Page images
PDF
EPUB

in Edinburgh, and was much employed in portrait-painting. He afterwards settled in London, and was appointed portrait-painter to his present Majesty, who frequently sat to him. He died in the year 1784.

Alexander Runciman, born about the year 1736, painted history and landscape. He had served an apprenticeship to a coach-painter, but by the patronage of Sir John Clerk of Pennycuik, he was enabled to visit Italy, where he acquired considerable knowledge of the principles of his art. At this time he painted a picture of considerable size, representing Ulysses surprising Nausicea at play with her maids, which in style, design and expression, unites the defects and manner of Giuglio Romano, to a tone and breadth of colour resembling Tintoretto. On his return to his native country, he was employed by his patron in decorating the hall of Pennycuik, with a series of pictures taken from the Poems of Ossian, in which he shows great vigour

of fancy, and an agreeable style of colouring. He also etched several of these subjects in a free spirited style. He also painted landscape in the style of Poussin and Dominichino, and was engaged frequently in painting the scenery for the Edinburgh Theatre, which displayed great taste and versatility of talent. The genius of Runciman was certainly of a very high kind, but in judging of his works, much allowance must be made for the neglected state of the art in Scotland at that time, and that he was obliged to exercise the trade of a house-painter for a subsistence. He was also Master of the Trus tees' Academy. He died in the year 1785.

John Runciman, a younger brother of the preceding artist, went early to Rome, but being of a delicate and consumptive habit, he fell in a short time a

victim to his unremitting attention to study. The only works by him that we have seen, were executed before his going abroad; they display a fine na

Shal have the Privilege by a written Order to our Director, to assign His Right to any Young Artist whom He is Pleased to Patronize.

LINTON.

GARLIES. WILLIAM ADAM.

GILB, ELLIOT.

ANDREW HAY.

JA. MCEUEN.

JA. BALFOUR. MARK SANDILANDS. ALLAN RAMSAY,

WILLM ROBERTSON. HUGH CLERK, jun,

GEO. MARSHALL,
Preses.
RICHD. COOPER,
Treasurer.
RODERICK CHAL-
MERS, Secretary.
JOHN ALEXANDER,
AND. McILVRAITH.

JA. NORIE.

ALEXR. GUTHRIE.

TH. TROTTER.

JOHN PATOUN.

JAS. NORIE, Junior.
ALLAN RAMSAY,

Junior.
DAV. EIZAT.
JAMES CLERK,
ALEXR. CLERK.
WM. DENUNE.
W. TROTTER.
DAVID CLELAND.
ROBERT YELTON.

tural feeling for the art, and an excellent tone of colour; we particularly allude to those in the collection of John Clerk, Esq. of Eldin.

David Martin, born about the year 1730, was a pupil of Ramsay, and was most extensively employed as a portrait painter. His likenesses were very successful, but his colouring and style of chiar' oscuro are very indifferent, and his handling tame and spiritless. He also engraved several works, namely, a pair of landscapes, with cattle, after N. Poussin, etched and touched up with the graver; the portraits of Rousseau and Hume, after Ramsay, in mezzotinto, and some others, and a large folio print of Lord Mansfield. This last plate, however, was considerably advanced by a French artist employed by Martin, and who was intended to have executed it entirely; but being of irregular habits, he either died, or was deprived of the employment, after which Martin engaged upon it himself, and completed it after two years.

Jacob More, born at Edinburgh, 1743, after completing his apprenticeship to some mechanical trade, entered into another indenture with Mr Norie, a house painter, who also devoted himself with some success to landscape-painting. In 1770, he was enabled to visit Italy by the patronage of Mr Alexander, a banker in Edinburgh, and of Chief-Baron Montgomery, where he continued the rest of his life. He died in 1796. The style of More is distinguished by a considerable degree of classical feeling, with much of the taste, character, and even handling of R. Wilson. From the few specimens of his works executed in Italy that we have seen, we give our opinion with diffidence, but we think them much inferior to his earlier pictures.

John Brown was an eminent de

signer of portraits in black lead; they are admirable likenesses, and are generally of a miniature size. We believe he never executed any pictures in colours.

Brown was a man of an elegant mind and cultivated taste; and when at Rome wrote a treatise on the Poetry and Music of the Italian opera, in a series of letters to Lord Monboddo, published after his death, which happened in the year 1787.

David Allan, born in 1744, studied at Rome. His works consist principally of scenes illustrative of Scottish rustic manners, marriages, merry ma kings, many of which he etched or engraved in aquatinta. He also executed in aquatinta a series of plates of the quarto size of an edition of the Gentle Shepherd, printed by the Foulis' at Glasgow. He etched a few subjects of Italian costume; the only work we know of by him, in a classical style, is the origin of painting, of which there is an engraving by Cunego of Rome. He succeeded Runciman as master of the Trustees' Academy, and died in the year 1796.

John Bogle was a miniature painter of considerable talent. He died at Edinburgh about the year 1804.

Gavin Hamilton, descended from an ancient Scottish family, was born early in the eighteenth century. After receiving a liberal education in his native country, he went to Rome, where he resided the remainder of his life. Without remarkable fertility of imagination, or daring originality of genius, his works please by the purity and correctness of their design and conception,-the skilful distribution of his groupes, the elegance of his draperies, and the propriety of the costume. He was profoundly versed in the theory of his art, but chiar oscuro and colouring he totally ne glected. He died about the year 1775.

During the eighteenth century, there

were few artists in Scotland except those we have already enumerated. Seton, however, who flourished about the middle of the century, was a portrait painter who displayed considerable taste and talent, and was much employed; also Miller, Robertson, John Medina, grandson of the knight. Donaldson was an engraver who executed the plates for Arnot's History of Edinburgh, which are respect able productions of the kind, and correctly delineated.

Andrew Bell, the original projector of the Encyclopædia Britannica, was an engraver of some talent; he is particularly entitled to our notice as having been the preceptor of F. Legat, whom we have already mentioned. He died at a very advanced age in the beginning of the present century.

Daniel Lizars, a pupil of Bell, besides numerous miscellaneous works, engraved some respectable portraits of eminent Scottish characters. He died in 1812.

The commencement of the nineteenth century saw a greater quantity of talent directed to the art than had ever been witnessed in Scotland before, without, however, any remarkable increase of patronage or encouragement. This improvement on the condition of the art, is, in a great degree, to be ascribed to the influence of the Trustees' Academy, which at this time was supplied with an excellent collection of casts from the antique, and to the talents of the late Mr Graham, who, on the death of D. Allan, was appointed master of that institution.

Graham was originally bred a coachpainter in Edinburgh, but early in life he went to London, and became a historical painter of great eminence; his principal works are, David instructing Solomon, in the gallery of the Earl of Wemyss at Gosford; the burial of General Fraser, (of which there is a print by Nutter,)

now in the possession of Mr Nichol. son, portrait painter, and some pictures for the Shakespeare Gallery. As a teacher, his labours were attended with singular success, and many of his pupils in the academy have risen to great reputation as artists, and conferred the greatest honour on their country. Mr Graham died in the year 1817, and was succeeded in the academy by Mr A. Wilson.

As the means of instruction in the fine arts are greater in Scotland at the present time than at any former period, a corresponding number of artists have been produced, but who, for want of the liberal encouragement more readily found in the sister kingdom, have generally been obliged to fix their residence in London. We have, however, the pleasure of numbering amongst our fellow-citizens many artists of eminence in the various departments of art, inferior to none that this country has produced.

Mr H. Raeburn is undoubtedly a portrait painter of the first rank, and unites to great correctness of drawing, breadth of manner, and brilliancy of colouring, a vigour and firmness of handling, and mechanical execution. The spirited and judicious manner in which he introduces animals in his larger works, stamps them with a strong character of genius and taste; his portraits of the late Lord Frederick Campbell, the late A. Rolland, Esq. and Alexander Duncan, Esq. exhibit his richest style of managing the whole length; and his portrait of Glengary is one of the happiest personifications of dignity and elevation of character, conceived too in a style of simplicity hardly inferior to Vandyke. In the year 1784 Mr Raeburn visited Italy, and since his return has resided constantly in Scotland, devoting himself with unremitting assiduity to the practice of the art. The Royal Academy of London, in testi

mony of their sense of his talents, in 1814 conferred on him the rank of associate, and in 1815 he was elected an academician.

The advancement of Scotish art has been greatly promoted by Mr Alexander Nasmyth, both by his own unremitting exertions as a landscapepainter, and as having directed the early studies of most of the artists that this country has produced for the last thirty years. The style of Mr Nasmyth possesses great accuracy of delineation, beauty of colouring, and spirited execution. He is also celebrated for his skill in architecture, and laying out grounds. He was originally a pupil of Allan Ramsay, and about the year 1784 he visited Italy for the sake of improvement; and on his return, for several years devoted himself chiefly to portrait painting.

Mr P. Nasmyth, son of the preceding artist, has also distinguished himself as a landscape painter; and in the correct representation of rural nature in all her details, we feel ourselves warranted in saying, he is not excelled by any living artist. He has formed his style upon that of Hobbima, and displays unrivalled truth of nature, beauty of colouring, and neatness of execution.

Mr G. Watson, originally a pupil of Mr Nasmyth, is a portrait painter of considerable respectability; his works have great force of effect, though with out the delicacy of style, and beauty of colouring which distinguish the pictures of Mr Raeburn.

Mr W. Allan received his first instructions in the art at the Trustees' Academy under Mr Graham; and after studying some time in London, was induced to visit Russia and the Crimea. During his residence abroad, he devoted much of his attention to the study of the manners of the Tartar hordes on the shores of the Black Sea, which have formed the subjects of many picturesque and interesting produc.

tions of his pencil. His pictures display a correctness of drawing, tasteful composition, breadth of effect, and richness of colouring, and form a middle style between the severe manner of the Italian historical school, and the burlesque feeling of the Dutch masters, whose clearness of pencil, transparency of handling, minute attention to the details of nature, he combines with the grace, elevation of character, and pathos of the Italian, as exemplified in his celebrated picture of the Circassian Prince selling his Captives; he has also painted several beautiful subjects of Scottish rustic costume in the same felicity of style.

Mr H. W. Williams has been long known as an eminent landscape painter in water colours, and occasionally in oil. His style is marked by great breadth of effect, and brilliancy of colouring, exhibiting unequivocal proofs of his ardent devotedness to the study of nature. During his recent travels in Italy and Greece, &c. he has made a most interesting collection of the most remarkable objects of these regions, which have subsequently formed the theme of several admirable drawings; such as, the View of the Acropolis of Athens from the Propylæa; View of Mount Parnassus; of the Temple of Jupiter Panhellenius, &c.

Mr Andrew Wilson, a pupil of Mr Nasmyth, has also distinguished himself as a landscape painter; his subjects are sometimes rural scenery, and sometimes Italian ruins; they possess great precision of drawing, an admirable tone of colour, and unite breadth of effect to minuteness of detail. In the year 1818, he was appointed successor to Mr Graham in the Trustees' Academy, a situation for which his knowledge of the principles of his art, acquired during a residence of many years in Italy, peculiarly fitted him.

The Reverend John Thomson of Duddingston, to extensive knowledge in many other departments of art and

science, adds great excellence as a landscape painter. The style of Mr Thomson displays great vigour of genius, and originality of thought, elegance of taste, propriety of sentiment, profound science in colouring, and the manage. ment of the chiar 'oscuro. Several of his subjects have been engraved in The Provincial Antiquities of Scotland.

Mr W. Nicholson has distinguished himself as a portrait painter in oil, in water colours, and miniature. His large portraits possess great power of expression and truth of character, as in his celebrated picture of Mr Bewick of Newcastle, of which there is an engraving by Mr Ranson; his watercolour heads have lightness and freedom of effect, joined to an admirable felicity of representation; and his miniatures display a lightness and elegance of touch, delicacy of effect, and great taste and skill in the distribution, of his colouring. Mr Nicholson has also conferred a great obligation on the public by his etchings of the eminent literary and other celebrated characters of Scotland, containing portraits of Mr W. Scott, Mr Jeffrey, Mr Raeburn, Mr Hogg the Ettrick Shepherd, Mr J. Wilson, the late Dr Carlyle, &c. These works display a happy combination of the freedom and richness of surface of a painter's etching, and the delicacy and smoothness of execution of a regular engraving; their fidelity of resemblance is admirable, and they are much esteemed.

Mr W. Thomson is also a miniature painter of great eminence; to fidelity of likeness, he adds the greatest rich ness of effect, preciousness of finishing, and depth of tone; he occasionally exercises his talents in large portraits, and small whole lengths in oil.

Mr W. Douglas, also a miniature painter, displays great neatness of execution and correctness of resemblance. His portraits of animals are much admired for their fidelity, and the mecha nical dexterity which they display.

Mr Geddes is justly celebrated for the excellence of his colouring, and the science which distinguish his works. They consist chiefly of portraits the size of life, and small whole lengths, which rival in beauty of execution the works of Netscher or Metzu.

Mr Daniel Somerville is known chiefly as an admirable designer of portraits, landscape, and small figures, in black lead. He has also executed in oil several humorous scenes of Scottish rural life, particularly a wedding scene in the Hebrides,-politicians, and the like; and he has engraved in a fine clear style several vignettes and book plates, besides wood cuts.

Mr G. Saunders, now resident in London, is remarkable for the laboured minuteness of his finishing, and the richness and beauty of his colouring; his pictures, both in oil and in miniature, possess a peculiarity of style which approaches more to the charac ter of the present French school of portrait painting, united however to far superior science in colouring and effect.

Mr John Watson, a pupil of Mr Graham, devotes himself to portrait and historical composition in oil. His likenesses have great correctness of resemblance, and truth of detail and firmness of drawing; and his fancy subjects are composed with great taste, and display great knowledge in the principles of the art.

Mr John Burnet, also a pupil of the Academy under Mr Graham, has dis◄ tinguished himself in the double capacity of a painter and engraver. His principal engravings are, the Blind Fiddler after Wilkie, several familiar subjects after his own designs, and some portraits. His brother James, deceased, was an eminent painter of cattle pieces, whom we have already mentioned.

Of Mr Wilkie, also a pupil of Mr Graham, we have already spoken in another part of this article.

« EelmineJätka »