DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68073#0366
34°
OLD WORLD MASTERS
cence have been compared to the petals of a flower and the melting
softness of the rainbow; Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse; the Straw-
berry Girl; the Age of Innocence; Nelly O’ Brien; Kitty Fisher; Penelope
Boothby; Mrs. Abington; Lord Ligonier; The Graces Decorating a Ter-
minalfigure of Hymen; Diana, Lady Crosbie; Mrs. Hardinge; Lady Cock-
burn and her Children;—all belong to the first rank of original and
artistic, achievement.
“Reynolds,” Sir Walter Armstrong writes, “arrived at results
scarcely to be distinguished from those of genius, and did so entirely
by the action of an original mind and a profound taste upon accumu-
lated materials. His path towards excellence was conscious, discrim-
inative, judicial. Every step he took was the result of a deliberate
choice. He felt no heats driving him into particular expression in
his own despite. Just as by fairness of mind he produced the effect
of sympathy among his friends, so by unerring judgment he produces
the effect of creation on us who value his art. He appears to me the
supreme, if not the only, modern instance of a painter reaching great-
ness along a path, every step of which was trodden deliberately, with
a full consciousness of why it was taken and whither it was leading,
and with the power unimpaired to turn back or to change the goal at
any moment. Superficially the art of Sir Joshua resembled that of
Raphael as little as it well could; mentally the processes of the two
men were curiously alike. Both possessed taste to such a degree that
it became genius; and both were endowed, for the service of their
taste, with a mental industry which is rare.”
It is unfortunate that Sir Joshua experimented so deeply with his
pigments and glazes so that we can see none of his pictures in their
pristine beauty and brilliance. That he was a rare colorist we would
know from Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse and the Angels’ Heads—■
the former rich and gorgeous and the latter iridescent and delicate-
showing the two extremes.
Here is Sir Joshua’s palette given in the Farington Diary under
date of August 14, 1806:
“Marchi (Sir Joshua Reynolds’s assistant) I called on before dinner
to desire him to call upon J. Taylor to give his opinion of a picture
OLD WORLD MASTERS
cence have been compared to the petals of a flower and the melting
softness of the rainbow; Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse; the Straw-
berry Girl; the Age of Innocence; Nelly O’ Brien; Kitty Fisher; Penelope
Boothby; Mrs. Abington; Lord Ligonier; The Graces Decorating a Ter-
minalfigure of Hymen; Diana, Lady Crosbie; Mrs. Hardinge; Lady Cock-
burn and her Children;—all belong to the first rank of original and
artistic, achievement.
“Reynolds,” Sir Walter Armstrong writes, “arrived at results
scarcely to be distinguished from those of genius, and did so entirely
by the action of an original mind and a profound taste upon accumu-
lated materials. His path towards excellence was conscious, discrim-
inative, judicial. Every step he took was the result of a deliberate
choice. He felt no heats driving him into particular expression in
his own despite. Just as by fairness of mind he produced the effect
of sympathy among his friends, so by unerring judgment he produces
the effect of creation on us who value his art. He appears to me the
supreme, if not the only, modern instance of a painter reaching great-
ness along a path, every step of which was trodden deliberately, with
a full consciousness of why it was taken and whither it was leading,
and with the power unimpaired to turn back or to change the goal at
any moment. Superficially the art of Sir Joshua resembled that of
Raphael as little as it well could; mentally the processes of the two
men were curiously alike. Both possessed taste to such a degree that
it became genius; and both were endowed, for the service of their
taste, with a mental industry which is rare.”
It is unfortunate that Sir Joshua experimented so deeply with his
pigments and glazes so that we can see none of his pictures in their
pristine beauty and brilliance. That he was a rare colorist we would
know from Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse and the Angels’ Heads—■
the former rich and gorgeous and the latter iridescent and delicate-
showing the two extremes.
Here is Sir Joshua’s palette given in the Farington Diary under
date of August 14, 1806:
“Marchi (Sir Joshua Reynolds’s assistant) I called on before dinner
to desire him to call upon J. Taylor to give his opinion of a picture