DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61252#0336
292
LANSDOWNE COLLECTION.
of Sir Joshua’s life, without a perception of the excellent
moral influence its perusal left upon his mind and character.
The lofty claims which Richardson set forth in behalf of
painting as an art; the union of knowledge and virtue
with creative genius—of high qualities with great attain-
ments, which he requires in the artist, seem to have made
an ineffaceable impression on the thoughtful, dreaming
boy, and to have produced, or at least, developed, that sin-
gular union of self-respect and pride in his art, with
modesty and humility, which distinguished him through
life. Some passages in Richardson’s book would seem
to have been written since Sir Joshua’s time, and in-
tended to apply to him, if we did not know to the con-
trary, that it was actually published some years before he
was born. For instance, “ In order to assist and im-
prove the invention, a painter ought to converse with
and observe all sorts of people, chiefly the best, and to
read the best books, and no other: he should observe
the different and various effects of men’s passions, and
those of other animals, and, in short, all nature, and make
sketches of what he observes, to help his memory,”—and
in another place, “ the painting-room must be like Eden
before the fall: no joyless, turbulent passions must enter
there!” It is clear that Richardson’s ideal of portraiture,
and the qualities and aims of a portrait-painter, were ever
present in Sir Joshua’s mind throughout the whole of his
career. If Richardson’s book did not, in the literal sense, make
him a painter, I cannot doubt that the whole course of his
life, his aims in art, the objects of his emulation and ambition,
would have been different had he not read and laid to heart,
in the first years of generous, glowing, and impressionable
youth, such sentiments as the following, of which his social
and professional existence were a faithful exposition:—
“ The picture of an absent relation or friend helps to
LANSDOWNE COLLECTION.
of Sir Joshua’s life, without a perception of the excellent
moral influence its perusal left upon his mind and character.
The lofty claims which Richardson set forth in behalf of
painting as an art; the union of knowledge and virtue
with creative genius—of high qualities with great attain-
ments, which he requires in the artist, seem to have made
an ineffaceable impression on the thoughtful, dreaming
boy, and to have produced, or at least, developed, that sin-
gular union of self-respect and pride in his art, with
modesty and humility, which distinguished him through
life. Some passages in Richardson’s book would seem
to have been written since Sir Joshua’s time, and in-
tended to apply to him, if we did not know to the con-
trary, that it was actually published some years before he
was born. For instance, “ In order to assist and im-
prove the invention, a painter ought to converse with
and observe all sorts of people, chiefly the best, and to
read the best books, and no other: he should observe
the different and various effects of men’s passions, and
those of other animals, and, in short, all nature, and make
sketches of what he observes, to help his memory,”—and
in another place, “ the painting-room must be like Eden
before the fall: no joyless, turbulent passions must enter
there!” It is clear that Richardson’s ideal of portraiture,
and the qualities and aims of a portrait-painter, were ever
present in Sir Joshua’s mind throughout the whole of his
career. If Richardson’s book did not, in the literal sense, make
him a painter, I cannot doubt that the whole course of his
life, his aims in art, the objects of his emulation and ambition,
would have been different had he not read and laid to heart,
in the first years of generous, glowing, and impressionable
youth, such sentiments as the following, of which his social
and professional existence were a faithful exposition:—
“ The picture of an absent relation or friend helps to