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Scenes from an Artist's Life
Chapter 13
" And the world may yet grow better with the varied toils of each
With the songs the poet singeth and the wisdom sages teach."
JANES McFARLAN.
MICHAEL REID 'THE ENGRAVER-PETER AGNEW AND HIS PORTRAIT-
PETER AT HOME IN THE SALT MARKET -JOHN INGRAM AND MR.
COONEY'S DRAWING CLASSES-MATHEW BOYD REHEARSING RICHARD
III.-MY VISITS TO THE THEATRE-LAWSON, THE CURRIER AND CRITIC
-HE GIVES ME MY FIRST LESSON IN ART-WILLIAM FLEMING
THERE is a class of creatures who crawl through this world so full of mystery, so packed with
secrets, that they might be termed sealed encyclopaedias. Should an honest ignorant enquirer
wish information on a given point, " That's a secret" is the stereotyped answer. Such crawlers give
out little power to better the world. There are men on the other hand who are desirous to meet with
any one hungry for knowledge, and who lose no opportlmity of spreading out the good things they
have gathered as a feast to all comers. Such minds become richer the more they give away.
I recollect of an old liberal coming from Kilmarnock to Dundonald on a clock-cleaning mission. He
wore an earnest look, with a smile on his face which seemed to invite a boy to make friends with
him at first sight. He commenced to clean our clock, and with an earnest eye I watched the
process of taking down the parts, his care to lay everything in a proper place, then his cleaning
dexterity and putting together, what had before seemed to me a mystery, the measuring of time.
The man, seeing me watch him so attentively, began to explain how one thing acted on another,
simplifying and encouraging me to investigation. " Tak' a good look at it, and ye may some day
mak' a clock yoursel'. This is the third clock I hae put through my han' the day that was
made by John Donald in Kilmarnock; each of them had brass faces the same as that, and the
faces were a' engraved by an auld shoemaker named Michael Reid, wha is ane o' our purest
specimens of true and honest mechanical excellence, and to look at him you wad think that he was
next door to a beggar man. He is a perfect study to look at-a composed countenance, always a
clean face; an auld brown hat on his head no worth a groat; in this auld hat he carries a' his kit for
repairing clocks, and always a big gully knife in his pouch, which serves a' the purpose o' a wright's
tools. Michael says that wi' a guid knife he could tak in han' to white his way through the world. He
wears an auld soger's coat wi' slack blue trousers, and an auld shoemaker's apron, glazed as if it
had been varnished wi' a lifetime's dirt. You'll seldom see him on the street but he will be leading a
bit wean by the han'. He was once a soger, and when he cam' hame the shoe trade was dull, and
he was determined to create wark o' some kind for himsel', sae he took a wheen broken awls and
ground them into the shape o' engravers, and with that simple kit he began to try his han' at the
engraving o' clock faces. That was a trade unknown in the town at the time. He succeeded
wonnerfu'; you see what distinct figuring, what clean, graceful lines in the thistle and rose on the
tap, and what delicate sprigs in the corners. The face o' the clock is full, without nakedness or
confusion. When the china faces cam' in, they put Michael's brass ones out o' the market. He
thought that it was hard that a newfashioned face should look him out o' coutenance, but wisely
said, since that he was beat with the outside he wad try the inside; so frae that time he began to
mak' cloks, baith cuckoo anes and aught-day anes. He's an artist also. He engraved a view o' the
auld Dean Castle frae the yett as ye enter the park whaur the great meeting took place in 1816 to
petition against the corn laws being put on the backs and bellies o' the poor."
Such was the first history I had of Michael.
On the last Monday in March 1819, I paid my first visit to the ruins of the Dean Castle, and from the
same spot as Michael I took my first sketch of the venerable relic of past greatness. Many a visit I
paid it afterwards, and have taken
scores of views of my hoary and always loveable study. I had not been long in Kilmarnock when I
began to inquire anent Michael Reid. Everybody knew him, but none could do his character the
same amount of justice as the clock-cleaner. One day I was going up Back Street. There I saw
auld Michael doiting alang the street. He had a lassie by the hand, or you wad ha'e thought at first
look that she led him. I wondered if he wasna a blind man till I got a peep o' his twa bonnie blue
een. I asked him if he could tell me whaur Jenny Tod lived. "Ye'll be for rozet likely. Ye'll be a
stranger." I said that I was a stranger, and was for rozet. I entered on the crack wi' Michael and let
him know that I had been up at the Dean Castle several times taking sketches. Michael pointed to
his garret and invited me up at night, asking me to bring my sketches to let him see how I offered
as an artist. With great pleasure I visited the old man, and was received in such a way that I felt
truly in presence of a superior mind: there was no formality, no distance; he met me as one boy
would another. There was a playful truthfulness about him, a happy smile-a shrewd way of
ascertaining what I thought, and a kindly way of showing me what I should do. Cleverness he did
not believe in. Truth was the great power, and the only thing worth trying to find out. He brought
forth his portfolio, as he termed it. It was an auld copy book full of scraps and sketches taken by
him while on the march both in England and Ireland, and among the rest the engraving of the Dean.
There was a clean, clear, orderly laying down in everything he had done. This first meeting left a
kindly impression towards him, and our acquaintance continued as long as he lived. From whom,
where, and when I received a hint are gratefully fixed in my recollection; and in this history their
history shall go down to posterity. Gratitude is a debt every one owes to some source, and he who
is niggard in paying this just and lawful debt is apt to become a bankrupt in other qualities which
elevate humanity.
In Mr Robertson's paint shop were portraits of several of his old apprentices and acquaintances;
among the rest a portrait of Peter Agnew, a Glasgow artist. Peter was one who required no
commentator on his good qualities. He could record them without stint, and looked the very
embodiment of self-esteem. The attitude quite in the style of Lord Byron, looking into futurity. His
hair hung in screw curls down his cheeks in lady fashion; a large black stock, yellow vest, and blue
coat buttoned to show the bust to best advantage, and in his hand a large pound brush. There was
such a charm about Peter's portrait, I felt a strong desire to be allowed to copy it. W. P. Reid
produced the wished-for copy, and from that I sent out to the world many abortive Peters. The very
recollection of Peter's portrait has a rekindling feeling of artistic flame hanging around it. I had the
pleasure in after years of seeing Peter in the flesh in Glasgow, and stating to him how much
inspiration I had felt in art through his influence. Peter was a denizen of the Saltmarket, and his
abode spoke the reverse of art being a lucrative profession. After a taste of whisky, greatness
began to develop itself; the man soon became greater than the house. The fiddle was produced,
and a dissertation on comic music spoken and illustrated, the getting up of sale pictures lucidly
explained, and the true secret of pleasure arising out of being conscious of your own greatness as
an artist, putting you out of the reach of injury from without. Peter's face beamed with smiles as he
recounted the various criticisms passed in his favour by sensible men; and what a killing look of
scorn he put on as he mentioned some fools who had in vain attempted to blight his character and
disturb the visions on which his ideality fed. Pictures in all stages of forwardness were, like a
washing, hanging over strings through the house. The laws of composition were fluently laid down
by Peter. His daughter rubbed in those foundations, and as colour was necessary to prime the
cloth, why not put it in at first in pictorial form? The horizontal line was put where she pleased,
mountain and lake being the staple forms according to her fancy, whieh fancy Peter took up, and to
it attached his own, then brought forth some thereafter-to-be-named scene or composition
landscape, stretched, finished, and framed. "Paint your pictures with the colours you have, give
them any name you choose, sell them to whoever will buy them, and take for them what you can
get." No theory bounded his art, he was under no
trammel of other men's notions; whatever he saw, or thought he saw, went down as art and into the
market.
In 1820 John Ingram visited Kilmarnock, and opened a class for drawing and painting; and about the
same time a Mr Cooney from Ireland opened a class also. They were both highly accomplished
teachers, and the fact of two schools of art being in the town at the same time brought forth a fine
spirit of rivalry among the pupils. The works of art were exhibited at intervals in the booksellers'
windows, and even the outsiders who attended no class profited by the opposition. A spirit for art
was spread abroad. W. G. Macready was Cooney's favourite pupil, and among the outsiders there
were critics gathering information from both. In our lodging there was competition at night. W. P.
Reid brought home copies, and Alexander Maule, plasterer, now painter in Saltcoats, and myself,
wrought against each other at night in the true spirit of friendship and rivalry. Maule had a clever,
free hand at the pencil, and used to beat us all at sketching a deer, which subject he stuck to like a
deer-stalker. He could set up a stag in every possible attitude. We had a review of each other's
works every night, and in ordinary cases every one was best, or at least wisest, and able to tell
their neighbour how to remedy their faults. I used to copy portraits from prints, and, however coarse,
my copies seized on the prominent points, whieh brought out the likeness, time passed, and the
pleasing delusion never left me that I was making great improvement.
I used to read all sorts of street literature. Play-bills in particular I was fond of studying; but as I had
never been in a theatre, I did not understand them. One day I saw "the character of Richard III. by a
Young Gentleman of Kilmarnock." I happened that day to be taking a walk in company of another
shopmate by Willie Muir's Brae. We turned up toward South Dean, when I was sure I heard a daft
man making a strange noise, and called the attention of my shopmate to the fact. With great
ecstacy he said that it was Mathew Boyd rehearsing Richard. This was to me like Gaelic. However,
at his suggestion, we kept out of sight, and crawled up behind the hedge opposite to where Mathew
was at work. A beech tree had been cut down, and the trunk lay on the ground shorn of its
branches. Mathew was a weaver, and had his apron rowed about his waist; it served as a scabbard,
and a branch of a tree did the imitation for a sword. Mathew stood back from the fallen tree, eyed it
with a savage grandeur, and then drew subtily on to its supposed heart, as it performed the part or
rather represented the body of a dead king, whose presence Mathew was despatching to another
region, with his compliments to his satanic majesty, " If I thought that any spark of life was yet
remaining-down, down to hell, and say I sent thee thither." I thought that it was a pity to send
away such a fine beech tree, which might have been better employed in this country if made into
shoemakers' lasts. Mathew drew the sword so stealthily and sly like, then put it with such precision
into the remnant of fallen majesty, that I thought it was still daft like; but Hughie Reid said, when
night came and Mathew had a real man instead of a tree, that it would look far better.
One day at the Cross, when I was reading a play bill of Othello the Moor of Venice, a man I had a
little acquaintance with came forward and asked if I was going to-night. I said, No ! He said that it
was a beautiful play, and well worth a shilling. I asked about its beauties. He said that Othello was
a noble character, and that I would see him smother his wife. He then told me that he had tickets
for sale, and would trust me one till Saturday night. I looked at him, and could not see much
nobility in a man smothering his wife; and as to the shilling, I thought that if anybody had a right to
a shilling, it was my mother. Such were my early notions of the stage.
I had seen some fine figures of stage characters,-Old Kean as Richard, Vandenhoff as Rollo the
Peruvian General, MacKay as Bailie Nicol Jarvie. I had ventured to the playhouse on a half-price
night, and was delighted with the imitation life. I used to attend once a week, being Saturday night,
at half-price. I had great pleasure in trying to bring out the actors whom I had seen play. Old
Christie as Rob Roy and the Ghost of Hamlet's father were first-class studies, Harry Erskine
Johnston as Octavian in Love and Madness,
who was dressed in a bundle of rags tied up with a rope like a city porter. The scene painting in the
theatre was to me always worth the money. I became fond of reading plays, and even joined a
Spouting Club, wherein I used to represent that savage and serious mixture of native sagacity
portrayed by Sir Walter Scott in Dougal, an active ingredient in the drama of Rob Roy. I had Andrew
Christie often painted in the character of Rob Roy. One of these sketches had great success.
One night I received a visit from a currier who had some reputation as a genius among the boys at
the Townhead. He had built a boat, and used to sail on the Townhead Dam. The boat was built of
the staves of tallow casks. I had never heard of Lawson as an artist; he had heard much of me in
that line, but when he came to see with his own eyes the charm was broken. He looked first at Rob
and then at me, and in a plain blunt way says, "Do you ca' that painting? " I said, " Yes." " Man,"
quo he, "ye should learn to draw first !" Drawing was a thing I had never taken into account. He
began to show me that drawing was the alphabet to the whole system of art. He began to talk of
perspective, a thing I had never heard of before. He then declared it was no wonder that I committed
such gross blunders, and, pointing to Rob Roy as he strutted on the wall, represented by me and
auld Christie, said, " Look at that figure; take into account the great stride he is taking, and
suppose you were to conduct your lines for his legs as you have them expressed below the kilt,
they would meet at his neck, and he would take the proportion of a pair of kitchen tongs." I listened
and looked, and was silent. Truth has, when well spoken, a silencing power. Lawson said I could
never think of painting till I had mastered drawing. " Then," said I, " I will be painting when you are
only drawing," a statement born of ignorance and uttered in obstinacy.
Lawson came to live in the same land with me, and from him I got the rudiments of perspective.
Pure ignorance is a giant power against truth, and the sympathy of the ignorant for those who sit in
darkness is no rare commodity in our land. Well do I remember how I sympathised for Lawson's
state of mind when he gave me the first lesson. We had been together with some other
acquaintances, and had been taking a taste of exhilarating fluid. We came to the street at near
midnight. The moon was shining full and clear. We came up to the Cross of Kilmarnock, and there
we came to a standstill. Lawson seemed to feel for' my barren state of mind. " Now for a lesson in
perspcetive," said he, and from our position laid down the law. ''Where we now stand is called the
point of observation ; now we choose our point of sight, which must always be on the horizontal
line, that is at the eye's level, where the heavens and the earth meet. You can choose any part on
that line for your point, to which you must draw all your lines which pass into the picture. Now, what
is more curious, there is no such thing as a line or point; they are mere suppositions to build your
theory on. The point of sight, for instance, runs into eternity, and all the lines would run there too;
but you must not allow them -you must intersect them, and abridge them on their journey. Look,
for instance. We take the point of sight at the George Inn. We cannot see the horizontal line, but
we will suppose it at the eye's level, and every window lintel, window sole, pane of glass, slate,
lum-top, flagstone, in fact everything, rushes to the point of sight. Were a line of men to stand on a
level for a mile in length, or any length, a line would run from your eye through theirs, like as if you
were to string as many herring on a stick, only they would begin and diminish at the feet till they
terminated in that nothingness which everything rushes into. Then, for accidental points, where a
street intrudes, to pass out of the picture, you must suppose a point on the same line, then the
vanishing point to ascertain where to abridge. That will do for a first lesson." So saying he went
home, Lawson in the faith that he had thrown a flood of light on a subject in which I was still in thick
darkness.
He was right. He had begun a work which he afterwards was successful in. He was the first I had
ever heard speak on these points, and he has the honour also to be the best I have yet met with.
He will appear again in my experienee. That night I looked from the broad clear moon to Lawson's
face, round and warm and art-eloquent, and woe is me, thinks I, but for a' the whisky we had, it
canna hae taen his head that way. I was sure that his brain was turned, as nothing but a man wha
had lost his senses could talk in the way that he did ! Many a time since I have met with the same
shape of mind I exhibited towards him, in setting down for craziness in others what is beyond our
ken.
Willie Fleming was an outsider who belonged to no school. He was instinctively clever. Everything
seemed alike to him. He was a house-painter with James Robertson, and became a public
favourite. None of the Kilmarnock artists had the same dexterity of beginning and ending a picture,
and, strange to say, whatever he did pleased young and old. He painted all the public characters
about the town, painted views of Portland Street and King Street, and filled them with the living
oddities of his day. He died young, beloved by a large circle of respectable acquaintances. I learned
much from him, and he was no niggard in giving out what he got.
I married young, which was to me a blessing. I had a home to store my art, such as it was; and
such as it was it saved me from seeking other associations which often lead from home and wander
the student.
An exhibition of artistic and mental expansion will be given in next chapter. There is in the life of
every man a great breadth of sameness quite monotonous to look at; but when he takes a leap or
flight, then his rise and fall give a better light and shade to his efforts. Presumption must be
punished, yet from presuming we often get our best lessons. Some very modest, retiring, silly
creatures, both men and women, are grovelling in error for want of a chance of allowing the light to
reach them. For the good of others I mean to unveil my greatest frailty, at the same time showing
the motive which led to action. Perfect people may sneer, but men who have sought any path in
earnest cannot, will not. As I often laugh at my own frailty, I wish to induce others to laugh with me,
more than at me.