James Lewis Caw

“ When Melville returned to Scotland, the artistic movement, which issued in what came to be known as the Glasgow school, had already begun. There was a certain affinity between his work and that of the young Glasgow painters. Meeting Mr. (now Sir James) Guthrie and E. A. Walton at Cockburnspath in 1883, Melville associated himself with them. He had already achieved a more individual style than they, and his strong personality helped to accelerate and mould the Glasgow movement, but he on his part was influenced by the Glasgow artists' enthusiasm and audacity in experiment. ”

“ His grandfather, discovering his talent, encouraged him to become a painter. For some years he painted highland landscape, and in 1811–12 he published six large engravings of scenes in the north, while many of his early topographical drawings appeared in the ‘Scots Magazine;’ but an extended tour in Italy and Greece, from which he returned in 1818, gave his work its particular character, and earned him the name, ‘Grecian Williams,’ by which he is familiarly known. ”

“ Almost exclusively a landscape painter, he delighted in woodland and river scenery; but he also painted a number of very fine interiors and still-life studies, and usually introduced figure incident into his landscapes. The work produced during the last fifteen years of his life is, owing to the physical weakness referred to, quite unrepresentative of his talent.
Scottish collectors esteem Fraser's art highly, and even before his death his pictures had advanced greatly in monetary value. ”

“ Owing to failing health the father gave up business in Glasgow about 1844, and removing to Helensburgh, opened a library and bookshop there, and became post-master. Colin Hunter was thus brought up on the coast. On leaving school he spent four years in a shipping-office in Glasgow, and soon made the acquaintance of William Black, the novelist, who became a lifelong friend. From early youth his bias towards art was strong. He devoted all his leisure to sketching from nature, and after a little study at the local school of art he at twenty abandoned business to become a landscape-painter. ”

“ His work was always individual and interesting, for he had a poetic apprehension of nature, and was peculiarly sensitive to grave and impressive emotions which belong to twilight, night, and solitude. ”

“ Soon his oil pictures also expressed that sensitiveness to the sparkle and flicker of light and the brilliance and purity of colour, and that apprehension of the rhythmical movement and the emotional significance of nature, which were the essential qualities of his gift. ”

“ GRAY, JOHN MILLER (1850–1894) , art critic and curator of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, was born in Edinburgh in 1850,his mother dying at his birth. His father, John Gray, who had retired from business, lost nearly all he had saved by the failure of the Western Bank, and Gray had to leave school somewhat early and enter the Commercial Bank. Devoting his leisure to the study of books and pictures and prints, he gradually made a beginning as a critic, writing principally for the 'Edinburgh Courant.' His monograph on George Manson [q. v.] ”

“ Vallance commenced to exhibit at the Royal Scottish Academy in 1849, but it was not until 1857 that he took up art as a profession. His earlier work had been chiefly portraiture and genre. After 1870 he painted, principally in Wicklow, Connemara, and Galway, a series of pictures of Lish life and character, humorous in figure and incident, and fresh in landscape setting. ”

“ Shortly after his return from the East he married Miss Miller of Garnock, a wealthy lady of good family, and moved in the best Edinburgh society, where he was exceedingly popular. Professor Wilson in the ‘Noctes Ambrosianæ’ makes the ‘Shepherd’ say of Williams: ‘As for the man himsel’, I like to look on him, for he's gotten a gran' bald phrenological head, the face o' him 's at ance good-natured and intelligent ”

“ An earnest student of nature, and from very early in his career a remarkably able craftsman, his work soon attracted attention; in 1858 he was elected associate, and four years later full member, of the Royal Scottish Academy. ”

“ His leisure was devoted to art, and he commenced to paint in oils. In 1843 he entered the schools of the Royal Academy in London, where he began a lifelong friendship with (Sir) John Everett Millais [q. v. Suppl. I] , but the Academy training proved uncongenial, and Paton soon went north again. Senior to the Pre-Raphaehtes by a few years, Paton sympathised with their ideals, and anticipated some of their practice, but he did not share their ardour for reality, and his pictures, being more conventional both in subject and in style than theirs, more readily won popular approval. ”

“ FRASER, ALEXANDER (1827–1899) , landscape painter, son of Alexander George Fraser and his wife Janet W. Moir, was born at Woodcockdale, near Linlithgow, on 3 Nov. 1827. His father, a gentleman of private means, was an amateur of ability, and from him Fraser received some instruction in art before he entered the Trustees' Academy, Edinburgh, at the age of seventeen. But he learned more by working from nature and copying in the gallery and from his fellow-students than from masters. ”

“ At this period Orchardson was neither a very regular attendant nor a very hard worker. It is said that he seldom finished a life-study; but when he did it was masterly and complete, and it evoked the applause of his fellows. He took an active part in the sketch club founded by Lauder's early pupils, and formed enduring friendships with the members, more especially with Tom Graham [q. v. Suppl. II] and John Pettie [q. v.] ”

“ He had been elected A.R.S.A. in 1840, but resigning when he received the London honour, he was made an honorary member at a later date. In recognition of his services as a British commissioner at the Paris Exposition of 1878 he was appointed chevalier of the Legion of Honour. He retired from the Royal Academy in 1890, exhibited there for the last time in the following year, and, having completed his last work in 1893, died in London on 16 June 1894.
He was a hard worker, and during his long career produced a great number of works. ”

“ The parents removed to Edinburgh for good when Joseph was a baby. Having been educated at the Military Academy, Hill Street, Edinburgh, he was engaged for a time in mercantile pursuits in Leith and Gloucester, but eventually, after a successful career as a student in the Edinburgh School of Art and the life school of the Royal Scottish Academy (1877–80) , he devoted himself to painting as a profession. ”

“ Although he painted a few oil pictures, his principal and more characteristic work was executed in watercolour, which he handled in broad washes of transparent colour over a carefully drawn pencil design. ”

“ He had occupied a prominent position as a painter of subject pictures and portraits in Scotland for many years; but when in 1887 he was commissioned by the queen to paint 'The Jubilee Celebration in Westminster' he went to London, where he afterwards devoted himself principally to portraiture. ”

“ In early life he hunted, and at Westgate he became a devotee of tennis, for which he had an open court built. He was also a keen angler, especially with the dry fly, and latterly took to golf. Indoors he played billiards and talked with penetrating insight. Apart from the portrait of himself in the Uffizi, there are others by Tom Graham (seated half length, in Lady Orchardson's possession) , by J. H. Lorimer (in Scottish National Portrait Gallery) , and by his son, as well as a bronze bust by E. Onslow Ford [q. v. Suppl. II] , which belongs to Mrs. Joseph. ”

“ Some of his finest pictures belong to about this time, and in such as ‘The Ruby Ring’ (1853) ; ‘The Alchemist’ (1855) ; ‘Hudibras and Ralph visiting the Astrologer’ (1856) , an incident from Butler's famous work; ‘The Rosicrucians’ (1856) , one of his finest things in colour; and ‘The False Astrologer,’ the painter's interest in out-of-the-way subjects and his definite leaning to archæology are clearly visible. Many of them show much of the pre-Raphaelite spirit, and are remarkable for wonderfully perfect and detailed handling and rich and beautiful colour. ”

“ The charming portrait of Mrs. Orchardson (1875) ; the 'Master Baby'—the artist's wife and child (1886) ; the spirited rendering of himself standing before Ms easel, painted for the Uffizi in 1890 ; 'Sir Walter Gilbey' (1891) ; and 'H. B. Ferguson, Esq.' in the Dundee Gallery are splendid proofs of his skill in portraiture. Save 'Master Baby,' these were all three-quarter lengths ; but the full lengths of 'Sir David Stewart' (1896) , in his robes as lord provost of Aberdeen, and of 'Lord Peel' (1898) , when speaker of the House of Commons, are hardly less effective. ”

“ These journeys supplied Melville with motives for a series of important drawings executed on a larger scale and more subtle and masterly in style and finer in colour than their predecessors. Venice in 1894 was his next fruitful venture. After 1897 he devoted more attention to oil painting. There, however, his work, although always interesting and powerful, was more experimental and less satisfying, and, in portraiture at least, tended to extravagance. ”

“ His desire was to be a painter, and, encouraged by John Pettie [q. v.] and others who believed in his gifts, he, in 1878, gave up law and took to art. He had no academic training to begin with, and the short time he spent in the studio of Carolus Duran at a later date was of little account ”

“ Ross was familiar with the best art on the Continent, travelling much in Italy, and he was a frequent exhibitor at some of the leading exhibitions abroad, his 'Serata Veneziana' winning a diploma of honour at Dresden in 1892. He was unmarried and resided at Edinburgh with his sisters. He died from the effects of a fall in his Edinburgh studio on 28 Sept. ”

“ He died at 13 Portland Place, London, on 13 April 1910. Only a fortnight before he had completed, with an effort, the portrait of Lord Blyth, which appeared in the Academy after his death. He was buried at Westgate-on-Sea.
Orchardson married on 8 April 1873, at St. Mary Abbots, Kensington, Ellen, daughter of Charles Moxon of London ; she survived him with four sons and two daughters, and was granted a civil list pension of 80l. in 1912. The eldest son, Mr. C. M. Q. Orchardson, is an artist.
Of distinguished appearance, if of slight physique, Orchardson was very active and lithe. ”

“ Many of his smaller pictures are masterly studies of such objects, and in nearly all of his principal pictures they figure as accessories. As a collector he is said to have combined the specific knowledge of the connoisseur with the practical and general discernment of the artist ”

“ His younger brother, Waller Hugh [q. v.] , was the landscape-painter, and one of his two sisters, Amelia (1820-1904) , who married David Octavius Hill [q. v.] , modelled with skill and executed several public statues of merit. At an early age the boy Joseph, who read widely, was impressed by the designs, as well as the poetry, of William Blake. By the time he was fourteen he had made a series of illustrations to the Bible. ”

“ He also produced a number of memorial statues, of which the marbles of Lords Clarendon and Somers, in the houses of parliament at Westminster, and of Sir George Grey, in Cape Town, and the bronze of Sir Robert Peel, in Manchester, may be named. ”

“ Until 1870 he lived principally at Helensburgh, although from 1868 to 1872 he had a studio in Edinburgh. Meanwhile his work commenced to attract attention at the Royal Academy. He had first exhibited there in 1868. Four years later he went to London. After occupying studios in Langham Place and Carlton Hill, he removed in 1877 to Melbury Road, Kensington, where he built a fine house and studio. In 1873 the power and originahty of 'Trawlers waiting for Darkness' had evoked general admiration. ”

“ Henceforth his subjects were divided into incidents in the comedy of manners (sometimes gay but more often grave, and usually touched with a deUcate irony) and incidents from the careers of the great. The situation was always an epitomised expression of the interplay of character and circumstance rather than a rendering of a particular event, and the effect was highly dramatic. ”

“ GRAHAM, THOMAS ALEXANDER FERGUSON (1840–1906) , artist, born at Kirkwall on 27 Oct. 1840, was only son of Alexander Spears Graham, writer to the signet and crown chamberlain of Orkney (like his father before him) , by his wife Eliza Stirling. About 1850, some time after their father's death, Thomas and an only sister went to Edinburgh to live with their grandmother. ”

“ He enrolled himself as an 'artist.' The master of the Academy, Alexander Christie, A.R.S.A., taught ornament and design, and John Ballantyne, R.S.A., took the antique, life and colour classes. They were not inspiring teachers, but Orchardson made rapid progress. ”