The Lives of the Most Eminent British Painters and Sculptors, Volume 4J. & J. Harper, 1834 - Painters |
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admiration Allan Ramsay appeared artist beauty biographers Bonington called canvass character charms colouring companion Copley Correggio death desired drawing Duke Earl Eartham easel Edinburgh elegant eminent excelled exhibited eyes fame fancy father favour favourite feeling figures finished fortune friends Fuseli gallery genius grace guineas hand Harlow head Henry Raeburn historical honour Hoppner imagination Italy Jamesone king labour lady Lady Hamilton land landscape latter Lawrence living London looks Lord Lord Bute Lord Thurlow master merit mind Mortimer nature never noble Owen painted painter pencil person picture poet poetic poetry portrait painter portraiture Prince of Wales queen Raeburn Ramsay rank Reynolds Rome Romney Romney's Royal Academy Runciman says Hayley scene Scotland seems Shakspeare Sir Joshua Sistine Chapel sitters sitting sketches skill spirit style talent taste thing thought thousand guineas tion Titian ture wife worthy young youth
Popular passages
Page 151 - May it please your majesty, I have neither eyes to see, nor tongue to speak in this place, but as the House is pleased to direct me...
Page 98 - Countess, here, in ermin'd pride, Is, there, Pastora by a fountain side. Here Fannia, leering on her own good man, And there, a naked Leda with a Swan.
Page 255 - I have never known in my own time the early death of talent so promising, and so rapidly and obviously improving. If I may judge from the later direction of his studies, and from remembrance of a morning's conversation, his mind seemed expanding every way, and ripening into full maturity of taste and elevated judgment, with that generous ambition which makes confinement to lesser departments in the art painfully irksome and annoying.
Page 150 - A certain man came to Copley, and had himself, his wife, and seven children, all included in a family piece : — "It wants but one thing," said he, " and that is the portrait of my first wife — for this one- is my second." — " But," said the artist, " she is dead, you know, sir : what can I do ; she is only to be admitted as an angel." — " Oh, no! not at all," answered the other ; " she must come in as a woman — no angels for me." The portrait was added, but some time elapsed before the...
Page 80 - ... then, let the divinest of the muses, let Astronomy approach, and take him by the hand ; let her ' Come, but keep her wonted state, With even step and musing gait, And looks commercing with the skies, Her rapt soul sitting in her eyes.
Page 33 - London, for some time, about two years ago ; has been since at home painting here like a Raphael — sets out for the seat of the beast, beyond the Alps, within a month hence — to be away about two years. I'm sweer to part with him, but canna stem the current which flows from the advice of his patrons and his own inclination.
Page 41 - There was Ramsay, of whom Sir Joshua used to say, that he was the most sensible among all the painters of his time, but he has left little to show it. His manner was dry and timid. He stopped short in the middle of his work, because he knew exactly how much it wanted. Now and then we find tints and sketches, which show what he might have been if his hand had been equal to his conceptions. I have seen a picture of his of the Queen soon after she was married ; a profile, and slightly done, but it was...
Page 121 - I have made many grand designs; I have formed a system of original subjects, moral and my own, and I think one of the grandest that has been thought of; but nobody knows it. Hence, it is my view to wrap myself in retirement and pursue these plans, as I begin to feel I cannot bear trouble of any kind.