Painting

In July of 1904 the eighty-seven mortal years of George Frederick Watts came to an end. He had outlived all the contemporaries and acquaintances of his youth; few, even among the now living, knew him in his middle age; while to those of the present generation, who knew little of the man though much of his work, he appeared as members of the Ionides family, thus inaugurating the series of private and public portraits for which he became so famous. The Watts of our day, however, the teacher first and the painter afterwards, had not yet come on the scene.

Having given in the preceding pages the briefest possible outline of the life of Watts as a man amongst men, we are now able to come to closer quarters. He was essentially a messenger—a teacher, delivering to the world, in such a manner that his genius and temperament made possible, ideas which had found their place in his mind. He would have been the first to admit that without these ideas he would be less than nothing.

Failing the "Progress of the Cosmos," we have from the mind and brush of Watts a great number of paintings, which may be grouped according to their character. Such divisions must not be regarded as rigid or official, for often enough a picture may belong to several groups at the same time. For the purpose of our survey, however, we divide them as follows:

The name of Mrs. Siddons is one of the most distinguished in the history of English dramatic art. For thirty years she was unsurpassed in her impersonation of the tragic heroines of Shakespeare. Her first great success was in the season of 1782, when she appeared for the second time on the London stage. She was then about twenty-seven years of age, and had devoted years of arduous study to her profession. Though gifted by nature with strong dramatic instincts inherited from generations of players, her powers developed slowly.

• Thomas Hudson (1701-1779).
• Richard Wilson (1714-1782).
• John Opie (1761-1807).
• George Romney (1734-1802).
• Allan Ramsay (1713-1784).
• Thomas Gainesborough (1727-1788).
• Sir William Beechey (1753-1839).
• James Barry (1741-1806).
• Francis Cotes (1725-1770).

Our thoughts of angels are naturally connected with thoughts of children. Jesus once spoke of the little ones as those whose angels always behold the face of the heavenly Father. Their innocence is the best type we have on earth of the purity of beings of a higher sphere. Often when we try to describe the beauty of some little child, we use the word angelic.

• Peter Toms.
• Giuseppe Marchi.
• Thomas Beach or Beech.
• Hugh Barron.
• Berridge.
• Parry.
• James Northcote.
• Score.

Georgiana, the Duchess of Devonshire, was one of the most celebrated beauties of her time. She was the daughter of the Earl of Spencer, and was married[12] at the age of seventeen to William, Duke of Devonshire, "the first match in England".

• William Chambers.
• George Michael Moser.
• Francis Milner Newton.
• Edward Penny.
• Thomas Sandby.
• Samuel Wade.
• William Hunter.
• *Francis Hayman.
• George Barrett.
• Francesco Bartolozzi.
• Edward Burch.
• *Agostino Carlini.
• *Charles Catton.
• Mason Chamberlin.
• *J. Baptist Cipriani.
• Richard Cosway.
• John Gwynn.
• William Hoare.
• Nathaniel Hone.
• Mrs. Angelica Kauffmann.
• Jeremiah Meyer.
• Mrs.
  

We have naturally come to think of Reynolds as chiefly a portrait painter. It was, indeed, by his work in portraiture that his name ranks among the great masters. Yet he made various interesting excursions into other fields. We may see what charming fancy pictures he sometimes painted in Cupid as Link Boy and The Strawberry Girl. Historical pictures he also attempted, but not so successfully. Religious and allegorical subjects he tried occasionally, and it is to illustrate his work of this kind that our picture of Hope is chosen.