DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61480#0090
82
HOGARTH'S WORKS.
and if I am so wretched an artist as my enemies assert, it is somewhat strange that this,
which was one of the first I painted the size of life, should stand the test of twenty years'
competition, and be generally thought the best portrait in the place, notwithstanding
the first painters in the kingdom exerted all their talents to vie with it.
" For the portrait of Mr. Garrick in Richard III. I was paid two hundred pounds,
(which was more than any English artist ever received for a single portrait,) and that too
by the sanction of several painters who had been previously consulted about the price,
which was not given without mature consideration.
" Notwithstanding all this, the current remark was, that portraits were not my
province; and I was tempted to abandon the only lucrative branch of my art, for the
practice brought the whole nest of phyzmongers on my back, where they buzzed like so
many hornets. All these people have their friends, whom they incessantly teach to call
my women harlots, my Essay on Beauty borrowed, and my composition and engraving
contemptible.
" This so much disgusted me, that I sometimes declared I would never paint another
portrait, and frequently refused when applied to; for I found by mortifying experience,
that whoever would succeed in this branch, must adopt the mode recommended in one
of Gay's fables, and make divinities of all who sit to him. Whether or not this childish
affectation will ever be done away is a doubtful question ; none of those who have
attempted to reform it have yet succeeded; nor, unless portrait painters in general
become more honest, and their customers less vain, is there much reason to expect they
ever will."
Though thus in a state of warfare with his brother artists, he was occasionally
gratified by the praise of men whose judgment was universally acknowledged, and
whose sanction became a higher honour, from its being neither lightly nor indiscrimi-
nately given.
HOGARTH'S WORKS.
and if I am so wretched an artist as my enemies assert, it is somewhat strange that this,
which was one of the first I painted the size of life, should stand the test of twenty years'
competition, and be generally thought the best portrait in the place, notwithstanding
the first painters in the kingdom exerted all their talents to vie with it.
" For the portrait of Mr. Garrick in Richard III. I was paid two hundred pounds,
(which was more than any English artist ever received for a single portrait,) and that too
by the sanction of several painters who had been previously consulted about the price,
which was not given without mature consideration.
" Notwithstanding all this, the current remark was, that portraits were not my
province; and I was tempted to abandon the only lucrative branch of my art, for the
practice brought the whole nest of phyzmongers on my back, where they buzzed like so
many hornets. All these people have their friends, whom they incessantly teach to call
my women harlots, my Essay on Beauty borrowed, and my composition and engraving
contemptible.
" This so much disgusted me, that I sometimes declared I would never paint another
portrait, and frequently refused when applied to; for I found by mortifying experience,
that whoever would succeed in this branch, must adopt the mode recommended in one
of Gay's fables, and make divinities of all who sit to him. Whether or not this childish
affectation will ever be done away is a doubtful question ; none of those who have
attempted to reform it have yet succeeded; nor, unless portrait painters in general
become more honest, and their customers less vain, is there much reason to expect they
ever will."
Though thus in a state of warfare with his brother artists, he was occasionally
gratified by the praise of men whose judgment was universally acknowledged, and
whose sanction became a higher honour, from its being neither lightly nor indiscrimi-
nately given.