rep Ue, 
painter endowed with very extraordinary talents, which he 
exercifed in landicapes and in portraits, to the honour of the 
woods o 
litude his eae in m 
Ha am a oe Foe 
out that tim gets L 
he foon found it eae to try what effect he could 
duce in portraiture. In this aifo he was fuccefsful ; iad 
acquired very confiderable practice and oe 3 enjoying 
great favour with the public for many years. 
le of execution, as well as Lee of fubjects, was 
original, although confiderably refembling of — 
more particularly in his landfcapes. 
8 
ect ; properties e sakes valuable in 
ure, and too eafily loft in the endea ive e 
Ana and pofitive refemblance of fubftance. Sir Jo hua 
is po ortraits 
are fo remar. eer t ame time it muft be acknow- 
ledged that ang’ is one evil attending ne mode; that if the 
portrait were feen previoufly to any knowledge of the original, 
different ecrions would form different ideas ; ; and all would 
be difappointed at not finding the original corref ond with 
their own conceptions, under the great latitude which indif- 
tin€tinefs gives to the imagination, to Pasa almoft what 
&er or form it pleafes.”"—** To fhew the difficulty of 
uniting folidity with lightnefs of manner we may produce 
ure of Rubens in the church of St. aa : Braflels 
? 
Ss 
2E3 
| 
that ‘produced by facility of handling, are generally united. 
A copy may preferve fomethin one, itis true; but 
hardly ever of. the other.”?—«* Gainfborough poffeffed this 
quality of lightnefs of manner and effed, I think, to an un- 
exampled degree of excellence ; but it muft be remembered 
at the fame time that the facrifice which he made to this orna- 
ment of our art was _ great ; = was in reality preferring 
the leffer e: ie ncies to the gre 
© ler, which Dene treats of the ac- 
eX- 
alted prefident, it is faidof him, “ that if e 
fhould produce genius fufficient to acquire te us the honour- 
able diftinGtion of an Englifh {chool, the name of Gain‘bo- 
rough will be she aaa to polterity in the hiftory of the 
art among the of that rifing name.’ —** Whether he moft 
excelled im ponean landfcapes, or fancy pictures, it it is difii- 
In 
his fancy pictures, when he had fixed u upon his object of imita- 
-in walking the 
+} f, i” 
tion, 
ora “child se an eters reels as he did not ene 
to eed the one, fo neither did he lofe el = the natural 
or this he was certainly not 
is grace was not academical, or 
ce 
fele&ted, but which lie iltiplied gen ad 
Haid oe life, to be krought out by fkilful and faithful ob- 
erve 
“Upon the whole we may juftly fay, that whatever he 
a eae he carried to a high degree of excellence. It is 
the credit of his good alee nd judgment that he never 
aid attempt that ftyle of -hiftorical ae for which his 
previous ftudies had made no prepar 
othing could have enabled’ ane to reach fo 
elevated a point in the art of painting without mott 
ardent love for it. Indeed his ce raind appears to have 
been devoted to it, even-to his dying day; and ne his 
principal regret feemed- to be, that he was oe his art, 
when, as he faid, * he faw his menue » and had endea- 
oud to remedy them in his laft wo nn rious circum. 
a in his life exhibited him as vefesring every thing to 
«¢ Fle was continually remarking to thofe who happened 
to be about him, whatever peculiarity of countenance; 
whatever accidental combination of figures, or es eI- 
feéts of light and fhadow occurred in a aha hay in 
ftreets, or in compan 
t he liked, an 
co 
o be o e ordered him to his houfe: and fr 
fields ie brought in into oe ainting-roo mps of t 
weeds, and animals of v s kinds; and defigned an 
from memory, but ae from the objects. 
even framed a hind of model of landfcapes on his table com- 
pofed of broken ftones, dried herbs, and pieces of looking- 
glafs ; which he magnified, and improved into rocks, trees, 
all which exhibit the folicitude and extreme 
jed as it were, an 
nothing that contributed to 
of combination.”’ 
He was alfo in the conftant habit of painting by night, 
a practice very advantageous and 1 ils ving to an artift, ‘for, 
by this means, he may acquire a v and a Ale percep- 
tion of what is great and teautiful | in nature. His practice 
in the progrefs of his ea was to paint on the whole 
from fome, who finifh each 
yt a means are sb eae liable to 
roduce ina monious la oie of forms a atures. 
ain ugh was of the few ar.ifts minenc 
= pees rh pins eer who never was a ee . foreign 
vel for improvement and advancement in painting. 
appears to have made of foreign pro- 
ductions ; and he did not neglect to improve himfelf in the 
language of the art, the art of imitation, but aided his pro- 
greis by clofely ob{ferving and imitating fome of the matters 
of the Flemifh fchool ; who are undeubtedly the greateft in 
that particular - and neceflary branch of it. e 
unitate nature e ina manner entir wy his own, 
2 
The 
