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| Thomas Lawrence, Elizabeth Jennings, 1799, Oil on Canvas, 50 by 40 in., Private Collection |
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Thomas Lawrence, The Calmady Children, 1823, Oil on Canvas,
30 7/8 x 30 1/8 in., Metropolitan Museum
of Art
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| Thomas Lawrence, Lady Maria Conyngham, 1824-25, Oil on Canvas, 36 ¼ by 28 ¼ in., Metropolitan Museum of Art |
I may have mentioned this before, but I hate having people try to tell me how to paint or what to
paint. When I began painting in oils
more than 30 years ago, I felt that at last I had found something in my life
that I loved doing and had some control over, and I don’t want anybody else
giving me advice on how to “improve” my paintings. They are my creations and they are what they
are, for better or for worse.
I think most painters feel as I do, even though we are not talented
enough to produce masterpieces and will likely remain anonymous and irrelevant
in the grand scheme of things.
If Sir Thomas Lawrence P.R.A. (1769-1830) had felt the same
way about taking advice, you might not have heard of him either. Sir Thomas is one of the greatest of all the
many wonderful portrait painters working in the British Isles from the 17th
to the early 20th Centuries, capturing on canvas the characteristic
fair complexion of the natives, which takes the light so well, is lovely to
look at and ideal for replicating in oil paint with copious amounts of white
paint and touches of red and yellow ochre.
Portrait painting became the preeminent art form in that once-mighty
kingdom after Anthony Van Dyck settled in London
in 1632. Somebody once said Van Dyck
showed the English portrait painters how to paint their countrymen. Somebody also said that portraiture has been
in decline ever since his death. And
somebody else likened the thought that Van Dyck might have retouched anything on
a portrait head, after his rapid painting in one sitting into a tacky surface,
to be rather like “spitting in church.”
One look at a Van Dyck portrait and you agree with them.
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| Anthony Van Dyck (1599-1641), Cornelius Van der Geest, 1620, Oil on Panel, 37.5 by 32.5 cm, National Gallery, London |
Lawrence succeeded
Reynolds and Gainsborough in carrying on the tradition of portraiture in the
grand manner established by Van Dyck. He was something of a child prodigy with his
gift for getting a likeness. When he was
around six years old he began helping his hapless innkeeper father pay the
bills by either reciting poetry or drawing profile portraits. As a young man, he learned how to handle oil
paint with a brush better than most other painters of his day. This enviable virtuosic facility, coupled
with his god-given talent for capturing the spirit of life in his sitter’s faces,
propelled Lawrence to fame as Europe’s
premier portrait painter. And if you
love looking at outstanding portraiture, you have to smile when viewing Lawrence’s
delightful depictions of animated young female faces. His Royal
Academy colleagues recognized his
genius by electing him their President, succeeding Benjamin West.
But Lawrence was
primarily self-taught, which is a fatal defect in lesser artists who aspire to
paint from life in a traditional manner.
He skipped the cast drawings during his brief stay at the Royal
Academy to concentrate on his commissioned
portrait work. Maybe that explains why
I’ve always felt his full-length compositions and drawing of the sitter’s
extremities do not match the quality of his “headshots.” The voluminous, body-concealing fashions of
the day were a great help to Sir Thomas and his fellow portrait painters
because they could fill their large canvases decoratively and avoid grappling
with uncompromising anatomical accuracy.
Perhaps this lack of academic training is the reason Lawrence
apparently didn’t mind receiving critical advice when he was working on a major
full-length portrait, unlike most painters today who bridle at the merest hint
that their photographic confections might not be picture perfect.
When painting his 1799 portrait of Elizabeth Jennings, for
example, Lawrence, who was 30 years old at the time, took so much advice from
his close friend Joseph Farington, a landscape painter and noted diarist, that
he should have been ashamed of himself.
Farington did everything but paint the picture for him, it seems. All the sordid details can be found in the
catalog for Christie’s auction of British and Irish art in London
on Nov. 11, 1999. Christie’s transcribed Farington’s diary entry
of March 17, 1799, in which
he recounts all the advice he gave Lawrence
regarding this portrait. I found Farington’s
account fascinating and somewhat surprising, considering the high regard I’ve
always had for Sir Thomas. I’ve done a
tiny bit of cosmetic editing of Farington’s diary entry to make the sentences
less choppy and a little easier to read.
Elizabeth Jennings was celebrated for her beauty, Christie’s
tells us in its painstaking research into this portrait. Farington said “the beautiful Miss Jennings”
had no serious competition in London’s
social whirl “during two or three seasons successively.” He was eager to follow the progress of her
portrait in Lawrence’s studio and
discussed the portrait over breakfast with Lawrence
when it was nearly complete.
Farington writes, “I told him that it was a picture of a
higher order than any female portrait I had seen of his painting -- more sober and
solid, and free from flickering lights. The principal defect
appeared to me to be that the arms did not appear to be of the same flesh as
the face and neck, but too cold and purply, and that the light sash which was
thrown round the waist and arms was too much of the same colour with that of
the skin, the whole too pinky. He admitted readily the truth of the remark. I
said there wanted an opposition -- a change of colour to give value to the
flesh, and to produce richness. I mentioned that possibly a little blue might
be of service if it could be introduced.
He received all I said very kindly, and declared that my opinion had at
different times been of more use to him than that of any other person. He asked me if I thought he should put into
the Exhibition [Royal Academy]
any whole lengths of ladies, I told him by no means, unless they are as well
painted as that of Miss Jennings.”
Lawrence subsequently
asked his friend to drop by on the following Sunday to discuss finishing
touches to the portrait, and there was still much about the work that troubled Farington.
“We then looked at his portrait of Miss Jennings now in its
frame. I saw that the light on the
picture was too strong and we agreed that it would be best to glaze it into
shade, and then by reflected lights only. I went home and returned to him after
a few hours and found the picture prodigiously benefitted by alteration. He then tried pink and blue on the shoe. Those colours did not answer. I recommended yellow brown, which answered,
and gave value to many other colours. I
told him the neck had the appearance of coarseness from a fat wheal in it, and
did not seem to be the neck of that face. He felt the observation immediately. I then recommended to him to try the effect of
a strong yellow colour about the right arm above the light, to pass round
bracelet form. He did and was delighted
with it. I then recommended to him to
make the upper part of the sky of a more grey silvery colour -- at present it
is of a tanny, leathery tint. I left him
making the alterations...”
Phew! After a session
of such potent advice, even coming from a close friend, I just might want to give up painting or shoot myself. But the great Sir Thomas apparently did as he
was told in every instance, according to Farington. I'm surprised Farington didn't say anything about that rather awkward hand positioned at her waist. This portrait was a rather early work by Lawrence, and I wonder if he needed, or was as eager, to accept so much painting advice later on in his career when he was piling up accolades for his work.
When the portrait of Miss Jennings was exhibited to great acclaim at the Royal
Academy, Farington wrote that it
“caused great alarm among the portrait painters…West said it made all the other
portraits of women look like dowdies.”
Farington must have been very pleased at having played so large a role
in the final product.
Now about that "shoe" Farington “coloured” for Lawrence. You might notice that there are no shoes, or
legs for that matter, in the painting of Miss Jennings auctioned off by
Christie’s. That’s because the new owner
of the painting in 1912 had it reduced to its present size for some reason. It’s easy to lop off disturbing parts of a
painting, and often necessary for the emotional health of the painter or the
owner of a painting. Maybe Miss Jennings
would still have at least her one shoe on if Lawrence
had trusted his original instincts to paint it "pink and blue." Maybe the owner
was just sick of looking at that “yellow brown shoe" suggested by Farington. Maybe the full-length just didn’t fit over
the new owner’s fireplace. Whatever.
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| Joseph Farington (1747-1821), Scotch Landscape, Watercolor, 20 ¾ by 33 ¾ in., Private Collection |
