John Miller Gray

“ A bust-sized male portrait of an unknown subject also bears the name of Rubens, and, by whatever hand, it is certainly an admirable example of Flemish art. The costume is black with a piped ruff; the face worn, the brow furrowed, the hair yellowish, slightly silvered with age, the thick beard and moustache of a ruddy colour, and the flesh-tones most attractive in the quietude and cool grey quality of their shadows. ”

“ The last opening was the work of the tempest, which, by overturning a trunk or two, disclosed a glimpse of the distant Peeblesshire moor behind, giving just that final touch, that hint of the beyond “over the hills and far away,” which perfects the view,—not only to the painter, as completing the lines of its composition, but to the poet as well, by adding that sense of extended outlook, as of a vista piercing into the breadth of the world, which is needful, for finest imaginative effect, in every landscape. ”

“ In the portrait he appears in three-quarters length, clad in armour, with a lace cravat, and a long dark curling wig, the jewel of the Garter being suspended by its blue ribbon under his right arm. The figure is turned to the left, but the sallow, shaven face, with its dark eyes appearing from beneath bushy black eyebrows, looks in three-quarters to the right. His right hand is raised holding a baton, behind which is placed a helmet, the left rests on a gold-hilted sword; and there is a rocky background, disclosing a space of sky and sea with a ship and boats. ”

“ The present picture, a cabinet-sized bust, is somewhat amateurish in its execution, but still full of character and individuality; the features of the shrewd, wrinkled face, its definitely curved nose, sharply-cut mouth, thin compressed lips, and dark, brilliantly blue eyes beneath the bushy white eyebrows, combine into what is doubtless a faithful rendering of that friend of whom Scott wrote in his Diary, in 1825, “I have known him intimately since our college days; and to my thinking I never met a man of greater powers or more complete information on all desirable subjects.” ”

“ Over the fireplace to the right is an excellent portrait, by William Aikman, of Allan Ramsay the elder, a man who, though his verses may seem a little artificial and a little dull to the readers of our own day, is worthy of all honour, not only for having aided in turning Scottish poetry into a freer and more natural channel, but also for having established a theatre and the first circulating library in Edinburgh, and so distinctly served the cause of culture in Scotland. ”

“ This is carried over the upper edge of the picture, across nearly its whole extent, repeating, by its mass of dark against the sky, the arm of the male figure standing beneath, which is extended, dark against the distant expanse of dimly-lighted landscape{33} background. The sky, against which the heads of the figures are set, is filled with the soft mellow light of a sunset after rain, struggling with films of fluctuating misty clouds,—a sky in the treatment of which Raeburn has used a portrait-painter’s licence, making it lower in tone than would have been the case in such a natural effect. ”

“ There is in this group none of the strong, positive, insufficiently gradated colour, which is sometimes rather distressing in Raeburn’s work. It is far quieter and more delicate than is altogether usual in his art, full of tenderness and subtlety; the faces exquisitely lit by reflected light, their half-shadows softly luminous and delicate exceedingly, never sinking with a crash into blackness and opacity. The artist has seldom produced a finer or more artistic group, has seldom given us a more fascinating portrayal of well-born manhood and of female loveliness. ”

“ The light comes from behind the figures, and the edges of the dress, catching its brightness, are the highest tones of the picture. The lady’s face is one of mature comeliness and dignity, the hair brown and slightly powdered, the light touching and outlining sharply the rounded contours of cheek and chin, and the edge of the throat, which rises from the masses of pure soft muslin—itself still purer and more delicate in tone and texture. Her left hand hangs down by her side, fingering a little among the folds of the dress and compressing its filmy fabric ”

“ Certainly by John Runciman is the excellent picture of “Belshazzar’s Feast,” hung in the Billiard-room, a work so delicate in its handling, so mellow in the golden and ruddy tones of its colouring, as to support the opinion held by some discerning critics, that this artist’s brief life afforded definite promise of his becoming a far subtler and more refined painter than the better-known member of his family ever was.
XIII.
In the Drawing-room hang many admirable and interesting works, to a few of which we may direct attention. ”

“ Nearly one-half of the picture, that to the left, is occupied with a landscape of undulating country, diversified by darker passages afforded by tree-masses, with flashes of light playing over the grass in points where it is quickened by the radiance of the setting sun, and with still sharper flashings which mark the course of the “classic Esk.” To our extreme right an elm-tree raises its great forked stem, and throws out a slenderer branch, bearing embrowned leafage. ”

“ This vigorous, ruddy, bearded countenance is quite unlike the worn, shaven, student’s face which appears in the Chancellor’s authentic portraits by Holbein,—in his two drawings in the Royal Collection at Windsor, and in the pen sketch, for the lost oil picture of the Family of Sir Thomas More, which he himself sent to his friend Erasmus, by the hand of the painter, when Holbein returned to the Continent in 1529, a sketch still preserved in the Museum of Basle. ”

“ The well-balanced, handsome, oval face, with its ripe mouth, rippling in its lines and dimpled at the corners, fine dark-blue eyes, and rounded, slightly cleft chin, is turned in three-quarters towards the right, and surmounted by a voluminous powdered wig. Another portrait of Aikman by himself is preserved at Florence in the Painters’ Gallery of the Uffizi. ”

“ But the parental wishes were in vain; the “mighty{14} genius for portrait-painting” was not to be controlled. Aikman studied art for three years in Edinburgh, under Sir John de Medina, of whose portraiture there is a representative series in Penicuik House; and, when he came into possession of his ancestral acres, which were valuable then, and have become doubly valuable since, he promptly parted with them, sold all that he had for the sake of art; and having rid himself of the burden of ponderable and engrossing material things, started a free man to study painting in Rome. ”

“ It is to be noted, however, that the account-book gives no information as to who the personages are that appear in the pictures; that there is no contemporary inscriptions on the works themselves to prove that it is the first Baronet and his wife that are portrayed and not merely two of their friends; that in the male portrait the face is delicate in its curves and contours, with a long thin nose, drooping at the point, quite unlike the countenance which appears in the pictures certified in the handwriting of the son as representing the first Baronet ”

“ Some of the old cellars remain under the earthen mound to the south, and are still in use. We may sigh a little over the memories and associations of old Penicuik House, over the vanished picturesqueness of its “crowstep” gables and its circular corkscrew turrets, of which a shadow still survives in the sketch by John Clerk, reproduced in the Bannatyne Club issue of his etchings; but doubtless the present mansion is vastly more commodious and in better harmony with modern ideas of comfort than was its predecessor, and it takes its place excellently in the landscape ”

“ He appears standing, robed in a rich crimson gown, which shows its orange-tinted lining, with an elaborate lace cravat, and ruffles appearing at the hands, one of which is laid gracefully against his side, while his right arm rests on a stone parapet to the left. The face is of a man of between thirty and forty, with handsome regular features and the rounded, oval cheeks and small,{23} ripe, red-lipped mouth which the painter loved to depict, and with much individuality and character in the firm clear-cut line of the nose. ”

“ Above the fireplace in the Drawing-room is another portrait of this same John Clerk, a large, dark, gallery full-length, stated to have been executed, like the miniature, in Paris. Here the founder of the family is depicted standing, in a black dress, his right hand resting on the stone ball which surmounts and decorates the parapet of garden walk, his left hand sustaining his sword. The countenance is manifestly the same as that in the miniature. This picture is stated by family tradition to have been painted by “De Wit,” a portrait-painter we have not as yet been able to identify. ”

“ William Aikman, the portrait-painter, too, was descended from the house of Penicuik, his mother having been the eldest sister of Sir John Clerk, the first Baronet; and, in our own time, Professor James Clerk Maxwell, whose father was grandson of the fourth Baronet and brother of the sixth, has by his eminence in science added new lustre to his parental name.
But not only have the Clerks been themselves witty—using the word in its best, its old English, sense—they have been the cause of wit in others ”

“ If we were to criticise the ceiling purely as an example of decorative art, we might well object that the elaboration and wealth of detail in the work is hardly suitable to its position, that designs so placed should have been simpler and more salient in their component parts, and executed in a lighter and more airy scheme of colouring, so as to carry the eye freely upwards. ”

“ She will wear the Ornaments from you and the Grampians as in Truth the most valuable she has, as long as she lives, and we shall both take some Pains to secure its being, in the possession of those who follow after us, an heir Loom. I know not why we search the World over for Diamonds, when the Grampians can furnish what equals, if it does not surpass them, in beauty and brilliancy. ”

“ The house, which fronts us as we approach the termination of the drive, is a modern edifice, built by Sir James, the third Baronet, in 1761, after he had returned from a residence in Italy, saturated with classical ideas. It was erected entirely from the Baronet’s own designs; but, doubtless, these were produced under the influence of Robert Adam, the celebrated architect, whose sister had been married in 1753 to John Clerk, author of the “Naval Tactics,” Sir James’s younger brother. ”

“ Near the portrait of his son is a half-length by Aikman, rather hard in execution, showing a gentleman, with face turned to the left, in a purple-grey coat, the end of his white cravat being thrust through one of its button-holes. This is Dr. John Clerk, grandson of the first Baronet of Penicuik, whose father, Robert Clerk, was a physician in Edinburgh, and a close friend of Dr. Pitcairn. The son, born 1689, died 1757, was a personage of greater mark. For above thirty years he was the most eminent physician in Scotland ”

“ Two other works by Aikman may here be mentioned, two drawings in red chalk upon blue paper, which hang in a passage near the Library door. They evince more of an ideal aim than any other of the productions of this painter with which we are acquainted. Evidently they are companion works, and the female portrait is dated 1730, the year before the artist’s death. This shows a girl’s head in profile to the left, a young attractive little face, with the faintest half-smile playing round the tiny mouth, and the{32} short hair decorated with a chaplet of leaves, or of leaf-like ribbons. ”

“ As was to be expected in so early a work of the artist’s—he must have been under twenty when he painted it, for the lady died in 1701—this latter is full of faults, stiff in pose, with little suggestion of the figure under the draperies of white and blue: still it conveys the idea of a charming and attractive personality, fitting as that of the lady for whom the Baron—as shown in the “History of his Life,”—mourned so truly. ”

“ The present picture, very similar to that which was excellently mezzotinted by George White, shows the poet nearly to the waist, clad in a brown coat, the shirt open at the throat and without a cravat. No wig is worn, but the head is wound round tightly, cap-fashion, with a low-toned orange handkerchief, beneath which appears the bright, alert, intelligent face, with its bushy eyebrows and very black eyes, its wide-nostrilled, humorous, slightly retroussé nose, and its large-lipped mouth, full and rippling over{11} with good-nature and sensitiveness. ”

“ The face, wearing an expression of great earnestness and intentness, is as yet beardless, unformed, and rather heavy-looking; different indeed from the emphatic furrowed countenance that appears in the later portraits which show him when age had developed his full individuality. The eyes are pale bluish grey, and the eyebrows very light in colour. ”

“ But as an example of poetic art, in its earnestness of aim and vigour of conception, it is deserving of all praise, as one of the very few instances that Scotland has to show of a serious effort to produce a{62} monumental work, a pictorial epic,—an effort honourable alike to the painter and his patron. ”

“ Smibert is believed to have executed a second portrait of Allan Ramsay, that kit-cat likeness with the head turned nearly in profile to the left, which formed the frontispiece to “The Gentle Shepherd, with Illustrations of the Scenery,” Edinburgh 1814, engraved by A. Wilson, from a drawing made by A. Carse from the picture (now at New Hall, Mid-Lothian) , which had belonged to the poet himself, and afterwards to Janet Ramsay, a daughter who survived him. ”