Walter Armstrong

“ Brett painted in a scientific rather than an artistic spirit, caring more for detailed veracity of record than for the creation of beauty. In other ways he showed that his heart was more with science than with art. ”

“ It was about this time that Whistler became strongly affected by the example of the Japanese. For years his work bore much the same relation to Japanese art as all fine painting does to nature. He took from Japanese ideals the beauties he admired, and re-created them as expressions of his own personality. The ‘Lange Leizen,’ ‘The Gold Screen,’ ‘The Balcony,’ the ‘Princesse du Pays de la Porcelaine,’ are in no sense Japanese pictures, but they are full of Japanese material. ”

“ At first he confined himself to animals, but he soon began to introduce the human figure, choosing subjects of a more or less idyllic character, which lent themselves to the use of the nude. Commencing chiefly as a painter, he gradually devoted himself more and more to modelling, until at last he divided his time pretty equally between the two forms of art. ”

“ In Ruskin's view, the New Testament 'became' to Holman Hunt, after he quitted worldly subjects, 'what it was to an old Puritan or an old Catholic of true blood' — 'the only Reality.' Holman Hunt's minute search after what he believed to be truth did not permit him to paint many pictures. But all show the same conscientious fidelity to fact, and bright,' if not always harmonious, colouring. JEsthetic unity is too often sacrificed to excess of detail, producing occasionally the crudest effects. ”

“ Holman Hunt occasionally practised modelling, and some of his designs, especially 'The Triumph of the Innocents,' show that if he had taken up that branch of art, he might have succeeded better than he did in painting. ”

“ After a general education at the North London grammar school in Islington he studied art in London, first at the British Museum, then in the schools of the Royal Academy, to which he was admitted a student in 1836. As a boy he received some advice from Constable and John Jackson. In 1839 he went to Dublin to paint a few portraits. In 1842 he won medals both in the life and in the painting school at the Academy; in 1845 he received the gold medal for historical painting, and in the following year the travelling studentship. ”

“ He soaked in knowledge and skill, nevertheless, and became a fine draughtsman, a painter who could produce the results he aimed at, and a master of etching. His life in Paris was varied by excursions into other parts of France, during which he was never idle. In 1858 he published a set of thirteen etchings known as ‘The French Set,’ the material for which had been mostly gleaned in eastern France the year before, or in 1856. ”

“ Holman Hunt now remained in London, painting a few portraits, till 1875. He then left for Neuchâtel, where he was married for the second time. Thence he passed once again to Jerusalem by his old route of Alexandria and Jaffa. He arrived in the course of 1875, and stayed in Jerusalem or the neighbourhood for two and a half years. On the voyage out through the Mediterranean he painted 'The Ship,' which remained the property of the painter till 1906, when in honour of his eighty-first birthday it was purchased by a number of admirers and presented to the Tate Gallery. ”

“ His genius was essentially Germanic, finding expression not in the intrinsic powers of the material in which he worked, but in the forceful detail of his representations. He ignored the virtues of concentration and subordination, and endeavoured to say as much as he could on every subject he treated. ”

“ To a certain extent, however, Armstead now rose above the tradition in which he had been reared, and his later works show little of the fluid modelling and superficial elegance which characterised his master. He was industrious and business-like; one commission always led to another, and down nearly to the end of his life he was one of the best employed sculptors of his time. Armstead's most important works are the marble reliefs on the south and east sides of the podium to the Albert Memorial and four bronze statues—rhetoric, astronomy, chemistry, and medicine—on the same structure ”

“ Millais, two years younger than himself, was already known among Holman Hunt's fellow-students at the Museum as a precocious genius. At the Academy the two youths made each other's acquaintance, and became friends for life. With another Academy student, Dante Gabriel Rossetti [q. v.] , Holman Hunt was soon on 'nodding terms,' but he did not form a close acquaintance with him till they had left the school. In 1846 Holman Hunt began to exhibit at the Academy, sending from a studio at Hackney a picture entitled 'Hark!' a little girl holding a watch to her ear. ”

“ At one time he is said to have made some sort of a portrait of himself every day. Most of these were destroyed by himself. Self-portraits in oil survive in the McCulloch collection, in the possession of Mr. Douglas Freshfield, and in the Municipal Art Gallery at Dublin; a drawing in black chalk belongs to Mr. Thomas Way, and there are three etchings. The portrait known as ‘Whistler with a large hat’ belongs to Mr. Freer, who also owns a portrait by Fantin-Latour which was cut out from a large group, the rest of which was destroyed. ”

“ But a tragic element was brought into his life by the conflicting strains in his own character. A love of pose, which found vent in eccentricities of dress, in extravagant paradox and biting epigram, gave him social notoriety. ”

“ Rossetti told the artist that the illustration of Keats was 'the best picture of the year,' and asked permission to call on him. In August Holman Hunt acceded to Rossetti's request to work under him in his studio in Cleveland Street, Fitzroy Square. For the following nine years the two artists remained on intimate terms. To Holman Hunt Rossetti owed his introduction to Millais.
In the autumn of 1848 the three young men laid the foundation of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a movement of wide significance which sought a new veracity in art. ”

“ The years between 1866 and 1872 were busy. He exhibited more often than before or after. The chief pictures of this period were a ‘Valparaiso,’ ‘Sea and Rain,’ ‘The Balcony,’ and the famous ‘Portrait of my Mother.’ Whistler's uncomfortable relations with the Royal Academy began with the exhibition of this last-named picture. Rejected at first, it was only hung through the insistence of one member of the council. After 1872 Whistler exhibited no picture at Burlington House. ”

“ The portrait of the duke of Abercom, a full length in a duke's parliamentary robes, was left unfinished at the painter's death. It is in the Masonic Hall, Dublin. In 1900 Osborne was offered knighthood in recognition of his distinction as a painter. He was elected an associate of the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1883, and a full member in 1886. He was delightful in every relation of life and enjoyed great popularity with all his friends. ”

“ During his first twelve months in London he was chiefly occupied with a series of sixteen etchings of the scenery and life of the Thames, including ‘The Pool,’ ‘Thames Police,’ and ‘Black Lion Wharf.’ He was much at Wapping, and etched the life of the neighbourhood and its framing. The chief pictures of the same period were ‘The White Girl,’ ‘The Thames in Ice,’ and ‘The Music Room.’ In 1861 he visited France again, painting on the coast of Brittany. ”

“ His general education was obtained at a school on a site now filled by the Carmelite convent and church, Kensington, and his early training as an artist at Sass's academy in Bloomsbury. In due time he became a student at the Royal Academy, where he won the gold medal in 'the antique.' Before he was twenty he earned the praise of Sir David Wilkie for an ambitious picture called 'Rent Day at Haddon Hall in the Sixteenth Century.' The first picture he exhibited was 'Rival Musicians,' but the first sent to the Royal Academy was 'The Pride of the Village' (1839) , now in the Tate Gallery. ”

“ He was through life a strong radical and nonconformist, frequently attending primitive methodist chapels. He died at his house, Silverbeck, Churt, Surrey, which he had built for himself and occupied for forty years, on 14 April 1907, and was buried in Farnham cemetery. His portrait, painted in 1882, in which he resembles a weather-beaten salt, is one of the best works of Sir John Millais, Bart., P.R.A. A portrait by Opie belongs to his son Bryan. A small pencil sketch made by Charles Lear in 1845-6 is in the National Portrait Gallery. ”

“ No buyer was found for it at the Academy, but Millais later in the year met casually at Oxford Thomas Combe [q. v.] of the Clarendon Press, who, on Millais's suggestion, bought it for 100 guineas. Combe, who left this and other pictures by Holman Hunt to the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, thenceforth proved an invaluable friend to the painter, who was frequently entertained by Combe and his wife at Oxford.
At this period Holman Hunt was greatly depressed by want of substantial recognition, and fell into debt. He contemplated giving up art for farming. ”

“ He was a member of the 'Secessions' of Vienna and Munich, and in 1911, after his death, his work was awarded a memorial gold medal at Barcelona.
Swan early gained a reputation among the more discriminating collectors in this country, and from about 1880 until the time of his death the only things which debarred him from a wide popularity were his own fastidiousness and consequent slowness of production. Few artists have lavished so much care on their work before allowing it to leave their studios. ”

“ He had married (for the first time) before leaving England in 1865, and his wife, who accompanied him to Florence, died there in 1866. Holman Hunt was soon at work in his Florentine studio on his 'Isabella and the Pot of Basil.' This picture, which was rendered popular by Blanchard's engraving, was purchased by Gambart, and in 1867 exhibited by itself. It ultimately became the property of Mrs. Hall of Newcastle. Hunt stayed in Italy, with an occasional visit to England, for some two years. He visited Naples, Salerno, and Ravello, and saw Venice for the first time under Ruskin's guidance. ”

“ Thomas Fairbaim, who became another sympathetic patron and whoso portrait Holman Hunt painted in 1874. The 'Valentine ' was resold in 1887. In the course of 1851 Holman Hunt and Millais spent some time at Ewell, near Epsom, afterwards removing to Worcester Park Farm. Each painted backgrounds for important pictures. Holman Hunt was beginning his 'Hireling Shepherd' and 'The Light of the World,' both of which were completed slowly at his Chelsea studio. 'The Hireling Shepherd' was finished in time for exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1852. ”

“ In 1845 ‘The Village Pastor’ secured his election as A.R.A. Among other well-known pictures which he contributed to the Academy during this middle period of his activity are: ‘English Merry-making a Hundred Years Ago’ (1847) ; ‘Coming of Age in the Olden Time’ (1849) ; ‘Witchcraft’; ‘Sir Roger de Coverley at the Saracen's Head’ and a scene from ‘The Good-Natured Man’ (commissioned by John Sheepshanks [q. v.] ) , now in the Victoria and Albert Museum. In 1853 Frith was promoted to fill the vacancy left among the academicians by the death of Turner. ”

“ Hook's art during his first period was in no way distinguished above that of other practitioners of a genre now obsolete, but his maritime pictures have a force and character of their own which will never fail to exercise a certain charm. Many of his works were exhibited at the winter exhibition of the Royal Academy in 1908.
[Men of the Time; The Times, 16 and 19 April, 6 and 21 May 1907; Graves, Royal Acad. and Brit. Inst. Exhibitors; Ruskin, Academy Notes, ed. Wedderburn and Cook, 1904; D. G. Rossetti, Letters to W. Allingham, 285-7; private information.] ”

“ FORD, EDWARD ONSLOW (1852–1901) , sculptor, born in Islington on 27 July 1852, was son of Edward Ford (d. 1864) by his wife Martha Lydia Gardner. His family moved to Blackheath while he was still a child. His father, who was in business in the City, died when he was barely twelve. After he had spent some time at Blackheath proprietary school, his mother determined that he should follow the strong bent towards art which he had already shown. ”

“ Francis Seymour Haden, and practised etching with his brother-in-law, the two exerting a mutual influence one upon the other. Whistler first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1859, sending two ‘etchings from nature.’ In 1860 his ‘At the Piano’ was accepted at the Royal Academy and bought by an academician, John Phillip [q. v.] ; it now belongs to Mr. Edmund Davis. In the same exhibitions were shown two dry-point portraits and three etchings. This modest success probably confirmed him in the intention to settle in London, which was practically his domicile from 1860 till his death. ”

“ To his powers as an artist he added those which go with a vigorous, athletic body, and had fate made him a professional cricketer, he would probably have acquired fame as a bowler. He died at 5 Castlewood Avenue, Rathmines, Dublin, on 24 April 1903, of double pneumonia, and was buried in Mount Jerome cemetery. ”

“ Yet few artists can claim a more distinctive individuaUty or have made a bolder stand against the artistic conventions of their own day than Holman Hunt; whether those conventions were always for the worse is a different puestion. ”

“ About the middle of 1900 he was attacked by a dangerous form of heart disease, which left him, after a year of more or less precarious health, unable to resist the attack of pneumonia from which he died at 62 Acacia Road, N.W., on 23 Dec. ”

“ There followed, in 1858, ‘The Derby Day,’ now in the national collection at the Tate Gallery, and, in 1862, ‘The Railway Station,’ now owned by Holloway College, both of which eclipsed even the ‘Ramsgate Sands’ in popularity. ”

“ He was elected a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society on 9 June 1871, and devoted a considerable part of the strange house which he built in Keswick Road, Putney, to the purposes of astronomical observation. ”

“ During his latter years he lived chiefly at Washford, near Dunster, and hunted with the Exmoor staghounds. His London studio was in Tite Street, Chelsea. He died at Holder's Green on 1 Nov. 1910, and was buried there. ”