Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art by Shearjashub Spooner (good fiction books to read txt) 📖

gave way to mirth and good fellowship. On another occasion he paid a parishioner, who was drawn for constable, to be permitted to serve in his place, he billeted soldiers during the day, and presided in the constable's chair at night. A JOKE ON MORLAND.

At another time, having promised to paint a picture for M. de Calonne, Morland seemed unwilling to begin, but was stimulated by the following stratagem. Opposite to his house in Paddington was the White Lion. Hassell directed two of his friends to breakfast there, and instructed them to look anxiously towards the artist's window, and occasionally walk up and down before the house. He then waited on Morland, who only brandished his brush at the canvas and refused to work. After waiting some time, Hassell went to the window and effected surprise at seeing two strangers gazing intently at the artist's house. Morland looked at them earnestly—declared they were bailiffs, who certainly wanted him—and ordered the door to be bolted. Hassell having secured him at home, showed him the money for his work, and so dealt with him that the picture, a landscape with six figures, one of his best productions, was completed in six hours. He then paid him, and relieved his apprehensions respecting the imaginary bailiffs—Morland laughed heartily.

MORLAND'S APPREHENSION AS A SPY.

While spending some time at Yarmouth, Morland was looked upon as a suspicious character, and was apprehended as a spy. After a sharp examination, the drawings he had made on the shores of the Isle of Wight were considered as confirmation of his guilt; he was therefore honored with an escort of soldiers and constables to Newport, and there confronted by a bench of justices. At his explanation, they shook their heads, laid a strict injunction upon him to paint and draw no more in that neighborhood, and dismissed him. This adventure he considered a kind of pleasant interruption; and indeed it seems ridiculous enough in the officials who apprehended him.

MORLAND'S "SIGN OF THE BLACK BULL."

On one occasion, Morland was on his way from Deal, and Williams, the engraver, was his companion. The extravagance of the preceding evening had fairly emptied their pockets; weary, hungry and thirsty, they arrived at a small ale-house by the way-side; they hesitated to enter. Morland wistfully reconnoitered the house, and at length accosted the landlord—"Upon my life, I scarcely knew it: is this the Black Bull?" "To be sure it is, master," said the landlord, "there's the sign."—"Ay! the board is there, I grant," replied our wayfarer, "but the Black Bull is vanished and gone. I will paint you a capital new one for a crown." The landlord consented, and placed a dinner and drink before this restorer of signs, to which the travelers did immediate justice. "Now, landlord," said Morland, "take your horse, and ride to Canterbury—it is but a little way—and buy me proper paint and a good brush." He went on his errand with a grudge, and returned with the speed of thought, for fear that his guests should depart in his absence. By the time that Morland had painted the Black Bull, the reckoning had risen to ten shillings, and the landlord reluctantly allowed them to go on their way; but not, it is said, without exacting a promise that the remainder of the money should be paid with the first opportunity. The painter, on his arrival it town, related this adventure in the Hole-in-the-Wall, Fleet Street. A person who overheard him, mounted his horse, rode into Kent, and succeeded in purchasing the Black Bull from the Kentish Boniface for ten guineas.

MORLAND AND THE PAWNBROKER.

Even when Morland had sunk to misery and recklessness, the spirit of industry did not forsake him, nor did his taste or his skill descend with his fortunes. One day's work would have purchased him a week's sustenance, yet he labored every day, and as skilfully and beautifully as ever. A water man was at one time his favorite companion, whom, by way of distinction, Morland called "My Dicky." Dicky once carried a picture to the pawnbroker's, wet from the easel, with the request for the advance of three guineas upon it. The pawnbroker paid the money; but in carrying it into the room his foot slipped, and the head and foreparts of a hog were obliterated. The money-changer returned the picture with a polite note, requesting the artist to restore the damaged part. "My Dicky!" exclaimed Morland, "an that's a good one! but never mind!" He reproduced the hog in a few minutes, and said, "There! go back and tell the pawnbroker to advance me five guineas more upon it; and if he won't, say I shall proceed against him; the price of the picture is thirty guineas." The demand was complied with.

MORLAND'S IDEA OF A BARONETCY.

Morland was well descended. In his earlier and better days, a solicitor informed him that he was heir to a baronet's title, and advised him to assert his claim. "Sir George Morland!" said the painter—"It sounds well, but it won't do. Plain George Morland will always sell my pictures, and there is more honor in being a fine painter than in being a fine gentleman."

MORLAND'S ARTISTIC MERIT.

As an artist, Morland's claims are high and undisputed. He is original and alone; his style and conceptions are his own; his thoughts are ever at home, and always natural; he extracts pleasing subjects out of the most coarse and trivial scenes, and finds enough to charm the eye in the commonest occurrences. His subjects are usually from low life, such as hog-sties, farm-yards, landscapes with cattle and sheep, or fishermen with smugglers on the sea-coast. He seldom or ever produced a picture perfect in all its parts, but those parts adapted to his knowledge and taste were exquisitely beautiful. Knowing well his faults, he usually selected those subjects best suited to his talents. His knowledge of anatomy was extremely limited; he was totally unfitted for representing the human figure elegantly or correctly, and incapable of large compositions. He never paints above the most ordinary capacity, and gives an air of truth and reality to whatever he touches. He has taken a strong and lasting hold of the popular fancy: not by ministering to our vanity, but by telling plain and striking truths. He is the rustic painter for the people; his scenes are familiar to every eye, and his name is on every lip. Painting seemed as natural to him as language is to others, and by it he expressed his sentiments and his feelings, and opened his heart to the multitude. His gradual descent in society may be traced in the productions of his pencil; he could only paint well what he saw or remembered; and when he left the wild sea-shore and the green wood-side for the hedge ale-house and the Rules of the Bench, the character of his pictures shifted with the scene. Yet even then his wonderful skill of hand and sense of the picturesque never forsook him. His intimacy with low life only dictated his theme—the coarseness of the man and the folly of his company never touched the execution of his pieces. All is indeed homely—nay, mean—but native taste and elegance redeemed every detail. To a full command over every implement of his art, he united a facility of composition and a free readiness of hand perhaps quite unrivalled.

CHARLES JERVAS.

This artist was a pupil of Sir Godfrey Kneller, and met with plentiful employment in portrait painting. His abilities were very inferior, but, says Walpole, "Such was the badness of the age's taste, and the dearth of good masters, that Jervas sat at the head of his profession, although he was defective in drawing, coloring, composition, and likeness. In general, his pictures are a light flimsy kind of fan-painting as large as life. Yet I have seen a few of his works highly colored, and it is certain that his copies of Carlo Maratti, whom he most studied and imitated, were extremely just, and scarcely inferior to the originals."

JERVAS THE INSTRUCTOR OF POPE.

What will recommend the name of Jervas to inquisitive posterity, was his intimacy with Pope, whom he instructed to draw and paint. The poet has enshrined the feeble talents of the painter in "the lucid amber of his flowing lines." Spence informs us, that Pope was "the pupil of Jervas for the space of a year said a half," meaning that he was constantly so, for that period. Tillemans was engaged in painting a landscape for Lord Radnor, into which Pope by stealth inserted some strokes, which the prudent painter did not appear to observe; and of this circumstance Pope was not a little vain. In proof of his proficiency in the art of painting, Pope presented his friend Mr. Murray, with a head of Betterton the celebrated tragedian, which was afterwards at Caen Wood. During a long visit at Holm Lacy in Herefordshire, he amused his leisure by copying from Vandyck, in crayons, a head of Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, which was still preserved there many years afterwards, and is said to have possessed considerable merit. For an account of Pope's skill in painting fans, see vol. I. page 201 of this work.

JERVAS AND DR. ARBUTHNOT.

Jervas, who affected to be a Free-thinker, was one day talking very irreverently of the Bible. Dr. Arbuthnot maintained to him that he was not only a speculative, but a practical believer. Jervas denied it. Arbuthnot said that he would prove it: "You strictly observe the second commandment;" said the Doctor, "for in your pictures you 'make not the likeness of anything that is in the heavens above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth'"!

JERVAS' VANITY.

His vanity and conceit knew no bounds. He copied a picture by Titian in the Royal collection, which he thought so vastly superior to the original, that on its completion he exclaimed with great complacency, "Poor little Tit, how he would stare!" Walpole says, "Jervas had ventured to look upon the fair Lady Bridgewater with more than a painter's eye; so entirely did that lovely form possess his imagination, that many a homely dame was delighted to find her picture resemble Lady Bridgewater. Yet neither his presumption nor his passion could extinguish his self-love." One day, as she was sitting to him, he ran over the beauties of her face with rapture—'but,' said he, "I cannot help telling your ladyship that you have not a handsome ear." "No!" returned the lady, "pray, Mr. Jervas, what is a handsome ear?" He turned his cap, and showed her his own. When Kneller heard that Jervas had sent up a carriage and four horses, he exclaimed, "Ah, mine Got! if his horses do not draw better than he does, he will never get to his journey's end!"

HOLBEIN AND THE FLY.

Before Holbein quitted Basile for England, he intimated that he should leave a specimen of the power of his abilities. Having a portrait in his house which he had just finished for one of his patrons, he painted a fly on the forehead, and sent it to the person for whom it was painted. The gentleman was struck with the beauty of the piece, and went eagerly to brush off the fly, when he found out the deceit. The story soon spread, and orders were immediately given to prevent the city being deprived of Holbein's talents; but he had already departed.

HOLBEIN'S VISIT TO ENGLAND.

Furnished with recommendatory letters from his friend Sir Thomas More, Holbein went to England, and was received into More's house, where he wrought for nearly three years, drawing the portraits of Sir Thomas, his