Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 9.djvu/251

Rh with fresh courage, David Scott commenced the business of life in earnest, and his whole course from this period was one of continual artistic action. He must give full proof of high talent as a painter, if he would reap the renown and win the emoluments of such a position; and, to indicate his claims, he must descend into the arena, and let the on-lookers judge what he was worth. In these competitions, we shall content ourselves with summing up his future history.

To the Edinburgh exhibition of 1835 he sent four pictures: these were "Sappho and Anacreon," "The Vintager," a fresco, and "Sketch of the Head of Mary Magdalene."

In that of the following year were exhibited his "Descent from the Cross," a painting which he had prepared as an altar-piece for the new Roman Catholic chapel, in Lothian Street; "Oberon and Puck," and "Macchiavelli and the Beggar." The first of these was made the subject of the annual engraving circulated by the Association for the Promotion of the Fine Arts; the last was the commencement of a series of historic sketches, which Scott continued till near the close of his life.

To the exhibition of 1837 he sent only .two pictures, "The Abbot of Misrule," and "Judas betraying Christ." This paucity was chiefly occasioned by the time he devoted to the Illustrations of the " Ancient Mariner," in which he evinced a congenial spirit with that of the author of the wild and wondrous legend. Indeed, Coleridge himself thought it incapable of pictorial illustration, until these productions of David Scott agreeably convinced him of his mistake. "The whole series," he thus wrote to the painter, "is exceedingly impressive, and gives you a good claim to be our Retsch, if that is a compliment. It is curious to see how many conceptions may be formed of the imagery of a work of pure imagination. Yours is not like mine of the ’Ancient Mariner,' and yet I appreciate, and am deeply sensible of the merit of yours."

As an artist, Scott, whose commencement with the exhibition of 1835 had been both unpromising and disheartening, was now successfully surmounting the public neglect, as well as its inability to appreciate him, and steadily winning his way to that eminence which would place him among the highest of his degree. Invigorated by this prospect, his four pictures which he sent to the exhibition in 1838, had a sunniness of fancy as well as completeness of touch, that indicated the hopeful feelings under which they were executed. The subjects were, "Orestes seized by the Furies after the Murder of his mother, Clytemnestra, to which he was prompted by his sister, Electra, in revenge of the Assassination of their father, Agamemnon;" "Rachel Weeping for her Children;" "Puck fleeing before the Dawn;" and "Ariel and Caliban." About the same time he also painted, as a companion to the "Orestes," "Achilles addressing the Manes of Patroclus over the Body of Hector." Another, which he painted during this year, and which was the most successful he had hitherto produced, so that it took the stubborn criticism of Edinburgh by storm, was the "Alchymical Adept Lecturing on the Elixir Vitse." This picture was purchased by the Association for the Promotion of the Fine Arts for 200. Turning his attention also to the literary department of his profession, he published, in 1839, and the two following years, a series of essays in "Blackwood's Magazine," of which the subjects were, "The Genius of Raffaele," "Titian, and Venetian Painting," "Leonardo da Vinci and Correggio," and the "Caiacci, Caravaggio, and Monachism."