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"The Project Gutenberg eBook of Art in England, by Dutton Cook The Project Gutenberg eBook, Art in England, by Dutton Cook This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Art in England Notes and Studies Author: Dutton Cook Release Date: December 31, 2006 [eBook #20237] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ART IN ENGLAND*** E-text prepared by Audrey Longhurst, Wilelmina Maillière, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net/c/) ART IN ENGLAND -1- The Project Gutenberg eBook of Art in England, by Dutton Cook NOTES AND STUDIES BY DUTTON COOK. LONDON SAMPSON LOW, SON, AND ARSTON MILTON HOUSE, LUDGATE HILL. 1869. EDINBURGH: T. CONSTABLE, PRINTER TO THE QUEEN, AND TO THE UNIVERSITY. CONTENTS. -2- The Project Gutenberg eBook of Art in England, by Dutton Cook PAGE EARLY ART-SCHOOLS IN ENGLAND VERRIO AND LAGUERRE A SCULPTOR’S LIFE IN THE LAST CENTURY THE RISE OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY WIDOW HOGARTH AND HER LODGER ALLAN RAMSAY, JUNIOR GEORGE ROMNEY COSWAY, THE MINIATURE-PAINTER THE STORY OF A SCENE-PAINTER THE STORY OF AN ENGRAVER SIR JOSHUA’S PUPIL HOPPNER AND LAWRENCE THE PUPIL OF SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE TURNER AND RUSKIN 1 15 28 55 104 123 142 175 201 230 244 260 295 316 PREFACE. It will be readily understood that this little volume does not affect to set forth anything like a formal history of the rise and progress of Art in England. The fitting treatment of such a theme would need much more space—not to mention other requirements—than I have here at command. I have designed merely to submit in a manner that may, I trust, be acceptable to the general reader, and not wholly without value to the student, some few excerpts and chapters from the chronicles of the nation’s Art, with biographical studies of certain of its artists. In this way I have felt myself bound so to select my materials as to avoid more travelling over familiar ground than seemed absolutely necessary. I have therefore assumed the reader’s acquaintance with the lives and achievements of the great leaders of native Art—Hogarth, Reynolds, Gainsborough, for instance—and have forborne to occupy my pages with directly rehearsing their famous memoirs. It seemed to me desirable rather to call attention to the stories of artists who, though less renowned, less prominent in popular estimation, were yet of mark in their periods, and had distinct influence on the character and progress of Art in England. Many of these artists were contemporaries, however, and in dealing with their careers severally, it has hardly been possible to escape repetition of the mention of incidents pertaining to the times in which they conjointly ’flourished,’—to employ the favourite term of Biographical Dictionaries. I must ask the reader’s pardon if he should find these repetitions intrusively frequent. But the papers herein contained have, for the most part, already appeared in print, when it was deemed advisable to make each as complete in itself as was practicable. They are now reproduced after -3- The Project Gutenberg eBook of Art in England, by Dutton Cook revision, and, in some cases, considerable extension, but their original form cannot be wholly suppressed or vitally interfered with. I can only hope that what was a merit in their isolated state may not be accounted too grievous a defect now that they come to be congregated. Finally, I would suggest—referring with all due modesty to my own efforts in this direction—that the lives and labours of our Art worthies form wholesome as well as curious subjects for popular study. I do not desire to set up the artist—merely in right of his professing himself an artist—as peculiarly or romantically entitled to public regard. But a nation’s Art is, in truth, an important matter. To its value and significance the community is more awake than was heretofore the case, and what was once but the topic of a clique has become of very general concern and interest. Sympathy with Art must necessarily with more or less force extend to the professors and practisers of Art. Surveying the past, one cannot but note that often patronage and public favour have been strangely perverted—now cruelly withheld, now recklessly bestowed. Here genius, or a measure of talent nearly amounting to genius, has languished neglected and suffering—here charlatanry has prospered triumphantly. Something of this kind may be happening now amongst us, or may occur again by and by. Acquaintance with the past history of native Art—its struggles, trials, troubles, and successes—will surely prove of worth in considering its present and future position and prospects. As some slight aid to the diffusion of information on the subject, these otherwise unpretending pages are respectfully submitted to the reader. D.C. EARLY ART SCHOOLS IN ENGLAND. harles the First appears to have been the first English Sovereign who regarded art, not merely as an aid to the splendour of the throne, but for its own sake. As Walpole says, ’Queen Elizabeth was avaricious with pomp, James the First lavish with meanness.’ To neither had the position of the painter been a matter of the slightest concern. But from Charles the First dates truly the dawn of a love of art in England, the proper valuing of the artist-mind, and the first introduction into the country of the greatest works of the continental masters. -4- The Project Gutenberg eBook of Art in England, by Dutton Cook At the present day a complaint is constantly arising, that artists are found to be deficient in general education, while what may be called for distinction’s sake the educated classes are singularly wanting in artistic knowledge. The Universities do not teach art;[1] the Art-schools do not teach anything else. As a result, speaking generally, the painters are without mental culture, the patrons are without art-acquirements. (This supposes the patrons to be of the upper classes; but of course at the present time a large share of art-patronage comes from the rich middle or manufacturing classes, whose uninformed tastes are even less likely to tend to the due appraisement and elevation of art.) Mr. Ruskin, giving evidence before the commissioners inquiring into the position of the Royal Academy (1863), says, ’The want of education on the part of the upper classes in art, has been very much at the bottom of the abuses which have crept into all systems of education connected with it. If the upper classes could only be interested in it by being led into it when young, a great improvement might be looked for;’ and the witness goes on to urge the expediency of appointing professors of art at the Universities. Upon the question of infusing a lay-element into the Royal Academy by the addition of non-professional academicians, Mr. Ruskin takes occasion to observe:—’I think if you educate our upper classes to take more interest in art, which implies of course to know something about it, they might be most efficient members of the Academy; but if you leave them, as you leave them now, to the education which they get at Oxford and Cambridge, and give them the sort of scorn which all the teaching there tends to give of art and artists, the less they have to do with an Academy of Art the better.’ It is somewhat curious after this to consider an attempt made by King Charles the First, in the eleventh year of his reign, to supply these admitted deficiencies of University instruction: to found an Academy in which general and fine-art education should be combined. A committee, consisting of the Duke of Buckingham and others, had been appointed in the House of Lords for taking into consideration the state of the public schools, and their method of instruction. What progress was made by this committee is not known. One result of its labours, however, was probably the establishment of the Musæum Minervæ, under letters-patent from the king, at a house which Sir Francis Kynaston had purchased, in Covent Garden, and furnished as an Academy. This was appropriated for ever as a college for the education of nobles and gentlemen, to be governed by a regent and professors, chosen by ’balloting-box,’ who were made a body corporate, permitted to use a common seal, and to possess goods and lands in mortmain. Kynaston, who styled himself Corporis Armiger, and who had printed in 1635 a translation into Latin verse of Chaucer’s Troilus and Cressida, was nominated the first regent of the Academy, and published in 1636 its constitution and rules, addressed ’to the noble and generous well-wishers to vertuous actions and learning.’ The Academy—’justified and approved by the wisdom of the King’s most sacred Majesty and many of the lords of his Majesty’s most honourable privy council,’—its constitution and discipline being ratified under the hands and seals of the Right Honourable the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England and the two Lord Chief Justices—professed to be founded ’according to the laudable customs of other nations,’ and for ’the bringing of virtue into action and the theory of liberal arts into more frequent practice.’ Its aims were directed to the end that England might be as well furnished for the virtuous education and discipline of her own natives as any other nation of Europe; it being ’sufficiently known that the subjects of his Majesty’s dominions have naturally as noble minds and as able bodies as any nation of the earth, and therefore deserve all accommodation for the advancing of them, either in speculation or action.’ It was considered that a peculiar institution was required for teaching those ’most useful accomplishments of a gentleman’—the sciences of navigation, riding, fortification, architecture, painting, etc., which, if taught, were yet not practised in the universities or courts of -5- The Project Gutenberg eBook of Art in England, by Dutton Cook law. Many of these sciences, it was admitted, were taught in London, ’in dispersed places;’ but it was convenient to reduce and unite them in one certain place, and not to teach them perfunctorily and rather for gain than for any other respect—desirable, too, that youth should have, in a virtuous society, generous and fitting recreations as might divert them from too much frequenting places of expense and of greater inconvenience. The intention of the Academy was also to benefit gentlemen going abroad, by giving them language and instruction, with other ornaments of travel. ’There is no understanding man,’ says the prospectus or advertisement of the institution, ’but may resent how many of our noblemen and young gentlemen travel into foreign countries before they have any language or knowledge to make profit of their time abroad, they not being any way able to get knowledge for want of language, nor language for want of time; since going over so young, their years of license commonly expire before they can obtain to sufficient ripeness of understanding; which no nation is known to do but the English: for what children of other nations come over to us before they are of able age and ripeness?’ Another inconvenience arising from the want of the Musæum Minervæ was stated to be the necessity many gentlemen were under of sending their sons beyond seas for their education, ’where, through change of climate and dyat, and for want of years of discretion, they become more subject to sickness and immature death.’ It was required of gentlemen admitted into the Musæum that they should pay fees of at least £5 each, and should bring a testimonial of their arms and gentry, and their coat armour, ’tricked on a table, to be conserved in the museum.’ There was to be a Liber Nobilium always kept, in which benefactors and their benefits were to be recorded, beginning with King Charles, ’our first and royal benefactor;’ and it was provided that if any gentleman should have any natural experiment or secret, and should communicate it to the Musæum and upon trial it should be found true and good, his name and experiment should be recorded in Liber Nobilium for a perpetual honour to him. The regent was required to instruct personally, or to superintend instruction in ’heraldry, blazon of coates and armes, practical knowledge of deedes, and evidences, principles and processes of common law, knowledge of antiquities, coynes, medalls, husbandry,’ etc. The Doctor of Philosophy and Physic was to read and profess physiology, anatomy, or any other parts of physic. The Professor of Astronomy was to teach astronomy, optics, navigation, and cosmography. Instruction in arithmetic, analytical algebra, geometry, fortification, and architecture, was to be given by the Professor of Geometry. A Professor of Music was to impart skill in singing, and music to play upon organ, lute, viol, etc. Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Italian, French, Spanish, and High Dutch were to be taught by the Professor of Languages. In addition, a Professor of Defence inculcated skill at all weapons and wrestling (but not pugilism apparently), and ample instruction was to be afforded in riding, dancing, and behaviour, painting, sculpture, and writing. A preparatory school was also to be annexed for the young gentlemen whose parents were desirous of having them brought up in the Musæum from their first years. Finally, it was expressly provided that no degrees were to be given, and the Academy was not to be conceived in any way prejudicial ’to the Universities and Inns of Court, whose foundations have so long and so honourably been confirmed.’ For no long time did the Musæum Minervæ flourish. The King’s troubles began; and in the storms of civil war the Academy for teaching the upper classes science and the fine arts, manners and accomplishments, fell to the ground and disappeared utterly. So bitter and inveterate was the feeling against the King, that, as Walpole says (and Walpole, be it remembered, cherished no reverence for Charles the First—quite otherwise—under a facsimile of the warrant for the King’s execution, he wrote ’Magna Charta,’ and he often found pleasure in considering the monarch’s -6- The Project Gutenberg eBook of Art in England, by Dutton Cook fall), ’it seems to have become part of the religion of the time to war on the arts because they had been countenanced at Court.’ So early as 1645, the Parliament had begun to sell the pictures at York House. On the 23d July in that year votes were passed ordering the sale, for the benefit of Ireland and the North, of all such pictures at York House ’as were without any superstition.’ Pictures containing representations of the Second Person in the Trinity, or of the Virgin Mary, were judged to be superstitious, and ordered to be burned forthwith. Immediately after the King’s death, votes were passed for the sale of all his pictures, statues, jewels, hangings, and goods. Cromwell, however, on his obtaining sole power, made some effort to stay the terrible sacrifice that was being made of the royal collections. There was thus an end of King Charles’s Musæum Minervæ. Yet, if not absolutely founded on its ruins, at any rate in some measure following its example, we soon find record of the rise of a similar institution. One Sir Balthazar Gerbier, without Government aid or countenance, but acting entirely on his own responsibility, had opened an Academy ’on Bednall-green without Aldgate.’ This was probably in the year 1649. Sir Balthazar Gerbier, architect and painter, ’excellent in either branch,’ says a biographer, had led a somewhat curious life. In a pamphlet published in Paris, in 1646, addressed ’to all men that loves Truth,’—singularly rich, thanks to the French printers, in blunders, orthographic and grammatical,—Sir Balthazar gives some account of his family and himself. He was born about 1591, at Middelburg in Zeeland, the son of Anthoine Gerbier, a baron of Normandy, and Radegonde, daughter-in-law to the Lord of Blavet in Picardy. ’It pleaseth God,’ writes Sir Balthazar, ’to suffer my parents to fly the bluddy persecutions in France, against those which the Roman Catholics call the Huguenots. My said parents left and lost all for that cause.’ He came to England when about twenty-one, and entered the service of George Villiers, ’newly become favourite to King James, being immediately after Baron, Viscount, Earle, and afterwards created Marquis and Duke of Buckingham.’ He accompanied Buckingham to Spain, and was employed in the famous treaty of marriage, though ostensibly acting only as a painter. While in Spain he executed a miniature portrait of the Infanta, which was sent over to King James. The Duchess of Buckingham wrote to her husband in Spain, ’I pray you, if you have any idle time, sit to Gerbier for your picture, that I may have it well done in time.’ After the accession of Charles, it appears that Gerbier was employed in Flanders to negotiate privately a treaty with Spain, in which Rubens was commissioned to act on the part of the Infanta; the business ultimately bringing the great painter to England. In 1628, Gerbier was knighted at Hampton Court, and, according to his own account, was promised by King Charles the office of Surveyor-General of the works after the death of Inigo Jones. In 1637, he was employed at Brussels in some private state negotiation with the Duke of Orleans, the French King’s brother, and in 1641 he obtained a bill of naturalization, and took the oaths of allegiance and supremacy. According to Vertue, he was much hated and persecuted by the anti-monarchic party, for his loyalty and fidelity to the King and his son. At the sale of the royal collection he made purchases to the amount of £350. The suspension of all art-patronage during the Commonwealth, probably necessitated the establishment of his Academy at Bethnal Green, as a means of obtaining a livelihood. Painters did not flourish very much under the rule of the Puritans. A fly-sheet, undated, which may be found in the British Museum, sets forth the plan of Gerbier’s Academy. He addresses himself ’to all Fathers of Noble Families and Lovers of Vertue,’ desires public notice of his great labours and exertions, and informs the world that ’the chiefe Famous Forraigne Languages, Sciences, and Noble Exercises’ are taught in his establishment. ’All Lovers of Vertue,’ of what age soever, are received and instructed, and each of them may select such -7- The Project Gutenberg eBook of Art in England, by Dutton Cook studies, exercises, and sciences as are most consonant to his genius. Public lectures are announced to be read gratis every Wednesday afternoon, in the summer at three, in the winter at two o’clock. A competent number of children of ’decayed families’ are taught without fee. ’Lovers of Vertue’ are stated to be thus freed from the dangers and inconveniences incident to travellers, who repair to foreign parts to improve themselves, and leave the honour of their education to strangers, running ’the hazzard of being shaken in the fundamental points of their religion, and their innate loyalty to their native country.’ The nation is therefore exhorted to reflect seriously on Sir Balthazar’s proffers; to embrace them vigorously and constantly to countenance and promote them, ’since that the languages declared to be taught in the Academy are:—Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, High Dutch, and Low Dutch, both Ancient and Modern Histories, jointly with the Constitutions and Governments of the most famous Empires and Dominions in the World, the true Natural and Experimental Philo..."

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