DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61252#0340
296 LANSDOWNE COLLECTION.
of Goldsmith, had as little power to disturb his equanimity,
as the airs of the fine ladies who sat to him.
He was the first English painter who ventured to give
light, gay, landscape backgrounds to his portraits; and the
first who enlivened them by momentary action or expres-
sion.
Yet he had some faults, or rather some deficiencies, which
must ever be regretted. The most charming of colourists,
he wanted some consistent principle of colouring; he tam-
pered with his palette, and tried experiments with vegetable
colours, which in many cases failed, particularly where the
impasto was thick: his thinly painted pictures have stood
much better. He never, through life, could draw firmly and
correctly. He confessed and lamented, with characteristic
modesty, his deficiencies in this respect. He endeavoured,
as far as possible, to hide them by the charms of expres-
sion and sentiment, and the splendour and fascination of
his colour ; he partly succeeded, not wholly—and never,
in his historical pictures. In fact, he did not paint history
well, and in every picture of that class which he attempted,
his faults of design, and his want of severity of style, are
apparent. His Holy Family in the National Gallery is
utterly weak and commonplace. I cannot like his Ugo-
lino, nor his Cardinal Beaufort; nor his Hercules strangling
the Serpents—as far as I can judge from the print-
though it is said to be a fine piece of colour. The
“ Nativity,” with the figures of the Virtues, painted for
the window of New College, Oxford, is feeble and second-
rate, considered as a production of art; of the flagrant
misapplication of the whole conception to the object pro-
posed—the decoration of a Gothic window—I need say
nothing, in these days of better and juster taste.
But his fancy pictures are enchanting ; they are so many
bits of lyric poetry, full of novel and graceful ideas, full of
amenity and sweetness; his parodies and adaptations of
of Goldsmith, had as little power to disturb his equanimity,
as the airs of the fine ladies who sat to him.
He was the first English painter who ventured to give
light, gay, landscape backgrounds to his portraits; and the
first who enlivened them by momentary action or expres-
sion.
Yet he had some faults, or rather some deficiencies, which
must ever be regretted. The most charming of colourists,
he wanted some consistent principle of colouring; he tam-
pered with his palette, and tried experiments with vegetable
colours, which in many cases failed, particularly where the
impasto was thick: his thinly painted pictures have stood
much better. He never, through life, could draw firmly and
correctly. He confessed and lamented, with characteristic
modesty, his deficiencies in this respect. He endeavoured,
as far as possible, to hide them by the charms of expres-
sion and sentiment, and the splendour and fascination of
his colour ; he partly succeeded, not wholly—and never,
in his historical pictures. In fact, he did not paint history
well, and in every picture of that class which he attempted,
his faults of design, and his want of severity of style, are
apparent. His Holy Family in the National Gallery is
utterly weak and commonplace. I cannot like his Ugo-
lino, nor his Cardinal Beaufort; nor his Hercules strangling
the Serpents—as far as I can judge from the print-
though it is said to be a fine piece of colour. The
“ Nativity,” with the figures of the Virtues, painted for
the window of New College, Oxford, is feeble and second-
rate, considered as a production of art; of the flagrant
misapplication of the whole conception to the object pro-
posed—the decoration of a Gothic window—I need say
nothing, in these days of better and juster taste.
But his fancy pictures are enchanting ; they are so many
bits of lyric poetry, full of novel and graceful ideas, full of
amenity and sweetness; his parodies and adaptations of