CHAPTER XI

Technique of Sir Joshua Reynolds's Art in the Earlier and Later Time-Causes of Premature Fading and Decay-In the Earlier Period-In the Later Period-Best Preserved Canvases-Reynolds as a Man of Letters—His Development and Literary Style-His Theory not in agreement with his Practice-Notes to Mason's Translation of Du Fresnoy's Art of Painting-Journey to Flanders and Holland-Analysis of the Fifteen Discourses delivered at the Royal Academy.

THIS is not the place for an elaborate disquisition on the technical methods of Sir Joshua Reynolds, even did the writer deem himself competent to undertake an examination of them. It is necessary, all the same, to say a few words on the subject, seeing that the ephemeral character of his colouring was proverbial in his own. day, even as it is in ours, and that his sitters had fully as much ground for complaint, in this respect, as the special class of Reynolds amateurs have had, and still have, for fear and misgiving in our own.

Nothing is more remarkable than the continued vogue of the master, the artistic and popular supremacy maintained by him, practically without a break, throughout his lengthy career, notwithstanding this terrible uncertainty, of which his sitters must, after a time, have been perfectly well aware. Knowing the risks they ran, and what a lottery it was whether the glow of Sir Joshua's colour would endure, or prove as evanescent as

the vapours of morning, the majority of them must yet have been of the opinion expressed by Opie, “that the faded pictures of Reynolds were finer than those of most other painters in a perfect condition."

The contemporary records are full of allusions to the fleeting character of his pigments; as when Horace Walpole suggests that he ought to be paid for his pictures by annuities, to endure as long as the canvases themselves. On another occasion, because the master will not go into raptures over his famous "Henry VII.," and declares it to be in the old Flemish manner, he suggests ill-naturedly (in a passage already quoted) that Sir Joshua is loth to admire paint that has lasted so long. It has been quaintly said, too, from the bad state of his pictures even in his own time, that his portraits perished sooner than the men they represented. The occasion has already been referred to on which Sir Joshua took back of his own accord, in after years, and renovated with "fast colours," the portrait of Sir William Hamilton. He has himself said, in the course of some remarks on his practice :

"I was always willing to believe that my uncertainty of proceeding in my works-that is, my never being sure of my hand, and my frequent alterations-arose from a refined taste, which could not acquiesce in anything short of a high degree of excellence. I had not an opportunity of being early initiated in the principles of colouring; no man, indeed, could teach me. If I have never been settled with respect to colouring, let it, at the same time, be remembered that my unsteadiness in this respect proceeded from an inordinate desire to possess every kind of excellence that I saw in the work of others, without considering that there are, in colouring, as in style,

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excellences which are incompatible with each other. However, this pursuit, or, indeed, any similar pursuit, prevents the artist from being tired of his art. We all know how often those masters who sought after colouring changed their manners; while others, merely from not seeing various modes, acquiesced all their lives in that with which they set out. On the contrary, I tried every effect of colour, and, leaving out every colour in its turn, showed every colour that I could do without it. As I alternately left out every colour, I tried every new colour, and often, it is well known, failed. The former practice, I am aware, may be compared, by those whose chief object is ridicule, to that of the poet mentioned in the Spectator, who, in a poem of twenty-four books, contrived in each book to leave out a letter. But I was influenced by no such idle or foolish affectation. My fickleness in the mode of colouring arose from an eager desire to attain the highest excellence. This is the only merit I assume to myself from my conduct in that respect.

Of the constant fidgetiness of his practice, of the tentative variations and experiments in which he indulged during the whole of the earlier half of his career-and, indeed, in a greater or less degree, throughout his lifethose curious, technical notes are the best evidence, which, jotted down in a strange jargon of Italian interlarded with English, are to be found scattered through the PocketBooks. There is, of course, nothing unusual in the progressive and legitimate development of an artist's technical methods as his career advances, as his style widens and changes. There are, on the other hand, but few instances of a master arrived at maturity so varying his practice as Reynolds did, from picture to picture, and almost from day to day, in the search after more brilliant and yet more

brilliant effects of colour; or showing so light-hearted a disregard as he did of the dangers involved in such a method. In the English school almost the only parallel instance is to be found in Turner's experimental technique, more particularly in his third and most dazzling manner; and of this the disastrous results are only too convincingly shown in many a magnificent ruin in the National Gallery and elsewhere.

Two main causes have been at work to account for that decay and disintegration, of which no one who has even a passing acquaintance with Sir Joshua's canvases can remain unaware. The first is the use, or rather the abuse, by him of such ephemeral colours as lake and carmine, in the glazings which were the finish and the chief beauty of his paintings; the result being that these semi-transparent tints evaporated, leaving exposed, in the firm modelling of the earlier time, the pallid forms of Sir Joshua's sitters-ghosts of their former selves. As examples, but very mitigated ones, of this kind of metamorphosis, may be cited the half-length "Lady Elizabeth Keppel," and the beautiful "Countess of Albemarle " in the National Gallery, the latter of which, faded as it is, still remains a work of exquisite distinction. This practice, which distinguishes chiefly the earlier half of the master's career, is shown, nevertheless, to have endured, in a greater or less degree, down to, and even beyond, 1770. As we gather from the notes that lake and vermilion were being used almost contemporaneously on different canvases about this period, it may be assumed that he weaned himself, by degrees, and with difficulty, from the dangerous practice.

In Mason's Observations on Sir Joshua Reynolds's Method of Colouring, published by Cotton in 1859, the amateur painter and professional poet gives, according to his lights, an account of the painter's method in the year

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387 1754, when he saw him lay in and work upon a portrait of Lord Holderness. He notes here that, even for the too rubicund countenance of the sitter, no vermilion was used, but, as he imagined, lake. The picture appears to have been, when just finished, a brilliant performance; but while the crimson coat stood well, the flesh tints very soon faded, and soon after the forehead in particular cracked, and would have peeled off, had it not been repaired by Reynolds's pupil Doughty. Northcote, later on, ventures to remonstrate with his master, and to recommend the use of vermilion in lieu of lake and carmine. To whom he replies, looking at his hand, "I can see no vermilion in flesh."

In the later works the chief causes of decay have been the abuse of bitumen, or asphaltum, in the backgrounds and shadows,causing a sort of semi-liquefa ction in the pigments, and then corrugation, cracking, and opacity. And again, the vehicle employed is often a waxy-resinous one, the result being that the colours mixed with it rise up in blisters or cracks, and are liable to be detached from the surface, with the result that the process of re-lining, or, more properly, back-lining, becomes necessary. The application of hot irons, in order by force to unite the new with the old canvas, often obliterates the sharpness, the accentuations of touch, of the picture in its more pastose portions, and even-when, as is often the case, wax has entered into the composition of the pigments-melts them, and gives a blurred and confused appearance to the whole.

Yet another cause of decay and ruin has been the ignorance and lack of care of many picture-cleaners. Regardless of Sir Joshua's subtle glazes underlying the coats of darkened varnish which it is sought to remove, they have treated the latter with solvents, not only removing the offending outer surface which has discoloured and obscured the work, but with it the finishing glazes them