Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XII.djvu/817

 PAINTING- 803 list were the frescoes executed by Sir James Thornhill in the interior of the dome of St. Paul's, London ; but his illustrious son-in-law, William Hogarth, the great satirical painter of his time, and one of the most original ar- tists of any age, is the first name of note in the history of British art. He had however but little direct influence upon the painters of his time, and the honor of founding the mod- ern English school belongs to Sir Joshua Rey- nolds, excellent in portraiture and history, and preeminent as a colorist. His contempo- rary and rival, Thomas Gainsborough, often equalled him in portraits, but is better known as the first of the line of landscape painters whose works would adorn the art of any epoch. Among other painters who flourished during the latter half of the last century were Richard Wilson, eminent in landscape ; Barry, Romney, Mortimer, Opie, Northcote, Fuseli, Angelica Kauffmann, Copley, and West, his- torical and portrait painters, the last two be- ing natives of America. William Blake occu- pies a unique position as a mystical painter of remarkable but unequal power. The in- fluence of Reynolds upon the succeeding gen- eration of painters is shown in the strong bias for color which now forms one of the chief characteristics of the English school. In the first quarter of the present century flourished Sir Thomas Lawrence, Hoppner, Raeburn, and Jackson, portrait painters ; W T ilkie, next to Ho- garth the best painter of low life England has produced ; Haydon, a historical painter of ge- nius, in spite of his mannerism and egotism ; Etty, once esteemed as a colorist ; Turner, the most original and imaginative, perhaps, of land- scape painters; Constable, Callcott, W. Col- lins, Morland, Nasmyth, Bonington, eminent in the same department ; and John Martin, whose architectural extravagances and exaggerated effects of light and shade had a brief popular- ity. During the same period history and genre were cultivated by Bird, Smirke, Stothard, and others ; and they have been continued to the present day by Newton, Leslie, Cooper, Mul- ready, Maclise, Eastlake, Redgrave, E. M. Ward, Webster, Hamilton, Cope, Dyce, C. Landseer, J. R. Herbert, Horsley, W. J. Muller, Frith, Faed, and others, many of whom have also painted landscapes and portraits with success. Among prominent landscape painters of the S*esent period have been Creswick, Stanfield, . Roberts, James Ward, the Linnels, father and sons, and F. Lee ; and the English school of landscape still occupies a high place in con- temporary art. Sir Edwin Landseer (died in 1873) held a peculiar and prominent position as a painter of dogs and animals of the chase. The British school of water-color painting, founded by Paul Sandby in the middle of the last century, is perhaps the best in the world, and in the department of landscape has pro- duced works scarcely inferior to those of the oil painters. Among its chief artists are Tur- ner, Prout, Copley Fielding, Roberts, W. Hunt, Lewis, Cattermole, Cox, Absolon, Corbould, Nash, and Stanfield. At the beginning of the century a tendency toward imaginative painting on a large and elaborate scale, oth- erwise known as " high art," was a marked characteristic of the English school. Domes- tic genre gradually took the place of this, and has been the prevailing style to the present day. So exclusive a devotion to one class of subjects has imparted a monotonous sameness and overstrained sentimentality to the recent productions of the school; but an ideal and more imaginative style has of late been cul- tivated by Leighton, Holman Hunt, Millais, Watts, Watson, Calderon, Walker, Sant, Whist- ler (the last named an American by birth, and a remarkable colorist), and some others. Within the past 25 years has arisen a peculiar school, styling itself the " Pre-Raphaelite Bro- therhood," and represented by Holman Hunt, Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and some oth- ers, who, according to their most earnest ad- vocate, Ruskin, "oppose themselves to the modern system of teaching, and paint nature as it is around them, with the help of mod- ern science, and with the earnestness of the men of the 13th and 14th centuries." Paint- ing made little progress in the United States previous to the present century. Benjamin West, a native of Pennsylvania, and the sec- ond president of the British royal academy, gained all his reputation abroad ; and Copley, though he left many admirable portraits in America, settled in England before the revolu- tion, and produced his most important works in history and portraiture in that country. Charles Wilson Peale and John Trumbull were the first native artists of note who practised their art to any considerable extent at home; and the Trumbull gallery of portraits and pic- tures illustrating American history, at New Haven, comprises a valuable contribution to the early art of the nation. In the first part of the present century Malbone, Gilbert Stuart, and Allston vindicated the claim of America to the possession of a high order of artistic ability ; the first an excellent miniature painter, the second a rival of Reynolds in portraiture, and the third an imaginative painter of great excellence in all walks of his art. About the same time John W. Jarvis and Thomas Sully occupied a respectable position as portrait painters ; Vanderlyn painted history with suc- cess ; and somewhat later Newton and Leslie, Americans by birth or parentage, settled in England and became celebrated in the modern English school of genre. About 1825 Thomas Cole founded what may be called the American school of landscape painting, a department which has since been cultivated by native artists more universally than any other. The works of Cole, though not remarkable as lit- eral transcripts of individual forms, are char- acterized by a thoughtful morality and a ten- dency to allegory. The series of " The Course of Empire" and "The Voyage of Life" are his