by his own
individuality, answered him for the rest of his life. He was not a man
of very lofty imagination or great invention. A few figure-pieces,
after the Titian initiative, came from his studio, but his reputation
rests upon his many portraits. In portraiture he was often beyond
criticism, giving the realistic representation with dignity, an
elevated spirit, and a suave brush. Even here he was more impressive
by his broad truth of facts than by his artistic feeling. He was not a
painter who could do things enthusiastically or excite enthusiasm in
the spectator. There was too much of rule and precedent, too much
regard for the traditions, for him to do anything strikingly original.
His brush-work and composition were more learned than individual, and
his color, though usually good, was oftentimes conventional in
contrasts. Taking him for all in all he was a very cultivated painter,
a man to be respected and admired, but he had not quite the original
spirit that we meet with in Gainsborough.

Reynolds was well-grounded in Venetian color, Bolognese composition,
Parmese light-and-shade, and paid them the homage of assimilation; but
if Gainsborough (1727-1788) had such school knowledge he positively
disregarded it. He disliked all conventionalities and formulas. With a
natural taste for form and color, and with a large decorative sense,
he went directly to nature, and took from her the materials which he
fashioned into art after his own peculiar manner. His celebrated Blue
Boy was his protest against the conventional rule of Reynolds that a
composition should be warm in color and light. All through his work we
meet with departures from academic ways. By dint of native force and
grace he made rules unto himself. Some of them were not entirely
successful, and in drawing he might have profited by school training;
but he was of a peculiar poetic temperament, with a dash of melancholy
about him, and preferred to work in his own way. In portraiture his
color was rather cold; in landscape much warmer. His brush-work was as
odd as himself, but usually effective, and his accessories in
figure-painting were little more than decorative after-thoughts. Both
in portraiture and landscape he was one of the most original and most
English of all the English painters--a man not yet entirely
appreciated, though from the first ranked among the foremost in
English art.

[Illustration: FIG. 96.--GAINSBOROUGH. BLUE BOY.]

Romney (1734-18