Chapter 2

The influences which affected Raeburn and the models upon which he formed either his style or his method are difficult to trace. Allan Ramsay, having painted many portraits in Edinburgh before he went to London in the same year as Raeburn was born, would be, one would think, the most likely source of inspiration. Except Runciman, who occasionally varied historical subjects by portraits painted in a broad but somewhat empty manner, and Seaton, an artist of whom little is known but whose rare and seldom seen portraits possess a breadth of handling and a simplicity of design which give the best of them a certain distinction--can they have been an influence with Raeburn?--the Scottish portrait-painters of the eighteenth century were much influenced by Ramsay, and Martin had been his favourite pupil. Raeburn's connection with the latter was very slight, however. Beyond giving the youth the entreé to his studio and lending him a few pictures to copy, Martin does not seem to have been of much direct assistance, and even these little courtesies come to an end when the painter to the Prince of Wales for Scotland unjustly accused the jeweller's apprentice of having sold one of the copies he had been allowed to make. Rumour, often astray but now and then hitting the mark, said that the real reason was jealousy of the younger man's growing powers. Raeburn's debt to Ramsay and Martin was therefore inconsiderable and indirect. It is not traceable in the technique or arrangement of his earliest known pictures, such as the full-length "George Chalmers" in Dunfermline Town Hall, which was painted in 1776, when the artist was twenty. Probably sight of Martin's pictures in progress was an incentive to work rather than a formative influence on his development as a painter. He had, says Allan Cunningham, writing within a few years of Raeburn's death, "to make experiments, and drudge to acquire what belongs to the mechanical labour, and not to the genius of his art. His first difficulty was the preparation of his colours; putting them on the palette, and applying them according to the rules of art taught in the academies. All this he had to seek out for himself." And, if probably exaggerated, the statement gives some idea of the difficulties with which he had to contend. There were at that time no exhibitions and no public collections of pictures where a youth of genuine instinct could have gleaned hints as to technical procedure, but there were at least portraits in a number of houses in the city and district, and from these and from prints after the Masters, of which Deuchar, an etcher himself, evidently possessed examples, Raeburn no doubt derived much instruction as to design, the use of chiaroscuro and the like. It has also been suggested with considerable likelihood that mezzotints after portraits by Sir Joshua Reynolds had a considerable effect upon him.

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PLATE V.--PROFESSOR ROBISON.

(University of Edinburgh.)

Painted about 1798, "Professor Robison" is one of the most notable portraits painted by Raeburn before 1800. It represents the culmination of his _premier coup_ manner. (See pp. 63 and 73.)

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Passing from supposition, which, however interesting and plausible, throws no very definite light upon the formation of Raeburn's style, to his early work itself, one finds it chiefly remarkable for frank rendering of character. Obviously he believed in his own eyes, and sought simple and direct ways for the expression of his vision. Certain of what he saw, and desiring to set it down as he saw it, lack of training in the traditional methods of painting by process probably led him to attempt direct realisation in paint. Here is at once the simplest and the most reasonable explanation of how he became an exponent of direct painting, of how, isolated though it was, his art came to be perhaps the most emphatic statement of this particular method of handling between Velasquez and Hals and comparatively recent times. Of course at this early stage his technical accomplishment was not at all equal to his frankness of vision. His drawing, although expressing character, was uncertain and not fully constructive; his sense of design was rather stiff and occasionally somewhat archaic in character; his handling and modelling, if broad and courageous, were insufficiently supported by knowledge; his colour was apt to be dull and monotonous, or, when breaking from that, patchy and crude in its more definite notes which do not fuse sufficiently with their surroundings.

Gradually these deficiencies were mastered, but in some degree they persist in most of the comparatively few portraits which can be said with certainty to have been painted before he went to Italy. He had been in no hurry to go. Ever since marriage with one of his sitters in 1778, when he was only twenty-two, his future had been secure. The lady, _neé_ Ann Edgar of Bridgelands, Peebleshire, brought him a considerable fortune. The widow of James Leslie--who traced his descent to Sir George Leslie, first Baron of Balquhain (1351), and who, after his purchase of Deanhaugh in 1777,[1] was spoken of as "Count of Deanhaugh"--she was twelve years the artist's senior, and had three children; but the marriage turned out most happily for all concerned. Raeburn went to live at his wife's property, which lay not far from his brother's house and factory at Stockbridge, and, although sitters increased with his growing reputation until he is said to have been quite independent of his wife's income, he does not appear to have had a separate studio. Probably his Edinburgh clients went to Deanhaugh, and at times he seems to have painted portraits at the country houses of the gentry. But in 1785 desire to see and learn more than was possible at home took him to Italy. While in London he made the acquaintance of Reynolds, in whose studio he may have worked for a few weeks, and Sir Joshua's advice confirming his original intention, Raeburn and his wife went to Rome, where they resided about two years. When parting Reynolds took him aside and whispered: "Young man, I know nothing about your circumstances. Young painters are seldom rich; but if money be necessary for your studies abroad, say so, and you shall not want it." Money was not needed, but letters of introduction were accepted gladly; and "ever afterwards Raeburn mentioned the name of Sir Joshua with much respect."

[1] If, as stated by Cumberland Hill in his _History of Stockbridge_, Leslie bought Deanhaugh in 1777, and if, as stated by Cunningham and others, Raeburn married in 1778, the lady can have been a widow for only a few months.

IV.

In these days of rapid travel, the transition from north to south is exceedingly striking. Leaving London one speeds past the pleasant Surrey fields and lanes and woodlands, and through the soft rolling green downs, and in the afternoon and evening sees the less familiar but not strange wide planes and poplar-fringed rivers of Northern France, to open one's eyes next morning upon the brown sun-baked lands, with their strange southern growths, which lie behind Marseilles; and all day as the train thunders along the Riviera, through olive gardens and vineyards, one has glimpses of strangely picturesque white-walled and many-coloured shuttered towns fringing the broad bays or clustering on the rocks above little harbours, and drinks a strange enchantment from great vistas of lovely coast washed by blue waters and gladdened by radiant sunshine. And on the second morning, issuing into the great square before the station, you have your first sight of Rome.

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PLATE VI.--JOHN TAIT OF HARVIESTON AND HIS GRANDSON. (Mrs Pitman.)

One of the artist's most virile and trenchant performances, it was painted in 1798-9. The child was introduced after the grandfather's death. (See p. 63.)

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Yet impressive as these transitions are, they are nothing to the contrast which Rome presented to the stranger from the north in the eighteenth century when, after slow and long and weary travelling, he reached his goal. Then Rome was still a town of the renaissance imposed upon a city of the ancients; and under the aegis of the Papacy preserved aspects of life and character which differed little from those of three or four centuries earlier. After the grey metropolis of the north, with its softly luminous or cloudy skies, its sombreness of aspect, its calvinistic religious atmosphere, its interest in science and philosophy, and its want of interest in the arts, the clear sunshiny air of the Eternal City, its picturesque and crowded life, its gorgeous ecclesiastical ceremonies and processions, its monuments of art and architecture, and its cosmopolitan coteries of eager dilettanti discussing the latest archaeological discoveries, and of artists studying the achievements of the past, must have formed an extraordinary contrast, Yet Raeburn, much as these novel and stirring surroundings would strike him, remained true to his own impressions of reality and was unaffected in his artistic ideals. Almost alone of the foreign artists then resident in Rome, he was unaffected by the pseudo-classicism which prevailed. In part a product of emasculated academic tradition, and in part the result of philosophical speculations, upon which the discoveries at Pompeii and the excavations then taking place in Rome had had a strong influence, it was an attitude which founded itself upon the past and opposed the direct study of nature. Gavin Hamilton (1723-98) and Jacob More (1740?-93) two of its most conspicuous pictorial exponents were Scots by birth, but they had lived so long abroad that Scotland had become to them little more than a memory. The work of the former was in many ways an embodiment of the current dilettante conception of art, and kindred in kind, though earlier in date, to that of Jacques Louis David (1748-1825) under whose sway, towards the close of the century, classic ideals came to dominate the art of Europe outside these isles. His usefulness to Raeburn was chiefly that of a cicerone. There was little of an archaeological kind with which he was unacquainted, and he was so famous a discoverer of antiquities that the superstitious Romans thought that he was in league with the devil. The landscapes of More, though highly praised by Goethe, would appeal to Raeburn little more than did the "sublime" historical designs of Hamilton. They were but dilutions, frequently flavoured with melodramatic sentiment, of the noble convention formulated by Claude and the Poussins. Raeburn, on the other hand, had looked at man and nature inquiringly, and had evolved a manner of expressing the results of his observation for himself. Moreover he was past the easily impressionable age, and turned his opportunities to direct and practical uses. He used to declare that the advice of James Byres (1734-1818?) of Tonley, who, in Raeburn's own words, was "a man of great general information, a profound antiquary, and one of the best judges perhaps of everything connected with art in Great Britain," was the most valuable lesson he received while abroad. "Never paint anything except you have it before you" was what his friend urged, and, while Raeburn, to judge from his early portraits, did not stand greatly in need of the injunction, it probably strengthened him in his own beliefs. Be that as it may he seems to have used his stay in Italy principally to widen his technical experience, and his work after his return was richer and fuller than what he had done previously. No record of any special study he may have undertaken or of the pictures he particularly admired exists. Even gossip is silent as regards his preferences, except in so far as it is said that while in Rome he came near to preferring sculpture to painting.

V.

Arrived back in Edinburgh in 1787, Raeburn took a studio in the new town, and, with his enhanced powers and the added prestige due to his sojourn abroad, soon occupied a commanding place. Few agreed with Martin that "the lad in George Street painted better before he went to Italy," for if the majority were unaware of his high artistic gifts, none could be unconscious of the vital and convincing quality of his portraitures. His earlier sitters included some of the most distinguished people in Scotland. Lord President Dundas must have been amongst the very first for he died before the end of the year. Ere long his position was unassailable, and during the five-and-thirty years that followed he painted practically everybody who was anybody. Burns is probably the only great Scotsman of that epoch who was not immortalised by his brush, for the missing likeness, which has been discovered so often, was not painted from life but from Nasmyth's portrait.

From the time he returned home until 1809, when he purchased the adjoining property off St Bernard's, Raeburn lived at Deanhaugh.[1] The junction of these small estates enabled him to feu the outlying parts on plans prepared by himself, architecture being one of his hobbies, and his family's connection with them is still marked by such names as Raeburn Place, Ann Street (after his wife), Leslie Place, St Bernard's Crescent, and Deanhaugh Street. Some years earlier continuous increase in the number of his clients had rendered a change of studio desirable, and in 1795 he moved from George Street to 16 (now 32) York Place where he had built a specially designed and spacious studio, with a suite of rooms for the display of recently completed work or of portraits he had painted for himself. At a later date, when exhibitions were inaugurated in Edinburgh (first series 1808-13), he lent the show-rooms to the Society of Artists which organised them. This action was typical of Raeburn's cordial relations with his fellow-artists, most of whom were poor and socially unimportant; and only a year before his death he championed the professional artists when, partly in opposition to the Royal Institution, they proposed to form an Academy. Incidentally also, the letter written on that occasion, which I have transcribed in full in _Scottish Painting; Past and Present_, gives an indication of the extent of his practice, of how fully he was engaged.

Until 1808 Raeburn's career had been one unbroken success, but in that year, following upon the failure of his son, financial disaster overtook him. The firm of "Henry Raeburn and Company, merchants, Shore, Leith," consisted of Henry Raeburn, Junior, and James Philip Inglis, who had married Anne Leslie, the artist's step-daughter, but neither the _Edinburgh Gazette_ nor the local Directory states the nature of their business. In the proceedings in connection with Raeburn's own bankruptcy, however, he is described as "portrait-painter and underwriter." What underwriter exactly means is uncertain, but it may be that the son was a marine-insurance broker, that Raeburn himself took marine-insurance risks. In any case his ruin seemed complete. Not only did he lose all his savings but he had even to sell the York Place studio, of which he was afterwards only tenant. He failed, paid a composition, and, two years later, proposed settling in London. By those of his biographers who have noticed it at all, this failure and the contemplated removal south have been very closely associated. But a more careful examination of the whole circumstances makes such an assumption rather doubtful. Alexander Cunningham, in a letter written on 16th February 1808, tells a correspondent--"I had a walk of three hours on Sunday with my worthy friend, Raeburn. He had realised nearly £17,000, which is all gone. He has offered a small composition, which he is in hopes will be accepted. He quits this to try his fate in London, which I trust in God will be successful. While I write this I feel the tear start." So far the connection is evident enough. But although the artist received his discharge in June of the same year,[2] it was not until two years later that he took active steps towards carrying out his idea.[3] The time was highly propitious. Hoppner had just died (23rd January 1810), and Wilkie records in his journal (March 2nd) that he had heard that that artist's house was to be taken for Raeburn. Lawrence was now without a rival in the metropolis, and Raeburn's talent was of a kind which would soon have commanded attention there. The opening was obvious, but Raeburn's reception by the gentlemen of the Royal Academy, when he visited London in May, was not very cordial, and fortunately for Scotland, if not for himself, he was persuaded to remain in Edinburgh. From then onward the fates were kind. To quote his own words, written in 1822, "my business, though it may fall off, cannot admit of enlargement."

Wider recognition also came to him. He had exhibited at the Royal Academy as early as 1792, but it was 1810 before he became a regular contributor, and in 1812 he was elected an Associate, full membership following three years later. Just prior to his advancement to Academician rank, he wrote one of the few letters by him that have been preserved:--"I observe what you say respecting the election of an R.A.; but what am I to do here? They know that I am on their list; if they choose to elect me without solicitation, it will be the more honourable to me, and I will think the more of it; but if it can only be obtained by means of solicitation and canvassing, I must give up all hopes of it, for I would think it unfair to employ those means."

No doubt election was particularly gratifying to Raeburn. Isolated as he was in Edinburgh, where an Academy did not come into existence until some years after his death, it must have been stimulating to receive such tangible assurance of that appreciation of one's fellow-workers which is the most grateful form of admiration to the artist. He reciprocated by offering as his diploma work the impressive portrait of himself, which is now one of the treasures of the National Gallery of Scotland. The rules of the Academy, however, forbade the acceptance of a self-portrait, and in 1821 he gave the "Boy with Rabbit"--a portrait of his step-grandson, but one of his most genre-like pieces. Other Academic diplomas received later were those of the Academies of Florence, New York, and South Carolina.

A year before he died these artistic laurels were supplemented by royal favour. On the occasion of that never-to-be-forgotten event--to those who took part in it--the first visit of a King to Scotland since the Union of Parliaments, Raeburn was presented to George IV. and knighted. His fellow artists marked their appreciation of this fresh distinction by entertaining him to a public dinner, at which the chairman, Alexander Nasmyth, the doyen of the local painters, declared that "they loved him as a man not less than they admired him as an artist." And in the following May, the King appointed him his "limner and painter in Scotland, with all fees, profits, salaries, rights, privileges, and advantages thereto belonging."

Raeburn did not long enjoy these new honours. In July, a day or two after returning from an archaeological excursion in Fifeshire with, amongst others, Sir Walter Scott and Miss Edgeworth, he became suddenly ill, took to bed, and in less than a week was dead.

[1] All Raeburn's biographers follow Cunningham in stating that Raeburn succeeded to St Bernard's on the death of his brother in 1787 or 1788. It was not so, however. The intimation in the _Edinburgh Evening Courant_, of 13th December 1810, reads, "Died on the 6th December Mr William Raeburn, manufacturer, Stockbridge"; and the title deeds of St Bernard's show that the artist purchased it from the trustees of the late Mrs Margaret Ross in October 1809.

[2] Henry Raeburn & Co.'s affairs were not settled until March 1810.

[3] That his own affairs were not only settled but were again highly prosperous before this is apparent from his having purchased St Bernard's in 1809.

VI.

While Raeburn's attitude to reality was determined and his style was formed to a great extent before he went abroad, his ideas of pictorial effect were broadened and his technical resources enriched by his sojourn in Italy. Some of the work executed immediately after his return, such as the portraits of Lord President Dundas, Neil Gow, the famous fiddler, and the earlier of two portraits of his friend John Clerk of Eldin, shows, with much unity, a greater care and precision in the handling of detail, a more searched kind of modelling and a fuller sense of tone, and thicker impasto and fuller colour than that done previously. Moreover the design of the first-named picture is reminiscent in certain ways of Velasquez's "Pope Innocent X.," which he may have seen and studied in the Doria Palace in Rome, though too much stress need not be laid on the resemblance. About this time also, he painted a few pictures in which difficult problems of lighting are subtly and skilfully solved. In things like the charming bust "William Ferguson of Kilrie" (before 1790) and the group of Sir John and Lady Clerk of Penicuik (1790) the faces are in luminous shadow, touched by soft reflected light to give expression and animation. But for obvious reasons such effects are not favoured by the clients of portrait-painters, and that Raeburn should have adopted them at all is evidence of the widening of the artistic horizon induced by his stay abroad.

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PLATE VII.--MISS EMILY DE VISMES--LADY MURRAY. (Earl of Mansfield.)

An admirable example of the artist's mature style, and one of his most charming portraits of women. (See p. 79.)

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