Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 4.djvu/97

Rh him an excellent classical education, partly at the High School, and partly at a private academy. In his school-boy days, he manifested a decided taste for literature, accompanied by a talent for drawing figures, which induced his father to place him as an apprentice under Mr Nasmyth, the distinguished landscape-painter; who was, in this manner, the means of bringing forward many men of genius in the arts. Contemporary with Mr Gibson, as a student in this school, was Mr Nasmyth's son Peter; and it is painful to think, that both of these ingenious pupils should have gone down to the grave before their master. Mr Nasmyth's academy was one in no ordinary degree advantageous to his apprentices: such talents as they possessed were generally brought into speedy use in painting and copying landscapes, which he himself finished and sold; and thus they received encouragement from seeing works, of which a part of the merit was their own, brought rapidly into the notice of the world. About the same time, Mr Gibson attended the trustees' academy, then taught with distinguished success by Mr Graham. While advancing in the practical part of his profession, Mr Gibson, from his taste for general study, paid a greater share of attention to the branches of knowledge connected with it, than the most of artists had it in their power to bestow. He studied the mathematics with particular care, and attained an acquaintance with perspective, and with the theory of art in general, which was in his own lifetime quite unexampled in Scottish—perhaps in British—art. Mr Gibson, indeed, might rather be described as a man of high literary and scientific accomplishments, pursuing art as a profession, than as an artist, in the sense in which that term is generally understood. In landscape painting, he showed a decided preference for the classical style of Domenichino and Nicholas Poussin; and having studied architectural drawing with much care, he became remarkably happy in the views of temples and other classical buildings, which he introduced into his works. When still a very young man, Mr Gibson went to London, and studied the best works of art to be found in, that metropolis,—the state of the continent at that time preventing him from pursuing his investigations any further.

Mr Gibson painted many landscapes, which have found their way into the collections of the most respectable amateurs in his native country. His own exquisitely delicate and fastidious taste, perhaps prevented him from attaining full success at first, but he was continually improving ; and, great as the triumphs of his pencil ultimately were, it is not too much to say, that, if life had been spared to him, he must have reached still higher degrees of perfection.

Mr Gibson's professional taste and skill, along with his well known literary habits, pointed him out as a proper individual to write, not only criticisms upon the works of modern art brought under public notice, but articles upon the fundamental principles of the fine arts, in works embracing miscellaneous knowledge. He contributed to the Encyclopedia Edinensis, an elaborate article under the head " Design," embracing the history, theory, and practice of painting, sculpture, and engraving, and concluding with an admirable treatise on his favourite subject, "Linear Perspective." This article extends to one hundred and six pages of quarto, in double columns, and is illustrated by various drawings. It is, perhaps, the best treatise on the various subjects which it embraces, ever contributed to an encyclopædia. To Dr Brewster's more extensive work, entitled the Edinburgh Encyclopædia, Mr Gibson contributed the articles, Drawing, Engraving, and Miniature-painting, all of which attracted notice, for the full and accurate knowledge upon which they appeared to be based. In the Edinburgh Annual Register for 1816, published in 1820, being edited by Mr J. G. Lockhart, was an article by Mr Gibson, entitled "A View of the Progress and Present State of the Art of Design in Britain." It is written with much