Etty has himself, in the 'Autobiography' so often quoted, given a list of his principal paiutings. And first he places of course his great historical pictures, his account of which will eervq hi some measure to illustrate the peculiar character of tho man :—" My aim in all my great picture. has been to paint some great moral on the heart : ' The Combat,' the Beatay of Mercy ; the three 'Judith' pictures —Patrionsm, and self-devotion to her country, her people, and her God; `Beulah, David's chief Captain,' Valour; ' Ulysses and the Syreres; the importance of resisting Sensual Delights, or an Homeric paraphrase on the ' Wages of Sin is Death;' the three pictures of 'Joan of Arc,' Religion, ralour, Loyalty and Patriotism, like the modern Judith ; theme in all make nine colossal pictures, as it was my desire to paiut three times three." Of his other principal works the following may be mentioned as characteristio examples :—' The Judgment of Paris ;" Venus attired by the Graces;' Hylas and the Nymph;' 'The Bevy of Fair Women ; " The Rape of Proserpino; ' ' La Fleur-de-Lis;' The I'arting of Hero and Leander;' Diana and Eudymion ;" The Death of Hero and Leander; " The Graces ; "A Bivouac of Cupid and his Company ;' and numberless Cupids and Psyches, Vennses, Ledas, or as be more prudishly terms them 'Nymphs with Swans,' &c.; besides his 'Samson and Delilah ; " Magdalen ;' 'Captives by the Waters of Babylon '• ' Parable of tho Ten Virgins ; ' and other scriptural subjects in a very unpuritanic style. The 'Judith' Aeries, tho • combat; and 'Berictiah,' five colossal pictures magnificent in colour and execution, and in many respects admirable in conception and composition--eveu if they are not fairly to be classed in the highest style of historic art,—were purchased in a fine spirit by the Royal Scottish Academy • ' Ulysses and the Syrens ' is the property of the Royal Manchester Institution. The only picture possessed by the nation of Etty a painting is that of ' Youth at the Prow and Pleasure at the Helm, in the Vernon Gallery.
Etty is undoubtedly one of the greatest names in English art. Ho chose for himself a somewhat remarkable path, and in it he walked without a rival. His want of classical knowledge—his learning being pretty nearly confined to Lempritire's Dictionary—together with hie deficiency In every kind of intellectual culture, except in the technics of painting, of course militated against his taking a first rank an a painter of clasaio themes. All his works evidence his want of acquaint
ance with the history, the archreology, and even with the poetry of Greece arid Roma But, allowance being made for there deficiencies, or rather regardiog hie pictures as the more vehicles for the exhibition 1 of the undraped human form, his paintings must be allowed a very hIgh place io comparison with those of any other modern painter.
To the highest order of female beauty either in face or form he never attained—hardly pretended ; yet there is evidenced in all his famelo figures such a thorough souse of enjoyment, 60 touch life and hearti ness, and, looking at them as 'pictures, there is shown ao remarkable a knowledge of the female form, and such facility In rendering it in free spontaneous action, as few If any modern artists of any country have equalled, And none even in olden times surpn.s-ed.
Etty towards the close of his life seems to hero become especially disturbed by the strong remarks occasionally made on his choice of aubjects, and still more on his mode of treatment. Ho seems to him) thought (and hla admirers have spoken as though they thought E0 too), that the objections raised to so free a display of the female form on the wore of morality, was In fact an implicatiou that the painter was Immoral But no such charge could have been intended by any one who knew anything of the painter. Few men is private life have given lase occasion to the breath of scaudaL Ile wee scrupulously upright, sober, and pure. An enthusiast in his art he was ono of the most single-minded of men ; but it was not to be wondered at that the painter of works so opposed to the current notions of propriety should have had to bear with some bard liniments on the tendency of his works. He sought to viodiaate himself and his intentions with his pen as well as his tongue, but while personally be needed no vindication, the only vindication his pencil can receive must be that which the works themselves furnish.
(Autobiography in Art-Journal, 1819; Gilchrist, We of William Etty, R.A., 2 vole. Svo, 1S55.)