DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51519#0062
48
INTRODUCTION.
the a lucid amber of his lines/’ and his immense reputation when
living, Jervas is now almost forgotten as a painter. His portraits
being- without intrinsic merit as painting's, without even the value
which just likeness could give them, have long' ago been banished
into garrets and housekeepers’ rooms, or turned with their faces to
the wall, or exiled into brokers’ shops, to be sold for the value of
their frames. Jervas had formed his taste on two of the worst
models a painter could select,—Carlo Maratti and Sir Godfrey
Kneller: he contrived to exaggerate the faults of both, without
possessing any of their merits; and while his success equalled that
of the former, his vanity even exceeded the conceit of the latter.*
At this time also lived Dahl, a Swede by birth, who came over
to England about the time of the Revolution. He was a portrait-
painter of considerable merit, and patronised by William the Third,
for whom he painted the Gallery of Admirals at Hampton Court.
He appears, however, to have painted few female portraits; the
ladies being engrossed by Kneller and Jervas.
The reigns of George the First and Second present not one
name of eminence in portrait-painting : the arts had sunk to the
lowest possible ebb; and the absurd and ungraceful fashions, which
prevailed in dress and manners at this time, are perpetuated in
the stiff, homely, insipid portraits of Richardson and Hudson.
a Kneller,” as Walpole pleasantly observes, “had exaggerated the
curls of full-bottomed wig's, and the tiaras of ribands, lace, and
hair, till he had struck out a graceful kind of unnatural grandeur.”
Not so his immediate successors : they, destitute of taste or imagi-
painter: you have already done enough for the private; do something for the
public,” &c. Jervas would have made a rare history-painter ! — so much is there
in a fashion and a name, it could dazzle even Pope.
* Jervas was supposed to have indulged a presumptuous passion for Lady
Bridgewater, the loveliest of the four lovely daughters of the great Marlborough.
Hence the frequent introduction of her name into Pope’s Epistle to Jervas, and
the exquisite character he has drawn of her: he calls her in one place, “thy
Bridgewater.”
INTRODUCTION.
the a lucid amber of his lines/’ and his immense reputation when
living, Jervas is now almost forgotten as a painter. His portraits
being- without intrinsic merit as painting's, without even the value
which just likeness could give them, have long' ago been banished
into garrets and housekeepers’ rooms, or turned with their faces to
the wall, or exiled into brokers’ shops, to be sold for the value of
their frames. Jervas had formed his taste on two of the worst
models a painter could select,—Carlo Maratti and Sir Godfrey
Kneller: he contrived to exaggerate the faults of both, without
possessing any of their merits; and while his success equalled that
of the former, his vanity even exceeded the conceit of the latter.*
At this time also lived Dahl, a Swede by birth, who came over
to England about the time of the Revolution. He was a portrait-
painter of considerable merit, and patronised by William the Third,
for whom he painted the Gallery of Admirals at Hampton Court.
He appears, however, to have painted few female portraits; the
ladies being engrossed by Kneller and Jervas.
The reigns of George the First and Second present not one
name of eminence in portrait-painting : the arts had sunk to the
lowest possible ebb; and the absurd and ungraceful fashions, which
prevailed in dress and manners at this time, are perpetuated in
the stiff, homely, insipid portraits of Richardson and Hudson.
a Kneller,” as Walpole pleasantly observes, “had exaggerated the
curls of full-bottomed wig's, and the tiaras of ribands, lace, and
hair, till he had struck out a graceful kind of unnatural grandeur.”
Not so his immediate successors : they, destitute of taste or imagi-
painter: you have already done enough for the private; do something for the
public,” &c. Jervas would have made a rare history-painter ! — so much is there
in a fashion and a name, it could dazzle even Pope.
* Jervas was supposed to have indulged a presumptuous passion for Lady
Bridgewater, the loveliest of the four lovely daughters of the great Marlborough.
Hence the frequent introduction of her name into Pope’s Epistle to Jervas, and
the exquisite character he has drawn of her: he calls her in one place, “thy
Bridgewater.”