PAINTING. 135 
Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788) was a truly English painter; he 
excelled in portraits as well as in picturesque delineations of English 
landscape ; in them his freedom of handling, force, and vigor of touch, have 
never been excelled. 
James Barry (1741-1806), an Irishman of great talent, who scorned the 
common way to fame and fortune, devoted himself to the higher histori- 
eal branch of his art. He is well known by his great series of pictures 
illustrating the Culture and Progress of Human Knowledge, painted for 
the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, which was declared at the 
time to be the greatest work north of the Alps. 
John Opie (1761-1807), the rough and energetic self-taught portrait 
painter, George Romney (17384-1802), the temporary rival of Reynolds, and 
James Northcote (1746-1831), the careful and studious illustrator of Shak- 
speare and English history, may be mentioned as the chief artists of this 
generation, though our limits forbid a lengthened notice. With the present 
century commences the fame of Sir Thomas Lawrence. 
Sir Thomas Lawrence (1770-1830), the worthy successor of Reynolds in 
the Presidency of the Royal Academy, is the head of the English school 
of portrait painting. Favored by fortune with the patronage of the great, 
and gitted by nature with a taste and manner of the highest elegance, 
Lawrence is the model of a court painter; and if he does injustice to his 
powers in too many instances, a number of his portraits (as that of Pope 
Pius VII.) will remain to testify to the brilliancy of his coloring, and the 
refinement of his execution. 
Since his time the number of artists has increased so rapidly in England, 
that we can only briefly allude to the more conspicuous of them. Sir 
Dawid Wilkie is perhaps the most widely known of any English artist. 
Inferior to Hogarth in depth of feeling and moral purpose, his unrivalled 
sense of the humorous, and academic skill in painting, make him world- 
renowned. Leslie and Mulready are distinguished in the same line of art, 
the representation of domestic and familiar scenes. In landscape, the 
peculiar glory of English art, the names of Zurner, Callcott, Stanfield, 
foberts, and a host of others, are conspicuous, each for his varied and 
peculiar excellence. In historical painting, Lity, Hastlake, and Maclise 
are the most distinguished. As a painter of animal life, Hdwin Landseer 
has surpassed all previous artists. As regards drawing, color, and charac- 
teristic expression, his finest works are miracles of art. Since the accession 
of Queen Victoria, efforts have been made on the part of the government 
for the patronage of high historical art. The decorations of the new palace 
at Westminster have afforded an ample field for the exercise of talent, and 
we now see the most rising painters of the English school for the first time 
creating a school of fresco painting, the effect of which must be most salu- 
tary and ennobling to art. 
7. An American Scuoot or Art cannot as yet be said to exist, owing to 
the extreme youth of the country, and the enormous tasks in material 
improvement that had, and in part still remain to be performed, before an 
adequate patronage can be extended to the Fine Arts. It is, however, 
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