so cruelly neglected. He returned to her loving
care, and she welcomed him. He gradually sank
into ' helpless imbecility, and died at Kendal on
15th November 1802, nearly sixty-eight years of age.
Romney's is altogether a curious story, and none
of the excuses put forward by liis biographers can
make us think of liim as other than a selfish, heart-
less man.
The high reputation Romney acquired from his
contemporaries, as a portrait painter, has not been
fully maintained to the present day. He lias left,
liowever, some beautiful work, of which 'Lady
Derby,' belonging to Sir Charles Tennant, Bart.,
and now on loan in the Glasgow International
Exhibition, is an admirable example. He excelled,
it may be mentioned, in females portraits. There
are fine ease and grace in the portrait of Lady
Derby, the colour is sweet, and the painting of
botli textures and flesli tints exceedingly true.
Ronmey, of course, essayed to be an historical
jjainter in the classic style as well as a mere maker
of portraits. ' His best finished work is probably
his Infant Shakespeare.' In this ' note on Romney,
a long list of the portraits he has left would be out
of place. They nearly all possess one valuable
charm : the faces and figures are not so idealised as
to have obliterated out of them all the character
and fashion. Robert Walkkk.
COllOT AS AN EXAMPLE OF STYLE IN PAINTING.
TO speak of Corot is to speak of style in paint- ing, and yet no one was less of a pedant, and no one more in sympathy with his subjects. Few men in any art have seen so clearly what they wanted to do, and have done it with so little sign of labour, fuss, and pretension. His serene and well- balanced mind, liis fine judgment, his exquisite per- ception, and his delicate sense of measure proclaim him a countryman of Moliere. It is pleasant to look from amidst Teutonic vagueness of ideal and technical blundering at the Grecian clarity and elegant accomplishment of Corot. We, indeed, love to mystify ourselves in this island, to wrap our ideas in enthusiastic fogs of high-falutin, that we may deceive ourselves into accepting feeling for imagination. We willingly remain in the visionary, unrealising state. We fear to find our fervour inexpressible in the terms of any art. We turn rather with disgust from the very idea of feeling- made concrete in some artistic medium. Yet real imagination is no other than the creation of an image of our sentiment in some arrangement of material stuff — something as material, definite, and capable of gradation and climax as words, musical intervals, colours, or marble. The elements of form and colour, mere orna- mentation, in fact, even when used to imitate nothing, display intrinsic cjualities to the man gifted with percejstive powers. Every interval in music, every fragment of a phrase, has its character. So has every line, every pattern, every arrangement of colours. You may emjiloy the elements of music to produce a symphony with a distinctly marked individuality. You may recognise in it a unity of feeling as definite as the smell of a flower, and just as little representative of anything in the world. Thus, apart from wliat it may represent, every picture makes a certain statement in virtue of the character of its decorative pattern. This voice you cannot suppress by the clamours of pretended symbolism or literary story, and no true artist would try to cry down what holds as important a place in art as piu'e symphonic music. An artist, like any other man, j ust gets a vague sentiment from looking at a scene. When he would represent it on canvas his imagination conjures uji an image. According to the mans nature, form, colour, tone, etc. enter into this conception in varying proportions of im- portance. Taste in style and a special feeling for the intrinsic characters of forms and colours then enable him to carry out his design in keeping with the sentiment of his original impression. He makes the pattern of his picture to suit the scene. Imagination, treatment, and technique should all co-operate in a general ensemble of feeling. Sometimes, when you know a picture well, and are not consciously thinking of the scene it represents, it appears to you as a rebarbative collection of mechanically laid spots, wires, and spikes. People are apt to call you a materialist if you object to such a careless use of material. The word seems sadly out of place as a term of reproach in this con- nection. It is the particular office of imagination to materialise. Those who wish to keep in the more abstract regions of thought — who, in fact, dislike the sensuous— should pretend to no love for art. The Teutonic visionary too often disdains the eye and ear, and regards them as slaves to be brutalised in the service of liis whims. He is a moralist, a philosopher, what you will, but it is doubtful whether he is often an artist, keenly alive to the cliaracter and capabilities of the material he
