Some Famous Illuminated Manuscripts

The basic notion of representing Mrs Siddons in the guise of the

Tragic Muse may well have been suggested to Reynolds by a poem honouring the actress and published early in 1783. The verses themselves are not distinguished, but the title and the poet's initial image of Mrs Siddons enthroned as Melpomene, the muse of tragedy, may have lodged in Reynolds's memory and given the initial direction to his thinking about the portrait.

It has long been recognized that in the basic organiza-tion of the picture Reynolds had Michelangelo's prophets and sybils of the Sistine ceiling in mind. Mrs Siddons's pose'recalls that of Isaiah, and of the two attendant figures the one on the left is very closely modelled on the simi-larly placed companion of the prophet Jeremiah.

Reynolds's attitude toward this sort of borrowing from the works of other artists may seem a little strange to us today. He thought that great works of art should serve as a school to the students at the Royal

Academy: "He, who borrows an idea from an ancient, or even from a modern artist not his contemporary, and so accommodates his own work, that it makes a part of it, with no seam or joining appearing, can hardly be charged with plagiarism: poets practise this kind of borrowing, without reserve. But an artist should not be content with this only; he should enter into a competition with his original, and endeavour to improve what he is appropriating to his own work. Such imitation is ... a perpetual exercise of the mind, a continual invention." From this point of view "The

Tragia Muse" is a perfect illustration of Reynolds;s advice to the student.

If the arrangement of the figures in the portrait of Mrs Siddons suggests Michelangelo, other aspects of the painting, particularly the colour, the heavy shadow effects, and the actual application of the paint, are totally unlike the work of Michelangelo and suggest instead the paintings of Rembrandt.

But the amazing thing is that the finished product is in no sense a pastiche. The disparate elements have all been transformed through

Reynolds's own visual imagination and have emerged as a unit in which the relationship of all the parts to one another seems not only correct but inevitable. This in itself is an achievement commanding our admiration.

In "The Tragic Muse" Reynolds achieved an air of grandeur and dignity which he and his contemporaries regarded as a prime objective of art and which no other portrait of the day embodied so successfully.

5.3) George Romney (1734-1802)

Romney is best known to the general public by facile portraits of women and children and by his many studies of Lady Hamilton, whom he delighted to portray in various historical roles, these are not however his best works. His visit to Italy at a time when New Classical movement was gaming ground made a lasting impression on him and some of his portrait groups, e. g. "The Gower Children", 1776, are composed with classical statuary in mind, particularly in the treatment of the draperies. He painted a number of impressive male portraits., and some fashionable groups of great elegance, e. g. "Sir Cristopher and Lady Sykes", 1786. His output was large,,but he never exhibited at the Royal Academy.Romney was of an imaginative, introspective, and nervous temperament.

He was attracted to literary circles and William Hayley and William Cowper were among his friends. He had aspirations to literary subjects in the

Grand Manner, and, painted for Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery. His sepia drawings, mostly designs for literary and historical subjects which he never carried put, were highly prized; there is a large collection of them in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

5.4) Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788)

When Gainsborough made his often-quoted remark about Reynolds, "Damn him, how various he is", he was glancing, we may suppose, at the peculiar skill by which his great rival ran the whole gamut of portrait-painting, from "mere heads" to the most elaborate poetic and allegorical fantasies.

Gainsborough himself had no such variety, but painted his sitters, commonly, in their habit as they lived. Yet, in a larger sense, he was far more va-rious than Reynolds. He excelled in two distinct branches of the art, portraiture and landscape, and revealed an un-equalled success in combining the two -- that is, in adjusting the human figure to a background of natural scenery. Moreover, he excelled in conversation pieces, animal painting, seascapes, genre and even still life. Such was his peculiar variety.

Gainsborough's personality was also more vivid and various than that of Sir

Joshua. He was excitable, easily moved to wrath and as readily appeased, generous and friendly with all who loved music and animals and the open air. He had not Reynolds's gift of suffering fools gladly. Although he painted at court, he was not a courtly person, but preferred to associate with musicians, simple folk, and, on occasion, with cottagers. His most engaging pictures are those of persons with whom he was intimate or at ease. His grand sitters seem a little glacial, for all the perfection of the painter's technique, as though a pane of glass were between them and the artist.