Philippe Jacques de LouTherbouw is also included among the English painters of this period. He was born at Fulda, Hesse-Cassel, in 1740, and after making a successful beginning in art at Paris decided in 1771 to settle in London, where lie painted scenes for Garrick at five hundred pounds a year. In 17S1 lie was elected a member of the Academy. He continued to reside in his adopted home until his death in 1812. Louther bourg was a landscape- and military-painter with a most spirited style of composition, and achieved considerable artistic success as well as much popularity by such works as Lord Howe's Vic!my on the First of June and the Sit:ce of l'aknciennes. After closing his career as scene-painter, Loutherbourg composed his famous diorama called or view of nature, " which all the world went to sec." It was a marvellous SVS teni of illusions, in which sight and sound were made to contribute to the display of calms and storms, the approach of thunder, the roar of the cataract, the glow of sunlight, and the tender effects of moonlight. He was a most eccentric genius, full of whims and freaks of character, but as au artist deserved the reputation lie acquired.
John Copley, another distinguished artist of this period, may be justly claimed by the English school, because, although a native of America, lie was a British subject and his most notable works were exe cuted in London. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, of Irish parent age, in the year 1737. Although lie received a few lessons from his step father, Pelham. an indifferent artist—probably the only painter at the time in the colony—yet Copley was practically self-taught, and in that respect is one of the most remarkable examples in the history of art. Some of the portraits lie painted before going to Europe or seeing any of the old masters he never surpassed at a later period. In 176o lie sent to England for exhibition his famous picture called the Boy with a Squirrel, and fol lowed it up by other works, which attracted so much attention that he was elected a fellow of the Society of Artists of Great Britain.
In 1774 such was the yearning of this isolated colonial artist for more companionship in art and for a sight of the xsthetic treasures of the Old World that he set sail for England, eventually continuing his journey to the Continent. In 1775 he finally settled in London, where he resided until his death, in 1815, at the age of seventy-eight.
Copley was essentially a portrait-painter, and, as has been the case with many other artists, his opulence was due to this source; but he was also one of the most notable history-painters of the time, and will long be remembered for his great work the Death of Chatham. The Death of Major Pierson, representing an event in itself of minor importance, is a stirring composition among a number of nearly equal merit. The portrait
composition entitled Royal Children 'Slaying in a Garden is a fine exam ple of his felicity in portraiture. Portraits painted by Copley before he left America abound among the old families of New England, where the saying goes that the possession of the portrait of an ancestor by Copley is equivalent to a patent of nobility.
This painter, if not of the highest order, stands among the first of this period. His drawing was generally correct, although inclined to be formal in his earlier works; in color he was inferior only to Reynolds and Gains borough among the portrait-painters of the time, while his compositions indicate a just artistic feeling and knowledge, if not the higher order of imagination; they were the result of study rather than of inspiration. He excelled in painting the hand and the varied details of costume. In 1779, Copley was elected a full member of the Royal Academy—a fact which certainly entitles him to be considered an artist of the English school.
Benjamin Tres1, another prominent painter of this period, was a fellow countryman of Copley. He was born at Springfield, Pennsylvania, in 1738, of Quaker descent. All the world knows the story of the lad who with rude pigments given him by the Indians and a brush made of hairs from a cat's tail drew a striking likeness of his infant sister sleeping iu a cradle. This sketch aroused the interest of a friend, who took him to Philadelphia and gave him every scanty advantage in art-training the young colony could afford. In his eighteenth year the youth formally began his career as a portrait-painter. Without the resource of portraiture how many painters of celebrity might have died unknown! With the profits of his brush West was soon able to pay the expenses of a voyage to England, and thence proceeded to that Mecca of artists, Rome.
West passed three years in Italy studying the old masters, and finally settled in London in 1763. He seems to have been of thrifty and practical character, and arrived in the metropolis well provided with introductions to persons of influence. His success was at once assured, and in the follow ing year he married an American lady to whom he had been engaged before leaving home. In 1765 he was chosen one of the directors of the Incor porated Society of Artists, and exhibited his first historical composition, On save an f !Wades, at the Academy; this painting is now in the National Gallery. This was followed by a series of important historical composi tions which procured him an introduction to George III. ; the courtly man ner and cleverness of West resulted in his receiving from that monarch a long series of commissions, of which the first was the Departure of Regulus from Rome.