ENGLISH PAINTING IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
While the great art-movement of the Renaissance had been producing a multitude of painters and sculptors on the Continent, in England but little had been accomplished to show a popular sympathy with the fine arts. Architecture, it is true, both in the Gothic and in the Renaissance, had exhibited remarkable activity in Great Britain, and wood-carvers had in one sense displayed a native capacity for the plastic arts; here and there, too, a miniature- or portrait-painter, like John Hoskins (died 1664) or William Dobson 0610-1646), appeared; but in painting the English had been practically content to look abroad for their artists. Hans Holbein, Anton van Dyck, Sir Peter Lel). (1618-16So)—to whose genius we look for examples of the pictorial arts in the laud of Shakespeare before the eighteenth centnrv—were foreigners. The rapidity with which a great school of artists sprang up in England in that century is therefore surprising, and is difficult to explain according to the ordi nary laws of art-development.
Sir James Thornhill, " the first English painter," as he has been styled, was born in 1676 and died in 1734. Although he had achieved position prior to 17on, vet, as he continued to paint until 1732 and was the founder of the British school, he may properly be classed with the period now under consideration. It is a little singular that this school began with the so-called gentry. Sir James came of an ancient family. Under the auspices of his uncle, the celebrated Sydenham the physician, the youth came to London and took lessons first from an obscure painter and afterward from the French artist Louis Laguerre (1663-1721). He then travelled and studied in Holland, but does not appear to have formed his style until he came under the influence of the French painter Charles le Brim (1619-1690). English art, like its literature at that time, turned naturally for direction to the somewhat formal methods of France.
Sir James naturally aroused attention on his return to England, and opportunities were immediately offered for a display of his talents. Queen
Anne showed a patriotic zeal for native art by appointing the young artist to paint eight panels in the cupola of St. Paul's Cathedral, and afterward to decorate an apartment in her palace at Hampton Court with scenes suggested by her life and that of her consort, Prince George of Denmark. Later he was given important commissions in the decoration of the saloons of Greenwich Hospital. It is a curious illustration, however, of the proverb that "a prophet is not without honor save in his own country " that Thornhill was allowed far less for his works than the Italian artists with whom he was associated, although they do not appear to have been his superiors in merit. The style of these works, represent ing allegorical subjects, is broad and noble, even though not distinctly national or original. This artist continued to enjoy the royal favor after the accession of George I., by whom he was knighted; later he was elected to Parliament.
When Sir James Thornhill approached his end, he could rejoice in the proud consciousness that he had founded an art-movement which was destined to reach great heights of excellence, and he could not complain that Fortune had been neglectful and unkind. We think the observation hardly justified that Thornhill would have been forgotten had he not been the father-in-law of Hogarth, for he possessed uncommon ability, his faults being those of the time rather than specially his own.
—About the same time with Thornhill lived Jonathan Richardson (1665-1745) and Charles Jervas (1675-1739), inaptly compared by Pope to Zeuxis—not a difficult statement, since the poet had never seen any work of the Greek painter. Thomas Hudson (1701-1779) came somewhat later, and was noted as the master of Sir Joshua Reynolds (q.
Francis Hayman (1708-1766) was the teacher of Thomas Gainsborough (q. v.). These were all portrait-painters of some ability, but certainly eclipsed by other stars in English art.