National Portrait Gallery

“ The attainment of permanency in its products, which, by several processes, photography can now boast of, is one of its triumphs, and will tend greatly to enlarge the sphere of its utility. For example, we have a public institution, known as the National Portrait Gallery, in which it is sought to gather together and preserve the likenesses of the most eminent Englishmen, and presentments of such of far less fidelity than photographic portraits are eagerly sought after. ”

“ Darling excused herself. No power on earth will on a Sunday afternoon draw her from the fireside, where she can, in comfort, study humanity through the pages of "The News of the World".
A visit to the National Portrait Gallery isn't exactly a restful experience. Those long rows of faces, each making its appeal for understanding, have an exhausting effect after a time. ”

“ No amount of elaboration in the background could disturb the attention of any one looking at the portrait of Julius the Second, by Raphael, also in the Tribune, which I cannot help thinking is the finished portrait in the world. A portrait is the most truly historical picture, and this is the most monumental and historical of portraits. The longer one looks at it the more it demands attention. A superficial picture is like a superficial character—it may do for an acquaintance, but not for a friend. ”

“ If you possess even only a slight talent for drawing, cultivate it assiduously, for it is obvious that the actor who [29] can draw will be able to make-up better than the one who cannot.
Visit picture galleries and turn them into museums of types. I know of no other gallery that interests me so much as the National Portrait Gallery. ”

“ The family goes to the Exhibition once a year, to the National Gallery once in ten years: to the former place they have an inducement to go; there are their own portraits, or the portraits of their friends, or the portraits of public characters; and you will see them infallibly wondering over No. 2645 in the catalogue, representing “The Portrait of a Lady,” or of the “First Mayor of Little Pedlington since the passing of the Reform Bill;” or else bustling and squeezing among the miniatures, where lies the chief attraction of the Gallery. ”

“ Joseph Grego has been long engaged on an important work on the painter, to be illustrated by fresh engravings. There are two pictures by Morland in the National Gallery, six at South Kensington Museum, and two in the Gallery at Glasgow. A portrait painted by himself at an early age is in the National Portrait Gallery, London. ”

“ He presents to us humanity in its noblest and most beautiful forms, and so profoundly had he studied it that the ideal personages introduced in his pictures have an intense individuality. Naturally, therefore, he stands supreme amongst the great portrait-painters. In the department of landscape he was, if not the first to perceive, at least the first to render, nature in her sublimer aspects. ”

“ The beautiful portrait before us was retained by Henry VIII., and through the Lumley, Pembroke, and Arundel Collections it passed into that of the Dukes of Norfolk. "Whether as a pictorial record of an interesting chapter of our history, or as [Pg 709] an example of the presentment of a fresh and winning young personality by the most masterful and at the same time most reserved and refined methods of the painter's craft, the picture counts among the very noblest of the art treasures still left in England. ”

“ In the next generation Walpole described his pictures as ‘of a light flimsy kind of fan-painting, as large as life.’ His contemporary, Kneller, remarked, on hearing that Jervas had set up a carriage and four horses, ‘Ah, mine Cot, if his horses do not draw better than he does, he will never get to his journey's end.’ Though at the best but a second-rate painter, his portrait of the Duchess of Queensberry at the National Portrait Gallery suffices to rescue him from the censure generally passed on him by later critics. ”

“ One has only to compare, for example, the full-length portrait of an Italian nobleman, No. 1316 in the National Gallery, with that marvellous representation of Philip le Roy in the Wallace Collection, reproduced in this volume, to see the connection between the two painters. There is the same air of distinction in each portrait, and in silveriness of colouring and elegance of pose there is much in common. These are not isolated examples in the life-work of the two masters, but are rather representative of a whole series of portraits in which their genius runs on nearly parallel lines. ”

“ Two portraits are preserved in the Bodleian Library: one, in the gallery, represents a man in the prime of life, with light hair, moustache, and tuft on chin, dark eyes, and mild expression; the other, on the staircase, belongs to his old age, and shows white hair and pointed beard (Hearne, ed. Doble, ii. 56, says ‘the Master of University College has the picture of Dr. Pococke’) . An engraving, after a portrait by W. Green, is prefixed to the 1740 edition of his works (Bromley) . ”

“ Sidney Colvin) says: "Dignity and directness of presentment, richness of quality and mellowness of tone, with a colour-sense never more powerfully shown than when the scheme is one of flesh-colour with simple black and white on gray—these are the universal qualities of Venetian portrait-painting.... This is a thoroughly characteristic example in an excellent state. We already possess a portrait by the same hand, composed of much the same elements (1022) : a man in a close-fitting black suit, showing [Pg 625] chain-armour on the sleeves, a broken column, a wall, and a glimpse of sky. ”

“ He became an accomplished engraver in the dot and stipple style, devoting himself almost exclusively to portraits, and was largely engaged upon important illustrated works, including Lodge's ‘Portraits of Illustrious Personages,’ Fisher's ‘National Portrait Gallery,’ Walpole's ‘Anecdotes of Painting,’ Heath's ‘Book of Beauty,’ Mrs. ”

“ As a portrait painter he had a very extensive clientèle, many prominent Englishmen of the time, as well as distinguished Germans and Americans, figuring among his sitters. Of his single portraits the following are specially noteworthy: ‘Richard Wagner’ (water-colour, 1877) , ‘John Ruskin’ (water-colour, 1879, National Portrait Gallery) , ‘Archibald Forbes, War Correspondent’ (Royal Academy, 1882) , ‘Miss Katharine Grant’ (‘The Lady in White’, 1884, Royal Academy, 1885) , ‘Mrs. ”

“ Where he draws from his own experience, his portraits have an imaginative truth, minutely accurate yet highly ideal, which would entitle them to a distinguished place in any portrait gallery.’—Nettleship. ”

“ Those who have studied the family portraits in a great house, or the wonderful portrait gallery in the Provost’s Lodge at Eton, will see on the faces not only the pride and self-satisfaction of a privileged class, but the power to lead the nation whether in the arts of war or of peace. ”

“ It is the same with regard to our pictures. Let us be frank—the National Gallery is a national disgrace. Of course, as far as the number of pictures is concerned, we cannot yet boast of being upon an equality with some of the continental nations, but we possess many pictures by the hands of the old masters which are of the very highest merit. Our national collection is small, but in the main it is good. There is not in it, even comparatively speaking, anything like the same amount of inferior pictures as may be seen, for example, in the great gallery of the Louvre. ”

“ The portrait gallery of modern artists is for us a new feature, and one which, alas! we have not time to study, seeing that the great chefs-d'œuvres imperiously challenge our attention, and that our time is very short for them. We spend a dreamy hour in the Tribune, whose very circumscription is a relief. ”

“ A very important and attractive department of the temporary museum will be the display of Pictures, Maps and Portraits. These, like those just mentioned, may be hired, if they cannot be begged or borrowed. A diligent ladies’ sub-committee, well supplied with bundles of old unbound copies of The Illustrated London News, Graphic, Vanity Fair and Punch would soon construct an attractive portrait gallery, as well as sundry most interesting series in illustration of social history, scenery, geography and natural science. ”

“ An Exhibition-portrait is, therefore, an essence, not of character, but of commonplace. It displays not high thought and fine feeling, but physical well-being, with an outside label of health, ease, and competence. Yet the Catalogue-writer talks of the dignity of modern portrait! To enter into a general obligation to paint the passions or characters of men, must, where there are none, be difficult to the artist; where they are bad, be disagreeable to his employers. ”

“ HE novel portrait gallery which is here commenced, and in which it is our purpose to give portraits, month by month, of the most eminent men and women of the day at different times of life, cannot be more fitly opened than with those of the great poet whose name has been for more than fifty years the glory of our literature. ”

“ The paintings in the National Gallery glow with colour, and are instinct with life. Yet, somehow, a few listless wanderers saunter yawning through the National Gallery, whereas swarms pour through the halls of the British Museum, and talk and pass remarks about the objects there exposed, of the date and meaning of which they have not the faintest conception. ”

“ These fields the artist-in-chief hunts up and down with his pencil for sketches which his well-trained corps in the painters' gallery are to reproduce on their glass-canvas. The pictures they produce in a year would make a Fine Arts Exhibition which would compete favourably with the portrait galleries of large cities. The popular taste and demand for these artistic windows are constantly increasing at home and abroad; perhaps more, proportionately, in foreign and even half-civilized countries than in Great Britain or America. ”

“ In visiting some great picture gallery, and passing along amidst portraits innumerable of great men—of kings, statesmen, discoverers, authors or poets—I have sometimes been attracted above all by a portrait without a name, or without the interest attaching to it of any recorded great exploit, but which, nevertheless interests for its own sake. ”

“ The universal taste for portraiture exhibited by the ancients, and the encouragement to art which the vast wealth of many enabled them to afford, soon led to the formation of a gallery of portraits in every house of importance. ”

“ It appears to me that a life-size portrait should be treated in the same way. Viewed from the end of the gallery, it should resemble the person it represents, and the likeness should become more and more striking the nearer we approach, until we get within a very short distance. ”

“ In America the work has been done with so coarse a hand that nothing is shown in the picture but the broad, plain, unspeaking outline of the face. As you look from the represented to the representation you cannot but acknowledge the likeness;—but there is in that portrait more of the body than of the mind. The true portrait should represent more than the body. ”

“ What is the picture, collectively seen, you ask, but the portrait, more or less elaborated, of a multitudinous People, of a social and political order?—so that the effect is, for all the world, as if, with the body and the limbs, the hands and feet and coat and trousers, all the accessories of the figure showily painted, the neat white oval of the face itself were innocent of the brush. ”

“ One day I was visiting a friend, when I was struck by the excellence of a portrait in his hall of a very refined and beautiful old lady; there was nothing characteristic in the dress. Being a fancier in portraiture, and being mightily ill-contented with modern portrait-painting, this picture pleased me especially; it was a picture as well as a portrait, harmonious in colour and tone, and artistically focussed. ”

“ The Historical Gallery at Versailles contains portrait busts and statues by 146 different sculptors of France, commencing with Germain Pilon and Jean Goujon, who flourished in the middle of the 16th century.
From all these great collections our Portrait Gallery has been enriched, as the Catalogue will show.
As works of art the French portraits cannot be placed in the highest rank. The style, as in French works of ideal sculpture, is rather picturesque, than antique and severe ”

“ Here confront us specimens of almost every subject legitimate to the art, and of some not legitimate—great pictures and little pictures, grave pictures and gay pictures, landscape and genre, history and portraiture, beasts, birds, fishes, and flowers. At either end of the room hangs a full-length portrait of a gentleman of note, which challenges the visitor's attention, be he never so reluctant. ”

“ There is as much character in the human figure as in the face; consequently full-length portraits are best, because they add to the facial resemblance the attitude and peculiarities of the figure. If the portrait is half-size, then the attitude ought to indicate the position of the lower extremities. ”

“ We preserve the lineaments of our nobility on canvas, on walls, or in stone or bronze, for Time, if he prove gracious; for posterity, lest we forget; for art, that it prove the development and honor of our race.
The portrait painter is confronted with many difficulties. One does not realize that fact unless one has sat for a portrait, and even then it is doubtful if the "sitter" considers himself a difficulty.
Years of study and practice acquiring an enviable technique do not always insure an A Number One portrait, for difficulties do exist for painter and sitter. ”