Randall Davies

“ For Reynolds, those two “professional beauties” were sitters, of whom the painter succeeded in painting several beautiful and accomplished portraits. For Romney, Emma Lyon was to some extent the embodiment of the Muse whom I have ventured to postulate as his guardian angel, when engaged in the perilous commerce of painting pretty and fashionable ladies. That she was also the veritable embodiment of all that was pleasing to the mortal eye in the shape of woman is at least equally certain; but unlike so many of her frail sisters, she was a remarkably accomplished and intelligent woman. ”

“ How many a fashionable painter would do well for himself and for his art by exchanging his brush for a spade!{12}
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 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ National Gallery such proportions as may seem to each of us most suitable to the facts, we find it to be true that from henceforth Romney’s sitters were treated as ordinary everyday human beings, and not as gods, goddesses, heroes, nymphs, muses, or what not. What he gave them was of his best, so far as it went, and, as I have suggested, his best went farther than he was conscious of in giving it. Let us now see how his portraiture responds to the three tests I ventured to suggest, namely, simplicity, conscientiousness, and classicism. ”

“ 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{3} 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. ”

“ 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{10} 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. ”

“ 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{13} ”

“ The Catalogue of the Exhibition of National Portraits held at South Kensington in 1867, enumerates but twenty pictures by Romney, and as many as a hundred and fifty by Reynolds.
That Romney’s sensitive disposition and retiring habit of life may in some degree account for his not being more widely popular in his own time is no doubt true. But apart from any other consideration there is no question that a fine portrait by Reynolds is a more satisfying possession than any but the very finest by Romney, and a characteristic one by Gainsborough more exhilarating. ”

“ But in placing Romney so high above the crowd of ordinary portrait painters, and a little higher than any except Reynolds and Gainsborough, it is only fair to consider how far short he fell of equalling those two. And it must not be forgotten that the limitations which he imposed upon himself were quite as likely to affect his popularity among his patrons and their friends as with posterity. Classic simplicity is an invaluable quality in the portraiture of everyday men and women, especially when the latter are young and pretty ”

“ 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. ”

“ And indeed few artists, since the fifteenth{16} 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As in the case of Romney, the author has been maligned by the undiscerning vulgar for supposed deviations from the strict path of virtue in his relations with his friend. But for any one who has an understanding of the spirit of art there is nothing in either case to support the allegation. Had Shakespeare and Romney looked no{52} farther than their own hearths for artistic inspiration, the world would have been the poorer: that is all.
Of Romney’s classical or historical pictures the world knows almost as little as it cares about them. ”

“ 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! ”

“ The painter’s whole effort is concentrated on that one quality, and instead of dissipating the beholder’s attention with accessories, he soothes it with a seeming artlessness which no one but a great painter could nearly accomplish. Mrs. Currie’s drapery is of course strictly English—in substance at any rate and form. But here again we feel the guiding or restraining hand of the Classic Muse, just as we should have seen it had Romney{38} been painting Mrs. Currie in the character of Antigone. As it was, Romney was speaking English and not Greek ”

“ 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 ”

“ The Dream of Atossa, from the Persians of Æschylus, contrasted the death-like sleep of the Queen with the Bacchanalian Fury of the Genius of Greece. The composition was conducted with the fire and severity of a Greek bas-relief.”
How many of the thousands of visitors to the National Gallery would ever imagine that this last paragraph was written of the painter of The Parson’s Daughter, or Mrs. Mark Currie? And yet here, I cannot help feeling, is the real strength which underlies the structure of even the airiest of Romney’s paintings. ”

“ But Romney’s picture cannot have proved more than a succès d’estime. “I have often wished,” says Hayley, “that it had been the lot of Romney to paint this great actress, one of the{26} most gracefully majestic of our tragic queens, at a maturer season of her life, and in the full meridian of his power; for in that case I am persuaded the Tragic Muse of Romney would not have appeared what at present I must allow her to be, very far inferior, as a work of the pencil, to the Tragic Muse of Sir Joshua.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I need not quote the rest of the sentence, because it applies in particular to the drapery of ladies in the classic{35} period; but in principle, the drapery of Romney’s sitters is as simple, because well understood, as that of Atossa. Of all painters of women surely there never was one who required such extreme simplicity of raiment. The plainest of white or black robes seem to have been the rule, and the most common exception to absolute simplicity was not in the garment at all, but in the addition of a somewhat elaborate and umbrageous hat. ”

“ 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{2} right to the position. ”

“ When we come to consider the third point, classicism, we shall see that this simplicity extends to every particular; but for the moment I am only considering the first question that arises when a commission for a portrait is given—“How would you like to be painted?” In Romney’s studio there seems to have been but one answer, namely, “Exactly as I am.” Of accessories there were{28} practically none. The portrait was painted and that was all. A portrait by Romney is first and foremost a portrait. ”

“ According to a design in one of his sketch-books, Lady Warren is represented as seated in a graceful and easy posture, with a fronting attitude, but with her face slightly{22} turned to her right, having her left elbow leaning upon a pedestal, and the hand extended over her daughter’s shoulder, a girl about six or seven years old, who is standing by her. The young lady has her hands gently crossed over her bosom, and is caressing a little bird which she holds in one hand. ”

“ But either can delegate the useful duties of life to others, while they themselves are better fitted{11} 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 ”

“ Rough as they are, they are certainly deserving of more attention than is usually accorded to them; for though Romney never seems to have enjoyed the process of committing a portrait to paper as Gainsborough did, these business-like notes of pose and chiaroscuro give us a good insight into his methods of setting to work. ”

“ I am also to paint a picture of Constance for the Shakespeare Gallery.”
The extent of Romney’s obligations to her, simply as a model, may be gathered from a glance at Mr. Roberts’s Catalogue Raisonné of his work. Here we find forty-five different pictures of the fair Emma, a figure which is about doubled if we count the various versions painted of one and another—as a Bacchante, for example, no less than twelve separate canvases are enumerated. Nor does this catalogue probably include a good many sketches and studies which were left unfinished. ”

“ Lastly, for his classicism, which is the really distinguishing characteristic of Romney’s portraits and includes in it all the others. “On his arrival in Italy,” Flaxman tells us, “he was witness to new scenes of art, and sources of study ... he there contemplated the purity and perfection of ancient sculpture, the sublimity of Michel Angelo’s Sistine chapel, and the simplicity of Cimabue’s and Giotto’s schools. He perceived these qualities [namely, be it observed, sublimity and simplicity] distinctly, and judiciously used them in viewing and imitating nature ”

“ But no others of the sort are known to have been attempted, with one exception. At about the same time Romney was engaged in a portrait group of Mr. Leigh and his family. Unfortunately, his well-wishing friend Cumberland, the dramatist, in his efforts to push Romney to the front, was ill-advised enough to drag Garrick to see his pictures. Now Garrick hated Cumberland, and had a very poor opinion of him—which is all there is to excuse him for an unpardonable exhibition of bad taste. “I brought him to see Romney{24}’s pictures,” writes Cumberland, “hoping to interest him in his favour. ”