He had He went the National Gallery by his widow in fulfilment of his wish. married in 1879; and a few years later his health declined. to the South of France, but returned no stronger, and died at Brighton at the early age of thirty-one. A wide stretch of plashy country painted at Blackdown, near Haslemere, in Surrey, where the painter lived for some time after his marriage ... a glimmering land Lit with a low large moon. 621. THE HORSE FAIR. TENNYSON: Palace of Art. Rosa Bonheur (French: born 1822; still living). Mdlle. Rosalie Bonheur, usually called Rosa Bonheur, the most talented of French animal painters, was born at Bordeaux. Her father was an artist, and when the family afterwards settled in Paris she used to frequent the streets and abattoirs to draw all kinds of animals. She first exhibited at the Salon in 1841, and was decorated with the Legion of Honour in 1865. A still higher compliment was paid her in 1870-1871, when, during the siege of Paris, her studio and residence at By, on the edge of the forest of Fontainebleau, were spared by the special order of the (then) Crown Prince. For many years she regularly attended horse fairs both in France-such as she has here depicted and abroad, adopting as a rule men's costume in order to carry out her studies and purchases without attracting attention. Mr. Frith relates how when he and Sir John Millais went to lunch with her in 1868, they were met at the station by a carriage, the coachman appearing to be a French Abbé. "The driver wore a black broadbrimmed hat and black cloak, long white hair with a cheery rosy face. It was Rosa Bonheur, who lives at her château with a lady companion, and others in the form of boars, lions, and deer, who serve as models." This picture is a repetition from a larger one of the same subject, which, for its vigour and spirit, is one of the artist's most celebrated productions. Mr. Ruskin, whilst praising the artist's power, calls attention to "one stern fact concerning art" which detracts from her full success. "No painter of animals ever yet was entirely great who shrank from painting the human face; and Mdlle. Bonheur does shrink from it. . . . In the Horse Fair the human faces are nearly all dexterously, but disagreeably, hidden, and the one clearly shown has not the slightest character. Mdlle. Bonheur may rely upon this, that if she cannot paint a man's face she can neither paint a horse's, a dog's, nor a bull's. There is in every animal's eye a dim image and gleam of humanity, a ... flash of strange light through which their life looks out and up to our great mystery of command over them, and claims the fellowship of the creature, if not of the soul. I assure Malle. Bonheur, strange as the words may sound to her after what she has been told by huntsmen and racers, she has never painted a horse yet. She has only painted trotting bodies of horses" (Academy Notes, 1858, pp. 32, 33). 416. MR. ROBERT VERNON. H. W. Pickersgill, R.A. (1782-1875). Henry W. Pickersgill was the son of a silk-weaver at Spitalfields. He had from boyhood a strong love of painting, and for nearly threequarters of a century was connected with the Academy, first as student, then as exhibitor (from 1806 onwards), as A.R.A. in 1802, R. A. in 1826, and Librarian in 1856. He exhibited in all 363 pictures at the Academy, mostly portraits, which included a large proportion of all the eminent persons of his time. This portrait, taken in 1846, is said to be "a striking and exact likeness" of Mr. Vernon (1774-1849), who is entitled to the grateful remembrance of every visitor as one of the largest benefactors that the National Gallery has had. Up to the year 1847 it contained only forty-one pictures of the British School; but on December 22 of that year Mr. Vernon presented by deed of gift his collection of 157 pictures, all, with only two exceptions, by painters of the British School. Mr. Vernon had been as generous a patron in forming the collection as he was munificent in giving it away. He was a horse-dealer who made his money by supplying the army during the Wellington wars. Of the fortune thus amassed, he spent at least £150,000 on the works of contemporary artists. He was one of the band of amateurs more numerous half a century ago perhaps than now, who collected works of art, "influenced (as Mr. Frith says) by the love of it, and not by the notion of investment so common in the last few years." He made it a rule always to buy from the painters themselves, and not from dealers. He was always anxious too, to find out and encourage rising talent. "There is a gentleman here," wrote Sir Thomas Lawrence in 1829 to a young artist in Rome whom he befriended, "who is desirous of having two small pictures of you, at your own price and subject. He is not in the circles of fashion, but known to almost all our artists by his liberal patronage and gentlemanly conduct. His name is Vernon." But with a view of making his gallery representative of the best work of his time, he was in the habit, "from time to time, and at an immense sacrifice of money, of 'weeding' his collection, never, however, parting with any man's work whom he did not purpose (and for him to purpose was always to perform) commissioning to execute a more important subject in his improved style. His merit, however, was not confined to this more direct and public patronage of art and artist. He was a patron in the least ostentatious sense of the term. Many are the cases in which he befriended an artist because he was an artist, and without any direct expectation of reaping the fruits of his well-timed benevolence, Nor was his unostentatious munificence confined to his favourite pursuit. He expended large sums in charity, public and private, and it was his pleasure to exercise that highest kind of charity which does not consist in the mere giving of money, but in the giving it under circumstances which make the gift of more value" (Gentleman's Magazine, 1849, vol. xxxii.) Mr. Vernon is here painted with a pet spaniel-similar to one of those which he commissioned Landseer to paint for him ( XX. 409, p. 510.) 608. ALEXANDER AND DIOGENES. Sir E. Landseer, R.A. (1802-1873). See under XX. 1226, p. 505. The celebrated Greek cynic is said to have shown his contempt for riches by taking up his abode in a large tub. Plutarch relates that Alexander visited him when in his tub at Corinth, and said to him, "I am Alexander the Great ;" "and I am Diogenes the Cynic," replied the philosopher. "What can I do for you?" said the king. "Stand out of the sunshine," said the cynic. Alexander, struck with the remark, to reprove those of his courtiers who were ridiculing the uncouth rudeness of the Greek philosopher, said, "If I were not Alexander, I would wish to be Diogenes." Landseer “personifies Diogenes by a dingy, meditative little beast in inferior condition of health and of poor belongings. He appears to be a farrier's tyke, to judge by the box of nails, with its thumbhole, and the hammer, which lie before the tub; and he is undoubtedly of abstemious habits, if we may judge by the 'rope' of onions and the herbs suspended at the side of his place of shelter, and the potatoes which lie on the flag-stones. Alexander, the big white bull-dog, with his military collar, stands before the tub, and regarding its cynical occupant askant, knits his brows-not a dog's action, by the bye-at once inquiringly and with hauteur. The courtiers are commonplace; two are whining, with hypocritical mouths turned down, the one has upcast eyes, the other is self-absorbed in meditation, and with his eyes dreamingly half-closed, occupies part of the background. A greyhound of the gentler sex, whose collar is decorated with a hawk's bell, and who is herself a courtier, is courted by the sneaking little spaniel, with his set smile on his lips, and adulatory eyes as lustrous as globes of glass. A contumelious spaniel of another breed is near, and, with nose upturned and scornful, looks at the more scornful and not less insincere cynic, who, with greater pride, tramples on the pride of Alexander" (Stephens, pp. 91, 92). "Politicians," says Mr. Bell, by whom the picture was bequeathed to the National Gallery, "and persons having a lively imagination, may see in Alexander the type of a successful bully, who has fought his way in the world by physical force, and has a sovereign contempt for moral influence. His motto is 'vi et armis,' in support of which propensity he has obtained a few scars. Nevertheless he is quite ready at any moment— To fight his battles o'er again,' And thrice to slay the slain. Among his followers may be traced the portraits of a numerous class of persons who are always to be found in the wake of lucky adventurers, looking out for any share of the spoil which chance or flattery may bring within their grasp" (Descriptive Catalogue of Pictures, etc., exhibited at the Marylebone Institution, etc., 1859). 1170. ST. AUGUSTINE AND ST. MONICA Ary Scheffer (French-Dutch: 1795-1858). An artist who once enjoyed a great vogue (a version of this picture was bought in 1845 by the ex-Queen of the French for £1000), and whose pictures are historically interesting for their extraordinary absence of the colour-sense. Ary Scheffer's pictures, says Mr. Ruskin (Academy Notes, 1858, p. 40), are designed "on the assumption that the noblest ideal of colour is to be found in dust," and what he said in 1846 of the German School is equally true of Ary Scheffer: "Brightness of colour is altogether inadmissible without purity and harmony; and the sacred painters must not be followed in their frankness of unshadowed colour, unless we can also follow them in its clearness. As far as I am acquainted with the modern schools of Germany, they seem to be entirely ignorant of the value of colour as an assistant of feeling, and to think that hardness, dryness, and opacity are its virtues as employed in religious art; whereas I hesitate not to affirm that in such art, more than in any other, clearness, luminousness, and intensity of hue are essential to right impression" (Modern Painters, vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. ii. ch. v. § 15). Ary Scheffer, whose father was court painter at Amsterdam, was born at Dordrecht. On the death of his father in 1809 his mother removed to Paris, and he became a pupil of Pierre Guérin. In 1826 he became drawing master in the Orleans family, and for the rest of his life he was attached to them. In 1830, in company with Thiers, he brought Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, to Paris; in 1848 he helped the king to fly, and went with him to Brussels. The events of the next few years shocked him so much that for a time he "could neither paint, eat, nor sleep," and he ceased altogether to exhibit. His best known works are "Paolo and Francesca" (1822), and "Dante and Beatrice" (1839). The former of these sold in 1842 for over £2000; but at the posthumous exhibition of his works, held shortly after his death, his reputation suffered greatly, and at subsequent sales the prices paid for his pictures went down with a rush. Their sentimentality made them popular for a while, but it could not save them from the condemnation due to their commonness of thought and poverty of colour. To illustrate the popularity which Ary Scheffer enjoyed forty years ago, it may be interesting to cite what Mrs. Jameson said of this picture: "I saw in the atelier of the painter, Ary Scheffer, in 1845, an admirable picture of St. Augustine and his mother Monica, The two figures, not quite full-length, are seated; she holds his hand in both hers, looking up to heaven with an expression of enthusiastic undoubting faith ;'the son of so many tears cannot be cast away!' He also is looking up with an ardent, eager, but anxious, doubtful expression, which seems to say, 'Help thou my unbelief.' For profound and truthful feeling and significance, I know few things in the compass of modern art that can be compared to this picture" (Sacred and Legendary Art, 1850, p. 186). 397. CHRIST LAMENTING OVER JERUSALEM. The "refined feeling and deep thoughtfulness" which characterise Sir C. Eastlake's works, rather than any other merits, are conspicuous in this carefully thought-out picture. Christ is seated upon the Mount of Olives, and the disciples have "come unto him, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be?" He laments over Jerusalem: "How often would I have |