653 



BARRY, JAMES. 



BARRY, MARTIN. 



a guide and authority. Accustomed as we are to consider that a com- 

 petent skill in drawing is only to be obtained by the habitual exercise 

 of the eye and hand, this process seems absurd enough ; nevertheless 

 there can be no ground for objecting to the means if the end be 

 obtained ; and no one who has seen the picture of the Victors of 

 Olympia can deny that Barry had a thorough knowledge of the human 

 figure, or that he was a correct and scientific draughtsman. The same 

 praise cannot be extended to his colouring : he never seems how- 

 ever to have suspected himself of any deficiency in that quality, 

 and says in answer to some animadversions made on him while 

 at Rome, " I made some studies from Titian, and soon silenced my 

 adversaries." 



During his stay at Rome Barry was elected a member of the Clemen- 

 tine Academy at Bologna, on which occasion he painted and presented 

 to that institution his picture of Philoctetes in the Isle of Lemnos, a 

 work which exhibits more genius than taste. In 1770 he returned to 

 England, destitute of all but art, but justly confident in his acquire- 

 ments, and anxious to distinguish himself. About this time a project 

 had been formed by Sir Joshua Reynolds and other leading artists, 

 for decorating St. Paul's Church with Scriptural paintings ; Barry was 

 associated in the undertaking, and he selected the subject of the Jews 

 rejectiug Christ. The artists offered their work gratuitously, but this 

 liberal proposition was declined by the cathedral authorities. 



During his residence on the continent, Barry's indignation had been 

 greatly excited by opinions prevalent there on the subject of British 

 genius. Winckelmanu and Du Bos had proved the English, by what 

 they asserted to be the clearest reasonings, to be utterly incapable of 

 excellence in any of the higher walks of art ; and Barry, attaching 

 more importance than was due to such sweeping conclusions, under- 

 took to give them a regular refutation. In 1775 he published an 

 ' Inquiry into tiie real and imaginary Obstructions to the Acquisition 

 of the Arts in England.' In this work he traces and points out with 

 great perspicuity the real causes, political and others, by which the 

 progress of the arts had been impeded in this country. Shortly after- 

 wards Barry proposed to the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, 

 Manufactures, and Commerce, to paint gratuitously a series of pic- 

 tures, illustrative of the position, that the happiness of mankind is 

 promoted in proportion to the cultivation of knowledge. His offer 

 was accepted, and the works now decorate the great room of the 

 institution in the Adelphi. The series consists of six pictures, namely, 

 Orpheus reciting his verses to the wild inhabitants of Thrace; a 

 Grecian Harvest-home ; the Victors at Olyinpia ; the Triumph of the 

 Thames ; the Society distributing their Prizes ; and Final Retribu- 

 tion. These apparently dissimilar subjects are brought to bear on the 

 leading idea of the artist with great force and unity; and we are 

 impressed, while regarding them, with the conviction that such a 

 work could neither have been conceived nor executed except by a 

 mind of a very high order. Barry's chief defect was, perhaps, that 

 in his eagerness to grasp at ethical illustration, he was apt to forget 

 those qualities which are essentially requisite to his own art single- 

 ness of impression and simplicity of effect. In the picture of Final 

 Retribution the attention is bewildered amidst the accumulation of 

 characters and costumes ; but this deficiency in pictorial unity is to a 

 certain extent atoned for by the general grandeur of conception, by 

 its interesting groups, and diversified circumstances, to which we recur 

 again and again ai to a written volume. But the picture on which 

 Barry may rest his most indisputable claim to fame is that of the 

 Victors at Oly mpia. The picture is not only a fine example of pictorial 

 skill, but embodies whatever impressions have been transmitted to us 

 by poetry or history of those celebrations. Canova is said to have 

 declared when in England, that, had he known of the existence of 

 such a work, he would, without any other motive, have made the 

 voyage to England for the purpose of seeing it. The pictures are 

 doubtless open to severe criticism as works of high art, but the 

 remark made by Dr. Johnson on seeing them, admirably expresses 

 their real value : " Whatever the hand may have done, the mind has 

 done its part. There is a grasp of mind there which you will find 

 nowhere else " nowhere else, assuredly, amongst the English historical 

 paintings of the 18th century. 



Having completed this work, Barry must have felt conscious that he 

 had at least secured that which had been the chief aim of his life 

 the reputation of a great painter. This object was obtained by no 

 slight sacrifices ; for hU task had been pursued, through seven years, 

 amidst all the hardships of poverty and privation. It would be grati- 

 fying were we able to add that he received from public admiration or 

 sympathy a reward at all proportioned to his deserts. The result was 

 far different. He was ' permitted ' by the society to whom he presented 

 this magnificent gift to exhibit his pictures in the room which they 

 decorate. The receipts of this exhibition scarcely amounted to 5002., 

 to which however the society added a vote of 2002., and this sum 

 comprises nearly the whole produce of his professional career. It can 

 excite little surprise that, under these circumstances, his natural irri- 

 t.ibility became exasperated, or that the powers of bin mind gradually 

 declined : that they did ia too strongly attested by his last work the 

 picture of Pandora receiving the Gifts of the Gods. Barry painted several 

 easel pictures, some of historical and others of poetical subjects ; and 

 a few portraits, of which that of Edmund Burke is one of the beat. 

 Toward/i the close of his life ho meditated a number of works from 



Milton's 'Paradise Lost,' but he did not proceed beyond making the 

 sketches. 



Barry's disputes with the Royal Academy were another source of 

 bitterness to him. He had been elected Professor of Painting to that 

 body in 1782, and his altercations with the members were perpetual. 

 In 1797 he reiterated against the Academy the charge made by Sir 

 Joshua Reynolds, that iu every measure proposed by him for the 

 general advancement of art ho was opposed and outvoted by the 

 machinations of a mercenary cabal. The members felt so annoyed at 

 these allegations that they preferred against Barry a formal body of 

 charges, and in a general assembly expelled him from the Academy. 



Shortly after this event, the Earl of Buchan, moved by au impression 

 that Barry had been treated unjustly, as well as by admiration of his 

 talents, and knowing no doubt that he was even theu living in solitude 

 and poverty, while age and still deeper distress were in the future, set 

 on foot a subscription in his favour, which amounted to about 10002. 

 With this sum it was proposed to purchase him au annuity ; but the 

 close of his career was at hand, and the kind intentions of his friends 

 were rendered unavailing. He died from the effects of a neglected cold 

 fit of pleuritic fever, on the 22nd of February 1805. His remains, after 

 lying in state in the great room of the Society of Arts, in the Adelphi, 

 were interred in St. Paul's cathedral. 



Among the literary works of Barry may be mentioned his six 

 lectures delivered at the Royal Academy, and a fragment on Gothic 

 architecture, which Burke pronounced to be "as just as it is ingenious." 

 (Barry's ' Life and Works.') 



BARRY'. MARI'E JEA'NNE GOMARD DE VAUBENIE'R, 

 COUNTESS D0 BARRY, was born at Vaucouleurs, August 19, 1746. 

 Her father, or at least her reputed father, was an exciseman of the 

 name of Vaubenier. After her father's death her mother went to 

 Paris to look for employment, and the daughter w;is placed iu a con- 

 vent, which she left when about fifteen, and obtained employment at a 

 fashionable milliner's. Soon after she became connected with a dis- 

 reputable house, where she was seen by Count Jean du Barry, a 

 notorious fashionable rake of his day, who made her his mistress for 

 a short time, and afterwards introduced her to Lebel, valet-de-charubre 

 ta Louis XV., by whom she was presented to the king. She was theu 

 remarkably handsome, and had an appearance of frankness, and a toue 

 of familiarity, or rather vulgarity, which captivated the licentious 

 monarch. Louis wished her to have a title, in order that she might 

 appear at court, and Guillaume du Barry, Count Jean's brother, con- 

 sented to lend himself to the wish of the king by marrying her, after 

 which she was introduced to the court at Versailles as Countess du 

 Barry in 1769. The court of France, which from the time of the 

 Merovingian founders of the monarchy had been, with the exception 

 of very few reigns, remarkable for its licentiousness, became during 

 the regency and the subsequent reign of Louis XV. the abode of the 

 most barefaced profligacy. Everything was sold, everything was 

 obtained, through the intrigues of vicious women. The accounts of 

 those scenes which have been transmitted to us in the memoirs of 

 several of the actors, and women too, seem almost incredible. Tha 

 greatest attention was paid to the Countess du Barry by the most 

 powerful courtiers. The Chancellor Uaupoou, Marshal Richelieu, 

 and other courtiers, flattered her, in order to avail themselves of her 

 influence with the king, aud it was through her that Maupeou suc- 

 ceeded in dismissing and exiling the parliament in 1771. 



When Louis XV. died, in 1774, the Countess du Barry was shut up 

 in a convent near Meaux ; but some time after Louis XVI. allowed 

 her to come out, restored to her the residence of Lucieunes, which 

 had been built for her by the old king, and allowed her a pension. 

 After this Madame du Barry lived in retirement, and her conduct, as 

 far as is known, appears to have been regular. Among the persons 

 who visited her were several artists, whom she encouraged aud assisted 

 in their pursuits. She was almost forgotten when the revolution 

 broko out, but she then showed herself grateful for the treatment she 

 had experienced from Louis XVI. by exhibiting a lively interest for 

 him and his family in their misfortunes; and she even repaired to 

 England, careless of danger, in 1793, iu order to sell her jewels, the 

 produce of which she intended for the use of the queen and her 

 children, who were then prisoners in the Temple. On her return 

 from England, she was arrested in July 1793, and in November of the 

 same year she was brought before the revolutionary tribunal ou the 

 charge of " being a conspirator, and of having worn inouruing iu 

 London for the death of the tyraut." She was coudemued, and was 

 executed ou the 6th of November. The absurdity and injustice of 

 the sentence made many who had before despised her pity her end. 



BARRY, MARTIN, an eminent physiologist, was born at Fratton, 

 Hampshire, in March 1802. The strong bent which he early mani- 

 fested for scientific pursuits, led his parents to give up their scheme of 

 a mercantile life for their son, and he studied in the universities of 

 Edinburgh, Paris, Berliu, and other places in Germany, and in the 

 medical schools of London. He entered warmly into the proceedings 

 of the scientific societies of the Scottish metropolis, and spent most of 

 his holidays in geological and botanical excursions on foot among the 

 lakes and mountains. He took his degree of M.D. at Edinburgh in 

 1833, and in the following year, after a term of study at Heidelberg, 

 he rambled through Switzerland to Chamouni, where, though past the 

 middle of September, too late in the season .as wa.j thought, for sue- 



