MODERN PORTRAITURE.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 151, 20 March 1908, Page 3

MODERN PORTRAITURE.

I■' Modern portraiture•; at' '-its "best ; is, more, honest,,and /'true than eighteenth-century portraiture; and such, physical beauty as .-.is recorded by the brush of,the modern master' js moro feiiaWd, ,more, valuable as documentary evidence tlian-the. endless procession of bewitching'beauties- left to: us- by Grjimsboroujgh,' aiid.'Ro'mnoy,' and Lawrence. •; Have you.never.-bc-eiv struck by ,tlid curious link of similarity;-thatconnects the lyonien. pairitwl jbyfc each of*, the great ..early Englisji masteii'j : as; ithough they, were all- members of itho' saine' family ? They . arey-in a sense; for; thfiy ffjP.mj'.thfi .same. ancestor,' just as' : Athen6"!sprang{in'i- full -'armour'from.-the head of Zeus; .And this ancestor 1 is a ! lovely., dream—tho master's ideal of,,boautiM wo-; manhood. r- '< .--. Romney affords; perhaps the most-striking' illustration of this eighteenth-century tendency'. He had his ideal; and Emma Lady Hamilton was tho nearest approach to it in :the 'living : world. , ! Ho paint-ed 'her, or-his dream orher, in countless versions/, Sho sat to other' artists, ',to' Vigee. lo; Brun ; among them,'-whoso- dispassionate, objective render--ing of the fair model is quite unlike Rbmney's, tliough probably moro in' accordance with facts. r. : On thoio'ther 'hand,va littlo of Lady Hamilton lurks behind the features of nearly all Romney's female sitters. - Indeed, it may well be asserted that., his: women .aro constructed 'according , ; ;to a precoiiceived formula, that they-are as conventional a type', almost-, as-the women - depicted in the colour-prints of, tho Japanese Utamarp. How monotonous,' in expression as well as in colour and technique, an exhibition room filled with Romney's women -would appear if compared with a gallery bf' women by Mr., Sargent,' the great-ost. portrait paintei; of today. 'And, yet Mr. Sargent does not idealise or'work" to formula.. ..In technique ■ vastly Superior to Romney,.' he.-' 'discards all "conventions, and. paints with nervoiis .touch ;thd nervous life of modern days; His sense of beauty ,is. not .inferior'to any eighteent-h-cen-turyl painter's; but, his love of truth, his power of psychological analysis, are,stronger ■ still. Does not his art' stand' on a vastly higher: plane'than- Romney'sPi ■ Is is truo that tho early masters.could hot. 'holp painting beautiful -pictures because the, women who sat to them far surpassed • the modern- Englishwoman. inJeharm?.. ■Tlie 'an-' swormust .be, our..emphatic "No ; " :■ If Gainsborough' or Romney, with his eighteonth-cen-tury English mind, .had' lived in" Germany, he would havo idealised thei German woman —beyond recognition. , - English beauty has not deteriorated. It is far more reasonable to assume that such matchless beauty as we meet in tho work of the early English masters had no existence save in the imagination of thoso >ho created the master-work: