1830.] 



FINE ARTS' EXHIBITIONS. 



EXHIBITION OF THE WORKS OF SIR 

 THOMAS LAWRENCE. 



THERE appears to be very little difference 

 of opinion generally respecting the vast su- 

 periority of the late president of the Royal 

 Academy, as a portrait painter, over all his 

 contemporaries. For while the uninitiated 

 were won by the exquisite taste with which 

 his subjects were invariably treated ; and the 

 more fastidious, by his delicate perception of 

 expression his lively, brilliant colouring 

 his careful and elegant, drawing ; he dis- 

 played in his later works a dignity of mind, 

 and a thorough knowledge of his art, that 

 excited among artists a feeling of respect 

 which, in some instances, amounted almost 

 to reverence. At the same time it is difficult 

 to form a precise idea of his degree of ex- 

 cellence, 'when compared with the illustrious 

 painters who lived before him, and who 

 practised the same branch of his art ; espe- 

 cially when a comparison is provoked with 

 Sir Joshua Reynolds, who, like Sir Thomas, 

 took the lead of his contemporaries by in- 

 troducing a new style in portraiture, creating 

 a school of imitators, and furnishing a model 

 for all succeeding artists to study and to fol- 

 low. A comparison, however, between these 

 two great painters would lead us into a defi- 

 nition of the striking dissimilarity that really 

 exists, rather than into any points of re- 

 semblance which occur only in the rela- 

 tive situations of the artists, and in the 

 effect they have produced upon English art ; 

 for their styles are, in every particular, dia- 

 metrically opposed to each other. 



The difficulty of fixing the exact propor- 

 tion of Lawrence's greatness is considerably 

 enhanced at this time, when his memory has 

 not yet lost " all its original brightness" in 

 our minds, and we are gazing in fondness 

 and enthusiasm upon his works secretly 

 inclined perhaps to raise him to a level with 

 the highest and the most honoured of his 

 predecessors. The smiles that give loveli- 

 ness and life to the features of his female 

 portraits, seem to disarm criticism, and to 

 plead with fame for an unquestioned perfec- 

 tion and the praises that should attend it. 

 Satin dresses and jewelled bracelets, stars, 

 coronets, and crowns, cocked-hats and epau- 

 lettes, transferred from the "dreary intercourse 

 of daily life," become consecrated relics of 

 art heir-looms of genius. Submitted to the 

 alembic of his talent, and stamped by his 

 taste, princes and lords, however common- 

 place in themselves, are converted into ob- 

 jects of general interest and value. We are 

 dazzled, when we first glance round the 

 walls of this gallery, with the trappings of 

 royalty and the glittering appurtenances of 

 rank, that every where meet the sight; but 

 one minute's observation suffices to convince 

 us that we are surrounded by sterling works 

 of art and the delight we experience as we 



proceed in our discoveries of beauty, is in 

 inverse proportion to tha fastidious caution 

 with which we commenced the investigation. 

 The great novelty in this interesting ex- 

 hibition is the Waterloo Gallery, the prin- 

 cipal portraits in which are his late Ma- 

 jesty, the Emperors of Austria and Russia, 

 the Kings of France and Prussia, the Arch- 

 Duke Charles, Marshal Blucher, the Het- 

 man Platoff, Prince Metternich, the Duke of 

 Wellington, Cardinal Gonsalvi, and the late 

 Pope Pius the seventh. These pictures have 

 never been before the public until the pre- 

 sent season. Taken altogether, they display 

 greater power of execution than any work of 

 Lawrence that we ever saw. Commissioned 

 by the late King to execute this series of por- 

 traits for the gallery at Windsor, Sir Thomas 

 seems to have entered upon his undertaking 

 with a daring but not a delusive ambition. 

 At Paris, the mighty works in the Louvre 

 would challenge his utmost skill to competi- 

 tion ; and whilst at his easel, in the palace 

 of Charles the Tenth, he would be conscious 

 of encountering the jealous criticisms of the 

 French cognoscenti at Rome his energies 

 would be no less aroused by the obvious 

 associations connected with that temple of 

 the art. Painting under the eye of those 

 continental powers, in the wide theatre of Eu- 

 rope, in the character of P. R. A. and por- 

 trait painter to the King of England, must 

 be a very different thing to taking sittings in 

 Russel-square of ladies and lions for exhibi- 

 tion at Somerset-house. By an ambitious 

 man such a trial would be anxiously desired ; 

 and whatever were the feelings with which 

 Lawrence engaged in it, he has passed the 

 ordeal with the highest honour both to him- 

 self and to his country. Much as his .taste 

 has generally made of English costume, it 

 is to be regretted seeing the pictures here 

 produced of the Pope and the Cardinal 

 that he had not more frequent opportunities 

 of introducing into his compositions some- 

 thing more essential picturesque than the 

 coats of Pall-Mail and St. James'-street. 

 The ladies, however, are safe. Like Sir 

 Joshua, Lawrence converted a formal and 

 artificial vice into an unaffected and natural 

 grace. But the Cardinal ! His left hand 

 rests upon a table, the fingers foreshortened 

 towards the painter, who, with a temerity 

 only to be found in an English Protestant 

 artist, puts it in as it is the grey tints and 

 blue veins are touched and left unadulterated. 

 The scarlet robe is flung more carelessly 

 over the sacred shoulders of the Cardinal, 

 than a Catholic painter would have dared to 

 imagine. The red cap is in the right hand 

 resting on the lap. He is sitting. The won- 

 derful eyes, black and brilliant, look into 

 you and speak they animate all that is 

 around them. The whole face is lighted up 

 with a shrewd, cunning, and in some de- 



