Thomas Raeburn

“ Chirsty, aye, ye’re a queer ane, fin, bawbees for yoursel’, my lass,” and so saying, Thomas slipped the coinage into his pocket.
In his youth the hermit was a handsome and a very powerful man, measuring 6 feet 2 inches in height, with a fine broad chest and proportionate limbs; in his old age he became bent, as most men do; yet notwithstanding, the ravages of time, his outlandish beard, and his uncouth raiment, he still manifested the the ruins of a noble frame and visage. The love of money was his great besetting sin ”

“ He has a neat little cottage, (built with his own hands if we recollect aright) and there are no windows in it, properly speaking, only a few small holes near the top of the wall, about a foot square each. He cultivates a little garden, beside which falls a spout of clear water; and he keeps a few goats. He is polite and conversible with strangers; who generally make him a small present. Gentle reader, you can any day in 3 hours sail, and at the expense of a few shillings, see and converse with this real living hermit, for; unlike Raeburn, he has no hand-maiden. ”

“ The old man used to say, ‘what's the use of giein‘ Tam Latin or Greek, may be he wad turn a Roman or a Papist a’thegither.’ Tam throughout a long life, although fond of news and information on all subjects, never evinced any peculiar liking to dip deep at Learning’s fount. ”

“ Further, should any of you be particularly inclined, whether through disappointment in love or money matters, or by having too much of the latter to look after, to become hermits or hermitesses, be kind enough to send us your address and a postage stamp, and we shall direct you to a safe location, where you will run little risk of being intruded on by "villainous mankind," and at the same time enjoy plenty of turnips and cold water. ”

“ I know not in what London papers any critiques of that kind are made, and our Edinburgh ones (at least those that I see) take no notice of these matters. At any rate I would prefer a candid observation or two from an artist like you, conveying not only your own opinion but perhaps that of others, before any of them.
Are the Portrait-Painters as well employed as ever? Sir Thomas Lawrence, they tell me, has refused to commence any more pictures till he gets done with those that are on hand, and that he has raised his prices to some enormous sum. ”

“ No doubt election was particularly gratifying to Raeburn. Isolated as he was in Edinburgh, where an Academy did not come into existence until some years after his death, it must have been stimulating to receive such tangible assurance of that appreciation of one's fellow-workers which is the most grateful form of admiration to the artist. He reciprocated by offering as his diploma work the impressive portrait of himself, which is now one of the treasures of the National Gallery of Scotland. ”

“ He was then in the middle of his Oxford years, and Raeburn's letters and Raeburn's influence had certainly pulled him through various scrapes that might have been disastrous. Then—a little later—he could see the shooting lodge on the moors above Loch Etive, where he and Raeburn, Lord Maxwell, Miss Raeburn, and a small party had spent the August of his twenty-first birthday. Well—that surly keeper, and his pretty wife who had been Miss Raeburn's maid—could anything be more inevitable? A hard and jealous husband, and one of the softest, most sensuous natures that ever idleness made love to. ”

“ It was probably the opening for an artist offered by these altered circumstances which had brought Martin to Edinburgh, and certainly Raeburn was fortunate in that his emergence coincided with them. An attractive and clever lad devoting himself to art in a community increasing in wealth and expanding in ideas, and with a sympathetic master coming in contact with the upper classes, Raeburn could not fail to make acquaintances able and willing to help him. ”

“ Cunningham's summary of these applies partly to the George Street and partly to the York Place period, but for practical purposes they may be regarded as one, for, while Raeburn's art may be divided into periods, each was but a stage in a gradual and consistent evolution. "The motions of the artist were as regular as those of a clock. He rose at seven during summer, took breakfast about eight with his wife and children, walked into George Street, and was ready for a sitter by nine; and of sitters he generally had, for many years, not fewer than three or four a day. ”

“ I am not the man to stick upon a brooch."
"But, sir," cried Harry, "what you propose to me is impossible. The jewels are not mine, and I can not share what is another's, no matter with whom, nor in what proportions."
"They are not yours, are they not?" returned Raeburn. "And you could not share them with anybody, couldn't you? Well now, that is what I call a pity; for here am I obliged to take you to the station. The police—think of that," he continued; "think of the disgrace for your respectable parents; think," he went on, taking Harry by the wrist ”

“ To go on, however—About mid-way between Kilmarnock and London Kirk, and half a mile off the public road, a small farm-house, or cottage, of the old School, that is to say, built of rough unhewn stone and covered with thatch; it is somewhat romantically situated, as it is nearly concealed by woods and rising grounds until you are within a few yards of it. As you enter the front door you may as well look to your feet as indications are visible that cattle and sheep reside under the roof: their locality in the byre, npon the left hand. ”

“ Arrived back in Edinburgh in 1787, Raeburn took a studio in the new town, and, with his enhanced powers and the added prestige due to his sojourn abroad, soon occupied a commanding place. Few agreed with Martin that "the lad in George Street painted better before he went to Italy," for if the majority were unaware of his high artistic gifts, none could be unconscious of the vital and convincing quality of his portraitures. His earlier sitters included some of the most distinguished people in Scotland. ”

“ Probably his Edinburgh clients went to Deanhaugh, and at times he seems to have painted portraits at the country houses of the gentry. But in 1785 desire to see and learn more than was possible at home took him to Italy. While in London he made the acquaintance of Reynolds, in whose studio he may have worked for a few weeks, and Sir Joshua's advice confirming his original intention, Raeburn and his wife went to Rome, where they resided about two years. When parting Reynolds took him aside and whispered: "Young man, I know nothing about your circumstances. Young painters are seldom rich ”

“ For long also it confined the Scottish painter's reputation to his own country. Forty years after his death, his art was so little known in England that the Redgraves, in their admirable history of English painting, relegated him to a chapter headed "The Contemporaries of Lawrence." Time brings its revenges, however, and of late years Raeburn has taken a place in the very front rank of British painters. ”

“ Raeburn went to live at his wife's property, which lay not far from his brother's house and factory at Stockbridge, and, although sitters increased with his growing reputation until he is said to have been quite independent of his wife's income, he does not appear to have had a separate studio. ”

“ Still, as on that November afternoon he watched Raeburn and his daughter down Southampton Row, he was conscious that for the first time he fully regarded the atheist as a fellow-man. The fact was that Raeburn had for long years been the champion of a hated cause; he had braved the full flood of opposition; and like an isolated rock had been the mark for so much of the rage and fury of the elements that people who knew him only by name had really learned to regard him more as a target than as a man. ”

“ The worthy people of Sandyriggs were still discussing this strange catastrophe, when a new surprise claimed their notice. Intelligence came regarding the long-lost Charles Raeburn. His cousin, the doctor, received a letter from him, bearing the postmark of a town in Spain, and empowering him to sell Cowslip Brae and transmit the price. Before the gossips had ceased to puzzle their brains over this extraordinary sacrifice, [Pg 30] another letter arrived and explained the whole mystery. ”

“ Formed under these influences, his style possesses no clearly marked national trait, except it be the feeling for character which informs his finer work and makes it, in a way, a link between that of Jamesone and that of Raeburn. To this he added a delicate sense of tone and a tenderness of colour and lighting, a gracefulness of drawing and a refined accomplishment which were new in Scottish painting. ”

“ Having by no means any wish to renew the conversation, Raeburn availed himself of the opportunity presented by the woman's retiring into the house, to sneak off, which he did, and joined his friend Cressingham, who was waiting for him at a little distance.
"She's dead, Cressingham!—she's dead!" he said, in great agitation, as he approached the latter.
"Dead!" exclaimed Cressingham—"is it possible? Why, then, Harry, your £5000 are gone, and you have been a villain for nothing." ”

“ Rumour, often astray but now and then hitting the mark, said that the real reason was jealousy of the younger man's growing powers. Raeburn's debt to Ramsay and Martin was therefore inconsiderable and indirect. It is not traceable in the technique or arrangement of his earliest known pictures, such as the full-length "George Chalmers" in Dunfermline Town Hall, which was painted in 1776, when the artist was twenty. Probably sight of Martin's pictures in progress was an incentive to work rather than a formative influence on his development as a painter. ”

“ In truth, Charles Osmond was struck with this both in the father and daughter; each had a way of putting back their bitter thoughts, of dwelling whenever it was possible on the brighter side of life. He knew that Raeburn was involved in most harassing litigation, was burdened with debt, was confronted everywhere with bitter and often violent opposition, yet he seemed to live above it all, for there was a wonderful repose about him, an extraordinary serenity in his aspect, which would have seemed better fitted to a hermit than to one who has spent his life in fighting against desperate odds. ”

“ The bookseller's information had roused in Charles Osmond a keen sense of indignation; he walked on rapidly as soon as he had left his son, and in a very few minutes had reached the gloomy entrance to Guilford Terrace. It was currently reported that Raeburn made fabulous sums by his work, and lived in great luxury; but the real fact was that, whatever his income, few men led so self-denying a life, or voluntarily endured such privations. ”

“ I never see a man I think equal to my own brothers!' Now, whatever faults Raeburn has, we may be sure Erica sees far less plainly than we see, and nobody can deny that he is a grand fellow. When one bears in mind all that he has had against him, his nobility of character seems to me marvelous. He puts us to shame. And that is why he seems to me the wholesome though powerful medicine for this nineteenth century of ours, with its great professions and its un-Christlike lives. ”

“ Raeburn smiled rather bitterly.
“You need not fear that. My reputation has long been at the mercy of all the lying braggarts in the country. Men label me socialist one day, individualist the next. I become communist or egotist, as is most convenient to the speaker and most damaging to myself. But there,” he exclaimed, regaining the tranquil serenity which characterized him, “why should I rail at the world when I might be talking to you? How is my old friend Hans?”
The sound of a key in the latch startled them.
“It is only Erica,” said Raeburn. ”

“ Except Runciman, who occasionally varied historical subjects by portraits painted in a broad but somewhat empty manner, and Seaton, an artist of whom little is known but whose rare and seldom seen portraits possess a breadth of handling and a simplicity of design which give the best of them a certain distinction—can they have been an influence with Raeburn?—the Scottish portrait-painters of the eighteenth century were much influenced by Ramsay, and Martin had been his favourite pupil. ”

“ Luke Raeburn with his honesty, his great abilities, his gift of reasoning, above all his thorough earnestness, had the best of it.
To be beaten in argument was naturally the one thing which such a man as Mr. Raeburn could not forgive. He might in time have learned to tolerate a difference of opinion, he would beyond a doubt have forgiven almost any of the failings that he could understand, would have paid his son's college debts without a murmur, would have overlooked anything connected with what he considered the necessary process of “sowing his wild oats.” ”

“ Erica's father was unquestionably a large-souled man, in every sense of the word, a great man; but the best man in the world is to a great extent dependent on circumstance, and the circumstances of Raeburn's life had been exceptionally hard. Only two things on earth acted as a check upon the one great fault which marred an otherwise fine character. Beauty of scenery made him for the time being as humble as a child, and the devotion of his own followers sometimes made him ask himself whether he were worthy of such love. ”