William Blake (17 57-182 7) , poet, draughtsman, engraver and painter, was similar in his preoccupations and his work is made up of the same elements—Gothic art, Germanic reverie, the Bible, Milton and Shakespeare, to which were added Dante and a certain taste for linear design, which, resembling a geometrical diagram, relates him, through Flaxman, to the great classical move ment inspired by Winckelmann and propagated by David. This is the sole point of contact discernible between the Classicism of David and English art, and how fugitive and indirect it is, how dif ferent in spirit! Blake is the most mystic of the English painters, perhaps the only true mystic who existed at that time amongst painters the world over. He was ingenious and his inner imagina tions and interpretations of the ancient and modern poets reveal as true and candid a spirit as the title of his first work—poems composed, illustrated and set to music by himself, the "Songs of Innocence" and "Songs of Experience!' But he achieved grandeur, power and profundity, especially in certain tempera paintings such as his Spirit of Pitt guiding Behemoth.
Downman (1750-1824) with his coloured crayon drawings stands midway between the pastel and the miniature. Are there not, however, certain affinities between these two genres? In France, too, the miniature was revived at the height of the vogue for pastel. England had numbered excellent miniaturists in Hol bein's day and later in Hilliard and Oliver. The success of
Richard Cosway (c. 1742-1821) was unprecedented in this type of art and spread wellnigh throughout Europe. Even in Paris fair ladies hesitated and wondered which would the more skilfully flatter them, the Englishman with his misty atmosphere or the witty Frenchman, Isabey.
Lawrence (1769-1830) was the painter of kings, of princes, of great diplomats and generals; the Pope himself sat to him. All these are presented in large full-dress portraits painted with sovereign verve and elegance. Lawrence was an important figure at Aix-la-Chapelle and at Vienna during the famous congresses which settled the fate of Europe after the downfall of Napoleon. The "Holy Alliance" is mirrored in the four and twenty canvases which adorn the walls of Windsor Castle—a collection of official portraits forming a unique historical document. There is, more over, in Lawrence's work something more than a mere caprice of fashion. His success was greater than that of Reynolds; though he had not the thoughtful learning and the rich and refined imagination of his more illustrious predecessor he excelled him in facility. At the age of ten he was already a portraitist. Before his 22nd year he had painted the ravishing full length portrait of Miss Farren, the future Countess of Derby. Lawrence at once leapt into fame, becoming an associate of the Royal Academy and a favourite of the king. Henceforth he lavished on his por traits, and especially on his portraits of women, his facility of execution, his fluid touch, his rich and always highly distinguished colour, his talent for depicting the pearly bloom of flesh, the sparkle of bright eyes, the moist quiver of parted lips, the light softness of muslins, the gleam of silks and of velvets. He dis plays just as much coquetry in his painting as any fair lady with her airs and graces, cosmetics, powder, pearls and diamonds. The two coquetries seem to have made an alliance for our pleasure. There is superficiality and artifice, but artifice handled with such vitality and verve becomes second nature. It is none the less true that the painter of George IV. and his court can lay claim at a critical moment to a very important influence on the destinies of painting, not so much, moreover, in his own country as in France and through France to the whole world. When Delacroix came to London he was seeking, as Gericault had already sought some years before, to fight against the systematic desiccation of the school of David. Lawrence showed him that by a return to harmony, richness of colouring and beauty of touch founded on the example of the great masters of the past, it was possible to create a modern art full of vigour and capable of every expression. Thus Lawrence stimulated the energies of French painting at least as efficaciously and opportunely as Constable. Later, in France, England or elsewhere, every time that the need was felt of a supple and brilliant execution to express the quality of life, it was more or less consciously to Lawrence that men turned.