23 FEBRUARY 1991, Page 32

Facing the future

Evelyn Joll

THE GEORGIANS: EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY PORTRAITURE AND SOCIETY by Desmond Shawe-Taylor Barrie & Jenkins, £35, pp. 239 Blake's dismissive question: 'Of what consequence is it to the Arts what a Portrait Painter does?' is to a large extent answered by this book. The author, a lecturer in art history at Nottingham Uni- versity, is the nephew of the well-known music critic of the same name. The period covered is 1700-1820 wherein the first half of the 18th century was notable for the enormous number of portrait painters practising in Britain rather than for the quality of their work. Fees were so meagre that speed of execution was imperative, a striking contrast to Coldstream's portrait of Professor Colin St John Wilson, on exhibition at the Tate earlier this year, which took 96 sittings to complete.

Many painters then operated an assembly-line system, with the commis- sioned artist painting only the head while specialists in various accessories — hats, draperies, periwigs and so on — supplied the rest. The attitude to patrons was also rough-and-ready: Francis Hayman, finding the Marquess of Granby to be unaccept- ably pale, gave him 'a glow of counte- nance' with a bout of fisticuffs before his sitting. There was also a limited number of accepted poses, a convention which once caused embarrassment to Reynolds when, early in his career, he collaborated with 'a body-man'. Reynolds thought that the military look of a head might be improved by 'a fierce cocked-hat'. The head was unfortunately set on a standard posture which included a hat held under the arm; the portrait was despatched with two hats.

Nevertheless, Reynolds is the hero both of this book (claiming 40 out of the 147 illustrations) and of the second half of the century. He is credited, capitalising on an idea of Hogarth's, with inaugurating annual exhibitions which did much to raise the standards of the profession and encour- aged artists to attempt a far greater variety of approach towards their sitters. The success of these exhibitions spawned a thriving trade in prints published after the most popular pictures, so much so that £200,000 worth of British prints was ex- ported in 1778 while only £100 worth was imported. Reynolds' designs were to be seen as far afield as Italy; he thus became the first native-born artist to win an inter- national reputation, saying of his favourite engraver, MeArdell, 'by this man I shall be immortalised'.

As portraiture was reckoned so low in the hierarchy of genres of painting, a number of refinements were introduced to try to elevate it, such as the historical, allegorical or mythological portrait, all practised by Reynolds leaning heavily on the Apollo Belvedere (as Ramsay did also) and other classical subjects to give his poses the authority which was the basis of his Grand Style. However, both he and Romney were apt to elongate parts of their sitters in a way that was closer to Manner- ism than to Praxiteles or Michelangelo.

The 'country' portrait in a rural setting was more to Gainsborough's liking, as it invited informality or, as the 18th century termed it, 'decorum', which meant a match- ing in art of manner and subject, as shown by a sitter holding a gun and leaning negligently against a tree-trunk. But infor- mality could also exist in domestic sur- roundings as appears in Lawrence's George IV, with the King seated comfortably on a sofa with papers beside him looking, in the author's phrase, as if 'he was just settling to some light administration before dinner'.

It was generally recognised that a por- trait to be successful should contain an element of flattery (its absence in Suther- land's portrait of Churchill no doubt led to its destruction).

As Pope put it:

Whether the Charmer sinner it, or saint it If Folly grows romantic, I must paint it.

Most artists opted for 'sainting' their sub- jects, but much of the flattery was done with tongue-in-cheek and recognised as such by painter and sitter alike. Reynolds' Lady Sarah Banbury Sacrificing to the Graces, shown in the 1986 Reynolds ex- hibition at Burlington House, caused Mrs Thrale to comment that the sitter 'never did sacrifice to the Graces . . she used to

play cricket and eat beefsteaks'. Yet Reynolds was perfectly conscious here that gallantry was required from him while Lady Sarah was equally aware that she was playing a part.

Rousseau's Emile (1763) had a profound influence in England for at least two more decades. Its demand for a more egalitarian society had a bizarre offspring in portrait- ure: Gainsborough, having painted his most patrician portrait of The Hon Mrs Graham (Edinburgh) also painted an un- finished portrait (Tate) showing her dress- ed as a housemaid and weilding a broom.

One of the great merits of the book is the author's evident familiarity with the litera- ture of the period. On many occasions he illuminates pictures with apposite extracts from contemporary memoirs, poems and novels. The works of Fanny Burney are particular favourites but many others are quoted to equal effect.

But it should be noted that some of the author's descriptions of individual portraits are plainly inaccurate. Gainsborough's Captain William Wade, for example, illus- trated here, is certainly not 'starved- looking', but has the trim figure befitting the Master of Ceremonies at Bath. And there are similar instances of which the most fanciful concerns the Tate's portrait by Wright of Derby of Sir Brooke Boothby, whose eyes are described as 'tear-laden', which is simply nonsense. But these are minor flaws in this wide-ranging and often entertaining survey that will help us to look at portraits of this period in future with increased understanding and appreciation.

Gainsborough's 'Captain William Wade' at the Victoria Art Gallery, Bath City Council