Part 1

ROMNEY

UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME

REYNOLDS

Containing sixteen examples of the master’s work

VELASQUEZ

Containing sixteen illustrations in colour

A. AND C. BLACK, SOHO SQUARE, LONDON, W.

ROMNEY

BY

RANDALL DAVIES

CONTAINING SIXTEEN EXAMPLES IN COLOUR OF THE MASTER’S WORK

LONDON

ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK

1914

PRINTED AT THE BALLANTYNE PRESS LONDON

PREFACE

The most obvious gap in the ranks of the portraits by British painters in our National Collections is caused by the absence of any work of really first-rate importance by George Romney.

_The Parsons Daughter_, in the National Gallery, and the _Mrs. Robinson_, at Hertford House, are of the finest quality; but they are only heads.

The large portrait of _Mrs. Mark Currie_ is charming, but by no means so fine.

In the _Louisa, Countess of Mansfield_, we are nearer to the very best; but that is only a temporary loan, and until the public are in possession of one or two of his superb whole-length portraits, such as Earl Crewe’s _Lady Milnes_, the Marquis of Lansdowne’s _Lord Henry Petty_, or the _Lady Bell Hamilton_, they will hardly be able to judge the work of Romney as fairly as that of his more fortunate contemporaries.

In placing him in the first rank of English painters, however, the present generation are only doing him as much honour as he deserves, after a century of neglect; and there seems to be no fear of his fame diminishing again or his popularity abating.

R. D.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

1. Lady Hamilton with a Goat _Tankerville Chamberlayne, Esq._ _Frontispiece_

_Facing p._

2. The Parson’s Daughter _National Gallery_ 4

3. Thomas John Clavering, afterwards eighth Baronet, and his sister, Catherine Mary _Col. C. W. Napier Clavering_ 8

4. Maria Margaret Clavering, afterwards Lady Napier ” ” ” 12

5. Colonel Thomas Thornton ” ” ” 16

6. Miss Ramus _Viscount Hambleden_ 20

7. Mrs. Robinson as “Perdita” _Wallace Collection_ 22

8. William Pitt, the Younger _National Gallery_ 26

9. Portraits of Mr. and Mrs. William Lindow (1770) ” ” 28

10. Lady Craven (1778) ” ” 32

11. Mrs. Mark Currie (1789) ” ” 36

12. Portrait of a Lady and Child (1782) ” ” 40

13. Lady Hamilton as a Bacchante (1786) ” ” 44

14. Emma, Lady Hamilton _National Portrait Gallery_ 46

15. Miss Benedetta Ramus _Viscount Hambleden_ 48

16. Portrait of Romney by Himself (unfinished) (1782) _National Portrait Gallery_ 52

GEORGE ROMNEY

That Reynolds and Gainsborough were the two greatest portrait painters in England during the latter half of the eighteenth century is a proposition which no one is likely to question. Both had qualities which raised them far above the general, and considerably higher than even the foremost of their competitors; and though preference for the work of the one or the other of them is often as much a matter of taste as of opinion, the pre-eminence of the two is beyond dispute.

When we come to fill the third place, however, the question is not so readily settled. There are many candidates who are, or ought to be, in the running; and although the fashion of the present time may send up the prices of now one now another beyond all that is reasonable and sensible, it would be rash to say that the most popular has the best right to the position. Only last year, for example, a new planet swam into the dealers’ ken, a portrait of _Benjamin Franklin_, painted in 1762 by Mason Chamberlin, one of the original members of the Royal Academy, realising the extraordinary figure of two thousand eight hundred guineas; a figure which, as the _Times_ felicitously observes, “places the artist on an auction level with Reynolds and Gainsborough.”

Judged by the fickle standard of the auction room, Raeburn, at the present moment, would have precedence over Hoppner, and Hoppner, unless I am mistaken, over Romney. But who can say whether before another season is over, the merits of Lawrence or Beechey, West or Copley, may not come up in the market, and impress an uncritical public with ideas of beauty and genius which have hitherto escaped their notice?

In my own opinion, George Romney has better claim than any of the others to be considered next to Reynolds and Gainsborough as a portrait painter, inasmuch as he seems to me to have exhibited more consistently the variety of qualities necessary for excellence in that particular branch of his art.

In its outward manipulation of charm and beauty, the work of Romney is all that an amateur need ask of it, and considerations of mere elegance have probably advanced his popularity in the sale room as much as others more really important. But charm and beauty of this sort are delusive guides and, unless backed by some more enduring test of excellence, will lead us downwards only, through the scale of Hoppner, Lawrence, Harlow, and Shee, till we find ourselves in the company of the simpering beauties of the early and mid-Victorian age, with their sloping shoulders and curling ringlets. With Romney we are perfectly safe. No twinge of conscience warns us to withstand the allurements of _Lady Hamilton_, or the fascination of the _Parson’s Daughter_. We may flirt as long and as desperately as we please--in an artistic sense--with _Mrs. Mark Currie_, without the slightest stain on our æsthetic morals. There is nothing technically meretricious about any of these beauties, and the virtue of our taste is only strengthened by the pleasurable enjoyment of their society.

And why?

One of the first reasons that occur to me is one that may possibly be challenged as being merely paradoxical; namely, that Romney, like Reynolds and Gainsborough, was not primarily a portrait painter. That all three of them became painters of portraits, and will go down to posterity as such, was not because they wished to, but by the accident of circumstance. Reynolds was an humble and assiduous disciple of Michel Angelo, an earnest seeker after conquests in “the grand style.” Of Gainsborough, it was said that music was his pleasure and painting his profession; while in that profession, as we know, it was landscape which chiefly occupied his mind and most delighted him. And Romney actually writes to his friend Hayley, “This cursed portrait-painting. How I am shackled with it!”

To explain the paradox we must look back a little into the history of painting in England, with a glance

at that of portrait-painting in other countries besides. Taking the latter view first, we find that the only name, which readily occurs to us, of an artist who painted nothing but portraits, is that of Holbein. In all the greatest schools of painting, since the days of Cimabue, portraiture was, as it were, a “bye-product,” and with a few exceptions like Holbein, Velasquez, or Vandyck, there is no great painter who is as well known for his portraits as for his other works. In England, until the arrival of Reynolds, there was no school of painting at all, and the only reason for any painter coming to England was the business, rather than the art, of making likenesses of its vigorous inhabitants. In England, consequently, when a school of painting was at last established, it is hardly surprising to find that the painting of portraits was the most considerable branch of it, not only in the early days of its commencement, but throughout almost the whole of its development; and it was not until comparatively late in its history that landscape assumed considerable proportions and finally outgrew the other branch.

Had Reynolds and Romney, like Gainsborough, been landscape painters at heart, it is probable that such a combination of great talent would have resulted in a much earlier triumph for the landscapist, and that we should not have had to wait for Turner and Constable to restore the balance. For Richard Wilson, the actual founder of the English School of landscape, only failed to establish it from want of recognition, and there were many others who were fit to achieve great works in landscape if it had not been that they were compelled to comply with the popular demand for portraiture without regard to their artistic inclinations.

But there was a third branch of the art on which, though unheeded alike by the patron and the public, the minds of Romney and of many more of the most accomplished artists of the time were bent, namely, the historical; and so long as the market was closed to their achievements in this direction, it was impossible for even the greatest among them to exist without making portraiture their regular business.

Reynolds was wise, or fortunate, enough to satisfy his historical or classical aspirations by working them in, so to speak, with his portraits; and while his purely allegorical or poetical compositions have added little to his reputation, he is never so great, or so attractive, as when painting portraits in terms of romance. Nor is he less deservedly popular when realising some idyllic fancy like _The Age of Innocence_, or _The Strawberry Girl_, _The Infant Samuel_ or _Robinetta_--all of which are, in fact, portraits of a single model. Benjamin West, on the other hand, though fortunate in obtaining Royal approval, and truly royal payment, for his historical compositions, found little encouragement from the public in taking to this branch of the profession. “As any attempt in history was at that period an almost unexampled effort,” wrote James Northcote, R.A., on the exhibition of West’s _Pylades and Orestes_ at the Exhibition of 1766, “this picture became a matter of much surprise. West’s house was soon filled with visitors from all quarters to see it; and those amongst the highest rank who were not able to come to his house to satisfy their curiosity, desired to have his permission to have it sent to them; nor did they fail, every time it was returned to him, to accompany it with compliments of the highest commendation on its great merits. But the most wonderful part of the story is that notwithstanding all this bustle and commendation bestowed upon this justly admired picture, by which Mr. West’s servant gained upwards of thirty pounds by showing it, yet no one mortal ever asked the price of the work, or so much as offered to give him a commission to paint any other subject. Indeed there was one gentleman who spoke of it with such praise to his father, that he immediately asked him the reason he did not purchase, as he so much admired it, when he answered, ‘What could I do if I had it? You surely would not have me hang up a modern English picture in my house unless it was a portrait?’”

It was in this year that John Singleton Copley exhibited his first picture, a boy with a squirrel, in England. He, too, was obsessed with the

historical idea, and carried it so far that he is better known for his grand compositions, like the _Death of Chatham_, than for the many very excellent portraits he painted. Angelica Kauffmann is remembered only by her well-intentioned but rather boneless classical compositions; and Fuseli, so far as he is remembered at all, by his weird nightmare effects in historical pieces.

Broadly speaking, history was a thankless mistress to the painters, and had it not been that Romney chose to paint portraits for the sake of accumulating enough money for the pursuit of his own artistic ambitions, his reputation as an artist would now be as totally forgotten as are those of many whose names it is almost unfair to them to mention in the present unappreciative days.

But there is fortunately another aspect of the question. A great deal is being said at the present time about the merits and demerits of a classical education for boys. On the one hand we hear that it is perfectly useless for the ordinary youth to spend the greater part of his time at school in the generally hopeless effort of acquiring some familiarity with the classical languages. On the other we are told that a boy must learn something, and that the training to the mind afforded by the study of Latin and Greek is more valuable in after life than the acquisition of any practically useful knowledge. Whichever side we may incline to in the case of the ordinary everyday boy who is to be sent out into the world to make his living in one of a dozen or more different walks of life, there can be no question that the whole-hearted pursuit of a beloved study, whether of Greek or Latin or Chinese, by a man of purpose and character, never fails to improve him in any other study which he may wish to undertake. For the higher walks of life, such as statesmanship, or the control of large interests, or the influence of considerable bodies of opinion, it is generally admitted that the school and university training is advantageous. An archbishop is not in these days required to address Convocation in Latin, nor is a Prime Minister expected to quote Horace in debate. But either can delegate the useful duties of life to others, while they themselves are better fitted by breadth of view to deal in the largest possible manner with public questions. It is for this reason, to return to our paradox, that I consider Romney’s excellence in portraiture was due, in a large measure, to the fact that he was not willingly a portrait painter. When we see that Reynolds came back from Italy filled with the ardour inspired by Michel Angelo and Raphael for great painting; when we see Gainsborough, torn from his beloved woods and fields to the painting room, both of them establishing their reputation with practically nothing but portraiture, I hope that the paradox will seem less paradoxical, and that it will be agreed that Romney, too, struggling to the last with the relentless Muse of his historical fancy, was in reality indebted to her for most of his excellence in the department of portraiture where we are ready to accord him so high a place. It is only another version of the old fable of the treasure which the father induced his boys to dig for in the vineyard. How many a fashionable painter would do well for himself and for his art by exchanging his brush for a spade!

Anybody can paint a portrait. It is really easier than taking a photograph. One has only to look at contemporary representations of the younger members of one’s friends’ families in oil or pastel to realise that the ordinary person prefers a bad picture to a good photograph. There is something gratifying to the latent vanity of the sitter in the mere fact of sitting to a painter. In the old days, when there were no such things as photographs, the inducement to sit must have been still greater, and the demand for portraits enormous. Horace Walpole declares that there were no less than two thousand portrait painters in London in the middle of the eighteenth century: modern investigation has accounted for over seven hundred! To be a portrait painter, clearly, then was not to be an artist; and when we come to sift the artists from the mere likeness-mongers, we shall almost invariably find that the only great portraits were the work of men who excelled in other directions, as we have found in the cases of Reynolds and Gainsborough.

Applying this test to Romney, it is quite surprising to discover how little is said of his portraiture

by his two earliest biographers, William Hayley, his life-long friend and admirer, and the Reverend John Romney, his son. Nor is there very much more, and certainly no indication of his present pre-eminence among the British portrait painters, in Allan Cunningham’s lengthy Memoir of him published in 1832. It is true that his popularity, amounting to serious rivalry of Reynolds at one period, is mentioned incidentally; as is also the devotion of his art to Lady Hamilton. But these are only considered as diversions, as it were, of his main purpose into a side channel. The dream of his life, we are to understand, was the achievement of historical compositions.

Certainly he has been unfortunate in his biographers. A more tedious and pretentious compilation than the quarto of over four hundred pages published by William Hayley in 1809 as “The Life of George Romney, Esq.,” I hope it may never be anybody’s fate to peruse. Hayley was a second-rate poet--his most considerable work being “The Triumphs of Temper”--with a third-rate intellect. “The influence which the friendship of Hayley exercised over the life of Romney,” the son of the artist writes, “was in many respects injurious. His friendship was grounded on selfishness, and the means by which he obtained it was flattery. He was able also by a canting kind of hypocrisy to confound the distinctions between vice and virtue, and to give a colouring to conduct that might and probably did mislead Romney on some occasions. He drew him too much from general society, and almost monopolised him to himself, and thus narrowed the circle of his acquaintance and friends. By having intimated an intention of writing Romney’s Life he made him extremely afraid of doing anything that might give offence. He was always interfering in his affairs--volunteering his advice; and I have much reason to believe that whatever errors the latter may have committed, they were simply owing to the counsel or instigation of Hayley.”

From Hayley, then, we need not expect very much that is likely to be of value in the way of criticism. But for one thing he is to be thanked, namely the inclusion in his volume of a short sketch of Romney’s professional career by John Flaxman, R.A. From this I shall have occasion to borrow more than a few illuminating passages, a couple of which I now adduce as evidence of how little Romney’s portraiture was considered in an estimate of his art specially written at the time of his death by one whom Hayley calls “an approved artist”:

“As Romney was gifted with peculiar powers for historical and ideal painting, so his heart and soul were engaged in the pursuit of it, whenever he could extricate himself from the importunate business of portrait painting. It was his delight by day and study by night, and for this his food and rest were often neglected.” And again, by way of summing up, “A peculiar shyness of disposition kept him from all association with public bodies, and led to the pursuit of his studies in retirement and solitude which ... allowed him more leisure for observation, reflection, and trying his skill in other arts connected with his own. And indeed few artists, since the fifteenth century, have been able to do so much in so many different branches; for besides his beautiful compositions and pictures, which have added to the knowledge and celebrity of the English school, he modelled like a sculptor, carved ornaments in wood with great delicacy, and could make an architectural design in a fine taste, as well as construct every part of the building.”

The word “portraits” it will be observed occurs but once in these passages; nor does it appear elsewhere in the sketch. If then it be admitted that neither Reynolds nor Gainsborough nor Romney were primarily portrait painters, and that their pre-eminence arises in a high degree from this cause, we shall have arrived at a standpoint from which to observe how each of the three was influenced by that cause in a different manner, and so obtain a better idea of their several excellences than we are likely to obtain from their “auction values.”

In the first place, it is to be remembered that neither Reynolds nor Gainsborough was actually averse to painting portraits, whereas we have

Romney’s written word that he hated it. Sir Joshua, to be sure, speaks of his charming little _Strawberry Girl_ as “One of the half-dozen original things that no man ever exceeds in his lifetime.” But he was quite content to receive as many as a hundred-and-fifty sitters in the course of a single year. Gainsborough, too, could go off into raptures at the beauties of the young princes and princesses when he was painting them at Winsdor, and write a flaming letter to the Royal Academy when the royal portraits were not hung as he desired. Both found their highest expression in portraiture, as did Romney; but whereas they were not slow to realise that their respective gifts, widely different as they were, fitted them pre-eminently for this sort of work, it would seem that Romney never realised it at all; and while the other two brought all their forces, consciously, to the beautification of this particular branch of their art, Romney appears to have done no more than acquiesce coldly but, be it observed, conscientiously, in the necessity for it.

I would therefore submit that the chief characteristics which distinguish Romney’s portraits from those of his two greater contemporaries are coldness--or rather simplicity--and conscientiousness. These are conscious qualities, to which I would add a third, which I believe to be unconscious, that is to say, the influence of the classical art of the Greeks, which for the sake of brevity I will call classicism.

The distinction it seems to me is this. That whereas Reynolds was aiming at the grand style, and spared no occasion for employing it in practice and expatiating on it in precept, it is impossible to say that he did not consciously apply its principles--I say consciously--to every portrait he ever undertook. In Gainsborough’s portraits again we recognise the hand and the heart of the landscape painter consciously employing the terms of his favourite craft, when we find in them the same charm, the same natural and easy grace which is the great characteristic of his landscape drawings and sketches. While Reynolds was painting men and women in terms of art, Gainsborough was painting them in terms of nature. Both were applying all the principles which they had imbibed from their earliest youth to the particular object on which they were engaged.

With Romney, on the other hand, this was clearly not the case. He detested having to paint portraits. His mind was wholly attracted to allegorical and poetical subjects. Allan Cunningham, writing in 1832, almost apologises for mentioning his portraits at all. “A list of all the works which Romney executed in those busy days,” he writes, “would occupy several pages; it would, however, be absurd to specify many of them, since they can possess little interest except for particular families.” He then gives a list of eighteen portraits which are “remarkable for containing more than one figure, or for their superior merit, or on account of the character and station of the individual represented,” adding that “in one of these lucky and prosperous years he earned by portraiture alone some three thousand six hundred pounds.”