Reynolds (Sir Joshua), P.R.A.
JOSHUA REYNOLDS was born in July, 1723. His father, the Rev. Samuel Reynolds, was much esteemed for his urbane and benevolent disposition, and possessed much keen humour. At the early age of eight years, Joshua gave promise of that genius which in subsequent life gained him such eminence, and so well entitled him to be regarded as “the Founder of the British School of Painting.” It was in 1735, when the young artist was but eleven years of age, that he painted his first portrait, that of the Rev. Thomas Smart. This portrait is represented to have been painted from a drawing taken in church on the artist’s thumbnail. The celebrated portrait painter, Hudson, had Joshua for his articled pupil, with whom he received a premium of £120, and who soon displayed signs of his after excellence in the line of face painting. He started for Rome in the year 1749. Afterwards he visited Bologna, Genoa, Parma, Florence, and Venice, returning to and establishing himself in England in 1752. From this time Reynolds had abundant employment, and his celebrity advanced in proportion. Although since his return from his travels, Hudson, the former master of Reynolds, with many others, expressed the opinion that he did not paint so well as before he left England, they all candidly confessed within a very short time the error of their opinion. After enjoying a career of unusual success and prosperity, this eminent artist, after a long illness, died on the 23rd of February, 1792, in the 69th year of his age.
ASTLEY.
John Astley was a fellow-pupil of Reynolds in the school of Hudson. They were also companions at Rome. Being very poor and proud, Astley suffered much through his sensitive temperament in trying to conceal from his companions his narrow circumstances. Being one of a party, which included Reynolds, on a country excursion, it was agreed through the heat of the weather to relieve themselves by walking without their coats. After much persuasion, poor Astley removed his coat with considerable reluctance, when it was discovered he had made the back of his waistcoat out of one of his own landscapes; and his coat being taken off, he displayed a foaming waterfall, which gave much mirth to his companions, though to the poor artist much pain.
REYNOLDS ON ART.
Dr. Tucker, Dean of Gloucester, observed in the great artist’s hearing that a pin-maker was a more useful and valuable member of society than Raffaelle. “That,” retorted Reynolds, “is an observation of a very narrow mind,—a mind that is confined to the mere object of commerce,—that sees with a microscopic eye but a part of the great machine of the economy of life, and thinks that small part which he sees to be the whole. Commerce is the means, not the end, of happiness or pleasure; the end is a rational enjoyment by means of the arts and sciences.”
JOHNSON’S PORTRAIT.
In 1775 Reynolds painted that portrait of Dr. Johnson which represents him as reading and near-sighted. This was very displeasing to Johnson, who, when he saw it, reproved Sir Joshua for painting him in that manner and attitude, saying, “It is not friendly to hand down to posterity the imperfections of any man.” But, on the contrary, Sir Joshua himself esteemed it a circumstance in nature to be remarked as characterizing the person represented, and therefore as giving additional value to the portrait. Of this circumstance, Mrs. Thrale says, “I observed that he would not be known by posterity for his defects only, let Sir Joshua do his worst;” and when she adverted to his own picture painted with the ear trumpet, and done in this year for Mr. Thrale, she records Johnson to have answered, “He may paint himself as deaf as he chooses, but I will not be Blinking Sam.”
REYNOLDS’S SUNDAYS.
Sir Joshua was wont to say: “He will never make a painter, who looks for the Sunday with pleasure, as an idle day;” and his pocket journals form ample proof that it was his habit to receive sitters on Sundays as on other days. This much displeased Dr. Johnson; and Boswell says the doctor made three requests of Sir Joshua a short time before his death: one was to forgive him £30, which he had borrowed of Sir Joshua; another was that Sir Joshua would carefully read the Scriptures; and lastly, that he would abstain from using his pencil in future on the Sabbath-day.
DR. JOHNSON.
“At the time when Sir Joshua resided in Newport Street, he, one afternoon, accompanied by his sister Frances, paid a visit to the Misses Cotterell, who lived much in the fashionable world. Johnson was also of the party on this tea visit, and at that time being very poor, he was, as might be expected, rather shabbily and slovenly apparelled. The maid-servant by accident attended at the door to let them in, but did not know Johnson, although he had been a frequent visitor at the house, he having always been attended by the man-servant. Johnson was the last of the three that came in, when the servant maid, seeing this uncouth and dirty figure of a man, and not conceiving he could be one of the company who came to visit her mistresses, laid hold of his coat just as he was going upstairs, and pulled him back again, saying, ‘You fellow, what is your business here? I suppose you intended to rob the house.’ This most unlucky accident threw poor Johnson into such a fit of shame and anger, that he roared out like a bull; for he could not immediately articulate, and was with difficulty at last able to utter, ‘What have I done? What have I done?’ Nor could he recover himself for the remainder of the evening from this mortifying circumstance.”
GARRICK’S PLEASANTRY.
David Garrick sat many times to Reynolds for different portraits. At one of these sittings he gave a very lively account of his having sat once for his portrait to an indifferent painter, whom he wantonly teased; for when the artist had worked on the face till he had drawn it very correctly, as he saw it at the time, Garrick caught an opportunity, whilst the painter was not looking at him, totally to change his countenance and expression, when the poor painter patiently worked on to alter the picture, and make it like what he then saw; and when Garrick perceived that it was thus altered, he seized another opportunity, and changed his countenance to a third character, which when the poor tantalized artist perceived, he in a great rage, threw down his palette and pencils, saying he believed he was painting from the devil, and would do no more to the picture.
DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH.
Reynolds took snuff so freely when painting, as to cause much inconvenience to some of his distinguished sitters. Northcote relates that when the artist was painting the large picture at Blenheim, of the Marlborough family, the duchess ordered a servant to bring a broom and sweep the snuff from off the carpet; but Reynolds desired the servant to let the snuff remain until he had finished the painting, observing that the dust raised by the broom would do more injury to his picture than the snuff could possibly do to the carpet.
POPE.
Reynolds, when seventeen years old, saw Pope at an auction room. On the celebrated writer’s approach, those assembled made way and formed an avenue for him to pass through, which show of respect Pope acknowledged by bowing several times. He was about four feet six inches in height, was very humpbacked, wore a black coat, and had on a little sword. The artist describes him as having a fine eye, and a long, handsome nose; his mouth had those peculiar marks which are always found in the mouths of crooked persons; and the muscles which run across the cheek were so strongly marked as to appear like small cords.
MICHAEL ANGELO.
Reynolds had so great admiration for the genius of M. Angelo, that he never lost an opportunity of doing justice to the great Italian’s merits. He thus expressed himself in his last discourse he delivered at the Royal Academy:—“I feel a self-congratulation in knowing myself capable of such sensations as he intended to excite; I reflect, not without vanity, that these discourses bear testimony of my admiration of that truly divine man; and I should desire that the last words which I should pronounce in this Academy, and from this place, might be the name of Michael Angelo.”
REYNOLDS’S STUDY.
Allan Cunningham gives the following:—
“Sir Joshua’s study was octagonal, some twenty feet long, sixteen broad, and about fifteen feet high. The window was small and square, and the sill nine feet from the floor. His sitter’s chair moved on casters, and stood above the floor a foot and a half. He held his palettes by handles, and the sticks of his brushes were eighteen inches long. He wrought standing, and with great celerity. He rose early, breakfasted at nine, entered his study at ten, examined designs or touched unfinished portraits till eleven brought a sitter, painted till four, then dressed, and gave the evening to company.”
DR. JOHNSON’S OPINION OF ARTISTS.
Before Johnson’s intimate acquaintance with Reynolds, he thus writes to his friend, Baretti;—“They (meaning the artists) please themselves much with the multitude of spectators, and imagine that the English school will rise in reputation. This exhibition has filled the heads of the artists and lovers of art,”—and further on he adds, “surely life, if it be not long, is tedious, since we are forced to call in the assistance of so many trifles to rid us of our time,—of that time which never can return!” When Dr. Johnson became acquainted and intimate with Reynolds, he was induced to alter the above opinion, and to highly esteem the virtues and talents of Sir Joshua, as well as to admire the Art he professed; for on the third exhibition of the works of modern artists, Johnson wrote an apologetical advertisement for the catalogue, at which time the artists ventured upon the bold experiment of charging one shilling admittance each person, which has remained the customary charge for admission to exhibitions of art to the present time.
REYNOLDS’S DISCOURSES.
On one of the evenings when Sir Joshua delivered his discourses at the Academy, and when the audience was, as usual, numerous, and composed principally of the learned and great, the Earl of C——, who was present, came up to him, saying, “Sir Joshua, you read your discourse in so low a tone, that I could not distinguish one word you said.” To which the president with a smile replied, “That was to my advantage.”
GARRICK’S PORTRAITS.
The artist had it long in contemplation to paint a picture of an extensive composition purposely to display the various powers of Garrick as an actor. The principal figure in the front was to have been a full length of Garrick, in his own proper habit, in the action of speaking a prologue, surrounded by groups of figures representing him in all the different characters, by personifying which he had gained some fame on the stage.
This scheme Sir Joshua described to Garrick at the time he was painting his portrait; and Garrick expressed great pleasure when he heard it, and seemed to enjoy the idea prodigiously, saying, “That will be the very thing I desire; the only way that I can indeed be handed down to posterity.”
SIR JOSHUA’S GENEROSITY.
“What do you ask for this sketch?” said Sir Joshua to an old picture dealer, whose portfolio he was looking over. “Twenty guineas, your honour.” “Twenty pence, I suppose you mean?” “No, sir; it is true I would have taken twenty pence for it this morning; but if you think it worth looking at, all the world would think it worth buying.” Sir Joshua ordered him to send the sketch home, and gave him the twenty guineas.
AN EPICURE’S ADVICE.
At a venison feast, Sir Joshua Reynolds addressed his conversation to one of the company who sat next to him, but to his great surprise could not get a single word in answer, until at length his silent neighbour, turning to him, said, “Mr. Reynolds, whenever you are at a venison feast, I advise you not to speak during dinner-time, as in endeavouring to answer your questions, I have just swallowed a fine piece of fat, entire, without tasting its flavour.”
LORD MANSFIELD.
One day when Lord Mansfield was sitting, Sir Joshua Reynolds asked him his opinion, if he thought it was a likeness;—when his lordship replied that it was totally out of his power to judge of its degree of resemblance, as he had not seen his own face in any looking-glass during the last thirty years of his life; for his servant always dressed him and put on his wig, which therefore rendered it quite unnecessary for him to look at himself in a mirror.