THE DICTATOR OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY.* THE publication of Joseph
Farington's diary in the Morning Post has spread the revival of interest in him which Walker's Quarterly initiated by its issue of October, 1921. Up to that time our only information on Farington was scattered through various histories of the Academy and lives of his more famous contemporaries. Farington was born at Leigh, Lancashire, in 1747, and came to London in 1763, where he studied under the admirable Richard Wilson. Two yeara later he showed at the exhibition of the (Incorporated) Society of Artists and was elected a member. He continued to exhibit regularly until 1773, although at the split in the Society, of Artists in 1768, which led to the foundation of the Royal Academy of Arts, he had' been one of the first to join the new Academy Schools. In spite of this, however, he was made one of the directors of the Society of Artists. He first exhibited at the Academy in 1778, and in six years was a full member. Farington was the close friend of Lawrence and Constable, and was one of the first to realize the immense significance of the younger man's work. Himself of the old school of land- scape painters, he was yet sensitive enough to feel and broad • Dictator of as Rid Academy : an Account of Joseph Farington, R A , with some Not,. on his rothen Gesso. By R. Gordon Bee. London.: Walker's- • The Highbrows: a Modern Nowt By C. E. M. Joad. London : JOnathau
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enough to say of Constable's landscape that it would one day " form a distinct feature of the art." More than this few Academicians would say of a young revolutionary, and Constable recognized it gratefully. After a life of great activity in the affairs of the Academy, which earned him his sobriquet of " Dictator," Farington died in 1821, bequeathing to Miss Tyrwhitt the relics and diary which were sold at Puttiok's at the end of last year. Mr. Roe completes his short but capable account of the painter with a list of his exhibited works and of the principal books which he illustrated. The water-colours at the Victoria and Albert Museum and the oil at the Diploma Gallery of the Royal Academy are, I believe, the only works by Farington now on public exhibition. However, the Walker Galleries have acquired a collection of his water-colours, which are to be exhibited shortly. This exhibition should avert the danger that interest in the diarist will swamp appreciation
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