorf, aided by that of England, although not through its best representatives, such as Constable, gave a different turn to the course of affairs, and in a measure freed the artists from the thraldom of an antiquated school. Although, naturally and justly enough, the landscape painters of America did not disdain to depict the scenery of foreign lands, they nevertheless showed a decided preference for the beauties of their own country, and diligently plied their brushes in the delineation of the favourite haunts of the Catskills, the Hudson, the White Mountains, Lake George, &c., and, at a later period, of the wonders of the Rocky Mountains and the valley of the Yosemite. It has become the fashion in certain circles to speak rather derisively of these painters as "the Hudson River School," a nickname supposed to imply the charge that they preferred the subject to artistic rendering and technical skill. There is no denying that there is some truth in this charge, but later experience has taught, also, that a more insinuating style is apt to lead the artists to ignore subject altogether. It is precisely the comparative unattractiveness of the methods employed which enabled these painters to create what may be called an American school, while, had they been as much absorbed in technical processes, or in the solving of problems of colour, as some of their successors, they would probably have rivalled them also in the neglect of the national element. It is worthy of note that the rise of this school of painters of nature is nearly contemporaneous with the appearance of William Cullen Bryant, whose "Thanatopsis" was first published in 1817, and who is eminently entitled to be called the poet of nature.

The first specialist in landscape of whom any record is to be found is JOSHUA SHAW (1776--1860), an Englishman, who came to America about 1817. The specimens of his work preserved in the Pennsylvania Academy show him to have been a painter of some refinement, who preferred delicate silvery tones to strength. In the same institution may also be found numerous examples by THOMAS DOUGHTY (1793--1856), of Philadelphia, who abandoned mercantile pursuits for art in 1820, and who may claim to be the first native landscape-painter. His early work is hard and dry and monotonous in colour, but nevertheless with a feeling for light. As he advanced, his colour improved somewhat. ALVAN FISHER (1792--1863), of Boston, also ranks among the pioneers in this department, but he was more active as a portrait-painter.

The greatest name, however, in the early history of landscape art in the United States is that of THOMAS COLE (1801--1848), who came over from England with his parents in 1819, but received his first training, such as it was, in America. Cole spent several years in Italy, and remained for the rest of his life under the spell of Claude, Salvator Rosa, and Poussin. He aspired to be a painter of large historic, or rather allegoric landscapes, and some of his productions in this line, as, for instance, _The Course of Empire_ (New York Historical Society), a series of five canvases, showing the career of a nation from savage life through the splendours of power to the desolation of decay, will always secure for him a respectable place among the followers of the old school. He therefore shared, with most of his American colleagues, the fatal defect that his work contained no germ of advancement, but was content to be measured by standards which were beginning to be false, because men had outlived the time in which they were set up. Cole did not, however, confine himself to such allegoric landscapes. He was a great lover of the Catskills, and often chose his subjects there, or in the White Mountains. But in the specimens of this kind to be seen at the New York Historical Society's rooms, he shows himself curiously defective in colour, and mars the tone by undue contrasts between light and dark. He is at his best in the representation of storm effects, such as _The Tornado_, in the Corcoran Gallery at Washington.

Among the ablest representatives of the "Hudson River School" were J. F. KENSETT (1818--1873), and SANFORD R. GIFFORD (1823--1880). For Kensett, it may indeed be claimed that he was the best technician of his time, bolder in treatment than most of his colleagues, and with a true feeling for the poetry of colour. Gifford, who divided his allegiance about equally between America, Italy, and the Orient, loved to paint phenomenal effects of light, which often suggest the studio rather than nature. One of the principal works of this very successful and greatly esteemed artist, _The Ruins of the Parthenon_, is the property of the Corcoran Gallery, which also owns several pictures by Kensett.

As one of the leading lights of the little cluster of American pre-Raphaelites, we may note JOHN W. HILL (died 1879), who painted landscapes chiefly in water-colour.

The United States being a maritime power, it would be quite natural to look for a development of marine painting among her artists. Until lately, however, very little has been done in this branch of art, and that little mostly by foreigners. THOMAS BIRCH, an Englishman (died 1851), painted the battles between English and American vessels in an old-fashioned way in Philadelphia, while Boston possessed an early marine painter of slender merit in Salmon. A. VAN BEEST, a Dutch marine painter, who died in New York in 1860, is chiefly of interest as the first teacher of several well-known American painters of to-day. JOHN E. C. PETERSEN (1839--1874), a Dane, who came to America in 1865, enjoyed an excellent reputation in Boston. The leading name, however, among the artists of the past in this department is that of JAMES HAMILTON (1819--1878), who was brought to Philadelphia from Ireland in infancy, and went to England for purposes of study in 1854. In many of his phantastic productions, in which blood-red skies are contrasted with dark, bluish-gray clouds and masses of shadow, as in _Solitude_, and an Oriental landscape in the Pennsylvania Academy, the study of Turner is quite apparent. But he loved also to paint the storm-tossed sea, under a leaden sky, when it seems to be almost monochrome. One of his finest efforts, _The Ship of the Ancient Mariner_, is in private possession in Philadelphia. His _Destruction of Pompeii_ is in the Memorial Hall, Fairmount Park, in the same city. Hamilton, whose somewhat unsteady mode of living is reflected in the widely varying quality of his work, very properly closes our review of this epoch, as he might not inappropriately be classed with the artists of the period next to be considered.

FOURTH, OR PRESENT PERIOD.

It has been remarked already that the American students who went to England up to the middle of the present century were not influenced by those painters who, like Constable, are credited with having given the first impulse towards the development of modern art. This is true also of those who went to France.

They fell in with the old-established Classic school, and were not affected by the rising Romantic and Colouristic school until long after its triumphant establishment. Within the last ten or fifteen years, however, the tendency in this direction has been very marked, and the main points of attraction for the young American artist in Europe have been Paris and Munich. One of the results of this movement, consequent upon the preponderating attention given to colour and technique, has been an almost entire neglect of subject. What the art of America has gained, therefore, in outward attractiveness and in increase of skill, it has had to purchase at the expense of a still greater de-Americanisation than before. The movement is, however, only in its inception, and its final results cannot be predicated. Nor will it be possible to mention here more than a very few of its adherents, as, self-evidently, the greater part of them belong to the living generation.

One of the first to preach the new gospel of individualism and colour in America was WILLIAM MORRIS HUNT (1824--1879), who, after his return from Europe, made his home in Boston. In 1846 he went to Duesseldorf, which he soon exchanged for Paris, where he studied with Couture, and later with Millet. Hunt was in a certain sense a martyr to his artistic convictions, and his road was not smoothed by his eccentricities. Had he found a readier response on the part of the public, he might have accomplished great things. As it was, those to whom he was compelled to appeal could not understand the importance of the purely pictorial qualities which he valued above all else, and instead of sympathy he found antagonism. As a fact indicating the difficulties which stood in his way, it is interesting to know that the first idea for the mural paintings, _The Flight of Night_ and _The Discoverer_, which he executed in the new Capitol at Albany, shortly before his death, was conceived over thirty years ago. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that his mind was embittered, and his work even more unequal than that of so many of his older colleagues. But even so he has left a number of works, as for instance the original sketch for the _Flight of Night_, several portraits, and a _View of Gloucester Harbour_, which will always be counted among the triumphs of American art.

Prominent among the American students in the French school was ROBERT WYLIE, a native of the Isle of Man, who was brought to the United States when a child, and died in Brittany at the age of about forty years in 1877. His _Death of a Breton Chieftain_, in the Metropolitan Museum of New York, and _Breton Story-Teller_, in the Pennsylvania Academy, two very fine pictures, although somewhat heavy in colour, show him to have been a careful observer, with a power of characterisation hardly approached by any other American painter.

As a remarkable artist, belonging also to the French-American school, although he never left his native land, we must mention R. H. FULLER, of Boston, who died comparatively young in 1871. Fuller had a most extraordinary career and displayed extraordinary talent. Originally a cigar-maker, and later a night watchman, he was almost entirely self-taught, his study consisting in carefully looking at the French landscapes on exhibition at the stores, and then attempting to reproduce them at home. The knowledge thus gained he applied to the rendering of American landscapes, and he had so assimilated the methods of his French exemplars, that his creations, while they often clearly betrayed by what master they had been inspired, were yet thoroughly American.

* * * * *

This sketch of the history of painting in America is necessarily very fragmentary, by reason of its shortness, as well as by the limitation imposed by the plan of this book, which excludes all living artists. Many prominent representatives of the various tendencies to which the reader's attention has been called, have, therefore, had to be omitted. It is believed, nevertheless, that, while the mention of additional names would have made the record fuller, the general proportions of the outline would not have been materially changed thereby. Nor is the apparently critical tone, the repeated dwelling on the lack of originality in subject as well as method, to be taken as an expression of disparagement. A fact has simply been stated which admits of a ready explanation, hinted at in the introductory remarks, but which must be kept steadily in view if American Art is ever to assume a more distinctive character. The painters of America, considering the circumstances by which they have been surrounded, have no reason to be ashamed of their past record. They have shown considerable aptitude in the acquisition of technical attainments, and the diligence and enthusiasm in the pursuit of their studies on the part of the younger artists, promise well for the future. It rests altogether with the nation itself whether this promise shall be fulfilled.

INDEX OF NAMES.

PAGE

Aikman, William, 35

Alexander, Cosmo, 191

Alexander, William, 103

Allston, Washington, 202

Ames, Ezra, 212

Ames, Joseph, 212

Anderton, Henry, 31

Audubon, John James, 211

Bacon, Sir Nathaniel, 22

Baker, G. A., 212

Barret, George, 50

Barret, George, the younger, 105

Barry, James, 69

Beale, Mary, 35

Beechey, Sir William, 79

Bembridge, Henry, 192

Bewick, John, 92

Bewick, Thomas, 91

Birch, Thomas, 217

Blackburn, 191

Blake, William, 85

Boit, Charles, 93

Bone, Henry, 96

Bonington, Richard Parkes, 137

Boxall, Sir William, 178

Briggs, Henry Perronet, 154

Brooking, Charles, 47

Brown, John, 11, 17

Browne, Alexander, 92

Brumidi, Carlo, 202

Caius (Key), 19

Callcott, Sir Augustus Wall, 131

Carmillion, Alice, 17

Catlin, George, 211

Cattermole, George, 112

Chalon, Alfred Edward, 97

Chalon, John James, 97

Cheney, Seth W., 212

Cipriani, Giovanni Battista, 60

Cleef, Joost van, 19

Clostermann, John, 35

Cole, Thomas, 215

Collins, Richard, 95

Collins, William, 133

Constable, John, 130

Cooke, Edward William, 147

Cooper, Abraham, 166

Cooper, Samuel, 31

Copley, John Singleton, 67, 192

Cornelisz, Lucas, 10

Corvus, Johannes, 19

Cosway, Maria, 96

Cosway, Richard, 96

Cotman, John Sell, 142

Cox, David, 108

Cozens, Alexander, 102

Cozens, John Robert, 103

Creswick, Thomas, 145

Cristall, Joshua, 103

Crome, John, 141

Crosse, Lewis, 93

Dahl, Michael, 35

Danby, Francis, 142

Dance, Nathaniel, 76

Deacon, James, 94

De Heere, Lucas, 20

De la Motte, William, 105

De Loutherbourg, Philippe James, 61

Derby, William, 99

De Wint, Peter, 110

Dobson, William, 26

Dodgson, George Haydock, 114

Doughty, Thomas, 213

Duncan, Edward, 114

Duncan, Thomas, 158

Dunlap, 201

Dyce, William, 156

Eastlake, Sir Charles Locke, 154

Edmonds, F. W., 211

Edridge, Henry, 97, 104

Edward, Master, 4

Egg, Augustus Leopold, 175

Elliott, Charles Loring, 212

Elmore, Alfred, 162

Engleheart, George, 96

Essex, William, 97

Etty, William, 152

Faithorne, William, 85

Feke, Robert, 191

Fielding, Anthony Vandyke Copley, 110

Fisher, Alvan, 215

Flatman, Thomas, 92

Flick, Gerbach, 18

Fraser, Alexander, 170

Fuller, Isaac, 31

Fuller, R. H., 221

Furness, W. H., 212

Fuseli, Henry, 62

Gainsborough, Thomas, 55

Garvey, Edmund, 75

Gerbier, Sir Balthasar, 45

Gheeraedts, Marc, 20

Gifford, Sandford R., 215

Gilpin, Sawrey, 81

Girtin, Thomas, 104

Glass, James W., 211

Godeman, 2

Gray, Henry Peters, 207

Greenhill, John, 31

Hamilton, James, 217

Harding, Chester, 212

Harding, James Duffield, 112

Harlow, George Henry, 121

Harvey, George, 158

Havell, William, 108

Haydon, Benjamin Robert, 150

Hayman, Francis, 35, 85

Hays, William J., 211

Heaphy, Thomas, 110

Hearne, Thomas, 102

Highmore, Joseph, 85

Hill, John W., 216

Hilliard, Nicholas, 22

Hills, Robert, 104

Hillton, William, 148

Hogarth, William, 37

Holbein, Hans, 13

Holland, James, 114

Hone, Nathaniel, 94

Hoppner, John, 80

Horebout, Gerrard Lucas, 9, 17

Horebout, Lucas, 17

Horebout, Susannah, 9, 17

Hoskins, John, 22

Howard, Henry, 123

Hudson, Thomas, 35

Humphrey, Ozias, 95

Hunt, William Henry, 112

Hunt, William Morris, 219

Ibbetson, Julius Caesar, 50

Ingham, Charles C., 212

Inman, Henry, 211

Irving, J. B., 208

Jackson, John, 126

Jamesone, George, 28

Jarvis, J. W., 212

Jervas, Charles, 35

Jewett, William, 212

John, Master, 4

Jonson, Cornelis, 22

Kauffman, Angelica, 60

Kensett, J. F., 215

Key, William, 19

Kirk, Thomas, 89

Knapton, George, 35

Kneller, Sir Godfrey, 32

Laguerre, Louis, 34

Lambert, George, 47

Landseer, Charles, 161

Landseer, Sir Edwin Henry, 176

Lawrence, Sir Thomas, 117

Lely, Sir Peter, 30

Leslie, Charles Robert, 170, 209

Leutze, Emmanuel, 207

Lewis, John Frederick, 180

Linnell, John, 147

Linton, William, 135

Loggan, David, 85

Lucy, Charles, 161

Lyzardi, Nicholas, 19

Mabuse, 9

Maclise, Daniel, 158

Malbone, E. G., 212

Martin, John, 139

Martineau, Robert Braithwaite, 179

Mason, George Hemming, 179

Maynors, Katherine, 18

Meyer, Jeremiah, 95

Modena, Nicholas of, 19

Monamy, Peter, 47

Mor, Sir Antonio, 19

Morland, George, 82

Morland, Henry Robert, 82

Morse, S. F. B., 206

Mortimer, John Hamilton, 89

Moser, George Michael, 94

Mount, William Sydney, 209

Mueller, William John, 137

Mulready, William, 167

Mytens, Daniel, 22

Nasmyth, Patrick, 135

Neagle, J., 212

Newton, Gilbert Stuart, 173, 209

Nixon, James, 95

Northcote, James, 76

Oliver, Isaac, 22

Oliver, Peter, 22

Opie, John, 78

Oudry, P., 19

Owen, William, 121

Palmer, Samuel, 114

Parmentier, James, 35

Payne, William, 102

Peale, Charles Wilson, 200

Peale, Rembrandt, 206

Penley, Aaron Edwin, 114

Penni, Bartholomew, 17

Petersen, John E. C., 217

Petitot, Jean, 22

Phillip, John, 161

Phillips, Thomas, 125

Poole, Paul Falconer, 179

Powell, W. H., 207

Pratt, Matthew, 192

Prout, Samuel, 108

Pyne, James Baker, 45

Ramsay, Allan, 46

Ranney, William H., 211

Read, Thomas Buchanan, 208

Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 50

Richardson, Jonathan, 35

Richardson, Thomas Miles, 108

Riley, John, 35

Rimmer, William, 208

Roberts, David, 137

Robertson, Andrew, 97

Robinson, Hugh, 59

Robson, George Fennel, 110

Romney, George, 72

Rooker, Michael Angelo, 104

Ross, Sir William Charles, 99

Rossetti, Gabriel Chas. Dante, 184

Rossiter, T. P., 212

Rowlandson, Thomas, 103

Sandby, Paul, 102

Savage, E., 201

Schuessele, Christian, 08

Scott, Samuel, 47

Serres, Dominic, 47

Serres, John Thomas, 47

Seymour, James, 81

Shalders, George, 114

Shaw, Joshua, 213

Shee, Sir Martin Archer, 123

Shelley, Samuel, 95

Shipley, William, 45

Smirke, Robert, 90

Smith, George (of Chichester), 47

Smith, John " ", 47

Smith, William " ", 47

Smith, John (of Warwick), 103

Smybert, John, 190

Soest, Gerard von, 35

Spencer, Jarvis, 94

Staigg, R. M., 212

Stanfield, William Clarkson, 143

Stark, James, 142

Stothard, Thomas, 88

Streater, Robert, 31

Stretes, Gwillim, 16, 17

Stuart, Gilbert, 195

Stubbs, George, 81

Sully, Thomas, 212

Terling, Lavinia, 17

Thomson, Henry, 126

Thornhill, Sir James, 34

Topham, Francis William, 114

Torell, William, 2

Toto, Antonio, 9, 17

Treviso, Girolamo da, 10, 15

Trumbull, John, 197

Turner, Joseph Mallord William, 105, 127

Uwins, Thomas, 91

Van Beest, A., 217

Vanderbank, John, 35

Vanderlyn, John, 205

Van Dyck, Sir Anthony, 26

Van Honthorst, Gerard, 26

Van Somer, Paul, 22

Varley, John, 107

Ver Bryck, Cornelius, 206

Verrio, Antonio, 34

Vincent, George, 142

Volpe, Vincent, 17

Vroom, Cornelis, 20

Waldo, Samuel, 212

Wale, Samuel, 85

Walker, Frederick, 182

Walker, Robert, 20

Walter, Master, 4

Ward, Edward Matthew, 180

Ward, James, 125

Watson, John, 190

Webber, John, 103

Wehnert, Edward Henry, 114

West, Benjamin, 64, 193

West, W. E., 211

Westall, Richard, 89

Westall, William, 89

White, Edwin, 207

White, John Blake, 202

Wilkie, David, 164

Williams, ----, 191

Wilson, Richard, 47

Wimar, C. F., 211

Wissing, William, 35

Witherington, William Frederick, 166

Woodville, Richard Caton, 211

Wootton, John, 80

Wright, Andrew, 11, 17

Wright, Joseph, 200

Wright, Joseph (of Derby), 74

Wright, Joseph Michael, 35

Wyck, John, 80

Wylie, Robert, 219

Zincke, Christian Frederick, 94

Zoffany, Johann, 61

Zuccarelli, Francesco, 61

Zucchero, Federigo, 20

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Illustrated Biographies of the Great Artists.

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=FIGURE PAINTERS OF HOLLAND.= By Lord RONALD GOWER, F.S.A. With Engravings of Paternal Advice, by Terborch--Hunchback Fiddler, by Ostade--Inn Stable, by Wouwerman--Dancing Dog, by Steen.

=WATTEAU.= By J. W. MOLLETT, B.A. With Engravings of Fetes Galantes, Portraits, Studies from the Life, Pastoral Subjects, &c,. Price 2s. 6d. _Nearly ready._

=VERNET= and =DELAROCHE=. By J. RUNTZ REES. With Engravings of the Trumpeter's Horse--The Death of Poniatowski--The Battle of Fontenoy, and 5 others, by Vernet; and Richelieu with Cinque Mars--Death of the Duc de Guise--Charles I. and Cromwell's Soldiers--and the Hemicycle, by Delaroche.

=MEISSONIER.= By J. W. MOLLETT, B.A. With Engravings from the Chess Players--La Rixe--The Halt--The Reader--The Flemish Smoker--and many Book Illustrations. Price 2s. 6d.

London: SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON,

Crown Buildings, 188, Fleet Street.

* * * * *

The following typographical errors were corrected by the etext transcriber:

Several English astists practised in this reign.=>Several English artists practised in this reign.

the first English artist who receveid=>the first English artist who received

an innvoator of a monstrous order=>an innovator of a monstrous order

Durin his life=>During his life

Like his master he not succeed in foliage=>Like his master he did not succeed in foliage

FOOTNOTES:

[A] At least, like most of the great Italian masters before and after their time, and like Clouet the Frenchman, they designed garments, and painted banners of state; they decorated coffers and furniture, book covers, and, like Holbein and Cellini, made designs for jewellery.

[B] When we discover that the whole frontal has been used as the _top of a cupboard_, we need not wonder at the present scarcity of specimens of early English art.

[C] Many pictures executed during the ten years after his death, some even in the Windsor collection, have been attributed to Holbein.

[D] Now lent to the National Gallery. She was the youthful daughter of the King of Denmark, and widow of the Duke of Milan. Holbein was sent to Brussels to paint her portrait for his royal master.

[E] See _The Athenaeum_, August 19th, 1882.

[F] This is Dallaway's summary, note to p. 266 of Walpole's "Anecdotes," as above, 1849. Of course, all the pictures were not really by the artists whose names they bore. There must have been more than sixteen Van Dycks in the Royal collection. The above are Whitehall pictures only. The entire gatherings of King Charles were far more numerous.

[G] His painting of this subject, for which he received only twenty-six guineas, was destroyed by fire in 1874.

[H] Northcote, "Conversations," 1830, p. 32, said, "Sir Joshua undoubtedly got his first idea of the art from Gandy." James Gandy (1619--1689), who painted in Ireland and Devonshire, was the last representative of the art of Van Dyck, whose pupil he was.

End of Project Gutenberg's English Painters, by Harry John Wilmot-Buxton