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Updated: June 12, 2025
On the walls of the Louvre hangs the "Mona Lisa" of Leonardo da Vinci. This picture has been for four hundred years an exasperation and an inspiration to every portrait-painter who has put brush to palette. Well does Walter Pater call it, "The Despair of Painters." The artist was over fifty years of age when he began the work, and he was four years in completing the task. Completing, did I say?
In all, two hundred and fifty-seven pictures by Turner were hung on the walls of the Academy exhibitions, while nearly twenty more were to be seen at the British Institution. He relinquished all idea of becoming a portrait-painter about the time of the death of Reynolds. His own portrait in the National Gallery was painted when he was seventeen.
Bessie was the daughter of a portrait-painter, who didn't have many portraits to paint, so he was apt to be discouraged, and his family to feel rather poor. Eyebright was not old enough to perceive the inconveniences of being poor. To her there was a great charm in all that goes to the making of pictures.
In six years, at twenty-four, he was not only the greatest portrait-painter in America, but one of the most successful architects, an extraordinary combination which has made him unique in modern times.
His love for art must have been very strong, and he was finally indulged, and assisted in it by his relatives, so that at the age of eighteen he was established as a portrait-painter in Philadelphia. By the kindness of friends in that city and in New York he was enabled to go to Italy, where he remained three years, making friends and reputation everywhere.
The genius of the great portrait-painter may to some extent overcome the disadvantages of contemporary costume, but if the costume of his period is hideous and lacks the essential lines of beauty, his work is liable to need the apology of quaintness.
Turn portrait-painter. You shall have the use of this study three days in the week, for ten shillings a week sleeping on the hearth-rug included, if you like. Get your paints, rouse up your friends, set to work at once. Drawing is of no consequence; painting is of no consequence; perspective is of no consequence; ideas are of no consequence.
He called himself a baron; but he was in distressed circumstances, and was going out to Madras as a portrait-painter, in the hope of picking up some of the pagodas which were then lightly got and as lightly spent by the English in India. The baron was accompanied by his wife, a native, we have somewhere read, of Archangel.
Goats were likewise brought off for sale, and I bought a she-goat and kid for less than would have purchased a small hog. Our friends here expressed much disappointment that there was no portrait-painter on board; Tinah in particular, who wished to have had pictures of his father and family.
Some uneasiness had been felt during the day as to whether Reynolds would or not join the academy. He had hitherto abstained from all part in the proceedings; but that he should be the first president had been decided by the King in consultation with the other conspirators. Penny, the portrait-painter, had visited Reynolds to sound him on the subject, but found him obdurate.
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