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Scenes from an Artist's Life
Chapter 28
" Sir, if my judgment you'll allow,
I've seen, and sure I ought to know."
THE WEALTH OF LONDON FINDS AN OWNER-COULDN'T WAIT FOR THE
QUEEN-GREENWICH-HAMPTON COURT-DULWICH-VALUE OF THE FIRST LESSON IN
LONDON-THE QUEEN AT THE EXHIBITION- TURNER AS A COLOURIST-THE JOURNEY
HOME-A CONSIDERATE RECEPTION-THE PRESIDENT'S PORTRAlT-AT THE ROYAL
ACADEMY'S EXHIBlTI0N-HUGH CRAIG LITHOGRAPHED-THE WEEL - DISPOSED
WOMAN-HISTORY OF THE HEAD-AN IRISH WELCOME.
THE hurry, bustle, and buzz of London had no home feeling or satisfaction in it; yet it was great
consolation to think that I had so much property in the great city, and to think that in my absence
my property was cared for, as if I had been constantly on the spot. The National Gallery and all its
grandeur was mine. The mind of the old masters was my property. I had four servants there to wait
on me when I chose to call. I visited the British Museum often: it, with all its treasures, was my
property also; and the parks, another great public boon, were mine. The Poet's Corner in
Westminster Abbey, if not a resting-place for my dead carcase, was at least mine when I was in
life; and I had sense to enjoy my position in the flesh, while other great men were only represented
in stone. St Paul's Cathedral was mine for twopence, as a show, which I considered it to be.
Except when rhyming prayers and chaunting hymns, it was at my disposal. Much that is elevating
in London was mine, and that to me was the source of its true greatness.
When I had made up my mind to rest a while in the city, feast on its art treasures, and return
home, I called on the Earl of Aberdeen, and stated to him the why and wherefore of relinquishing
the intended journey. I thanked him for his kindness. Then I called on Mr Johnson, who kindly enquired as to
my intention of staying in London and trying it as a field for portraits. If I should decide on doing so, he
offered to introduce me to his friends. I said, no; London had too much the feeling of a desert, where money
more than man had a position. I had made a few friends in Glasgow, and by staying among them I thought I
could do more good to my family than by seeking my way in London.
Those points settled, I went to get a sight of the artificial crust of society. Her Majesty's birthday
was to be celebrated. I went to St James's Park and saw the carriages assembling to the levee.
Use and wont court dresses gave a theatrical sort of pomp to the whole affair. I wished to see Her
Majesty and Prince Albert. They were not to be forthcoming till one o'clock. My bill had been
accumulating by looking at so much of the high-class rag-store glory of our country. When I looked
to the front of St James's Palace and saw the gay ladies promenading in the large room, with such
filmy dresses, and feathers weegle-wagglin' on their seemingly artificial heads, I was reminded of
Mumford's show at the foot of the Saltmarket, where you could see as much show and a farce
enacted for the small charge of a halfpenny. I came off, and denied myself the sight of royalty. I
could not stand the diseased state of mind, whether of the mass or the individual, but certainly
humanity seemed at a discount. There was a vacancy in the gazers; great lots of people were in
the crowd with stools and chairs offering for payment to heighten your chance of a sight.
The palace-home of the old sailors at Greenwich was one of the satisfactory sights about London.
The painted hall was a great treat in art, and there were relics of sea-fights preserved in paintings
and in solids. Here was the dress, seen in a glass case, in which Lord Nelson fought and fell at
Trafalgar; the vest stained with the real blood of the man. It was curious to see how greedily the
most of visitors feasted their eyes on the blood spots, and on the gold buttons of the coat, real gold!
Having visited Hampton Court and seen the beauties of art collected within its walls, which was a
treat of no ordinary description, the recollection of Cardinal Wolsey's greatness and littleness was
mixed up in its present show-box shape. The mind of many artists were to be met with on its walls,
on which I feasted in a state of solemn sadness. I also visited the gallery at Dulwich, and was much
pleased with the select collection. I saw Murillo here to better advantage than I had seen him
before.
I met in London with a Mr Brown, from Glasgow, who knew all the fine art resorts in that large town
as well as he did in Glasgow; and to him I was much indebted for seeing both public and private
views I could not otherwise have seen. When we were in a public sale-room, a picture by Dan
M'Nee was set up for sale. It was entitled " The First Lesson," and was a portrait of his own wife,
half-length, giving a child a lesson. It had been purchased in Glasgow for sixty guineas, and this
was stated at the start; but the auctioneer, after much labour, had to knock it down to the highest
bidder at nine guineas. The Brownie, with a savage grin, looked round to me and said, "You see his
value here."
Before leaving London, we had an artistic tea-party in our lodging. There were George Mossman,
John Milne Donald, Francis Slater (those three are now dead), a young man from Glasgow named
Gow, John Carrick, Norman Macbeth, and myself. We had a pleasant afternoon together. When I
left for home, John Milne Donald came to give me a convoy, and brought with him a boiled partan for
sea-store. Whenever he turns up in my mind I see him as he presented that partan, full of kindness
and comic humour. He made a speech as to the likelihood of my going down on the voyage to
reside among the partan's friends at the bottom of the sea. Francis Slater was returning from
Holland when I met with him one day in the National Gallery. A number of us had given him a
supper in Glasgow before he started on his journey to the land of Dutch to swallow knowledge in
art; and when he came back loaded with mental treasures on the intricacies and simplification of
art, we were to gather around him and feast on the out-pourings of his mind; but, as with some
other great men, after knowledge got in it was ill to get out, and there it stuck.
I waited for a sight of royalty when opening the Royal Academy's exhibition, on the last Friday in
April, 1844. It opens the first Monday in May, and is always viewed by royalty on the Friday previous. I had a
fine view of the Queen and Prince Albert as they went in and out of the galleries.
I went on the opening day and had a squeeze and a sight of the great people and great pictures.
There was some fine mind expressed on every subject. J. M. W. Turner had seven specimens of
his art on their walls. Whatever others might or may think, his pictures to me were the most
marvellous of any in the exhibition. They were indications of pictures; painted with the colours which
constitute light- red, blue, and yellow. Wind and sunlight moved among his clouds. His water had
motion. His mountains were indications; so was everything else. He indicated, and you were left at
freedom to fill up your own picture. Wherever form went, there the prismatic rays went-reddish,
greenish, bluish, yellowish, pinkish, purplish, silvery, grey, in abundance; and, in some spot of
interest, the pure power of colour, from which everything else in the picture fled to its native place.
He was a genius who could think, act, and stop. The most laboured paintings, in which were the
earthly colours of objects, fell to dirt before his light-filled phantoms.
Thus, having for some days visited the exhibition to get the power of it by heart, I left London,
bung-full of the tone of the old masters and the power of the moderns. Before leaving the floor of the
National Gallery, I concluded that I would go home and sit down to the shoes, and on my own head
exhibit what knowledge I had learned on my travels. I reflected on the clearness of Titian's flesh and
the depth of Rembrandt's shadow. I sat down and fancied a study of the subject, which haunted me
home.
I came home by sea, and again had the honour of being elected chairman for the passage; and I
made it a rule to sit and see that all were attended to before I helped myself. We had nineteen
hours of thick fog when off Yarmouth, and went slowly; but as there were about two hundred
vessels lying about, we had, for safety, to cast anchor. A breeze got up, which cleared off the mist,
and then we had a gale of wind, which saved the food for the rest of the voyage. Within half an hour
all the second cabin passengers were sick but myself.
We landed a day late at Granton, where I had appointed with Nannie to meet me. I was once more
home in auld Scotland, and better pleased with Glasgow than ever as a town, with its greater width
of streets. The working man's home in Glasgow was visible, but waesucks for the back places
about London, although in one thing we were far eclipsed: I only saw, in four weeks, ten individuals
the worse of drink -nine men and a woman. The woman was the drunkest. She was holding on by
a railing in front of a church, and declaring that she had a right to hold on there, as that was the
church she attended.
Nannie had a letter for me from my friend Harry Johnson, who, on hearing from me that I was unable
to follow out my plans, thought that to come home with blighted hopes and bad eyesight required
some little encouragement. His letter stated that, now I had seen the works of the great masters,
he wished to be my first patron on arriving at home. I had painted his portrait before, but now an
advance of two guineas on the old charge was gentlemanly offered and paid. I had Harry's portrait in
the next Exhibition. Few such friends are to be found. I felt it then, I feel it yet. Good example is
before precept, so is good art before talking about it. A sight of what is good leaves an impression
more forcible when it is in the company with what is bad. Hence worthless paintings in an exhibition
are the contrasting power to the higher beauties, which never fairly leave the mind.
Painting portraits as I could get them, but working more at the shoes, the ideal of the last portrait
had not been verified. When I painted the Cobbler beyond his Last, I had some notion that it might
turn out prophetic. However, I must make the most of the power I had been long accustomed to;
and here goes for a half-length of the President of the Cobbler's School of Art ! Seated on the
shoemaker's seat with his apron on, and his shirt sleeves rowed up, his easel before him, as in the act of
painting his own portrait, the pallet on his left thumb, and an assortment of brushes in his left hand, there his
dignity was to be revealed with power. I had painted a little sketch for it before, where the President was
represented as examining the sketch of a pupil. This was a clever little sketch, and is still in possession of
Professor Taylor. The great portrait was commenced with hope and faith as to its end. I laboured some part of
every day, and many a whole day, from grey morning till dusk, wondering sometimes what was wrong when
night came on and still no appearance of a finish. Sometimes I would have a surface without an expression, at
other times expression without surface. For fifteen months I laboured. Every spare hour was sunk in this
great proof of my having seen the old masters. When it was finished, I felt a sort of stupid gladness.
I valued the portrait at two hundred guineas, and having sent it to the West of Scotland Academy's
exhibition, I put it in at that price. I received a note from Mr Hutcheson, saying, " As we insure the
pictures against fire, we cannot insure yours for more than, say, sixteen guineas, but you can
secure a higher policy for yourself." I answered him kindly, by post-" Dear sir,-The portrait of the
President is fireproof; but as I borrowed the frame, please insure it at five guineas."
It made its appearance in the West of Scotland's exhibition in the Arcade. There was a sullen
power in its expression, and it resembled the work of no other artist. I had a strong desire to send it
to headquarters, and as space on the walls of the Royal Academy is valuable, I had the portrait cut
down to kit-kat size, and sent it to the care of James Ferguson, a lithographer with Maclure and
Macdonald. He was carried from their establishment to the Royal Academy, and had the honour of
a place in the exhibition of 1847. I had a letter from Mr John Lawson, the son of my old friend,
written on the same day as I had one from Mr James Ferguson. The letters were worded nearly the
same, with an invitation from both to come and see my power, where, out of about six hundred
portraits, if I had not the greatest power, it lay between another and myself. Lawson offered to make
me at home in his house, and eight young men working with Maclure and Macdonald said,
"Come, and we will keep you comfortable for a month. We will take a room for you and provide you
with every necessary. We feel proud that such a work of art should have gone from our place to the
exhibition. It does not only represent Glasgow, it represents Scotland. It looks like something
brought from the National Gallery, and has no resemblance to modern art." Little did my friends in
London know that I had not been feasted while painting the portrait; and the means to the end
which they proposed were far away.
An exhibition of paintings, models, and mechanical specimens was being got up in Kilmarnock that
year, and my head came direct from the Royal Academy's exhibition, London, to Kilmarnock.
James Tannock had two portraits, William Tannock two, and I had Hugh Craig and myself. Six
newspapers, in reviewing the exhibition at Kilmarnock, placed my portrait first. We had all three
been in the shoe trade in Kilmarnock, and now for the first time met as artists. I went out to
Kilmarnock that year on a portrait painting visit, and remained a whole year. That head of Hugh
Craig's was made widely known, as I had it lithographed and sent out to the world two thousand
and fifty copies on india paper. The first announcement I made of the lithograph was at a meeting
which took place to give some testimonial of respect to Mr R. C. Robertson for the care and
attention he had given to the past exhibition, which had been a great success. I told the meeting
that Hugh Craig was a man after my own heart; he and I had spared no pains to tell the world our
worth, and the worth of the articles we dealt in, and I had now got so far ahead of him that I had
time to take a rest and help him up. I had employed the Queen's lithographers to put his head on
stone I was going to present him to the public for sale, and I hoped that every decent person would
have a place on their wall for Hugh, and that he would be found hanging before the world long after
all the cloth he had sold would be rags and rottenness. It was one of my very popular and
well-known portraits, although I have painted many good likenesses.
When in Kilmarnock at one time I painted a portrait of Dr Thomson which was given to him by a
multitude of friends. That portrait was exhibited to the subscribers and their friends in the large hall
of the Turf Inn, when upwards of two thousand people visited it in one day, and not one found fault
with it. My patrons of that time are now mostly dead.
When I got my portrait home from Kilmarnock I offered him for sale, and some time after he had to
go the way of all the rest. He had to face the public with a certificate as to his worth written by
myself, as I never once doubted that I could give him as good a certificate as any other person
would.
My wife's father fell heir to some body clothes belonging to some old maid about Tarbolton. The
articles were genuine stuff; and as he had no personal way of using them, he parcelled them out for
his daughters, and cast lots for them. Among my wife's portion was a white quilted bedgown or
jupe; it was gaucy, and came over the hurdies. There were some sow-backed mutches and some
underclothes. I had got as a tocher with my wife, and have yet, James Speirs' family bible. So, as
the exhibition was coming on, I thought that I would immortalise so much of my fortune, or rather
Nannie's fortune. So I got her dressed with the white jupe, a sow-backed mutch, and a black ribbon
round her head. I put a pair of old brass spectacles on her nose, and set her down to read the
family bible, allowing the light to fall soft on her. The glasses, being too old for her, made the labour
of reading look like the blindness of age. The metamorphoses was so great that no human being
would have known her. She sat and read, and I painted in a short time what, with a slender glazing,
made a good picture. I had it in the exhibition in the character of "A Weel-disposed Woman." It took
well. Mr Turner, the flesher, often spoke of the old woman. He said she was a nice auld body; mony
a pound of flesh he had sold her. He knew her the moment he saw her in the exhibition. It was
fancy on his part. He had taken her for some other person. I met Mr Houston, the minister in the
exhibition one night. He had his wife and servant girl with him, when the girl came saying, "Look here, sir,
and you'll see 'a weel-exposed woman.' She lives on our side of the water." She perhaps had mistaken her for
Turner's customer.
I brought the cobbler and the weel-disposed woman to account for bygone debts once more. The
ticket was five shillings; and for this pair I got upwards of thirty-five pounds. A very decent man got
the weel-disposed woman; and when he came before the meeting to claim her he said,
"Gentlemen, I have muckle need of a woman of the kind, for my wife's in confinement for ill-doing,
and this night fourteen year I was in bridewell myself. "
Mr Hogg of London got the President's portrait-that is, my own head. He was a partner with Mr
Adam of Tour House, near Kilmaurs. The head was valued at fifty pounds. When Mr Hogg was
communicated with he wrote to Mr Adam, saying, "Ask if the artist will paint your portrait and mine
were he to get back his own head;" to which question I said, " Yes, with pleasure." Mr Adam said,
or rather asked the question, "How is it that you would paint two portraits for one ? " " The truth is,
Mr Adam, that my head is worth more than you both." "Well, well, if you are pleased, go on with
mine, and you will get Mr Hogg when he comes down." Some time after he proposed that if Hogg
would get ten gentlemen to sit in London, and give me ten guineas each, it would be worth while to
go up. I said, " Yes." I commenced to Mr Adam's portrait. It was cold weather in winter. He was
unwell and nervous, and altered much in feature while sitting. He gave me every manner of fair play,
was most gentlemanly in his conduct every way, but the likeness was not very successful, yet I
could make no more of him. Mr Hogg never came down that I saw. They are both dead.
I had the head beside me in the house. It was something like the monster made by the genius who
was afterwards haunted by it. I sent it to Edinburgh to the Royal Scottish Academy's exhibition. It
got a fine place, and told well. I advertised in Edinburgh as a portrait painter, and referred to it as a
specimen of my powers; but, having no call made on my acquirements, I concluded that a cobbler's power in
the capital was of none effect. While I had the portrait at home the look of it had the power of producing a sort
of lunacy. It used to look down in such sullen thoughtfulness, as reminding me of the time I sunk in trying to
give the world assurance of an artist; and to think that I was left sitting on a stool mending old boots ! I
thought that if I had washed thin clean likenesses I might have had fame and food, " but half fed, half mad,
half sarkit," was nearer the mark.
The finest advice I ever got on the way to do it was by Mr George Julius Cordon, a German artist.
He looked at my head and then at me and said, " My dear sir, allow me to speak to you as a friend.
You are a portrait painter, and have as good a right to save yourself as serve your customer. You
waste your power, and none have sense to know it. The value of your art is neither understood nor
appreciated. I'll tell you what is your duty, and you ought to do it. You can draw well. Then draw
your heads carefully with pencil, wash them thinly in, like water colour, never lose sight of the
canvas, glaze gently, touch up the nice little reflex lights to make the features appear substance.
You will save much trouble, get more thanks, and have them sooner out of your hands."
The head at home so haunted me that I gave it away to a particular friend who I knew set a value on
it, and he at one time gave me five pounds in return. Such was the end of a life-time's hope. Where
the head went I known not, as the owner had to, or did, leave this country in a hurry, going to a land
of liberty. He forgot to settle some small accounts before he went, and Henry Millar offered one
hundred pounds to get a sight of him, so that he might have a conversation with him on the subject.
In writing up the remembrance of a few years, and our connection with society, it is humbling to
meet the blanks, blights, and deaths of those who hoped, bullied, and blustered in great earnest,
fancying that they were on the road to fame and fortune.
One morning in the first week of 1851 I was wondering where I should get the first portrait to begin the
year with. Sometimes it was difficult to get a start. I have been ten, twelve, and once thirteen,
weeks on in the year before I could get a start. I often on those occasions went from home, to hunt
among strangers. While Nannie was setting down the breakfast that morning, I said if I had been in
possession of as much money as would have done the business I should have gone across to
Ireland to see how art would do there. Within half-an-hour after uttering this expression, a rap came
on the door. It was answered, and there was my friend Mr James Mackie from Kilbirnie. His first
question was, " Hunter, were you ever in Ireland ?" " Never." " Would you go, were you to get a job
there ? " " I was just speaking of a desire to visit the place before you came in. " " I was over in
Ireland spending the New Year, and I contracted for a job for you in Armagh when I was there. I
have secured board and lodging; so if it suits you to go say when, and I will communicate with the
people."
All things being ready, I started, taking my passage in the Thetis steamboat, commanded by
Captain Stewart. My reception in Ireland was pleasant. To look something is at all times essential,
and to be something should be the aim of every human being ! Mr Mackie had made every
necessary arrangement, even as to the comfort of my family in my absence. I had orders from him,
when I arrived at Armagh station, to secure a carriage and pair and drive to the house of Mr Robert
Cole, Barrack Street, whose portrait and the portraits of his wife and daughter I was to paint and
bring with me to Mr Mackie. When I reached the house, the old lady came forth, and looking in at
the carriage window said, " You'll be Mr Hunter from Glasgow." I answered " Yes." Before the driver
could get down from the box, she had the door of the carriage open, took me by the hand, and said,
"Welcome to Armagh." When we entered the house she said, " Welcome to our house." Six
daughters came forward and every one repeated, " Welcome to our house. " The old man came in,
his face full of smiles. His hair was white as snow, he had a white cravat round his neck, and a suit
of black on, quite the clerical shape. He took me by the hand, and in the blythe honest fullness of
his heart he said boldly, " Welcome to ould Ireland, Armagh, and my house; be athome in it. Do you
understand me ?" I said, "Yes;" and from that moment I felt at home in Ireland. I don't think that ever an
Irishman got such a welcome to Scotland.
I painted the three portraits besides a son and his wife. I got an order to copy the portraits at home
and return a set of them to Armagh. I went with them in person. This time I resolved to call at
Belfast and remain a week. I had an introduction from Charles M'Laren, Glasgow, to call on Mr
Francis Coats in Belfast. I did so, and was used like a brother. He had expected a brother's son
from America about the time of my arrival, and when I made my appearance he thought that I was
him. When he discovered that I was not, " Then," said he, " you can have no objections if I use you
as my nephew."