CHAPTER X

THE BRITISH SCHOOL

SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS

THE words written by Reynolds on the established method of his maturity have already been quoted. It was his habit at one period to jot down in Italian the colours, mediums, and processes of which he made use, in each successive portrait, notes which are to be found in Eastlake's " Materials." He was a great experimentalist, and methodically made these memoranda, eventually to confine himself to the combinations which furnished him with the best results. So we may take it that when he refers to his "established method," with it his best work was accomplished. Wax, I believe, is not mentioned at the time, but a solution of it, dissolved in spike oil or turpentine, was a favourite medium about which he told an amateur friend, asking him at the same time not to tell any one. The amateur tried the vehicle, and complained that it cracked. Reynolds's only answer was, "All good pictures crack." Now you will understand how it is that "The Age of Innocence " and many others that are of a thick [220] pasty consistence have cracked : but not all of them ; much depended on the nature of the other oils and varnishes used with the wax.

There is always danger of pictures suffering that are done with a thick paste of colour entirely concealing the grain of the canvas.

His heavy use of bitumen is also responsible for other fissures. Bitumen is liquefied when heated by the sun. A. story is told how a Reynolds picture with much bitumen, which had been exposed to the sun, was found with the eyes run down into the cheeks of the portrait. The only cure for this displacement was to leave the picture in the sun, and reverse it, till those features found a resting-place in their sockets again. _{Footnote: This is the fact about the Hilton in the Chantrey collection. I remember when the wandering eye was fixed.}

Reynolds made many copies of the Venetian, Flemish, Dutch, and Spanish works, and embodied in his own painting what he admired in their methods ; and he was critical enough also to know what to avoid. His "gilded" final colouring is doubtless inspired by Titian and Rembrandt; his more silvery schemes, such as the " Two Gentlemen," by Velazquez. But for all his researches into the practices of other men, he is very personal, and there is no mistaking him for the masters from whom he did not disdain to learn.

The "Portraits of Two Gentlemen" is one of his best works here, done on a canvas covered entirely with the grey of its background, an [223] idea evidently borrowed from Velazquez ; for, like the " Admiral Pulido-Pareja," the figures are superposed on its dry surface. In most modern portraits the background is painted wet with the head, but Sir Joshua managed to do more than a hundred in a year, and would find it facilitate matters to have some of his grounds nearly completed for him except for a final warming glaze. The more elaborate backgrounds were done by assistants, the master superintending and completing them while they were still wet, or by glazes and retouchings when dry.

The breadth and oneness in these two heads is admirable, and there are no small accents to detract from their simplicity.

The hair of the near man, the better of the two, is thinly suggested on the grey ground; the flesh and hands are first prepared with a cool monochrome, and then scumbled and glazed.

The foreshortened hand against the black satin is a real pleasure to the craftsman, as is also the silveriness of the harmony. There is a frankness and freshness about this work rarely found in his pictures, many of which he juggled with, rubbing asphaltum and other glazes into them, so that now little light remains. Examples of this we have in a small lost profile at the National Gallery, " The Banished Lord," and in the " Snake in the Grass " with its heavy accidental shadows, in which the breast of the semi-nude figure is fine in colour and modelling. No doubt [224] by these means he achieved a rich colour-quality ; but they are dangerous, and more often than not leave destruction hi their wake.

The "Admiral Keppel," painted with wax as a medium, has been so enriched, but is in good condition. The tone of the head against the splash of white on the neckcloth has the substance that such tonality gives. Its apparent brilliancy is heightened by the cast shadow on the crimson coat and the cloud of Antwerp blue for a background. It is finely drawn and boldly handled.

There is little else but Indian red and black in the flesh of " Lord Heathfield," which is altogether a splendid performance, both in its modelling and telling character : a dignified old soldier.

"The Countess of Albemarle" is but a slightly tinted monochrome like many of his portraits. No doubt the black tendency of the greys prompted him to force the colour in his other pictures. His black and blue under-painting helped the flesh greys, but when overdone destroyed the glow that Rubens held so dear.

"The Age of Innocence" has all the charm of Reynolds's child pictures, and in spite of its fissures is simplicity itself. Only a strong concentrated light imparts such breadth, and only a "dilated" eye can seize it. If we have here the solidity that wax establishes, we must take the defects of the qualities of wax and be grateful.

In " The Holy Family," cleanly done at first with a cold monochrome, we have a fine composition [225] effective in light and shade. But the head of the Virgin, otherwise beautiful, has about it a hard tinniness, for the edges are too clearly cut and not lost and found enough against its dark background. The pink of the dress is solidly painted into a glaze ; and on the child some dry draggings of colour are visible.

"The Graces" do not belie their name. Here the great cast shadows are used so wisely that they save a composition which without them would be too markedly arranged. The quality of toned colour in sunlight is delightfully suggested.

In the confused and poorly drawn " Lady Cockburn and her Children," the parrot against a fluted column is a colour passage of real beauty, a delicious harmony.

"George IV. as Prince of Wales" is another frank and well-constructed head, and everything else by the master is worthy of the closest study.