PREFACE.

THE matter comprised in this volume, it may be right to mention, constitutes the skeleton of a work of a more ambitious character, projected about two years since, and abandoned for reasons with which it is unnecessary to trouble the reader. On looking over the materials collected for the stifled embryo, just alluded to, it occurred to the writer, that by their systematic arrangement, a work might be composed which would amuse as a string of anecdotes, and interest from the light it would incidentally throw upon the lives and characters of artists. To what extent this anticipation will be justified, the readers of this volume will determine for themselves.

APRIL 28, 1853.

LIGHTS AND SHADOWS

OF

ARTIST LIFE AND CHARACTER.

CHAPTER I.

Early intimations of genius illustrated by a reference to the childhood of Titian, Giotto, Hogarth, Velasquez, Huysman, Gainsborough, Bird, Morland, Opie, Cimabue, Filippo Lippi, Domenico Ghirlandajo, Andrea del Castagno, Fuseli, West, Blake, Barry, Runciman, Copley, Cosway, Jackson, Allan, Salvator Rosa, Stothard, Vandyck, Pronti, Jacob Ruysdael, Michael Angelo, Raffaelle, Andrea del Sarto, Beccafumi, Griffiere, Lawrence, Shee, Etty, Prout, James Ward, Sidney Cooper, Lander, Redgrave, Westall, Paul Potter, Van Holst, Seira, Monti, Van Ach, Van Leyden, Ercole Sarti, Aerts, Gambara, De Solis, Albano, Cavedone, Spada, D'Arpino, Da Libri, Mantegna, Caravaggio, Lairesse, Del Vaga, Tintoretto, Buonvicino, Ribalta, Arias, Chambers, Ker Porter, Robson, Zurbaran, Vieria, Zucchero, Dullaert, E. Landseer, Verkolie, Da Udine, Parmegiano, Lanfranco, David Scott, Gaspar Poussin, Heemskerck, Van der Léepe, Van Cleef, Carlo Maratti, Goltzius, Flinck, Palma, jun., Weeninx, De Neyn, Cambiaso, Mignard, Bacici, El Mudo, Hoefnaeghel, Largilliere, De Arellano, Mirevelt, Giordano, Spranger, Parrocel, Bakhuysen, Anna Maria Schuurmans, Maria Sybilla Merian, Henrietta Wolters, Rosa Alba Carriera, Sofonisba Anguisciola, Schooréel, De Laar, Van Schooten, Denner, Van der Werfe, Van der Velde, Wulfraat, Mieris, Le Brun, Kunfer, Gomez, Mengs.

THE artist, like the poet, "is born, not made." He opens his eyes upon a world which presents

B

itself to him in the similitude of a vast picture gallery-a field of study inexhaustible and ever new. His earliest perceptions appear to be those of beauty of form and harmony of colour, and his first impulses are to reproduce that beauty and harmony, as manifested in the aspects of nature or the emotional play of the human countenance, by the aid of such rude and simple agencies as lie nearest to his hand. Thus, TITIAN, in his childhood, expressed from flowers the juices with which he coloured an image of the Madonna, and thus

"Cimabue found a shepherd-boy,

Tracing his idle fancies on the ground,"

a pointed stone the only implement, and a slab of rock the only tablet available for a graphic record of the crude conceptions of the boy GIOTTO.

Wherever authentic details have been preserved of the incidents which marked the earliest years of artists' lives, we find the love of art developing itself simultaneously with the development of reason. And if, in these early efforts, the representation bears but a rude analogy to the thing represented,—if it shadows forth, however dimly, a portion only of the superficial properties and qualities of the original, the first essay is regarded as a positive success. It gives form and pressure to the early impulse, which is strengthened and sustained by every subsequent success; inclination ripens into habit, and the child