DOMESTIC subject, or genre, painting in England may be said to have originated with Hogarth, but it made slow progress after his death till the commencement of the nineteenth century. Historic pictures of a large size were neither popular nor profitable. Corporate bodies did not care to spend money on the adornment of their guild halls, and ordinary householders had no room for large pictures. Englishmen are essentially domestic, and pictures small enough to hang in small houses, and illustrative of home life, suit their necessities, and appeal to their feelings far more strongly than vast canvases representing battles or sacred histories. In genre painting the Dutch school has ever been prominent; to it we doubtless owe much of the popularity of this branch of art in England, where our painters have chosen familiar subjects, without descending to the coarse or sensual incidents in which some old Dutch artists delighted. The genre painters of this country have mainly drawn their subjects from our national poets and prose writers and the every-day life of Englishmen, sometimes verging on the side of triviality, but on the whole including pleasing works, which, as it has been well said, "bear the same relation to historic art as the tale or novel does to history."

DAVID WILKIE (1785—1841) was born in his father's manse at Cults, Fifeshire. It was fully intended that Wilkie should follow in his father's steps, and become a minister of the Scottish Kirk, but it was not to be so. He was placed, at his own earnest desire, in the Trustees' Academy, at Edinburgh, and there in 1803 justified the wisdom of this choice by gaining the ten-guinea premium for the best painting of the time, the subject being Callisto in the Baths of Diana. Next year young Wilkie visited his home, and painted Piltassie Fair, which he sold for £25. He painted portraits, and with the money thus acquired went to London in 1805. Having entered himself as a student at the Academy, Wilkie soon attracted attention by the Village Politicians, which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1806. One hundred of his paintings appeared from time to time on the Academy walls; each succeeding early work added to its author's fame. All his earlier works were genre pictures. His favourite subjects are shown in The Blind Fiddler, Card-Players, The Rent Day, The Jew's Harp, The Cut Finger, The Village Festival, Blindman's Buff, The Letter of Introduction, Duncan Gray, The Penny Wedding, Reading the Will, The Parish Beadle, and The Chelsea Pensioners, the last painted for the Duke of Wellington. Wilkie was elected A.R.A. in 1809, and a full member in 1811. He went abroad in 1814, and again in 1825, when he visited Germany, Italy, and Spain. The study of the old masters, especially Correggio, Rembrandt, and Velazquez, had a marked effect on Wilkie, who changed both his style and subjects. He forsook genre for history and portraiture, and substituted a light effective style of handling for the careful execution of his earlier works. John Knox Preaching (National Gallery) is a good specimen of this second period of Wilkie's art. He succeeded Sir Thomas Lawrence in 1830 as Painter in Ordinary to the King, and was knighted six years later. In 1840 Wilkie visited the East, and painted the portrait of the Sultan Abdul Medjid. Next year, whilst far from home, on board a steamer off Gibraltar, he died, and found a grave in the sea. There are eleven of his pictures in the National Gallery. Her Majesty possesses most of the pictures painted by Wilkie in Spain, such as The Guerilla Council of War, and The Maid of Saragossa. Another Spanish picture, painted in England, is Two Spanish Monks in the Cathedral of Toledo, belonging to the Marquis of Lansdowne. In it we notice the painting of the hands, which are full of life and action, a characteristic in which Wilkie excelled. "His early art certainly made a great impression on the English school, showing how Dutch art might be nationalized, and story and sentiment added to scenes of common life treated with truth and individuality. As to his middle time, such pictures as the John Knox also had their influence on the school, and the new mode of execution as supported by Wilkie's authority, a very evil influence, bringing discredit upon English pictures as entirely wanting in permanency. His methods and the pigments he used were soon discarded in England, but at the time they influenced, and have continued to influence, his countrymen long after his death." (Redgrave.)

The Maid of Saragossa. By WILKIE. A.D. 1827. In the possession of the Queen.
The Maid of Saragossa. By WILKIE. A.D 1827. In the possession of the Queen.

WILLIAM FREDERICK WITHERINGTON (1785—1865) combined landscape and subject painting in his art. He exhibited his first picture, Tintern Abbey, in 1811, and his succeeding works were principally landscapes and figure subjects in combination. Witherington was elected A.R.A. in 1830, and became a full member ten years later. Favourable specimens of his thoroughly English and pleasing pictures are The Stepping Stones and The Hop Garland in the National Gallery, and The Hop Garden in the Sheepshanks Collection at South Kensington.

ABRAHAM COOPER (1787—1868), the son of an inn-keeper, was born in London, and early showed singular skill with his pencil. The inn stables furnished his first and favoured subjects, and the portrait of a favourite horse belonging to Sir Henry Meux gained him his first patron. In 1814 Cooper exhibited at the British Institution Tam o'Shanter, which was purchased by the Duke of Marlborough. In 1817 The Battle of Marston Moor secured his election as an Associate of the Academy: he became a R.A. in 1820. There is little variety in the subjects of this painter's works. The best known are The Pride of the Desert, Hawking in the Olden Time, The Dead Trooper, Richard I. and Saladin at the Battle of Ascalon, and Bothwell's Seizure of Mary, Queen of Scots.

WILLIAM MULREADY (1786—1863), the ablest genre painter in England except Wilkie, was born at Ennis, in the County Clare. Although his works are familiar to most of us as household words, few details of his life are known. We know that his father was a maker of leather-breeches, and that he came to London with his son when the latter was about five years old. The child is said to have shown very early the artistic power which was in him. He sat as a model for Solomon to John Graham, who was illustrating Macklin's Bible and probably the surroundings of the studio stimulated young Mulready's artistic instincts. By the recommendation of Banks, the sculptor, he gained entrance to the Academy Schools; at the age of fifteen he required no further pecuniary aid from his parents. Mulready worked in the Academy Schools, as he worked through life, with all his heart and soul. He declared he always painted as though for a prize, and that when he had begun his career in the world he tried his hand at everything, "from a caricature to a panorama." He was a teacher all his life, and this accounts, perhaps, for the careful completeness of his pictures. Mulready married when very young, and did not secure happiness. He began by painting landscapes, but in 1807 produced Old Kasper, from Southey's poem of "The Battle of Blenheim," his first subject picture. The Rattle appeared a year later, and marked advance. Both pictures bear evidence that their author had studied the Dutch masters. In 1815 Mulready was chosen A.R.A., but before his name could appear in the catalogue he had attained to the rank of a full member. This was in 1816, when he exhibited The Fight interrupted (Sheepshanks Collection). From this time he was a popular favourite, and his pictures, of which he exhibited on an average scarcely two a year, were eagerly looked for. We may specify The Wolf and the Lamb, The Last in, Fair Time, Crossing the Ford, The Young Brother, The Butt, Giving a Bite, Choosing the Wedding Gown, and The Toyseller (all in the National Gallery or in the South Kensington Museum). "With the exception perhaps of some slight deterioration in his colouring, which of late years was obtrusively purple, he was in the enjoyment of the full powers of his great abilities for upwards of half a century. * * * He was distinguished by the excellence of his life studies, three of which in red and black chalks, presented by the Society of Arts, are in the Gallery." (National Gallery Catalogue.)

Choosing the Wedding Gown. By MULREADY, A.D. 1846. In the Sheepshanks Gallery in the South Kensington Museum.
Choosing the Wedding Gown. By MULREADY, A.D 1846.
In the Sheepshanks Gallery in the South Kensington Museum.

ALEXANDER FRASER (1786—1865), a native of Edinburgh, exhibited his first picture, The Green Stall, in 1810. Having settled in London, he became an assistant to his countryman Wilkie, and for twenty years painted the still-life details of Wilkie's pictures. The influence of his master's art is visible in Fraser's pictures, which are usually founded upon incidents and scenes in Scotland, as, for example, Interior of a Highland Cottage (National Gallery) and Sir Walter Scott dining with one of the Blue-gown Beggars of Edinburgh. Other examples are The Cobbler at Lunch, The Blackbird and his Tutor, and The Village Sign-painter.

Sancho Panza and the Duchess. By LESLIE. A.D. 1844. In the National Gallery.
Sancho Panza and the Duchess. By LESLIE. A.D 1844. In the National Gallery.

CHARLES ROBERT LESLIE (1794—1859) was born in London, probably in Clerkenwell, of American parents. His father was a clockmaker from Philadelphia, who returned with his family to America when the future painter was five years old. The boy was apprenticed to a bookseller, but his true vocation was decided by a portrait which he made of Cooke, the English tragedian, who was performing in Philadelphia. This work attracted so much notice among Leslie's friends that a subscription was raised to send him to England, the bookseller, his master, liberally contributing. In 1811, Leslie became a student of the Royal Academy, and received instruction from his countrymen Washington Allston and Benjamin West. Leslie, however, considered teaching of little value. He said that, if materials were provided, a man was his own best teacher, and he speaks of "Fuseli's wise neglect" of the Academy students. Influenced, probably, by the example of Allston and West, Leslie began by aiming at classic art. He mentions that he was reading "Telemachus," with a view to a subject, and among his early works was Saul and the Witch of Endor. Even when he commenced to draw subjects from Shakespeare, he turned first to the historic plays, and painted The Death of Rutland and The Murder Scene from "Macbeth." Unlike Wilkie and Mulready, Leslie did not strive to create subjects for his pictures. He preferred to ramble through literature, and to select a scene or episode for his canvas. Wilkie invented scenes illustrating the festivities of the lower classes, Mulready chose similar incidents; it was left to Leslie to adopt "genteel comedy." Like his countryman and adviser, Washington Irving, he had visited, doubtless, many scenes of quiet English country life, and one of these is reproduced in his well-known picture of Sir Roger de Coverley going to Church, which was exhibited in 1819. He had previously shown his power in humorous subjects by painting Ann Page and Slender. Leslie had discovered his true vocation, and continued to work in the department of the higher genre with unabated success. The patronage of Lord Egremont, for whom he painted, in 1823, Sancho Panza in the Apartment of the Duchess, was the means of procuring him many commissions. The picture in the National Gallery, of which we give an illustration, is a replica with slight alterations, executed many years later. He married in 1825, and became a full member of the Academy a year later. In 1831 he exhibited The Dinner at Page's House, from "The Merry Wives of Windsor"—one of his finest works. No painter has made us so well acquainted with the delightful old reprobate, Falstaff, with Bardolph, and the merry company who drank sack at the Boar's Head in Eastcheap. There is a repetition of The Dinner at Page's House in the Sheepshanks Collection, slightly varied from the first, and bearing traces of Constable's influence. In 1833, Leslie was appointed teacher of drawing at the American Academy at West Point, and with his family he removed thither. It was a mistake, and the painter returned to England within a year. He illustrated Shakespeare, Cervantes, Goldsmith, and Sterne, the latter furnishing him with the subject of Uncle Toby and the Widow Wadman. In 1838, Leslie, by request of the Queen, painted Her Majesty's Coronation—which is very unlike the usual pictures of a state ceremonial. In 1841 he was commissioned to paint The Christening of the Princess Royal. The domestic life of Leslie was peaceful and prosperous, till the death of a daughter gave a shock from which he never recovered. He died May 5, 1859. Mr. Redgrave says of his art, "Leslie entered into the true spirit of the writer he illustrated. His characters appear the very individuals who have filled our mind. Beauty, elegance, and refinement, varied, and full of character, or sparkling with sweet humour, were charmingly depicted by his pencil; while the broader characters of another class, from his fine appreciation of humour, are no less truthfully rendered, and that with an entire absence of any approach to vulgarity. The treatment of his subject is so simple that we lose the sense of a picture, and feel that we are looking upon a scene as it must have happened. He drew correctly and with an innate sense of grace. His colouring is pleasing, his costume simple and appropriate."

Captain Macheath. By NEWTON. A.D. 1826. In the possession of the Marquis of Lansdowne.
Captain Macheath. By NEWTON. A.D 1826. In the possession of the Marquis of Lansdowne.

GILBERT STUART NEWTON (1794—1835), connected with Leslie by friendship and similarity of taste, was a native of Halifax, Nova Scotia. In 1817, when travelling in Europe, Newton met with Leslie at Paris, and returned with him to London. He was a student of the Academy, and soon attracted attention by The Forsaken, Lovers' Quarrels, and The Importunate Author, which were exhibited at the British Institution. Newton began to exhibit at the Academy in 1823, and delighted the world with Don Quixote in his Study, and Captain Macheath upbraided by Polly and Lucy. In 1828 he surpassed these works with The Vicar of Wakefield reconciling his Wife to Olivia, and was elected an A.R.A. Yorick and the Grisette, Cordelia and the Physician, Portia and Bassanio, and similar works followed. In 1832 Newton became a full member of the Academy, and visiting America, married, and returned with his wife to England. The brief remaining period of his life was clouded with a great sorrow; his mind gave way, and having exhibited his last picture, Abelard in his Study, he became altogether insane.

AUGUSTUS LEOPOLD EGG (1816—1863) was born in Piccadilly, and on becoming a painter chose similar subjects to those of Leslie and Newton. He had not the humour of Leslie; indeed, most of Egg's subjects are melancholy. His first works were Italian views, and illustrations of Scott's novels, which attracted little notice. The Victim promised better. Egg showed pictures in the Suffolk Street Gallery, and, in 1838, The Spanish Girl appeared at the Royal Academy. Failing health compelled him to winter abroad, and on the 23rd of March, 1863, he died at Algiers, and was buried on a lonely hill. Three years before his death Egg had become a full member of the Academy. He is described as having a greater sense of colour than Leslie, but inferior to Newton in this respect. In execution he far surpassed the flimsy mannerism of the latter. His females have not the sweet beauty and gentleness of Leslie's. In the National Gallery is A Scene from "Le Diable Boiteux," in which the dexterity of Egg's execution is visible. He partially concurred with the pre-Raphaelites in his later years, and their influence may be traced in Pepys' Introduction to Nell Gwynne, and in a scene from Thackeray's "Esmond." Other noteworthy pictures are The Life and Death of Buckingham; Peter the Great sees Catherine, his future Empress, for the First Time; The Night before Naseby; and Catherine and Petruchio.

EDWIN HENRY LANDSEER (1802—1873) was eminent among English animal painters. No artist has done more to teach us how to love animals and to enforce the truth that—

Captain Macheath. By NEWTON. A.D. 1826. In the possession of the Marquis of Lansdowne.
Captain Macheath. By NEWTON. A.D 1826. In the possession of the Marquis of Lansdowne.

Not only did Landseer rival some of the Dutch masters of the seventeenth century in painting fur and feathers, but he depicted animals with sympathy, as if he believed that "the dumb, driven cattle" possess souls. His dogs and other animals are so human as to look as if they were able to speak. The painter was the son of John Landseer, the engraver, and was born in London. He received art lessons from his father, and, when little more than a baby, would sketch donkeys, horses, and cows at Hampstead Heath. Some of these sketches, made when Landseer was five, seven, and ten years old, are at Kensington. He was only fourteen when he exhibited the heads of A Pointer Bitch and Puppy. When between sixteen and seventeen he produced Dogs fighting, which was engraved by the painter's father. Still more popular was The Dogs of St. Gothard rescuing a Distressed Traveller, which appeared when its author was eighteen. Landseer was not a pupil of Haydon, but he had occasional counsel from him. He dissected a lion. As soon as he reached the age of twenty-four he was elected an A.R.A., and exhibited at the Academy The Hunting of Chevy Chase. This was in 1826, and in 1831 he became a full member of the Academy. Landseer had visited Scotland in 1826, and from that date we trace a change in his style, which thenceforth was far less solid, true and searching, and became more free and bold. The introduction of deer into his pictures, as in The Children of the Mist, Seeking Sanctuary, and The Stag at Bay, marked the influence of Scotch associations. Landseer was knighted in 1850, and at the French Exhibition of 1855 was awarded the only large gold medal given to an English artist. Prosperous, popular, and the guest of the highest personages of the realm, he was visited about 1852 by an illness which compelled him to retire from society. From this he recovered, but the effects of a railway accident in 1868 brought on a relapse. He died in 1873, and was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral. On the death of Sir Charles Eastlake, in 1865, he was offered the Presidentship of the Royal Academy, but this honour he declined. In the National Gallery are Spaniels of King Charles's Breed, Low Life and High Life, Highland Music (a highland piper disturbing a group of five hungry dogs, at their meal, with a blast on the pipes), The Hunted Stag, Peace (of which we give a representation), War (dying and dead horses, and their riders lying amidst the burning ruins of a cottage), Dignity and Impudence, Alexander and Diogenes, The Defeat of Comus, a sketch painted for a fresco in the Queen's summer house, Buckingham Palace. Sixteen of Landseer's works are in the Sheepshanks Collection, including the touching Old Shepherd's Chief Mourner, of which Mr. Ruskin said that "it stamps its author not as the neat imitator of the texture of a skin, or the fold of a drapery, but as the man of mind."

Peace. By LANDSEER. A.D. 1846. In the National Gallery.
Peace. By LANDSEER. A.D 1846. In the National Gallery.

WILLIAM BOXALL (1800—1879), after study in the Royal Academy Schools and in Italy, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1829 his first picture—Milton's Reconciliation with his Wife—and continued to contribute to its exhibitions till 1866. Though his first works were historic and allegoric, he finally became famous as a portrait painter, and reckoned among his sitters some of the most eminent men of the time—poets, painters, writers on art, and others, e.g. Copley Fielding, David Cox, Coleridge, Wordsworth. In 1852 Boxall became an associate, and in 1864 a full member of the Royal Academy; he was Director of the National Gallery from 1865 to 1874; and received the honour of knighthood in 1871, in recognition of the valuable services which he rendered to art.

PAUL FALCONER POOLE (1810—1879), a painter of high class of genre pictures as well as of history, exhibited his first picture at the Academy in 1830, The Well, a Scene at Naples. In 1838 he produced The Emigrant's Departure. Other pictures are May Queen preparing for the Dance, The Escape of Glaucus and Ione, The Seventh Day of the Decameron. Among the historic works of this artist are The Vision of Ezekiel (National Gallery) and others. Poole became a full member of the Academy in 1860.

GEORGE HEMMING MASON (1818—1872), a native of Witley, Staffordshire, found art to be surrounded by difficulties. His father insisted on his following the profession of medicine, and placed him with Dr. Watts, of Birmingham. A portrait painter having visited the doctor's house, young Mason borrowed his colour-box, and, unaided, produced a picture of such promise that the artist advised him to follow art. Mason left the doctor's house, made his way to Italy, and, without any teacher, developed an original style which is marked by simplicity of design, refinement of colour, delicacy of chiaroscuro, and pathos of expression. He was elected A.R.A. in 1868, but died of heart-disease before becoming a full member. Mason's best-known works are Campagna di Roma, The Gander, The Return from Ploughing, The Cast Shoe, The Evening Hymn, and The Harvest Moon, unfinished.

ROBERT BRAITHWAITE MARTINEAU (1826—1869), son of one of the Masters in Chancery, nephew of Miss Martineau, commenced life as an articled clerk to a solicitor. After four years' study of the law he forsook it for the brighter sphere of art, and entered the Academy Schools. In 1852 Martineau exhibited at the Academy Kit's Writing Lesson, from "The Old Curiosity Shop," which indicated the class of subjects which he delighted in. His Last Day in the Old House, and The Last Chapter, by their originality of conception, and exquisite painting, won the artist a renown which he did not long live to enjoy. He died of heart-disease.

JOHN FREDERICK LEWIS (1805—1876), the son of an eminent London engraver, began his career in art by painting studies of animals, and in 1828 was elected a Member of the Society of Painters in Water-Colours. He afterwards travelled in Spain and Italy, painting many subjects, such as a Spanish Bullfight, Monks preaching at Seville, &c., and thence went to the East, where he stayed some years. He returned to England in 1851, and four years afterwards was made President of the Water-colour Society. In 1856 he exhibited A Frank Encampment in the Desert of Mount Sinai, which Mr. Ruskin called "the climax of water-colour drawing." In the same year he began to paint in oil colours, and frequently exhibited pictures of Eastern life, such as The Meeting in the Desert, A Turkish School, A CafÉ in Cairo, &c. In 1859 he was made an Associate of the Royal Academy, and in 1866 a full member. In the South Kensington Museum there are two of Lewis's water-colour drawings, The Halt in the Desert and Peasants of the Black Forest, and a few of his studies from nature.

The Arab Scribe. By JOHN FREDERICK LEWIS. A.D. 1852.
The Arab Scribe. By JOHN FREDERICK LEWIS. A.D 1852.

EDWARD MATTHEW WARD (1816—1879) became a student at the Academy by the advice of Wilkie, who had seen his first picture, a portrait of Mr. O. Smith as Don Quixote. In 1836 Ward was a student in Rome. Thence he proceeded to Munich, and studied fresco-painting with Cornelius. In 1839 he returned to England, and exhibited Cimabue and Giotto. Joining in the competition for the decoration of the Houses of Parliament, he produced Boadicea, which was commended, but did not obtain a premium. Dr. Johnson reading the MS. of Goldsmith's "Vicar of Wakefield", first brought him to notice. It was followed by Dr. Johnson in Lord Chesterfield's Ante-Room, and the painter was elected an A.R.A. This work as well as The Disgrace of Lord Clarendon, The South-Sea Bubble, and James II. receiving the news of the landing of William of Orange, are in the National Gallery. In 1852 and later Ward executed eight historic pictures in the corridor of the House of Commons. He was elected a Royal Academician in 1855. His pictures are too well known to need description; most popular among them are Charlotte Corday led to Execution, The Execution of Montrose, The Last Sleep of Argyll, Marie Antoinette parting with the Dauphin, The Last Moments of Charles II., The Night of Rizzio's Murder, The Earl of Leicester and Amy Robsart, Judge Jeffreys and Richard Baxter.

FREDERICK WALKER (1840—1875) died just as he had fulfilled the promise of his youth. After spending a short time in the office of an architect and surveyor, he left this uncongenial region to practise art. He occasionally studied in the Academy Schools, and began his artistic career by illustrating Thackeray's "Philip" in the "Cornhill Magazine," thus winning much praise. He became a member of the Old Water-Colour Society, and an A.R.A. A career full of promise was cut short by death at St. Fillan's, Perthshire, in 1875: the young painter was buried at his favourite Cookham, on the Thames. His chief works are The Lost Path, The Bathers, The Vagrants, The Old Gate, The Plough, The Harbour of Refuge, and The Right of Way. Mr. Redgrave said, "His genius was thoroughly and strikingly original. His works are marked by a method of their own; the drawing, colour, and execution, alike peculiar to himself. They are at once refined and pathetic in sentiment, and novel in their conception of nature and her effects. His figures have the true feeling of rustic life, with the grace of line of the antique."

Our Village. By FREDERICK WALKER. Exhibited at the Water-colour Society's Exhibition. A.D. 1873.
Our Village. By FREDERICK WALKER. Exhibited at the Water-colour Society's Exhibition. A.D. 1873.

GABRIEL CHARLES DANTE ROSSETTI (1828—1882), poet, and painter of sacred subjects and scenes inspired by the writings of Dante, was the son of an Italian patriot, a political refugee, who became Professor of Italian in King's College, London. He exhibited at the Portland Gallery his first picture, The Girlhood of the Virgin, in 1849, and became the founder of the pre-Raphaelite school, which included Millais, Holman Hunt, and other artists now celebrated. Rossetti's best-known pictures are Dante's Dream (now at Liverpool), The Damosel of the Sancte Graal, The Last Meeting of Lancelot and Guinevere, The Beloved (an illustration of the Song of Solomon), and Proserpina. He seldom exhibited his paintings in public, but they were seen by art-critics, one of whom wrote (in 1873)—"Exuberance in power, exuberance in poetry of a rich order, noble technical gifts, vigour of conception, and a marvellously extensive range of thought and invention appear in nearly everything Mr. Rossetti produces."

He was equally celebrated as a writer of sonnets and a translator of Italian poetry.

It is not within the province of this work to include notice of living artists. To give an account of all the celebrated painters would require another volume. During the past decade Art has advanced with steady progress, and we can confidently say that at no time have the ranks of the Royal Academicians and the two Water-Colour Societies been filled more worthily than at the present day. The last quarter of the nineteenth century is likely to be a golden era in the history of British Art.

PAINTING IN AMERICA.
———
BY S. R. KOEHLER.