If in our estimate of a man’s work we could pause to consider the difficulties under which the work was accomplished, there would be much to say for many of those who are lightly esteemed. But in criticism there are no extenuating circumstances; the artist, whether he work with words or pigment, notes or marble, is judged on his merits with as much justice as is ours to command. No judgment is final. John Ruskin described a Whistler nocturne as “a pot of paint flung in the public’s face,” but we value these nocturnes even more highly than Ruskin’s own faultless prose. We know that the critic was better equipped to write than to judge, and we have reversed his verdict. The history of all art, from the work of the early Tuscan and Umbrian painters, with their backgrounds of gold, down to the time of the French impressionists, who bring the wide spaces of air, sky, and sea on to their canvas, is the history of a constantly changing verdict. The men most heartily acclaimed by their contemporaries have often failed in their appeal to succeeding generations, while in other cases “the stone that the builder rejected has become the corner head-stone.”
As far as Sir Thomas Lawrence is concerned, it is well to remember that his first reputation was not made by artists, but by people whose acquaintance with the essentials of a great and enduring art is ever of the slightest. His gifts were many and attractive, but they could never have deceived the men who were his contemporaries, although Reynolds’ generous criticism might justify the idea that they did. Fuseli after declaring that he painted eyes as well as Titian, could find no other praise. Opie said, “Lawrence made coxcombs of his sitters, and his sitters made a coxcomb of Lawrence,” but then Opie, together with Romney, Hoppner, and others, had been passed over by King George III. when in 1792 he appointed Lawrence to be his Painter in Ordinary, in place of Sir Joshua deceased. Compared with his great contemporaries, we see at once that Sir Thomas Lawrence was by no means a great colourist, he had no marked skill in composition, the effect of more than one figure on his canvas is seldom pleasing, his backgrounds were never interesting or even distinctive. That he was handicapped by the absurd and artificial dress convention of his day is undeniable, but he was hardly as happy in dealing with it as were some of his contemporaries. Why then, we may ask ourselves, was Lawrence a favourite artist from the days when as a little boy he made crayon drawings of visitors to his father’s inn, down to the time when he was sent on a tour of the chief European capitals to paint Kings, Kaiser, and Pope? Why, while artists remained critical and were even grudging in the measure of justice they meted out to him did all the wealthy patrons of art prefer his studio to that of his contemporaries, face the heavy and constantly increasing charges without protest, and rejoice in the possession of the canvas that his brush had covered? The reason is not far to seek.
PLATE VIII.—KING GEORGE IV.
(In the Wallace Collection)
This portrait, painted in the last years of the artist’s life, when he was President of the Royal Academy, is a notable study, despite its rather absurd proportions and artificial background. The figure is rather stiffly posed if carefully observed, the brushwork highly skilled. It was painted when Sir Thomas had returned from the Continent, after a careful and discriminating study of the Italian Masters.
Lawrence looked upon his sitters with an eye that magnified all points of beauty or attraction and passed over the failings, the blemishes, the points that in more conscientious eyes might have made a portrait true rather than merely attractive. It was but necessary to have the beginnings of beauty, to have some attractive features, and Lawrence would go to them instinctively, they would be the foundation of his study, other points of less attraction would fade from the representation on canvas. It was his singular gift, not only to see beauty, but to pick out the aspects of the sitter that would give the most attractive result possible without absolutely rank flattery or deception.
[Pg 71]
[Pg 72]
Naturally enough when this gift became recognised the artist’s studio was thronged by the prettiest women in London. Whatever their beauty, Lawrence would interpret it in terms of the utmost generosity. The charms transferred to canvas to defy the ravages of time were safe to be at least a little in excess of those that existed in the sitter. Praise and patronage are notoriously more difficult to fight against than neglect, and as time went on Sir Thomas turned more and more to the task of perfecting prettiness. The female heads do not suffer from this—perhaps they are the better for it—but the male ones do; in place of strength we find effeminacy, and many of his men sitters narrowly escaped the charge of being pretty. Allan Cunningham does not hesitate to express his conviction that Lawrence became weaker and more effeminate of set purpose because he found that by doing so he kept his dangerous rival Hoppner at bay. This marks the difference between Reynolds and Lawrence, for the first named was strengthened by the rivalry of Romney; at least Lawrence himself thought that some of Sir Joshua’s finest efforts were produced by Romney’s rivalry.
After 1810, when the danger of this competition had passed with Hoppner’s death, Lawrence’s style was set. France and Italy came too late to strengthen a man who in so many ways was the spoilt child of fortune. Another reason for his weakness may be found in the desire to please. When he painted women he flattered them; when he talked to them he did the same. His children have a certain self-consciousness that does not belong to the children of Sir Joshua and Gainsborough; they can’t help posing and looking at their best, for their parents and relatives may have been expected to appreciate a little pose. Where men are concerned the strength of Lawrence lay in the masterful character of the sitters themselves, rather than in any force of hand or brain. Had he been called upon to paint common-place types, his reputation would hardly have been what it is to-day, but his sitters were the pick of the generation, men who played no small part in deciding the fate of Europe at one of the most critical periods of history. Reference has been made already to some of the greatest; of the others, he was extremely successful with John Kemble, John Wilson Croker, Curran, Sir James Mackintosh, and Lord Thurlow, this last portrait being the one at which, according to his own account, he laboured for thirty-seven hours without stopping or sitting down. Among his most successful portraits of fair women may be mentioned those of the Duchesses of Sutherland and Gloucester, Mrs. Arbuthnot, the Countess of Charlemont and children, the Countess Grey, Lady Ellenborough, Lady Leinster, Lady Emily Cowper, Lady Elizabeth Leveson-Gower, Miss Croker, and Lady Blessington. This is no more than a random selection; his portraits and drawings of fair women are numbered by the hundred.
Lawrence was a man who was prompt to take advantage of the opportunities that were showered upon him. One of his critics said of him, “His manners please everybody, save the two or three who look to the grain rather than the varnish.” This is very harsh and severe, for it need have occasioned no surprise had Lawrence been self-conscious and awkward, overbearing, or even pompous. His success might well have turned his head, and there are indeed occasions when his taste might certainly have been impeached; but, all things considered, he preserved a wonderfully level head, and in the latter days, when he was in as much social demand as anybody in London, he remained faithful to his brush—so faithful, that the work coming from his studio was always his own. He employed no assistants, though we have seen that he had the idea at one time of keeping something like a school in his own house. In private life he was fairly abstemious, he had no vices, nor did any young painter appeal in vain to him for advice or encouragement. Unfortunately those who sat at his feet learned the secret of his weakness rather than his strength, and a study of a man or a woman after Lawrence is something that defies criticism within the limits of courtesy, while showing that there was more in Lawrence himself than the keenest of his critics would always care to admit.
His colour was never equal to that of Reynolds, but his pictures have faced the time test better; the secret of the iridescent glaze that the first President of the R.A. could lend to a canvas was apparently unknown to Lawrence. On his death nearly one hundred canvases were exhibited at the British Institute, and his popularity may be gauged from the result of the exhibition, which yielded three thousand pounds, the money being given to his nieces. His tastes in art were catholic, and his love of attractive drawings has been referred to. It was said by some that the £20,000 the collection yielded was less by far than it had cost, but this, as far as the writer can ascertain, is conjecture. He had drawings of unequal merit, the best being by Michael Angelo and Raphael, and these went to Oxford University. His Italian journey quickened the best side of Lawrence, and justifies the regret that he was not able to visit Italy as a lad. His instinct for good work was quick and true; he never hesitated for long between the best and the second best, giving the preference to Michael Angelo as soon as he had compared his work in Rome with that of Raphael. In the last years of his life he gave up the creamy white of his earlier canvases for a pure white, taking the hint from the old Venetian masters, by whom he was deeply impressed. He exhibited over three hundred portraits, and painted many that were not for exhibition. To-day he may be seen at his best in Windsor Castle, but London claims some of his successful canvases.
Study and the life of Sir Thomas Lawrence begins and ends on the note of wonder. It is easy to point out his shortcomings, but it is far more difficult to account for his merits when we remember that he started to earn his family’s living before he was seven years old, and received a public recognition at the age of sixteen for work completed two years before. He had no student life in the true sense of the term, no painstaking teacher, only one or two friends to give him hints more or less valuable. His strength lay in accurate draughtsmanship and a wonderfully quick eye for effect, his weakness in the effeminacy of his handling, the indifference to minor details of composition, and the general inferiority of his colour sense to that of his great contemporaries. But from a lad who was self-taught and never ventured to handle colours until he was seventeen, nothing better could be expected, and something not as good might well have been pardoned. Finally, it may be suggested that while Sir Thomas Lawrence will never take equal rank with the greatest of his contemporaries, while Reynolds, Gainsborough, Hoppner, and others will take precedence of him, his best work will always command a large measure of genuine admiration. It will not fail to attract the attention of the student and the connoisseur, while his life must be full of interest to those who realise how talents that were not of the highest rank did almost as much for Lawrence as greater gifts did for Velazquez, Rubens, Hans Holbein the younger, and others whose brushes were a powerful aid to diplomacy in days past.
The plates are printed by Bemrose & Sons, Ltd., London and Derby
The text at the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh
