DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61252#0333
introduction.
289
known as “Rembrandt’s Mill;” the Portrait of a Lady,
(No. 81,*) the Ruysdael Sea Storm, (wonderful!) and
Cuyp’s Harbour of Dort. Then there is a portrait of Mrs.
Woffington, by Hogarth, as freshly delicate as a Guido; and
a number of pictures of the modern English school, parti-
cularly of Eastlake, Stanfield, Leslie, Newton, selected with
excellent taste, and a generous sympathy with native talent.
But the painter whose works so predominate, that they
may be said to impart a certain colour and character to this
charming collection—the painter whose presence is most
felt as we look around us, is Sir Joshua Reynolds.
The pictures of Reynolds are to the eye, what delicious
familiar melodies are to the ear—Italian music set to
English words; for the colour, with its luxurious melting
harmony, is Venetian, and the faces and the associations
are English. There are but two painters whose pictures
immediately bring to my mind associations with perfumes
and with music—Titian and Reynolds—our Reynolds-
proud may we be who can call him so! Every year, as
the taste, the feeling for art spreads and rises, the works
of this great man are more and more appreciated, and more
and more we learn to sympathize with that which is his
highest characteristic, and which alone has enabled him
to compete with the old masters of Italy; the amount of
mind, of sensibility, he threw into every production of
his pencil—the genial, living soul he infused into his
forms, giving to them a deathless vitality. I have seen
some pictures of Sir Joshua’s, of which the colours had
faded, and near them portraits in all the freshness of their
pristine vermillions and blues; and the latter looked like
dead things coloured to mock life, and his like spirits that
had survived their corporeal attributes, to haunt us ever
with their shadowy loveliness.
* Once known as “ Lord Wharncliffe’s Rembrandt;” it will hereafter be
known as Lord Lansdowne's.
O
289
known as “Rembrandt’s Mill;” the Portrait of a Lady,
(No. 81,*) the Ruysdael Sea Storm, (wonderful!) and
Cuyp’s Harbour of Dort. Then there is a portrait of Mrs.
Woffington, by Hogarth, as freshly delicate as a Guido; and
a number of pictures of the modern English school, parti-
cularly of Eastlake, Stanfield, Leslie, Newton, selected with
excellent taste, and a generous sympathy with native talent.
But the painter whose works so predominate, that they
may be said to impart a certain colour and character to this
charming collection—the painter whose presence is most
felt as we look around us, is Sir Joshua Reynolds.
The pictures of Reynolds are to the eye, what delicious
familiar melodies are to the ear—Italian music set to
English words; for the colour, with its luxurious melting
harmony, is Venetian, and the faces and the associations
are English. There are but two painters whose pictures
immediately bring to my mind associations with perfumes
and with music—Titian and Reynolds—our Reynolds-
proud may we be who can call him so! Every year, as
the taste, the feeling for art spreads and rises, the works
of this great man are more and more appreciated, and more
and more we learn to sympathize with that which is his
highest characteristic, and which alone has enabled him
to compete with the old masters of Italy; the amount of
mind, of sensibility, he threw into every production of
his pencil—the genial, living soul he infused into his
forms, giving to them a deathless vitality. I have seen
some pictures of Sir Joshua’s, of which the colours had
faded, and near them portraits in all the freshness of their
pristine vermillions and blues; and the latter looked like
dead things coloured to mock life, and his like spirits that
had survived their corporeal attributes, to haunt us ever
with their shadowy loveliness.
* Once known as “ Lord Wharncliffe’s Rembrandt;” it will hereafter be
known as Lord Lansdowne's.
O