102 
THE STOEY OF A SCENE-PAINTEE. 
[Nature and Art, September 1, 1863. 
of a mystery of the artifices he had recourse to, was 
careful to leave behind him at the theatre no paper 
or designs likely to reveal his plans, and declined to 
inform any one beforehand as to the nature of the 
effects he desired to produce. He secretly held small 
cards in his hand which he now and then consulted 
to refresh his recollection, as his assistants carried 
out his instructions. 
After Garrick had quitted the stage (in 1776) 
and sold his share in the management of Drury 
Lane to Sheridan and his partners, it was proposed 
to De Loutherbourg to continue in his office of 
chief scene-painter, his salary being reduced one 
half. This illiberal scale of remuneration the 
ai’tist indignantly declined, and forthwith left the 
theatre. He is said, however, by Parke in his 
“ Musical Memoirs,” to have painted the scenes for 
the successful burletta of “ The Camp,” produced 
by Sheridan, at Drury Lane, in 1778. But he now 
devoted himself more exclusively to the production 
of easel-pictures. He had, in 1773, become a con- 
tributor to the Exhibition of the Royal Academy. 
In 1780 he was elected an Associate; in the 
following year he arrived at the full honours of 
academician ship. Peter Pindar, in his “ Lyrical 
Odes to the Royal Academicians for 1782,” finds a 
place for De Loutherbourg. Having denounced 
the unlikeness of Mason Chamberlin’s portraits, he 
satirizes the style of art of the landscape painter : — 
“ And Loutherbourg, when Heaven so wills, 
To make brass skies and golden hills, 
With marble bullocks in glass pastures grazing : 
Thy reputation too will rise, 
And people gaping with surprise, 
Cry ‘ Monsieur Loutherbourg is most amazing ! ’ ” 
And in another ode he derides the artist’s pictures 
as “tea-boards,”- “varnished waiters,” and avows 
that his rocks are “ paste-board,” while his trees 
resemble “brass wigs,” and his fleecy flocks “ mops.” 
Probably the quiet of his studio oppressed our 
painter somewhat. The simple effects attainable in 
an easel-picture did not satisfy him. He missed 
the appliances of the stage : the coloured lights, the 
transparent scenes, the descending gauzes, and 
cleverly combined cut-pieces. He would not go 
back to Drury Lane, however ; as to that lie was 
fully determined. He would not toil for ungrateful 
managers, or paint backgrounds merely to supple- 
ment and enrich the exertions of the actors. He 
decided upon providing London with a new en- 
tertainment ; upon opening an exhibition that 
should be all scene-painting. 
Charles Dibdin, the famous sea-song writer, who 
was also a dramatist, a composer of music, an actor, 
a scene-painter, and a manager, had constructed in 
Exeter Change what he whimsically called “ The 
Patagonian Theatre:” in truth, a simple puppet- 
show, upon the plan of that contrived years before 
by Mr. Powell, under the Piazza, Covent Garden, 
and concerning which Steele had written humor- 
ously in the Spectator. Dibdin, assisted by one 
Hubert Stoppelaer, humorist and caricaturist, 
wrote miniature plays for the doll performers, 
recited their parts, composed the music, played the 
accompaniments upon a smooth-tonecl organ, and 
painted the scenes. The stage was about six feet 
wide and eight feet deep ; the puppets some ten 
inches high ; the little theatre was divided into pit, 
boxes, and gallery, and held altogether about two 
hundred persons. For half a century no exhibition 
of the kind had appeared in London. The puppet- 
show was old enough to be a complete novelty to 
the audience of the day. For a time it thrived 
wonderfully ; then managers and public seem both, 
by degrees, to have grown weary. Dibdin and his 
friend departed ; the exhibition fell into the hands 
of incompetent persons ; then closed its doors. The 
dolls, properties, scenery, and dresses were brought 
to the hammer by merciless creditors ; and there 
was an end of the puppet-show. In 1782 De 
Loutherbourg took the theatre for the exhibition 
of his Eidophusikon. 
De Loutherbourg had professedly two objects in 
view : to display his skill as a scene-painter well 
versed in dioramic effects, and to demonstrate to 
the English people the beauties of their own 
country. He averred “ that no English landscape- 
painter needed foreign travel to collect grand 
prototypes for his study.” The lakes of Cumber- 
land, the rugged scenery of North Wales, and the 
mountainous grandeur of Scotland, furnished, lie 
said, inexhaustible subjects for the pencil. He 
opposed the prejudice then rife among artists and 
amateurs alike, that England afforded no subjects 
for the higher display of the painter’s art. He con- 
fined the Eidophusikon for the most part to the 
exhibition of English landscapes under different 
conditions of light and shadow. 
A chief view exhibited was from the summit of 
One Tree Hill, Greenwich. There was cleverness 
evinced in the selection of this landscape. A large 
public are always prepared to be pleased when they 
are shown something with which they are well 
acquainted. Each spectator found himself, as it 
were, individually appealed to. Each had seen One 
Tree Hill, and could bring to bear upon the subject 
his own personal knowledge and observation, and 
so test and certify to the painter’s skill. The view 
was a set-scene with a movable sky at the back : 
a large canvas twenty times the surface of the 
stage, stretched on frames, and rising diagonally 
by means of a winding machine. De Loutherbourg 
excelled in his treatment of clouds ; he secured in 
this way ample room and verge enough to display 
his knowledge and ingenuity. By regulating the 
action of his windlass he could control the move- 
ments of his clouds, allow them to rise slowly from 
the horizon and sail obliquely across the heavens, or 
drive them swiftly along, according to their supposed 
density and the power to be attributed to the wind. 
An arrangement of set-pieces cut in pasteboard 
represented the objects in the middle distance : the 
cupolas of Greenwich Hospital, the groups of trees 
in the park, the towns of Greenwich and Deptford, 
and the shipping in the Bool ; due regard being had 
to size and colour, so that the laws of perspective 
in distance and atmosphere might not be outraged ; 
the immediate foreground being constructed of cork 
