The Miseries of a Portrait-Painter. 383 



It is quite impossible that we can specify all the annoyances to 

 which a Portrait-painter is subject ; nomen illis Legio. All that we 

 can do, or propose doing" in this place, is to point out the sources 

 whence they spring ; and, touching 1 only on the plagues which flow 

 from one of these, leave the rest to the imagination of the reader, or 

 to a future opportunity. We have three sources of difficulty : the 

 want of knowledge of the laws of nature ; the almost impossibility of 

 duly representing nature by means of art ; and ignorance on the part 

 of the public of what should be required in painting. The two first 

 would be amply sufficient for a man to grapple with during a long life, 

 but society is kind enough tosuperadd the last, and to distract our at- 

 tention and call us from our object by the interposition of its own crude 

 and superficial conceptions in the practice of our profession concep- 

 tions to whichj unfortunately, the professors of the'fine arts must bend, 

 since they exist and are remunerated by the public. It is the annoy- 

 ances that flow from this last source which we here propose to 

 consider. 



From causes which we shall not on the present occasion attempt to 

 trace out, the art and mystery of painting is at the present day as far 

 removed from popular reach or comprehension as any lover of exclu- 

 siveness can possibly desire. Of the multitudes who possess pictures, 

 few know any thing of the principles on which they were produced, 

 or the laws of nature they were intended to illustrate. To the ma- 

 jority the works of able artists are so many square feet of ornament 

 nothing more. A picture is purchased because a wall looks bare ; 

 the wall is never built for the picture. We fill our houses with old 

 masters and with modern masters on much the same principle that we 

 scatter flowers and plants about our tables and staircases they look 

 pretty to the eye. We should as soon think of sitting down to inquire 

 why a picture is as we see it, as we should of puzzling our brains to 

 know how and why a flower came to be as it is. To us it appears 

 proving a truism to attempt to show that the fact is as we state it. 



It is a consequence of this general want of knowledge of the true 

 nature and object of painting that an artist is at all times subject to 

 the most perplexing interferences as regards the practice of his pro- 

 fession. There is not a painter in London who has not his list of 

 grievances ready for you, founded on circumstances of this kind which 

 have occurred in the course of his career. There is not an artist'in 

 the metropolis who has not smarted and winced, and wished himself 

 in the moon over and over again, from the unreasonableness of the 

 persons who have graciously pleased to employ him, and to criticise 

 his pictures or direct his labours. Some of these occurrences are 

 fitted to make one smile after they have passed ; but the major part 

 render us for the moment very much of the opinion of the frog in the 

 fable that it is no joke to be pelted at. These annoyances are 

 tolerably equally distributed, and we shall endeavour to show what 

 their nature may be, and to what they often amount, by the help of 

 an anecdote or two. 



We ourselves, in our own proper person, were once taken to task 

 by a lawyer, for whom and of whom we had finished a picture in a 

 way, as we thought, to redound considerably to our credit, for no less 



