SCHOOLS OF PAINTING 441 painter, who while yet young was killed at the siege of Paris in 1871, belongs to the latest development of French art. At present (1886) Paris possesses by far the most im- portant school of art existing, and French painters on the whole are supreme in power of drawing and in technical skill. Unhappily these great merits are often counter- balanced by false sentimentalism or excessive realism, and especially by gross sensuality. Art in France that is, in Paris is now in a state of the most prolific activity, and is branching out into new and startling phases, such as the impressionist style, in which form is suppressed for the sake of colour, and the naturalist school, which leans rather to what is ugly or even loathsome ; to the latter belong some of the technically ablest painters alive. 1 As in Spain and Italy, the influence of Fortuny is strong in Paris, and Parisian influence now extends very widely, as the Nicole des Beaux- Arts is resorted to by art students from all countries except Germany. 7. British. The modern Bri- tish 2 school begins with the painters of miniature portraits in the 16th and 17th centuries, among whom the earliest were Nicholas Hil- liard and Isaac Oli- ver, artists of some note in the reign of Elizabeth. Many very beautiful minia- tures were produced by them and by the younger Peter Oli- ver, who rose into celebrity under the Commonwealth. F i G /40. Portrait ' Other able portrait nolds. (National Gallery. A replica of painters of the 17th this exists in Pembroke College, Oxford. ) century were the Scotch Jamesone, a pupil of Rubens, William Dobson, a pupil of Vandyck, 3 and Samuel Cooper ; but the chief court painters after the Restoration were the Flemish Sir Peter Lely and Sir God- frey Kneller, whose influence on art in England was disas- trous. The 18th century produced many painters of the highest merit, as Hogarth, who stands unrivalled as a cari- caturist and moral- ist, Reynolds and his rival Gainsborough, FIG. 41. Portrait of Mrs Siddons, by Gams- notable among the borough. (National Gallery.) chief portrait painters of the world (see figs. 40 and 1 A few years ago a gold medal was won at the Salon by a picture of this class, a real masterpiece of technical skill. It represented Job as an emaciated old man covered with ulcers, carefully studied in the Paris hospitals for skin diseases. a For mediaeval painting in England, see MURAL DECORATION, voL xvii. p. 45. 8 Vandyck lived and worked in England from 1632 to 1641. 41), and Richard Wilson, the founder of the English school of landscape, the chief artistic speciality of the country. The three brothers Smith of Chichester, Gainsborough, and later in the _ -?v!h'tti2&fi~ *. century John (Old) Crome of Norwich and James Ward, were all landscape painters of great ability. England has since the 18th cen- tury been specially famed for its school of water-colour paint- ers, of which Paul Sandby was one of the founders; he was followed by Wheat- ley, Webber, Girtin, andProut. Sir Henry Raeburn was a Scot- tish portrait painter of the highest rank (see fig. 42), but FIG. 42. Portrait of Rev. Arch. Alison, by Sir was far less ad- H. Raeburn. (National Portrait Gallery.) mired in England than the very feeble Lawrence. Little can be said in favour of many of the most popular FIG. 43. The Temeraire towed to her last Moorings, by Turner. (National Gallery.) painters of that time, as West, Barry, Fuseli, North- cote, and Shee, who practised what was considered the highest branches of art, such as histori- cal painting. William Blake, in spite of his wonderful poet- ical and ima- ^ ginative power, lived and died with very inade- quate recogni- tion. To the first half of the 19th century belong Turner, the greatest of all landscape paint- ers (see fig. 43), and his very able contempo- raries Constable, J. J. Chalon, Copley Fielding, and Stan- XXI. 56 44._p or trait, by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
