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THE COLD'
WATER
COLOUR
SOCIETY
1804-1904
EDITED BY CHARLES HOLME
l-'/<
{.'• /A
OFFICES OF CTHE STVDIO', LONDON
PARIS, AND NEW YORK MCMV
PREFATORY NOTE
The reproduction of water-colours in monotint is so unsatisfactory
that in dealing with this important subject the Editor has decided
to include in this work only coloured reproductions. In making
the selection his endeavour has been to render it as representative
as possible, and while regretting the inevitable necessity for many
omissions from the list, he hopes that a sufficient number of drawings
have been presented to afford an insight into the evolution of water-
colour art during the history of the Society.
The thanks of the Editor are due to those ladies and gentlemen who
have been so good as to assist him in the preparation of this work
by the loan of original drawings. In this connection he desires to
name Miss Carlisle, Mrs. Todd, General Sir Henry Smyth, Mr.
Harold Hartley, Mr. Alexander T. Hollingsworth, Mr. Frederick
Macmillan, Dr. Greville MacDonald, Mr. Edward Clifford, Mr.
William Newall, Mr. Thomas McLean, Mr. Charles Dowdeswell,
Messrs. Thomas Agnew and Sons and Messrs. Ernest Brown and
Phillips.
PLATE
I. " Early Morning." By George Barret
II. " Crowland Abbey." By Peter de Wint
III. " Whitby." By Copley Fielding
IV. " The Blackberry Gatherers." By David Cox
V. " Anglers." By John Linnell
VI. " The Poisoned Cup." By George Cattermole
VII. "Roses." By W. Hunt
VIII. " La Casa Marina Foliera, Venice." By William Callow
IX. " One of the Howling Derweeshes, Cairo." By Carl Haag
X. " Marston Moor." By Sir John Gilbert
XI. " Young Anglers." By Birket Foster
XII. " Schloss Eltz." By A. W. Hunt
XIII. " Sidonia the Sorceress." By Sir E. Burne-Jones
XIV. " Staffa." By Sir Francis Powell
XV. « The Paris Pawnshop." By G. J. Pinwell
XVI. " The Falls of the Tay." By J. W. North
XVII. "An Old Surrey Cottage." By Mrs. Allingham
XVIII. " The Break in the Storm." By Henry Moore
XIX. « A Hayfield near the Mendips." By R. Thorne Waite
XX. " The Thames : A Severe Winter." By Herbert M. Marshall
XXI. " Strayed." By W. Eyre Walker
XXII. "A Northumberland Road." By Sir Ernest A. Waterlow,
P.R.W.S.
XXIII. " Blois." By Samuel J. Hodson
XXIV. "Two Heads are Better than One." By W. J. Wainwright
XXV. " Comrades." By Albert Moore
XXVI. " Ploughing." By David Murray
XXVII. " Loch Lomond." By Colin B. Phillip
XXVIII. " Cromarty from the East." By Robert W. Allan
XXIX. " A Pastoral." By E. R. Hughes
XXX. " Middlesex Pastures." By Robert Little
XXXI. " The Rainbow lies in the Curve of the Sand." By J. R. Weguelin
XXXII. " A Fancy-Bred Mouse." By Edwin Alexander '
XXXIII. « By the Brook." By Mrs. E. Stanhope Forbes
XXXIV. " The Silver Mirror." By J. Walter West
XXXV. "The Magic Chrystal." By R. Anning Bell
XXXVI. « A Canal in Venice." By R. Barratt
XXXVII. "The Windfall." By A. Rackham
XXXVIII. " The Cunning Skill to Break a Heart." By Miss E. Fortescue-
Brickdale
XXXIX. " The Cloisters, Montevilliers." By D. Y. Cameron
XL. " Study for a Blue- Jacket's Yarn." By H. S. Tuke
A CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF THE
MEMBERS AND ASSOCIATES OF THE
ROYAL SOCIETY OF PAINTERS IN
WATER COLOURS FROM THE FOUND-
ATION OF THE SOCIETY IN 1804 TO
THE PRESENT TIME
(N.B. — The names of those whose work is reproduced in the following pages
are printed in capital letters")
ASSOC.
1805
1805
1805
1805
1805
1805
1805
1805
1805
1807
1807
1808
1808
1809
O
OO
rt
T3
C
O
MEM.
1809
1807
1806
1806
1809
1807
1812
1808
1808
1810
1809 —
William Sawry Gilpin
(President) 1804)
Robert Hills
(Secretary, 1804)
John Claude Nattes
Francis Nicholson
Nicholas Pocock
William Henry Pyne
Samuel Shelley
Cornelius Varley
John Varley
William Frederick Wells
(President, 1 806)
GEORGE BARRET,
JUNR.
Joshua Cristall
(President, 1821)
John Glover
(President^ 1807)
William Havell
James Holworthy
\ Stephen Francis Rigaud
Anne Frances Byrne
John James Chalon, R.A.
William Delamotte
Robert Freebairn
Paul Sand by Munn
Richard Ramsay Reinagle,
R.A. (President^ 1808)
John Smith
Francis Stevens
John Thurston
Thomas Heaphy
Augustus Pugin
John Augustus Atkinson
William Turner
Thomas Uwins, R.A.
(Secretary) 1814)
William Payne
ASSOC.
1809
1809
1810
1810
1810
1823
1823
1823
1823
1824
1824
MEM.
1810
1812
1810
1811
1812
i8io
1812
1810
—
1812
1812
1812
1812
1812
—
—
1812
—
1812
—
1812
1813
1813
1813
___
1818
1820
1819
1819
1820
1821
1820
—
1821
1823
1821
1822
—
1822
—
1822
1834
1823
1823
1823
1826
1824
Edmund Dorrell
Charles Wild
(Secretary) 1826)
Frederick Nash
PETER DE WINT
A. V. COPLEY FIELD-
ING (President) 1831)
William Westall, A.R.A.
William Scott
DAVID COX
Luke Clennell
Charles Barber
JOHN LINNELL
Miss Margaret Gouldsmith
James Holmes
Frederick Mackenzie
Henry Richter
George Fennel Robson
(President) 1820)
Henry C. Allport
Samuel Prout
James Stephanoff
W. J. Bennet
J. D. Harding
William Walker
H. Gastineau
Mrs. T. H. Fielding
Charles Moore
Francis Oliver Finch
GEORGE CATTER-
MOLE
Miss M. Barret
Miss M. Scott
W. A. Nesfield
Richard Hamilton Essex
S. Jackson
J. Whichelo
WILLIAM HUNT
John Masey Wright
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF MEMBERS AND ASSOCIATES
ASSOC. MEM. ASSOC. MEM.
1825 — John Sell Cotman 1850 —
1827 1834 Samuel Austin 1851 —
1827 — George Pyne 1851
1827 — John Byrne 1852 1854
1827 1829 J. F. Lewis, R.A.
(President, 185$) 1852 —
1828 1830 W. Evans (of Eton) 1852
1828 — Penry Williams 1853 1855
1829 — Thales Fielding 1853 1861
1829 — - A. Chisholm 1853 1876
— 1829 Miss Eliza Sharpe 1853
— 1829 Miss Louisa Sharpe (Mrs. 1855 1884
Seyffarth) 185-5 1858
1831 1841 John W.Wright 1856 1878
(Secretary, 1844) 1857 l88°
1831 1834 Frederick Tayler 1858 1864
(President, 1858) 1858 1897
1833 1843 Frank Stone, A. R.A. 1858 1879
1834 1835 George Chambers 1860 1862
1834 1843 Charles Bentley 1860 —
1834 1842 Joseph Nash 1862 1863
1835 — Valentine Bartholomew 1862 1864
1835 1857 James Holland
1837 1858 Arthur Glennie 1862 1864
^37 — W. Lake Price 1864 1877
1838 1848 WILLIAM CALLOW 1864 i868\
(Secretary, 1865) 1886]
1841 1845 George Arthur Fripp 1864 1865
(Secretary, 1848) 1864 1866
1842 1844 Octavius Oakley 1865 1870
1843 1854 Samuel Palmer 1865 —
1843 1851 Thomas Miles Richardson 1866 1876
1843 1849 W. Collingwood Smith
1844 1846 Alfred Downing Fripp 1866 —
(Secretary, 1870) 1867 1876
1844 — Douglas Morison 1867 1870
1845 — William Evans (of Bristol) 1867 1881
1845 — George Henry Harrison 1869 1887
1845 — Samuel Rayner 1869 1870
— 1847 Miss Maria Harrison
1847 — w- F- Rosenberg 1870 1875
1848 1852 George Haydock Dodgson
1848 1849 Edward Duncan 1870 —
1848 1848 Francis W. Topham 1870 —
1848 — David Cox, junior 1871 1881
1849 I8so Joseph John Jenkins 1871 1883
(Secretary, 1854)
1849 — Charles Branwhite 1871 1881
1849 — Mrs. Mary Ann Criddle 1871 1883
1849 — John Callow 1871 —
1850 1853 CARL HAAG 1871 1901
1850 1859 Paul Jacob Naftel 1872 1880
Miss Nancy Rayner
John Burgess, junior
John Bostock
SIR JOHN GILBERT,
R.A. (President, 1871)
H. Parsons Riviere
Miss Margaret Gillies
Sir Frederick Burton
Walter Goodall
Samuel Phillips Jackson
Henry Brandling
William Collingwood
Charles Davidson
George H. Andrews
Samuel Read
Edward A. Goodall
Samuel T. G. Evans
Alfred P. Newton
BIRKET FOSTER
Frederick Smallfield
Henry Brittan Willis
ALFRED WILLIAM
HUNT
James W. Whittaker
George P. Boyce
SIR E. BURNE- JONES
E. S. Lundgren
Frederick Walker, A.R.A.
John D. Watson
Frederick J. Shields
Edward Killingworth
Johnson
Thomas R. Lament
SIR FRANCIS POWELL
Thomas Danby
Basil Bradley
W. Holman Hunt
GEORGE JOHN
PINWELL
William C. T. Dobson,
R.A.
Arthur H. Marsh
William Wood Deane
Albert Goodwin
JOHN W. NORTH,
A.R.A.
William Matthew Hale
H. Stacy Marks, R.A.
Arthur Boyd Houghton
R. W. Macbeth, R.A.
Sir Oswald W. Brierley
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF MEMBERS AND ASSOCIATES
ASSOC.
1872
1873
1874
1874
1875
1875
1875
1876
1876
1876
1876
^76
1877
1877
1877
1878
1878
1896
1878
1879
r88o
1880
1880
1880
1 88 1
1 88 1
1882
1882
1882
1882
1882
1883
1883
1883
1883
1883
MEM.
1882 H. Clarence Whaite
1875 Sir Laurence Alma-Tadema,
R.A.
— Walter Duncan
1892 Miss Clara Montalba
1883 Edward P. Brewtnall
1890 Mrs. Helen Allingham (nee
Paterson)
— Edward Radford
1880 HENRY MOORE, R.A.
1881 John Parker
1884 R. THORNE WAITE
— Robert Barnes
— Otto Weber
— Edwin Buckman
1896 Arthur Hopkins
— Cuthbert Rigby
1880 Henry Wallis
1886 Tom Lloyd
_ W. E. Lockhart
— Norman Tayler
1883 HERBERT M. MAR-
SHALL
1879 — Mrs. Helen Cordelia Angell
(nee Coleman)
— Walter Field
1896 W. EYRE WALKER
1894 SIR ERNEST A.
WATERLOW, R.A.
(President, 1897)
— Thomas J. Watson
— George Du Maurier
1898 Wilmot Pilsbury
1883 Charles Gregory
1890 SAMUEL J. HODSON
1892 Richard Beavis
— J. Jessop Hardwick
— Miss Constance Phillott
1883 Sir Edward J. Poynter,
i .R.A.
— Frank Holl, R.A.
— John R. Burr
— Henry G. Glindoni
1897 J. Henry Henshall
— WILLIAM J. WAIN-
WRIGHT
1884 — ALBERT MOORE
1884 — Mrs. Mary Lofthouse (nee
Forster)
ASSOC.
1885
1885
1886
MEM.
1891
1886
1898
1887
1896
1887
—
—
1888
1888
1899
1888
1888
—
1888
1899
1889
1889
1898
1890
1897
1891
1891
1895
1891
1903
1892
1894
1892
1899
1893
1894
1893
—
1894
1897
1895
—
1896
1899
1896
1896
—
1898
—
1898
—
1899
—
1899
—
1899
1900
1901
1901
1901
1901
1902
1902
1903
1903
1904
1904
1904
1904
1905
1905
1904
1904
Charles Robertson
Heywood Hardy
DAVID MURRAY,
R.A.
COLIN BENT PHILLIP
ROBERT W. ALLAN
Miss Maud Naftel
Sir Frederick (afterwards
Lord) Leighton, P. R.A.
Walter Crane
Alfred Edward Emslie
Miss Edith Martineau
Arthur Melville
G. Laurence Bulleid
George Clausen, A. R.A.
C. Napier Hemy, A.R.A.
Charles E. Fripp
E. R. HUGHES
Thomas M. Rooke
Lionel Smythe, A.R.A.
ROBERT LITTLE
Hubert von Herkomer, R.A.
Miss Rose Barton
J. R. WEGUELIN
Edwin A. Abbey, R.A.
J. M. Swan, R.A.
H. S. Hopwood
Miss Mildred Butler
Louis Davis
James Paterson
EDWIN ALEXANDER
MRS. E. STANHOPE
FORBES
Alfred Parsons, A.R.A.
Walter Bayes
Miss Minnie Smythe
REGINALD BARRATT
R. ANNING BELL
J. WALTER WEST
MISS ELEANOR FOR-
TESCUE-BRICKDALE
ARTHUR RACKHAM
E. J. Sullivan
Miss Alice M. Swan
J. S. Sargent, R.A.
H. S. TUKE, A.R.A.
D. Y. CAMERON
F. Cadogan Cowper
H. E. Crocket
Herbert Alexander
THE HISTORY OF THE ROYAL
SOCIETY OF PAINTERS IN
WATER-COLOURS
HERE is a close connection between the history
of the Royal Society of Painters in Water-
Colours and that of the later development of
the art of water-colour painting in this country.
As the first influential Association which
occupied itself especially with the encourage-
ment of this form of practice, it has during
the century of its existence played a very
important part in the promotion of a proper understanding of the
craft, and in the advancement of the position of the artists who have
devoted themselves to water-colours. The services it has rendered
have been two-fold ; in the first place it provided the workers with
a central organisation which helped them to make themselves known
to art lovers, and in the second it asserted in an emphatic manner
the claims to attention possessed by a technical method which was
comparatively a new creation and not directed by any old-established
traditions. Full credit is due to the Society for the manner in which
it has done its work ; and its authoritative position to-day can be
taken as a proof that its strenuous recognition of its responsibilities
has been acknowledged by every one who is qualified to pass judgment
on its efforts.
It cannot of course be assumed that the actual formation of the
English water-colour school resulted from the operations of the
Society. This would be claiming for it a little too much ; for before
it was instituted there were in this country many artists who were
sufficiently distinguished as water-colourists, and there was an efficient
if somewhat limited demand for their productions. But by bringing
together scattered forces it made possible that united action by which
alone a vigorous school of artistic practice can be created ; it showed
the value of combination, and it carried to success a movement which
might possibly have languished, or even died out, if left unassisted.
Moreover, by its periodical exhibitions, in which the painters who
sought to introduce innovations into the craft could compare their
experiments with the performances which did not depart from the
general custom of the profession, it encouraged very valuable
B HI
THE HISTORY OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY
competition between different types of workers and fulfilled an
educational mission of undeniable significance.
To explain exactly what was the origin of water-colour painting, it
would be necessary to go at some length into the history of technical
processes. In a sense, water-colour is the oldest of all forms of
painting ; for in fresco, tempera, and the other devices which were
used by the ancient decorators, water was the chief vehicle, as it was
in the illuminations produced so extensively in the middle ages.
There were water-colourists among the seventeenth-century Dutch
and Flemish artists, and from the time of Holbein onwards there was
in England a considerable school of miniaturists. But, despite the
antiquity of the craft, it is still possible to describe English water-
colour of the type which was specially fostered by the Society as a
comparatively new creation. It was not at all like the tempera work
of the Egyptians or the Greeks, it had few affinities with the art of
the earlier miniatures ; really it was a thing apart, with peculiar
possibilities and particular characteristics, and its first beginnings do
not date much further back than the middle of the eighteenth
century.
For some fifty years previously there had been in this country
considerable activity in the production of topographical illustrations
— literal representations of places and buildings which were set down
without any intention save to realise in a matter-of-fact manner the
bare facts of the subject selected. Most of these illustrations were
executed by engravers who attempted to give to their work no
pictorial graces, and satisfied themselves with a purely formal statement
of obvious things. Yet, crude, stiff, and unimaginative as these
engravings were, they showed the way to a much less mechanical type
of work. As a guide to the engraver it was necessary to prepare
drawings in which the details of the subjects chosen would be
presented with a due amount of accuracy, and the demand for these
drawings had called into existence a school of draughtsmen, many of
whom were in their particular direction men of undeniable ability.
In the precise fashion of the period they did excellent work, and
though they strictly respected conventions which to-day seem absurdly
limited, they were not unsuccessful in their treatment of the material
with which they had to deal.
There was in this topographical drawing practically no attention
given to varieties of atmospheric effect or subtleties of tone. The
subjects were presented in conventional light and shade, after the
manner of an architectural design, and without any attempt to dwell
upon accessories which would have increased the picturesqueness of
H ii
OF PAINTERS IN WATER-COLOURS
the final result. Certain set rules were observed, rules which governed
the practice of all the draughtsmen, and prevented them from
attaining any individualities of expression. The one prevailing
idea was to be minutely explanatory, to leave out nothing which
seemed to be necessary to convey to other people a full impression of
every detail of the subject. Anything like generalisation or
subordination of accessories to an artistic scheme was contrary to the
customary practice, a refinement which was neither understood nor
desired.
However, in this mechanical work there was the germ of better
things, and all that was required to develop it was an artist with
courage enough to show a definite degree of personal preference.
Some hint of a coming change was given by the drawings of men
like John Joshua Kirby, William Taverner, an amateur who
executed views with reasonable regard for pictorial quality, and
Samuel Scott, a painter of seascapes and London bits. In their
productions the use of colour washes to give greater completeness
and more variety of effect was studied more carefully than it had
been by any of their predecessors. It was, it must be admitted,
merely tentative, a kind of feeling the way to fuller expression ; but,
as far as it went, it was correct in intention, and proved that the
possibility of advance in the application of the water-colour medium
was beginning to be appreciated. At least the idea, by which the
earlier draughtsmen had been governed, of employing washes merely
to tint arbitrarily drawings executed in line, was ceasing to satisfy
the few men who were not absolutely convinced by the convention
in favour at the time. That these men foresaw the future of the
art with which they were experimenting is scarcely probable ; at best
they can only be said to have been restless under the restrictions laid
upon them, and to have tried to enlarge their sphere of action.
The artist who was really the first to respond definitely to the new
point of view was Paul Sandby. He has been generally claimed as
the father of English water-colour ; and though he was not the
originator of the movement which was destined even in his lifetime
to assume remarkable proportions, he deserves this title because he
began systematically to put into shape the growing protest against
the fashion which had hitherto prevailed. The more or less vague
experiments of others he reduced to a regular scheme of practice,
and he worked consistently to improve the art he followed. As it
happened he had special opportunities of influencing the men about
him, and as an educator he played a part of real importance. There-
fore his activity produced results which were far greater than could
H iii
THE HISTORY OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY
have been expected when the conditions under which he had to
work are taken into account. He was well fitted to guide the taste
of his contemporaries, and as, unlike most reformers, he came
exactly at the right moment, he had not to suffer the common fate
of being either ignored or treated as an impracticable dreamer.
He was born at Nottingham in 1725, and with his brother Thomas,
his senior by four years, he entered in 1741 the drawing school in
connection with the map and survey office at the Tower of London.
Success came very speedily to both brothers. Thomas was chosen
in 1743 as draughtsman and private secretary to the Duke of
Cumberland, and was present at the battle of Culloden, of which he
executed drawings that are still preserved in the Royal collection.
In 1746 he was appointed Deputy Ranger of Windsor Great Park,
and this post he retained for fifty-two years, till his death in 1798.
He was one of the foundation members of the Royal Academy and
its first Professor of Architecture, and as an architect he attained
some measure of distinction. His drawings, many of which are to be
found in various collections, prove that he was a most accomplished
draughtsman, and that his knowledge of executive processes was
exceptionally well cultivated. Had he not chosen architecture as
his profession he might, it seems, have been eminent as a painter.
Paul Sandby, however, can be judged from a different standpoint.
He was truly an artist, and his purpose was to clothe the dry facts
of nature with some degree of poetic suggestion. At first his
occupation was strictly that of a topographer, for he began his
career in 1 746 with a five years' engagement as a draughtsman in the
survey of the Highlands, the sort of work which, as can be well
imagined, offered him but little scope for the exercise of his pictorial
ambition. But as years went on he widened considerably the area
of his practice. Topography remained undoubtedly the primary
motive for much of his production ; but he had the good sense to
realise that even in the most veracious records of buildings and
places there was room for the display of artistic individuality, and
that drawings which began by being mere diagrams could be
amplified into pictures by attention to subtleties of light and] shade
and refinements of aerial effect.
Out of this perception grew also a belief that he would find in-
creased opportunities if he did not limit himself so closely to only
one class of subject. He saw that there was more room for the
exercise of his faculty of observation and imagination in motives
which did not demand such strict topographic accuracy ; so he was
tempted more and more, as time went on, to seek for material that
H iv
OF PAINTERS IN WATER-COLOURS
he could vary and adapt as his fancy dictated. In this way were
developed his love of pure landscape, and that ingenuity in avoiding
commonplace methods which is so agreeably manifested even in his
illustrative drawings. Moreover, he was enlightened enough to
depart frequently and markedly from the classic tradition which
then had a very strong hold over the men who painted oil landscapes,
from that imitation of Claude and his school which is so apparent in
the eighteenth-century English pictures. Although in his imagina-
tive compositions he was mainly a classicist, he digressed so often
into easy and intelligent naturalism that there is no question about
his right to a place among the men who could receive inspiration
directly from nature, and could retain in a transcription of an actual
scene the true sentiment of the subject.
What was the extent of his influence over others can be judged from
the position he held during a great part of his long life — he died in
1809 — asa teacher and producing artist. He was a prominent figure
in social and artistic circles, a friend of the King, and intimately
acquainted with people of all ranks. His personality was attractive,
and in consequence he was welcomed as a companion by several
influential patrons who could do much to popularise his artistic
theories. Moreover, he held for some while the post of Chief
Drawing Master in the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, to
which he was appointed in 1769, a post which gave him special
opportunities of improving the taste of the rising generation. It was
this exceptional combination of memorable capacities and of chances
for making them effective that secured for him so distinguished a
place in our art history, and that justifies his title as the founder of
English water-colour.
In his progressive advance in understanding of nature and in tech-
nical facility, Sandby may be said to have summed up the course of
development followed by the water-colour school as a whole. The
men before him were topographers pure and simple ; to them
succeeded a number of intelligent experimentalists, who were
honestly seeking to escape from conventions which they felt to be
cramping and inelastic ; and then came finally the sincere nature
lovers, who recorded vividly and with originality their personal
impressions of what they saw. Within a comparatively brief period
water-colour painting — and especially water-colour landscape —
passed from a merely formal process, capable of very narrow applica-
tion, into an art full of vitality and restricted , only by the necessary
limitations of the medium. These limitations were soon found to
be much less definite than the earlier painters had imagined ; and the
H v
THE HISTORY OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY
later men, who could profit by the experience of their predecessors,
carried the art to remarkable perfection. Indeed, it became in their
hands one of the most subtly significant of all the available means of
expression, and it took then a pre-eminent position, which it has
retained to the present day.
There are in the long list of water-colour painters who were active
during the lifetime of Paul Sandby many names well worthy to be
remembered. Before his death in 1809 the greatest masters of the
art whom this country has produced, De Wint, David Cox, Copley
Fielding, J. S. Cotman, and Turner, had been born, and were begin-
ning to range themselves among the most brilliant members of the
school. But from the middle of the eighteenth century onwards a
succession of skilful workers came forward to demonstrate the vitality
of the new movement, and to interpret in their own way the prin-
ciples which Sandby had laid down. Some of these men, like
Alexander Cozens, and his son John Robert Cozens, A. W. Devis,
Thomas Hearne, John and Robert Cleveley, Michael Angelo Rooker,
Nicholas Pocock, William Pars, William Payne, the two Maltons,
John Smith, and Edwin Dayes, several of whom had been actually
taught by Sandby, aimed simply at the improvement of the existing
method of tinting drawings. They were, according to modern ideas,
essentially draughtsmen, and for the most part illustrative draughts-
men whose " views " were intended for reproduction by means of
engraving. They claim attention principally because they carried
topographic drawing to its highest perfection, and by practically
exhausting its possibilities cleared the way for the pictorial departures
of the greater craftsmen who were then rising into prominence.
These greater craftsmen made their influence strongly felt at the
beginning of the nineteenth century, and then began decisively the
final and effective change in the practice of water-colour. Many
of the topographers, it is true, lived and worked for some years after
the new condition of affairs was definitely established — for instance,
Hearne did not die till 1817, and John Smith not till 1831 — but
their authority was rapidly diminishing, and as they disappeared
one by one, none of the new comers showed the least inclination to
revive the fading tradition. The new men had consciously or
unconsciously committed themselves to an aesthetic policy which
was in obvious opposition to that followed by their predecessors,
and the whole course of their professional procedure was in its way
a protest against the methods and mannerisms of the old school.
Fortunately for them they were able to command the attention of
the public, and to secure from people of sound judgment such a
H vi
OF PAINTERS IN WATER-COLOURS
considerable measure of support that they were encouraged to put
forth their fullest energies ; and when once the brief transition
period was passed, while the old school and the new were striving
side by side, they had no cause to complain that their efforts were
misunderstood or not appreciated.
If Paul Sandby can be considered to have shown the way for the }
new development, the credit of proving its greatest possibilities may/
fairly be given to Thomas Girtin. This young artist, who wast,
born in 1775 and died in 1802, was extraordinarily gifted, and had
naturally an artistic endowment that was almost perfect in its
balance. He was one of those men who have occurred occasionally
in the history of art, to whom the practical details of their work
presented apparently no difficulties, an instinctive master capable of
attacking and overcoming triumphantly the most exacting problems.
That he was ultimately surpassed by his contemporary and fellow
student, Turner, can be frankly admitted, but this fact does not
detract from his importance, and certainly does not diminish the
significance of his intervention. It must be remembered that Girtin
was only twenty-seven when he died, and the opportunity was
therefore denied to him of establishing his position among English
artists by a long and brilliant career such as Turner enjoyed.
Indeed, the astonishing quickness with which Girtin matured is one
of the most interesting features of his too brief life. At an age
when most men are only beginning — when Turner, for instance, was
still but a student — he was an accomplished and influential artist,
and was fully able to demonstrate the completeness of his under-
standing of the new methods of artistic expression which he
advocated. He had an unerring perception of what was essential in \
pictorial arrangement, a singularly correct idea of combining har-
moniously the various parts of a picture, and of investing them with
the right degree of poetic sentiment ; and as he was a sound and
facile draughtsman and a sensitive colourist, he was able to set down
his compositions with most persuasive conviction. Few men have
been better fitted to direct the course of an evolution of artistic
taste, because few have possessed so completely the combination of
intelligence and manual skill which is necessary for leadership in the
artist's profession.
The great difference between his manner of working and that of the
other water-colour painters of his time was that he did not occupy
himself with drawings in which colour and atmospheric effect were
made subsidiary to a formal and conventional design, but chose
rather to produce paintings that were in their colour qualities and
H vii
THE HISTORY OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY
in their adjustment of tone relations as carefully studied as the
canvases of the oil painters. He abandoned the previous system of
setting down an arbitrary scheme of light and shade, which was
afterwards amplified in an apologetic fashion by thin washes of
colour. Instead he stated his subjects in all their varieties of local
hue, and recorded properly the changes in these hues caused by
shadows and half-tones. In fact, he substituted vigorous naturalism
for half-hearted conventionality, and looked at nature not as an
arrangement in black and white which might be tinted according to
certain set rules, but rather as a mass of colour which should be made
vivacious and sparkling by properly related light and shade.
This undoubtedly justifies the claim on his behalf that he was the
first of all the earlier water-colourists to prove that this particular
form of art was capable of independent and active existence. After
he had shown the way forward there was no turning back ; and,
until quite within recent years, when a few pedants have foolishly
tried to imitate the imperfections of the primitive tinted drawings,
the mannerisms of the old school have been properly disregarded.
Girtin set a fashion which, unlike most fashions, was based upon
reason and good taste, and he did it so brilliantly and ^with such
masterly confidence that he converted the whole of the rising
generation of artists to his views. His success is the more memor-
able because the bulk of his work was executed for purposes of
reproduction by engraving, and was therefore in all probability
subject to some limitations. But these limitations did not prevent
him from giving even to his illustrative drawings the fullest measure
of spontaneity and naturalistic charm, and did not hamper the
assertion of his delightful individuality ; they only narrowed his
choice of subject and caused him to occupy himself a little too
frequently with architectural motives. In qualities of handling his
drawings for reproduction suffer hardly at all by comparison with
his pure landscapes, with those studies of wide distances and stretches
of moorland which he treated with a largeness of style and a delicacy
of atmospheric quality such as no English painter before him had
attained.
It is possible that the influence of Girtin upon the men about him
might have been less immediate if there had been no opportunities
afforded to the younger painters to meet and exchange ideas about
their intentions and achievements. Facilities for the systematic
study of water-colour painting as an art were comparatively scarce.
It is true that many of the better-known painters took pupils, as
Sandby did, and so were able to train with some degree of efficiency
H viii
OF PAINTERS IN WATER-COLOURS
the students who were seeking a knowledge of the craft. But the
art school as we have it to-day was quite in its infancy ; such classes
as existed were on a small scale, and though the Royal Academy had
been founded some few years before the end of the eighteenth century,
its authority as an educational institution was not yet fully established.
That the chances offered by its schools were beginning to be
recognised by would-be artists is perhaps as much as can be safely said.
In this position of affairs considerable importance can be attached to
the services done to art by an amateur and art lover, one Dr. Monro,
who took the keenest possible interest in the efforts of the young
water-colourists. He was a man of exceptionally cultivated taste, a
collector of much discrimination, and the possessor of a great number
of fine pictures and drawings. Moreover, he had unusual skill as a
draughtsman, and his sketches in the manner of Gainsborough, for
whom he had a special admiration, were remarkable for their good
qualities, and have often been declared to be little inferior to those of
the master on whom he based his practice. The promise of the
water-colour school appealed strongly to him, for he clearly foresaw
what was likely to be the nature of its development, and he showed
a very real anxiety to encourage it, and to do what was in his power
to set it in the right direction.
His manner of encouragement was characteristically genial and
thoughtful. It took a pleasantly personal form, and its aim was to
promote association between the artists themselves, as well as to give
them facilities for carrying on their work under agreeable conditions.
The doctor's house was thrown open to the men of the new school,
and his art treasures were put freely at their disposal as materials for
study and subjects for copying. In addition he invited them to meet
there on winter evenings in a kind of sketching class, at which they
executed drawings which he purchased at the rate of half a crown
each ; and the gatherings ended in a supper when work was over.
He himself supervised the class, and gave hints which from a
connoisseur of his taste and experience must have been of real value
to men in need of guidance at the outset of their careers. Besides,
as- the sketchers were of all types, from the actual beginner to the
artist of recognised proficiency, the contact of minds and the
comparison of methods in such an assembly had mutual advantages
which are sufficiently obvious.
Both Girtin and Turner, who had been friends from early boyhood,
were among Dr. Monro's proteges^ and at his house they met many
others of the painters who were destined to make the history of the
water-colour school. In such a group of young craftsmen, full ot
H ix
THE HISTORY OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY
enthusiasm for a new movement, it can well be imagined that Girtin
with his brilliant capacities and zealous originality must have been a
prominent figure, and must have affected most persuasively many of
his associates. He had, moreover, a disposition which was altogether
free from jealousy, and he was always ready to explain his methods
and to expound his views to any one who wished for information.
The careless, genial artistic temperament was strong in him, the
temperament which makes a man popular with his fellows, though
usually it somewhat hampers its possessor in his dealings with the
commercial side of his profession. The effect of Girtin's geniality
did not cease when his attendances at Dr. Monro's class came to an
end. For the few years that he lived as an independent artist his
studio was always open to his artist friends, and his knowledge was
as freely imparted to them as it had been in his student days. That
with a disposition so attractive he should have combined remarkable
understanding of aesthetic questions and a degree of skill in
craftsmanship which for the time at which he lived was extraordinary,
may be accounted a most fortunate circumstance. It caused the
influence he exerted over a host of followers to be wholly beneficial,
and it started practically the whole of the new school upon a sound
and sensible course.
When the eighteenth century closed water-colour painting in England
had passed well beyond the tentative stage into serious and purposeful
accomplishment. Its resources had been markedly extended, and it
had been proved to be worthy to rank as something much higher
than a plaything for amateurs, or a subsidiary to the engraver's art.
But it still had to make its proper appeal to the general public as one
of the greater forms of artistic achievement. Hitherto it had been
patronised, intelligently enough without doubt, by only a few
collectors and connoisseurs of the better sort, but by the great mass of
art lovers it was little known. The reason for this can be found in
the fact that there were so far few facilities for exhibiting drawings
under suitable conditions. Moreover, nothing had been done to
widen the market for water-colours, or to assert with sufficient
conviction their importance as manifestations of a new aesthetic spirit.
Indeed, the attitude of the existing artistic associations towards this
form of practice was at best one of somewhat contemptuous tolera-
tion. To the exhibitions of the Society of Artists, the Free Society,
and the Royal Academy, drawings were admitted, but they were
not treated with any great favour, and were exposed in the galleries
to a competition with oil paintings which was plainly to their
disadvantage. The Academy had actually a law excluding from
H x
OF PAINTERS IN WATER-COLOURS
membership artists who worked in water-colours only, which was
naturally resented by these artists as a slight on them and their
profession, and as a badge of inferiority that was calculated to affect
harmfully the public judgment. Most of all was there complaint
about the manner in which water-colours were hung in the Academy
exhibitions, in dark corners and on walls unsuitably lighted, with
the result that they could not be seen even by the people who
wished to examine them. It was partly as a protest against this
unfairness, partly with the idea of helping on the new school by
providing it with a kind of central organisation, that certain painters
set to work at the very outset of the nineteenth century to establish
an exhibition of water-colour drawings only, and to give the art a
reasonable chance of proving what strong claims it had to wide
appreciation.
Against this, the generally assigned reason for the promotion of a
scheme for a water-colour exhibition, it is only fair to quote a
passage from the biography of Robson, written by Thomas Uwins,
the Royal Academician. " The writer is old enough," he says," to
recollect the time when the council room of the Royal Academy
was devoted to the exhibition of paintings in water-colours. Here
were to be seen the rich and masterly sketches of Hamilton, the
fascinating compositions of Westall, the beautiful landscapes of
Girtin, Callcott, and Reinagle, and the splendid creations of Turner
— the mightiest enchanter who has ever wielded the magic power of
art in any age or country. At this time the council room, instead
of being what the present arrangement makes it, a place of retire-
ment from the bustle of other departments, was itself the great point
of attraction. Here crowds first collected, and here they lingered
longest, because it was here the imagination was addressed through
the means of an art which added the charm of novelty to excellence.
It was the fascination of this room that first led to the idea of form-
ing an exhibition entirely of pictures in water-colours."
It is to be feared that this enthusiastic account of the interest
excited by the drawings which found their way into the earlier
exhibitions of the Academy is not supported by contemporary
evidence. It has certainly been strenuously contradicted by art
historians, and it reads, it must be confessed, like a piece of special
pleading. However, it is unnecessary to examine too closely the
reasons that induced certain water-colourists to band themselves
together to form an independent organisation for the advancement
of their particular interests. That they did so is all that need be
recorded : they may have been actuated by resentment at their
H xi
THE HISTORY OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY
treatment by the oil painters ; they may have thought, as Uwins
suggests, that an art which could hold its own so successfully among
the many counter-attractions in the rooms of the Academy would
be even more prosperous when given chances of fuller expansion ;
or they may simply have wished to unite somewhat scattered forces
into close and helpful association. To-day we are concerned with
the results of their activity and little enough with the causes by
which it was inspired.
The first step in the direction of organisation was taken in the first
or second year of the nineteenth century by William Frederick
Wells, an artist of moderate ability, who was an intimate friend of
Turner and a teacher of much repute. He devoted himself assidu-
ously to the advancement of his project, and tried to secure the
co-operation of all the better known water-colour painters by sending
to them a printed circular letter in which the advantages of forming
a Society which would hold exhibitions of their work were eloquently
set forth. His efforts were seconded by the miniaturist, Samuel
Shelley, who had, it is said, been engaged upon a similar scheme
before he became acquainted with Wells through the introduction
of a mutual friend ; and Shelley brought two other artists — Robert
Hills, the painter of animals and rustic subjects, and William Henry
Pyne, the landscape painter — to join in the discussion. Pyne was a
man who took an enthusiastic interest in new schemes and was
always ready to assist energetically any movement which promised
good results, so that he was a valuable recruit.
These four men set to work to prepare a programme, and agreed
upon a series of regulations which seemed to be suited to the
purposes of such a society as they had in view. Their next step
was to choose from among the painters available a number sufficient
to enable the Association to commence operations with some hope of
success. This, however, required deliberation, for obviously men
of standing were required, and not all of those who would have done
honour to the Society were available. Girtin had died while the
scheme was in process of incubation, and so had also both the
Maltons, Rooker, and Wheatley, while J. R. Cozens and Thomas
Sandby had passed away some few years before. Turner was not
eligible because he was a member of the Royal Academy, and Paul
Sandby because he was nearly eighty years old. But finally six
painters of repute were induced to join, and on November 30, 1804,
the ten members, Wells, Shelley, Hills, Pyne, Francis Nicholson,
Nicholas Pocock, John Varley and his younger brother Cornelius,
John Claude Nattes, and William Sawrey Gilpin, met at the
H xii
OF PAINTERS IN WATER-COLOURS
Stratford Coffee House in Oxford Street, and formally declared
themselves to be the Society of Painters in Water Colours.
At this meeting they settled the details of the constitution of the
Society, and passed rules to define the financial responsibilities and
privileges of the members. They also elected Gilpin as president,
Shelley as treasurer, and Hills as secretary, and appointed Pyne,
Nicholson, Pocock, and Wells, to serve on the committee. It was
decided that the president and the other office holders should be elected
annually, and that all the members in rotation should serve on the
committee, of which the secretary was to be an ex-officio member.
Immediately after this inaugural meeting the names of six more
artists were added to the roll, Joshua Cristall, William Havell, James
Holworthy, John Glover, Stephen Francis Rigaud, and George
Barret the younger, so that when the first exhibition was held the
Society had a membership of sixteen.
The place chosen for this first exhibition was a large room at 20 Brook
Street, and the opening day was April 22, 1805. All the members
were represented ; John Varley by forty-two works, Pyne and
Shelley by twenty-eight each, Glover and Hills by twenty-three
each, Wells by twenty-one, Gilpin by twenty, Pocock by seventeen,
Nicholson by fourteen, Cornelius Varley and Havell by twelve
each, Barret by eleven, Cristall by eight, Rigaud by six, and Nattes
and Holworthy by five each, so that the collection was as varied and
comprehensive as it was artistically important. The success of its
appeal to the public was instantaneous ; during the seven weeks
that the show remained open nearly twelve thousand people paid
for admission, and a considerable proportion of the two hundred and
seventy-five drawings found purchasers. The result was that when
the accounts came to be made up at the close of the exhibition the
Society found itself in an excellent position. The receipts exceeded
£,577> and there remained, after all expenses had been paid, a surplus
of more than £270, which was divided between the members,
according to the rule laid down, in shares proportioned to the
declared values of their contributions to the gallery.
Naturally such a satisfactory starting of the career of the Society
was most encouraging to the group of artists whose efforts had
brought the Association into existence. On the strength of it they
decided at their annual meeting, on November 30, 1805, to extend
their boundaries and to increase the scope of their operations. A
new class of contributors, called " Fellow Exhibitors," was created,
who were to be sixteen in number, and from whom members were
to be chosen in the future. It was also agreed that the number of
H xiii
THE HISTORY OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY
members should be fixed at twenty-four, to which it should be raised
by the election of two men annually. At this meeting the three
office holders were re-appointed, and Pocock, John Varley, and
Glover, were put on the committee. A month later, nine " Fellow
Exhibitors " — the name was changed afterwards to " Associate
Exhibitors " — were elected, John James Chalon, William Delamotte,
Robert Freebairn, Paul Sandby Munn, Richard Ramsay Reinagle,
John Smith, Francis Stevens, John Thurston, and a lady, Miss Anne
Frances Byrne, who painted fruit and flowers.
The second exhibition was held in the room in Brook Street. A
month before it opened Gilpin resigned the presidentship of the
Society, and was succeeded by Wells ; he retained his membership,
however, and continued to exhibit. Three hundred and one draw-
ings were included in it, and the total proceeds amounted to a little
over .£760, out of which £440 was available for division among the
members. Reinagle and John Smith were advanced to full member-
ship in December 1806, and in the following spring Thomas
Heaphy, and Augustus Pugin were elected Associates. About the
same time Reinagle was made treasurer in the place of Shelley,
who had resigned that post.
For the third exhibition the rooms in Pall Mall which had been
previously occupied by the Royal Academy were secured. It
included three hundred and twenty-four drawings, and produced a
profit of more than £47°- Four days after it closed a meeting was
called to investigate a charge which had been brought against
Nattes, one of the original members, of exhibiting as his own work
drawings by other persons. The charge was proved, and he was in
consequence expelled. At the annual meeting in November 1807,
Glover was elected President, and Chalon and Heaphy full members;
and in January 1808 John Augustus Atkinson and William Turner
were made Associates ; and in the same month occurred the death of
one of the first elected Associates, Robert Freebairn. The 1808
exhibition was held in some rooms at 16 Old Bond Street, and
produced a profit exceeding ^445- I* was tne last to which William
Delamotte contributed, though he continued to exhibit in other
galleries for nearly fifty years, and lived until 1863. In November
1808 Reinagle succeeded Glover in the Presidentship, in which
position he continued until 1812; and Atkinson and Turner were
promoted to full membership. Just before the end of this year
Shelley died, at the age of fifty-eight ; he had shown in the exhibi-
tions of the Society sixty-three drawings altogether.
At this stage of the history of the Society of Painters in Water-
H xiv
OF PAINTERS IN WATER-COLOURS
Colours it will be as well to make a digression for the sake of
explaining the position of a rival Association which has frequently
been confused with it. This rival Association was started by a group
of artists in June 1807 ; it bore at first the same title as the older
Society, but changed this first to " The New Society of Painters in
Miniature and Water-Colours," and finally, in 1808, to "The
Associated Artists in Water-Colours." It opened its first exhibition
on April 25, 1808, at the same rooms in Brook Street which had
seen the inauguration of the activity of its predecessor, and it moved
afterwards to 16 Old Bond Street, so that there is some excuse for
the failure of historians to distinguish between the two Associations.
Moreover, many men who afterwards became members of the old
Society were first on the roll of the Associated Artists. It lived,
however, only till 1812, when the contents of the gallery in which
its last exhibition was held were seized by the landlord and sold to
pay the rent.
Meanwhile, however, it had done by its competition an appreciable
amount of harm to the original Society, which had in 1809 taken a
lease of the well-known galleries in Spring Gardens. The first
exhibition in these new rooms was attended by nearly twenty-three
thousand visitors, and produced a surplus of £626 ; but in 1810 the
attendance was only just over twenty thousand, in 181 1 a little over
nineteen thousand, and in 1812 it did not reach ten thousand seven
hundred, with, of course, a corresponding diminution in the surplus
available for distribution. During these years several changes were
made in the list of contributors. In 1 809 Thomas Uwins, William
Payne, Edmund Dorrell, and Charles Wild were elected Associates ;
in 1 8 1 o Frederick Nash, Peter De Wint, Anthony Vandyke Copley
Fielding, William Westall, and William Scott ; and in 1812 David
Cox, Luke Clennell, and C. Barber. The promotions to full
membership were Stevens and Dorrell in 1809, Uwins and Nash
in 1 8 10, De Wint and Westall in i8n,and Wild and Pugin in
1812.
In this last year the affairs of the Society had, as the members
recognised, come to a crisis which called for immediate action. So
a meeting was called to discuss what was to be its future policy.
Two suggestions were made, one that the scope of the Association
should be extended in such a manner as to ensure its receiving the
support of the whole body of water-colour painters ; the other, that
the members and Associates should be allowed to contribute to its
exhibitions oil pictures as well as drawings. The second of these
suggestions was adopted, and was confirmed at a subsequent meeting ;
H xv
THE HISTORY OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY
but at a third meeting a few days later it was rescinded, and a
resolution to wind up the Society was passed instead. In the
interval Chalon, Dorrell, and Stevens, and Reinagle, the President,
had resigned. On November 30, the anniversary of the founding
eight years before, the members met for the last time, and resolved
" that the Society, having found it impracticable to form another
Exhibition of Water-Colour Paintings only, do consider itself
dissolved this night."
But even before this anniversary meeting had taken place a section
of the members had agreed to carry on the work of the Society, with
some definite modifications of the policy which had been hitherto
followed. The discussion took place at the house of John Varley ;
and there were present Barret, Cristall, Copley Fielding, Havell,
James Holmes, Holworthy, John and Cornelius Varley, John Linnell,
Smith, and Uwins, with Nicholson in the chair. They decided to
form " a Society for the purpose of establishing an exhibition con-
sisting of pictures in oil and water-colours ; " it was to be limited to
twenty members, but a certain number of other artists were to be
invited to contribute to the exhibitions. After the formal dissolu-
tion of the original Society another meeting of the promoters of this
new association was called ; a list of members was drawn up, including
Barret, Cristall, Cox, Copley Fielding, Glover, Miss .Harriet Gould-
smith, Havell, Holmes, Holworthy, Linnell, Nicholson, Smith,
Turner, Uwins, John and Cornelius Varley ; Nicholson was elected
President, Smith Secretary, and Barret Treasurer ; and a little later
Frederick Mackenzie and Henry Richter were added to the members'
list. Several other artists from the old Society consented to con-
tribute— among them Nash, Atkinson, Clennell, C. Barber, Scott,
De Wint, Pugin, Wild, Dorrell, Stevens and Miss Byrne.
The new Society took care to conceal as far as possible that there
had been any change in the position of affairs. It called itself the
Society of Painters in Oil and Water-Colours, it took over the lease
of the gallery in Spring Gardens, and it numbered its first exhibition
in 1813 as the ninth ; and it inserted in the catalogue of this show
a note to the effect that " The Society of Painters in Water-Colours,
stimulated by Public Encouragement, and gaining Confidence from
Success, have ventured this year on a considerable extension of their
Plan. Pictures in Oil and in Water- Colours, Portraits, Models, and
Miniatures are admitted into the present exhibition ; and should
these increased efforts receive from the Public that liberal support
which has always accompanied the former exertions of this Society,
every Year may produce fresh sources of Amusement, and each
H xvi
OF PAINTERS IN WATER-COLOURS
succeeding exhibition become more worthy of Approbation and
Patronage." In all other respects this catalogue was got up in
exactly the same manner as those of the previous exhibitions.
For seven years, from 1813 to 1820, the Society continued on these
lines, and on the whole with a fair measure of success. In 1813,
1814, and 1815 there was a small surplus, but in 1816 the members
had to face a deficit of nearly £74. This falling off in the receipts
was disconcerting, but it had the good effect of inducing a recon-
sideration of the position of the Society, and it led in the following
year, when there was again a surplus, to the creation of a reserve
fund. It was agreed, moreover, that for the future the profits should
belong to the members in equal shares, instead of being divided
between them in proportions according to the estimated value of
their contributions to the exhibitions. In 1818 there was again a
surplus of more than £100, followed by a small deficit in 1819 and
1820 ; but, thanks to the existence of the reserve, these fluctuations
had ceased to be a source of anxiety. Indeed, so satisfied was the
Society with its position that it decided to institute three premiums
of £30 each, which were to be awarded to members as an induce-
ment to attempt ambitious works which would increase the attract-
iveness of the exhibitions. Barret, Cristall, and Cornelius Varley
were the first recipients of these awards.
The policy of holding shows of mixed oil paintings and water-colour
drawings had now had a full trial, and had been proved by results to
be more or less mistaken. It had certainly brought to the Society
no accession of prosperity ; it had, indeed, tended rather to diminish
its popularity and to weaken its position. So on June 5, 1820, a
meeting was called to decide what was to be the next move, and
after a long and serious debate a resolution was passed " That the
Society shall henceforth be a Society of Painters in Water-Colours
only, and that no Oil Paintings shall be exhibited with their works."
This was ratified at a second meeting about a week later, and the
original title of the Association was once more adopted. It was, also
decided that the exhibitions should no longer be held at the gallery
in Spring Gardens, which for various reasons had become an unde-
sirable head-quarters.
Accordingly, in April 1821, the "seventeenth annual exhibition" of
the twice reconstructed Society was opened at the Egyptian Hall in
Piccadilly, where a room had been hired temporarily. This change
of quarters was made, to the public, the excuse for the alteration in
the policy of the members, and there appeared in the catalogue a
note stating that " The Lease of the Room at Spring Gardens, lately
c H xvii
THE HISTORY OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY
occupied by the Society of Painters in Water Colours, having
expired, and their new Exhibition Room being less spacious than
the former, they have taken the opportunity to revert to the original
plan on which the Society was established in 1804, by confining
their exhibitions to Works executed by Members of the Society, and
in Water-Colours only. This alteration, they have reason to hope,
will be generally approved ; and they trust their removal will not
operate to diminish the patronage they have hitherto enjoyed, and
which has enabled them to promote the improvement of their art,
by distributing the profits of the Exhibition, as Premiums, for the
encouragement of meritorious and elaborate Works." But the show
excited only languid interest ; it was visited by less than nine thousand
people, and it produced a margin of only £44 after expenses were
paid. In the following year things were even worse, for the attend-
ance dropped to but little over seven thousand, and there was a
deficit instead of a profit.
Evidently the Egyptian Hall was not likely to prove a suitable exhi-
bition place, and clearly the Society had not yet found out how to
secure from the public sufficient attention. So, to try and improve
matters, the members decided to increase their numbers, and set
seriously to work to find a larger gallery in which to establish them-
selves permanently. At last, in December 1822, they took on lease
a new room which had just been built in Pall Mall East, and there
the Society has remained to the present day. In the interval between
the signing of the lease and the opening of the 1823 exhibition
several additions were made to the list of members and Associates, so
that the total number of contributors amounted to thirty-two. The
members were George Barret, Miss Barret, Miss Byrne, David Cox,
Cristall, Copley Fielding, Mrs. T. H. Fielding, J. D. Harding, Robert
Hills, Frederick Mackenzie, Samuel Prout, Pugin, G. F. Robson, John
Smith, Stephanoff, F. Stevens, Miss Scott, W. Turner, John Varley,
and C. Wild ; and the Associates, H. C. Allport, W. T. Bennett,
R. H. Essex, F. O. Finch, H. Gastineau, S. Jackson, C. Moore,
W. Nesfield, H. Richter, W. Scott, W. Walker, and J. Whichelo.
Of these three, Smith, Stevens, and Allport, ceased to exhibit after
1823.
This new departure on the part of the Society was immediately
justified by its results. Over eleven thousand people visited the
1823 exhibition, which produced a satisfactory surplus; and there
was a definite increase in sales. In 1823 it was decided to allow the
number of the Associates to be increased to sixteen ; but, though this
rule was passed, it was, for various reasons, not acted upon, and there
H xviii
OF PAINTERS IN WATER-COLOURS
was for a while a falling off rather than an increase in the list of
members of this class. In 1823 it stood at twelve, but in 1824,
1825, and 1826, it was respectively eleven, ten, and nine. It rose
to twelve again in 1827, to fourteen in the following year, and to
fifteen in 1829. There were eighteen full members and four lady
members in 1823, and in 1829 the former numbered twenty-three,
and the latter six. This progressive advance in the strength of the
Association was not the only proof of its revival. The attendances at
the exhibitions went on growing — there were well over fourteen
thousand visitors in 1826 — and the balance on the right side became
an annual certainty, with the consequence that not only were the
premiums increased in number, but the reserve fund was rapidly
augmented, until in 1828 it stood at £700.
During the whole of this period Cristall remained President. He
had held the post twice before — in 1816 and 1819 ; he was re-
elected in 1821, and continued in office until his resignation in July
1831, when Copley Fielding was chosen to succeed him. A special
note must be made of the fact that in 1825 De Wint returned as a
member of the Society. He had resigned in 1812, and had been
asked to come back when the change of constitution was made in
1821, but he delayed his acceptance of this invitation for four years.
The year before De Wint returned William Henry Hunt was elected
an Associate, and in 1826 he was promoted to full membership, so
that at this date there were together on the roll of the Society four
of the greatest masters whose names are recorded in the history of
English water-colour — David Cox, De Wint, W. Hunt, and Copley
Fielding. It would be impossible to question the authority of an
organisation which, among many other artists of eminence, could
count as supporters four men of such supreme ability.
The Presidency of Copley Fielding continued till his death on
March 13, 1855. For the whole of this twenty-four years the
Society enjoyed unbroken prosperity, and did not cease to attract to
its ranks artists of distinguished capacity. It could not complain
that it was insufficiently appreciated by the public, for the number
of visitors to its exhibitions averaged, during the period between
1831 and 1843, over nineteen thousand, and its position as the lead-
ing institution for the encouragement of water-colour painting was
fully recognised both in England and abroad. Its funds were steadily
growing, and its finances had arrived at such a satisfactory condition
that it was able to expend some £240 a Year m premiums, as well as
to vote sums of money for the assistance of the families of deceased
members and as contributions to various charities. This fortunate
H xix
THE HISTORY OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY
state of affairs was the result of wise management and of careful
husbanding of the profits which accrued from the annual exhibitions.
The Society, indeed, had learned thoroughly the lesson which had
been taught by its experience in past years, and realised the import-
ance of providing against possible losses.
In 1855, soon after Copley Fielding died, a group of English water-
colours was exhibited in the Universal Exhibition at Paris, and there
attracted the enthusiastic admiration of French critics and connois-
seurs. Of the two first-class gold medals awarded to English artists
one was allotted to George Cattermole, a member of the Society
whose drawings were the most generally approved of the whole
group. Frederick Tayler, another member, served on the jury of
the Exhibition in the place of Fielding. At the annual meeting in
November 1855, John Frederick Lewis was elected President, but
he held office only until February 1858, when he resigned his
membership of the Society because he wished to give his time to oil
painting. Certain important events occurred during his Presidency ;
the chief of them was the decision, arrived at in 1857, to abandon
the custom of giving premiums. Some £5°°° altogether had been
expended in premiums, and the members now felt that they would
be acting more wisely if for the future they exercised a stricter
economy, and used all possible means to increase their reserve. The
question of enlarging their gallery was then under discussion, so it
was necessary to provide a sum sufficient to meet what were likely
to be serious expenses.
This matter remained in abeyance, however, for some little while.
It was actually settled while Frederick Tayler, who had succeeded
Lewis in 1858, was President, and after an attempt had been made
to secure from the Government part of the site of Burlington House
for the erection of a new gallery. This application was refused, and
as an alternative the Society decided to buy the ground lease of its
premises in Pall Mall East, with some of the adjoining properties,
and to reconstruct its rooms on a larger scale. By February 1862,
this rebuilding was completed at a cost of several thousand pounds,
which was defrayed partly out of the reserve fund, and partly by the
issue of debentures ; and for the first time in its history, the Society
found itself in an absolutely independent position.
Meanwhile a revision of its rules and constitutions had been in
progress, under the supervision of its legal adviser, Mr. Field. This
revision was finally passed at a meeting in February 1861 ; among
other changes it formally defined the status of the lady members and
included them among the Associates, and it imposed upon each new
H xx
OF PAINTERS IN WATER-COLOURS
member the obligation to present to the Society an example of his
work. This last rule was unfortunately not made retrospective, but
the members already on the roll were invited to give drawings, and
so to make reasonably representative what was intended to be a
diploma gallery. In 1862, with the intention of utilising as far as
possible the advantages of the new gallery, a second annual show
was commenced, a Winter Exhibition of Sketches and Studies, in
which it was proposed to include slighter and more spontaneous
works than were admissible to the Spring Exhibition. This scheme
was advocated by John Gilbert, who had joined the Society as an
Associate in 1852, and had become a full member two years later ;
it was preferred to an alternative scheme, suggested by J. D.
Harding, that classes for the teaching of water-colour painting should
be established in the gallery. During Tayler's tenure of the office
of President a small increase in the number of members and
Associates took place. There had been twenty-six of the former
and twenty-two of the latter in 1855, but *n I^7°» when Tayler
resigned, they had risen to thirty and twenty-eight respectively.
John Gilbert was chosen as President in succession to Frederick
Tayler, and in 1872 received the honour of knighthood; he held
office for twenty-six years, until his death in 1897. In 1872 he
was also elected an Associate of the Royal Academy, an event
which marked decisively the abandonment of the old rule, to which
the Academy had long adhered, under which members of other art
societies were incapable of becoming Associates or Academicians.
This rule had been previously broken in 1870, when W. C. T.
Dobson, A.R.A., was elected an Associate of the Water-Colour
Society, and again in 1871, when Frederick Walker, who had been
a member of the Society since 1866, was made an A.R.A. Since
that time many distinguished artists have belonged to both institu-
tions. In 1873 a new order of honorary members was created ;
it was intended to include people, whether artists or not, whose
services to art seemed to deserve recognition. The first of these
honorary members were the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, Sir
Richard Wallace, Sir Prescott Hewett, Jean Baptiste Madou,
President of the Royal Belgian Society of Painters in Water-
Colour, and John Ruskin.
Nearly ten years after Sir John Gilbert became President, the
Society was honoured by permission to call itself "The Royal
Society of Painters in Water-Colours," and the members were given
diplomas signed by the Sovereign. This change came into opera-
tion on July 20, 1 88 1. In the previous year the number of
H xxi
THE HISTORY OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY
members had been again increased, and the limit had been fixed at
forty ; an addition was also made to the list of Associates, who in
1883 numbered as many as forty-five. In April 1881 the Society
was approached by the Institute of Painters in Water-Colours with
suggestions for the amalgamation of the two Associations — the
Institute had been founded in 1831 as "The New Society of
Painters in Water-Colours," and had changed its name in 1863.
These suggestions, made by the Institute in a most reasonable spirit,
and discussed thoughtfully and carefully by the Society, were
ultimately disposed of in April 1882, when the President wrote
officially to say that " the members of this Society, while recognising
and acknowledging the friendly feeling shown in the proposal of the
Institute, which they very sincerely reciprocate, regret that after
mature consideration they have been led to the conclusion that the
fusion or amalgamation of the two Societies presents difficulties of
various kinds which they find to be insurmountable, and that con-
sequently they are unable further to entertain the proposition which
the Institute has done them the honour to make." This refusal
was apparently based on the conviction that the amalgamation would
be of no benefit to the Society itself, and would have only the
effect of involving it in greatly increased responsibilities, without in
any corresponding degree improving its financial prospects. Wisely
the members of the Society resolved to adhere to their traditional
policy, and not to launch out into a speculation the results of which
were indefinite and practically impossible to forecast.
For some little while before his death Sir John Gilbert's infirmities
prevented his actively fulfilling the duties of President, so Professor
Hubert von Herkomer acted as his deputy. When Sir John died the
vacancy was filled by the election of Mr. Ernest Albert Waterlow,
who had been made an Associate in 1880 and a full member in
1894; he was knighted soon afterwards. There was a decided
appropriateness in his selection as the head of the Society, for as a
distinguished landscape painter he represented a class of art practice
which had always been admirably illustrated in the exhibitions. At
the time he was an Associate of the Royal Academy, and he has
since been advanced to the rank of Academician, so that the Society
is for the second time presided over by a member of the Academy.
Under his direction the prosperity of the institution shows no sign
of diminution ; the annual exhibitions still attract a host of visitors,
and the record of sales year by year proves how thoroughly accept-
able to art lovers of all types are the efforts of the contributors.
Indeed, the position of the Society after a century of existence shows
H xxii
OF PAINTERS IN WATER-COLOURS
with what consistent judgment its best traditions have been main-
tained, and how skilfully it has been steered through the risks and
vicissitudes to which it has been exposed. That it has had its full
share of adventures cannot be denied, but it has always been ready
to learn by experience and to turn to good account whatever oppor-
tunities of improving its position have presented themselves. One
of the chief sources of its artistic success, and of its financial pros-
perity as well, has been its readiness to add to its roll those artists
who can fairly be called leaders in thought and practice. Unlike
many other art institutions it has never become stereotyped, and has
never hesitated to associate in its gallery the most varied kinds of
accomplishment. An astonishing array of great water-colourists has
been gathered under its banner, and its record provides in conse-
quence an almost complete history of the progress of water-colour
painting in this country. To-day it can with justice claim to be the
most comprehensive and the most broad-minded of all the Societies
with its particular purpose, for there is scarcely any phase of aesthetic
conviction that cannot be adequately studied in its exhibitions.
H XX11I
THE MEMBERS OF THE
SOCIETY.
|>T is certainly no exaggeration to say that the great
majority of the men who have been chiefly instru-
mental in making the history of British water-colour
painting have at one time or another been counted
among the members of the Society. A capacity
to recognise and profit by its opportunities has
always been a characteristic of the Association, and it
rarely missed the chance of securing the co-operation
of those artists who were most likely to increase its
influence and repute. A note has been already made of certain ex-
ceptions from the distinguished series of names inscribed upon the roil
of members, exceptions which for a variety of reasons were inevitable.
But these were not numerous enough to affect to any serious extent the
development of the Society, or to reduce perceptibly the significance
of the part it played in the art politics of the nineteenth century.
Unquestionably it has done its best with the ample material at its
disposal, and has used most judiciously all the available means of
promoting its own interests and those of the art which it sought to
establish on a secure foundation.
The most dangerous of the adverse influences against which the
Society had to struggle during its earlier years was that of the Royal
Academy ; this institution in those days looked with jealousy upon
all artistic bodies which might be presumed to be in competition
with it, and demanded undivided allegiance from the men whom it
had chosen. Not only had it formulated a carefully enforced rule
that members of other Associations were not eligible for election to
the Associateship, but it had the other by which artists who worked
in water-colours only were excluded from Academic honours. As
a consequence a certain number of men whose services would have
been of much value in advancing the activity of the Society, were
prevented from giving their assistance, and had to show their
sympathy with the art in other ways.
Quite the most important of these exceptions was Turner, the
greatest water-colourist whom the world has ever known, and
the one in whose practice all the phases and possibilities of this
method of working were fully exemplified. He had been elected
M xxv
THE MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY
an Associate of the Academy in 1799, and an Academician in 1802,
so he was absolutely barred from taking any part in the scheme
which resulted in the formation of the Water-Colour Society in
1804. Other men were on the same ground not available ; and even
of those who actually joined the Society a certain number withdrew
at one time or another because they had, or thought they had, a
chance of admission to the older institution. All this naturally
helped to weaken in some measure the strength of the appeal which
the water-colourists were making for attention ; but fortunately there
was too much vitality in the movement, and there were too many
artists of ability ready to fill the gaps left by those who seceded, for
the progress of the association to be perceptibly checked. It had
from the beginning the sympathy of the public, and received on the
whole an adequate amount of support ; while the internal dissensions,
which might well have destroyed it if they had been dealt with in
the wrong spirit, were actually helpful because they led to the
making of intelligent experiments and to the multiplying of experi-
ences which were of much value in settling details in the policy and
management of the Society.
For its actual founders no extraordinary prominence among British
artists can fairly be claimed. William Frederick Wells was a skilful
topographer, who is chiefly known to fame as an intimate friend of
Turner, and the one at whose instigation the " Liber Studiorum "
was undertaken ; Samuel Shelley was a figure painter who had
made a reputation by his miniatures, and was in some measure a rival
of Cosway. The other two, Robert Hills and W. H. Pyne, who
were brought in by Shelley to help in planning out the scheme, were
of some standing in their profession, Hills as a painter of animals,
and as an exquisite draughtsman in pencil, and Pyne as a painter of
landscapes and of rustic groups with landscape backgrounds. But
perhaps Pyne's claim to be remembered rests more upon his writings
on art subjects, and his contributions to the artistic history of his
times, than upon his actual pictorial achievements.
The six men, Nicholas Pocock, Francis Nicholson, John and Cornelius
Varley, John Claude Nattes, and William Sawry Gilpin, who joined
the other four before the first meeting was held to draw up formally
the constitution of the Society, were all of acknowledged position.
Pocock had been originally a sailor, but had adopted the artistic pro-
fession when he was about thirty, and was well known as a painter
of landscapes, portraits, and especially marine subjects ; Nicholson
was a skilful painter of landscapes and portraits, and a successful
teacher ; Nattes, a topographic draughtsman who had been con-
M xxvi
THE MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY
cerned in the production of many books of views in the British Isles
and abroad ; and Gilpin, the son of a Royal Academician, was a
drawing master with a very large practice. Of the two Varleys,
John was the elder by three years ; he was only twenty-six when
the Society was constituted, but he had already gained a position
of some distinction by the merit of his work in landscape, and had
justified great anticipations as to his success in the near future — antici-
pations which before long were amply fulfilled. Art historians count
him rightly enough among the chief of the earlier masters of water-
colour, and estimate highly the value of his services. He was un-
doubtedly an important addition to the small group of enthusiasts
who were so anxious to see the claims of their art presented to the
public with due persuasiveness.
Of not less distinction were the recruits gained by the Society during
the short interval which separated the inaugural meeting of the
members on November 30, 1804, from the first exhibition early
in 1805. The list of adherents was raised to sixteen by the addition
of George Barret the younger, the son of the foundation member
of the Royal Academy, and an artist with an exquisite sense of
style and a very sound technical method ; Joshua Cristall, a poetic
painter who treated figure subjects and landscapes with dainty facility
and with charming taste ; James Holworthy, an able landscape
painter ; Stephen Francis Rigaud, who had gained the Academy
gold medal for historical painting three years before ; William
Havell, a young man of twenty-three, who showed promise, after-
wards well fulfilled, of becoming eminent in his profession ; and
John Glover, a self-taught artist, who had attained a good position
as a teacher, and had become widely popular by his works in oil
and water-colour. He filled the post of President of the Society
for the year 1815, but he resigned his membership in 1818 because
he had an ambition, which was, however, not realised, to become
an Associate of the Royal Academy.
The nine artists who were elected at the end of 1805 as "Associate
Exhibitors," the newly-constituted class from which members were
to be chosen for the future, were Miss Anne Frances Byrne, the
eldest daughter of the engraver, William Byrne, and a clever painter
of fruit and flowers ; John James Chalon, a landscape painter of
unquestionable ability ; William Delamotte, the drawing master at
the Great Marlow Military Academy, who had been a pupil of
Benjamin West but had subsequently made a reputation by his
landscape drawings in Girtin's manner ; Paul Sandby Munn, a man of
moderate ability ; Robert Freebairn, a pupil of Richard Wilson ;
M xxvii
THE MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY
Francis Stevens, a capable and accomplished landscape painter ;
John Thurston, who had begun as a copper-plate engraver, but had
acquired later a prominent position as an illustrative figure draughts-
man and wood engraver ; Richard Ramsay Reinagle, the son of a
Royal Academician, and an artist of some note among the younger
landscape painters of the time ; and John Smith, the veteran water-
colourist who had played an important part in the earlier develop-
ment of the art, and had done much by his intelligent technical
experiments to improve its processes. Reinagle and Chalon after-
wards became Associates of the Academy, in 1814 and 1827
respectively.
During the succeeding period of six years which ended with the
reconstitution of the Society in December 1812, sixteen Associate
Exhibitors were elected. Among them were several men of the
greatest distinction, to whom by general consent places of special
prominence have been assigned among British masters. Thomas
Heaphy and Augustus Pugin, chosen in March 1807, were both
valuable acquisitions, the former as a figure painter of subjects from
low life, and the latter as a very skilful architectural draughtsman ;
he was for some time an assistant to John Nash, the architect who
designed Regent Street. In the following year were added two
men of some note, John Augustus Atkinson, a painter of rustic and
military subjects, and William Turner, better known as " Turner of
Oxford," a young artist who had been apprenticed to John Varley
and had acquired something of his master's largeness of manner and
breadth of style ; and in 1809 came Thomas Uwins, William
Payne, Edmund Dorrell, and Charles Wild, the first of whom was
then laying the foundation of the considerable reputation as a
romantic figure painter which more than twenty years later gained
him admission to the Academy. Payne and Dorrell were well
known by their landscapes, and Wild by his architectural drawings,
which had a more than ordinary degree of pictorial quality.
The year 1810 is notable in the history of the Society because it
saw the addition of the names of De Wint and Copley Fielding to
the list of Associate Exhibitors. In the same year Frederick Nash,
a very able architectural draughtsman ; William Westall, a landscape
painter who, though not yet thirty, had had many adventures in
various parts of the world ; and William Scott, a student of English
scenery, about whom little is now known, were also elected ; but
they cannot be reckoned to have done more than strengthen the
rank and file of the Association, and one of them, Westall, retired
within two years to become an Associate of the Academy. Copley
M xxviii
THE MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY
Fielding and De Wint, however, were not only life-long supporters
of the Society, but also instrumental in no small degree in establishing
its claim to be regarded as the chief centre of the British water-
colour school. Both were craftsmen of superlative skill, and both
studied and recorded nature with exquisite sensitiveness. Fielding
was, perhaps, the greater of the two as a painter of atmospheric
effects, but he scarcely equalled De Wint in breadth and expressive-
ness of brushwork and in masculine individuality of manner. They
both had practically the same training, for they were much influenced
by John Varley, who gave them many useful hints, though they
were not actually his pupils, and they were both admitted to the
class of young painters who met at the house of Dr. Monro.
Fielding, however, unlike De Wint, who was the son of a physician,
had the advantage of being brought up among artistic surroundings ;
his father was a successful painter, who allowed his four sons to
follow the same profession.
Another famous name appears for the first time in 1812, when David
Cox was elected with Luke Clennell and Charles Barber. Clennell,
who had been trained by Bewick as a wood engraver, was a water-
colourist of more than ordinary power, but his career ended by the
failure of his mind when he was only thirty-six, and Barber's connec-
tion with the Society ceased shortly after his election ; so that neither
of them call for more than passing mention. But Cox continued to
contribute largely to its exhibitions until his death forty-seven years
later ; during this long period his reputation steadily advanced, and
his place at the very head of a school which had won its way to
unquestioned eminence was at last universally acknowledged. He
fully deserved the recognition which came to him in the later years
of his laborious life ; few men have striven so consistently and with
such firmness of purpose to realise a worthy ambition, and few have
combined so happily acuteness of observation and sympathetic under-
standing of nature with delightful mastery over executive details.
It can certainly be accounted a fortunate circumstance that of these
three great artists Fielding and Cox, with others like Glover,
Barret, Cristall, Nicholson, and the Varleys, should have remained
faithful to the Society during the crisis which overtook it at the end
of 1812. Nearly half the total number of members and associate
exhibitors seceded then, some of them permanently, others like De
Wint to return at a later date. But other artists who had not pre-
viously belonged to the association showed themselves not unwilling
to attach themselves to the distinguished group by which its tradi-
tions were being upheld, and to help in carrying on a movement
M xxix
THE MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY
which had been well begun. The first of these newcomers were
John Linnell, subsequently a famous painter of romantic landscape,
who was then barely twenty-one ; James Holmes, who made a
specialty of humorous rustics and miniature portraits ; and Miss
Harriet Gouldsmith, who treated landscape with some success ; and
before the 1813 exhibition opened, the names of Henry Richter, a
painter of domestic subjects, and Frederick Mackenzie, an archi-
tectural draughtsman who chose chiefly church interiors as motives
for his drawings, were enrolled. A few months later came the
election of George Fennel Robson, a young artist of five and twenty,
who was destined to achieve distinction by his landscape drawings,
and especially by his romantic studies of mountain scenery ; and in
this year also there appears for the first time in the records of the
Society the name of Henry C. Allport, a sufficiently capable painter,
about whose career little, however, is known.
No other elections took place until 1819, when Samuel Prout and
James Stephanoff were made members. Prout, who was then a man
of thirty-six, had not yet turned to the particular type of work by
which he afterwards became famous. He was, however, well
known as a very skilful topographical draughtsman, and he had pro-
duced a large number of etched views, some from his own drawings
and some from those of other artists. He had commenced con-
tributing to the exhibitions of the Society in 1815, and began then
a connection with it which continued uninterruptedly till his death
nearly forty years later. StephanofF, who was about five years
younger than Prout, remained a member till 1861, when he resigned.
He was not, perhaps, a painter of the highest rank, but he treated
figure subjects, mostly taken from romantic fiction, plays, and poems,
with undeniable vigour and much facility. He painted a few in-
cidents, as well, from the life of his own times.
After the second reconstruction of the Society in 1820 there was
an immediate increase in the number of artists who were admitted
to members-hip. There were gaps in the ranks to fill because some
men had signified by resignation their disapproval of the further
change of policy decided upon by the majority ; and there were
additions necessary to bring the association up to a sufficient working
strength to enable it to continue its activity without the assistance of
outside contributors. The first of the new comers were William James
Bennett, James Duffield Harding, and William Walker, who joined
as Associates in June 1820. Bennett, a landscape painter of passable
capacity, must not be confounded with the other William Bennett,
who was a pupil of David Cox, and from 1 848 onwards a member
M XXX
THE MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY
of the Institute of Painters in Water-Colours. Walker was best
known by his paintings of the scenery and architecture of Greece,
in which country he travelled for some while ; and Harding by his
facile but conventional landscapes which he treated in accordance
with a particular recipe that was more effective than intelligent.
He was a popular and successful teacher, and published several
books on the practice of art. In the following year were added a
new member, Mrs. T. H. Fielding, a flower painter, who was the
wife of Copley Fielding's elder brother ; and a new Associate,
Henry Gastineau, who was known both as a teacher and as a land-
scape draughtsman.
Still more numerous were the accessions during 1822 and 1823.
In addition to certain former members who were reinstated two new
lady members, Miss M. Barret and Miss Scott, were elected, and
seven Associates, Charles Moore, Francis Oliver Finch, George
Cattermole, William Andrews Nesfield, Richard Hamilton Essex,
Samuel Jackson, and John Whichelo. Miss Barret, a daughter of
the elder George Barret, the Royal Academician, painted still life
subjects and made some reputation by her miniatures also ; and Miss
Scott devoted herself to flowers and fruit. The most important of
the men was George Cattermole, then in his twenty-second year ;
he was at this stage of his career known only as an architectural
draughtsman, and was busy with drawings intended to illustrate
John Britton's great publication, " The Cathedral Antiquities of
Great Britain." He was represented by one of these drawings in
the 1822 exhibition of the Society, but he sent nothing more till
1829, when he was re-elected an Associate. By this latter date
he had found his way into the romantic and historical class of
subjects by which he became so widely known ; and until his final
resignation of his membership in 1852 he continued to be a prolific
exhibitor of figure compositions of this kind. He was accounted
by his contemporaries as one of the ablest of British water-colourists,
and this opinion has been fully endorsed by later judgment.
Finch, a delicate and poetic landscape painter, who worked in the
earlier water-colour manner, perhaps comes next to Cattermole in
importance. He was a pupil of John Varley, but he followed
rather the style of George Barret. Three others of the new
Associates, Nesfield, Samuel Jackson, and Whichelo, contributed
landscapes. Nesfield, who had been a lieutenant in the army before
he adopted art as his profession, had a preference for mountainous
scenery, and made waterfalls his specialty ; Jackson, a pupil of
F. Danby, painted with much ability picturesque bits in Wales
M xxxi
THE MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY
and the West of England ; and Whichelo alternated between coast
scenes and pure landscapes. He is supposed to have been a pupil
of either Varley or Cristall, but there is comparatively little known
about his early life. Moore and Essex were architectural draughts-
men of some standing ; the former, like Cattermole, executed some
of the illustrations for Britton's " Cathedral Antiquities," the latter
did a certain amount of illustrative work, but made his chief
successes with drawings of buildings like Magdalen College, Oxford,
and Ely Cathedral.
The years 1824 and 1825 are both memorable, for the first saw the
election of William Henry Hunt, and the second that of John Sell
Cotman. With Hunt was admitted a second Associate, John Masey
Wright, a man of forty-six, who had gained a considerable reputa-
tion by his compositions illustrating scenes from Shakespeare's plays,
and from various romances. He was practically a self-taught artist ;
but in his youth he had known Stothard, and had been much
influenced by him. Hunt was some twelve years younger, and was
almost unknown to the general public. Up to the time when he
joined the Society he had painted chiefly landscapes or architectural
subjects ; but he began then to exhibit those studies of rustic figures
and still life to which he adhered for the rest of his long career.
He was an admirably acute observer and a masterly executant, and
by his consummate ability he gave a meaning and importance to
his work far beyond what can ordinarily be claimed for such essays
in what is necessarily more or less unimaginative realism. In some
ways it is surprising that an artist so highly gifted should have been
content to confine his practice within such narrow limits, but he
was severely hampered throughout his life by ill-health, and it was
scarcely possible for him to attempt anything which might have
taxed his physical energies.
Cotman was a painter of much wider range ; he produced land-
scapes, architectural subjects, and sea pieces, figure compositions,
and portraits ; he worked equally well in oil and water-colour, and
he was a successful etcher. His drawings and paintings can be
unreservedly praised for their largeness and distinction of style, and
for their splendid technical qualities ; he can be counted without
hesitation among our greater masters. His understanding of the
principles of pictorial arrangement was extremely judicious, few
artists have known better how to adjust the composition of masses
and details, or how to manage relations of light and shade. There
is in all his work a dignified simplicity which resulted partly from
the correctness of his vision, and partly from the straightforwardness
M xxxii
THE MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY
of his method — a sincere directness which is especially attractive.
When he joined the Society he was a man of forty-two, and an
artist of such standing that he was not required to submit works
for approval previous to his election. Yet he never rose above the
rank of Associate, though he continued to contribute to the exhibi-
tions until 1839. During the greater part of his life he was much
occupied in teaching, and in 1834 he was appointed drawing-master
at King's College, when he left Norwich, where he was born and
had spent the greater part of his life, and settled in London. There
he died on July 24, 1842.
The most distinguished of the four Associates who were elected in
1827 was John Frederick Lewis; the others, men of comparative
unimportance, were Samuel Austin, a painter of coast, harbour, and
river scenes, and of rustic figures ; George Pyne, an indifferent
artist, who was the son of W. H. Pyne, the foundation member of
the Society ; and John Byrne, a brother of the lady member of the
same name, and a graceful if scarcely a great landscape painter.
Lewis was an artist of much higher capacities, and though he was
only twenty-one at the time of his election, he had already attracted
attention by the pictures which he had exhibited in other galleries.
These pictures were mostly of animals or sporting subjects, but he
soon changed his direction, and occupied himself for some years
with figure drawings representing in succession life in Scotland,
Italy, Spain, Greece, and Asia Minor : and finally, after a prolonged
residence in Egypt, he turned to those Eastern subjects which
brought him an immense reputation in his later life. In 1859,
a year after he had ceased to be a member of the Society, he was
made an Associate of the Royal Academy ; and he was advanced to
the rank of Academician in 1865.
No one who can be counted as quite on the same level with Lewis
came into the Society during the next few years. The Associates
elected in 1828 were William Evans, known as " Evans of Eton,"
a vigorous and accomplished landscape painter who had been a pupil
of De Wint ; and Penry Williams, a Welshman who lived for
nearly sixty years in Rome, and painted cleverly, if conventionally,
the scenery and country life of Italy. Next year were added Thales
Fielding, a younger brother of Copley Fielding, and a painter or.
pastoral subjects and rustic figures ; Alexander Chisholm, who
occupied himself with figure compositions from history and modern
life ; and two lady members, Miss Eliza Sharpe, and Miss Louisa
Sharpe, who were both subject painters, and alternated between
domestic scenes and motives from romantic fiction. In 1831, the
D M xxxiii
THE MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY
new Associates were John William Wright, who made a fair reputa-
tion by his compositions from Shakespeare and the poets ; and
Frederick Tayler, a young artist who had studied in Paris under
Horace Vernet and Paul Delaroche ; and in 1833 there was only
one, Frank Stone, who, after exhibiting sentimental subjects with
the Society for fourteen years, retired and was elected an Associate
of the Royal Academy.
Of all these artists none played a more prominent part in the affairs
of the Society than Frederick Tayler. He not only filled the post
of President for twelve years, but he also contributed largely to the
exhibitions, and earned considerable repute by the excellence of his
work. The subjects of his drawings were mostly of a romantic
type, and were chosen sometimes from contemporary life and some-
times from that of bygone centuries. He had a particular preference
for hunting and hawking scenes, and for pastorals which gave him
opportunities of introducing both figures and animals into the same
composition ; and he executed all his drawings with a directness and
certainty of touch that can be unreservedly admired. His retirement
from the Presidentship was the outcome of his belief that his
advancing years unfitted him for his duties, but he continued to
exhibit as an ordinary member until his death, at the age of eighty-
seven, in 1889.
Charles Bentley, a sea painter who digressed on occasions into
landscapes and coast scenes with figures ; George Chambers, another
sea painter whose accurate knowledge of his subject and whose skill
as a draughtsman of shipping and boats had been obtained by some
years' actual experience as a sailor ; and Joseph Nash, an architectural
draughtsman and figure painter, were made Associates in 1834 ; and
a year later Valentine Bartholomew, who made a special study ot
flowers, though on rare occasions he exhibited landscapes as well,
and James Holland, who had begun as a flower painter, but had by the
date of his election turned to a more ambitious type of practice.
He left the Society in 1842, but returned in 1856. During this
interval he had developed into an artist of exceptional power ; he
was a masterly executant, and a magnificently expressive sketcher,
and there was the truest originality in all his performances. He
found the majority of his subjects abroad, in Italy, Portugal, the
Tyrol, the Low Countries, and especially in Venice, which last place
he painted with something of Turner's brilliancy and charm ; but
he exhibited also a fair number of British landscapes. He died in
1870, in his seventieth year.
Between 1835 and the end of 1842, only five additions were made
M xxxiv
THE MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY
to the Associate class, two, Arthur Glennie and W. Lake Price, in
1837, William Callow in 1838, George Arthur Fripp in 1841, and
Octavius Oakley in February 1842. Glennie showed more than
four hundred drawings during his connection with the Society, a
connection which lasted until his death in January 1890 ; and
these drawings were almost entirely of foreign landscapes. The last
thirty-five years of his life he spent at Rome, a city which he had
previously visited and sketched ; and he travelled extensively in
various parts of the Continent. Lake Price painted architecture and
figure compositions with architectural backgrounds ; he was a pupil
of Augustus Pugin and De Wint. He left the Society in 1852.
William Callow, who is still living and working, was in his earlier
life a famous teacher. He went to Paris to study when he was a
boy of sixteen, and remained there for some twelve years, painting
and teaching. Among his pupils were many members of the
Orleanist royal family. He continued to teach for more than forty
years after his return to England in 1841, but despite his many
engagements he has found time to execute a large number ot
admirable drawings of landscape and picturesque buildings, and he
has taken a very definite position among our leading water-colour
painters. Fripp and Oakley were both men of ability ; the former
made a reputation by his landscapes and river scenes, and the latter
by his rustic figure compositions and water-colour portraits.
After 1 842 there was a perceptible increase in the number of elec-
tions. In 1 843 the successful candidates were William Collingwood
Smith, a landscape painter whose method was in many respects akin
to that of the earlier water-colourists ; Thomas Miles Richardson,
the son of a Newcastle artist, and a prolific and skilful worker who
before his death in 1890 contributed more than eight hundred land-
scapes to the Society's exhibitions ; and Samuel Palmer, a romanticist
who was in his earlier life much influenced by William Blake and
John Linnell. He painted more or less idealised landscapes brilliant
in illumination and strong in colour, and distinguished by remarkable
qualities of poetic invention. The great merit of his work is its
notable beauty of sentiment, and it presents an admirable and rather
rare combination of naturalism and imagination. Palmer was
advanced to full membership in 1854, and he held this position till
his death in 1881.
Alfred Downing Fripp, a younger brother of George Fripp, was
elected in 1844 with Douglas Morison, a young artist who died
only two or three years later, after a brief career in which he showed
much promise as an architectural and landscape painter. Fripp
M xxxv
THE MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY
devoted himself to figure subjects illustrating rustic life in Ireland,
Scotland, and Wales, and other parts of the British Isles, and he also
found a few motives in Italy. In 1845 another William Evans was
made an Associate, and with him Samuel Rayner and George Edward
Harrison. William Evans, known as " Evans of Bristol " to dis-
tinguish him from his namesake who had been elected nearly twenty
years before, occupied himself chiefly with Welsh and Italian land-
scapes, which he treated cleverly, but in a more or less conventional
manner. Rayner, an architectural draughtsman who imitated
George Cattermole, ceased to belong to the Society in 1851 ; and
Harrison died in October 1846. His drawings were chiefly of
fanciful garden scenes with groups of figures. One of his sisters,
Miss Maria Harrison, a flower and fruit painter, was made a lady
member in 1847; and in the same year George F. Rosenberg,
who painted still life and landscapes, was added to the Associates.
There was no election in 1846.
However, in 1848 and 1849, £ight new artists came into the Society,
four in each year. The first batch consisted of George Haydock
Dodgson, whose drawings of landscape, coast, and architectural sub-
jects were deservedly popular ; Edward Duncan, a marine painter of
great ability, who made many successful digressions into pure land-
scape ; Francis William Topham, who was first an engraver and then
developed into a very skilful painter of peasant life at home and
abroad ; and David Cox, Junr., the only son of the great English
master and a skilful exponent of his father's artistic creed, though
he was not possessed of an equally great endowment of executive
capacity. The second batch was made up of three men, John
Callow, Joseph John Jenkins, and Charles Branwhite, and one
lady, Mrs. Criddle, who, contrary to what may almost be called the
custom of her sex, occupied herself with figure subjects instead of
still life. John Callow, a younger brother of the more famous
William Callow, painted chiefly coast scenes and shipping ; he was
a successful teacher, and held successively the posts of professor of
drawing at the Royal Military College, Addiscombe, master of
landscape drawing at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich,
and professor at Queen's College, London. J. J. Jenkins, like
Topham, began as an engraver, and then became a painter of
figures and landscape. That he was an artist of ability is beyond
question, but he will be even better remembered by his literary
labours as the historian of the English water-colour school than
by his artistic work. Branwhite, who never rose above the rank
of Associate, exhibited landscapes for thirty years ; he worked in
M xxxvi
THE MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY
body colour, and sought his subjects almost entirely in the British
Isles.
The most important of the men who were added to the list during
the fifties were Carl Haag, and John Gilbert. The election of Carl
Haag took place in 1850, three years after he had come to England
from Bavaria, his native country. He was already an artist of well-
established reputation abroad, and he soon won for himself a position
of not less prominence in England by his wonderfully elaborate and
highly-finished drawings. During his long career he has treated
many types of figure subjects, but his chief preference has been for
Eastern scenes, and these he has always handled with vigour and
distinction of manner. He still lives, but he is now an honorary
instead of an active member of the Society with which he has been
associated for more than half a century. In 1850 there were also
elected Paul Jacob Naftel, a clever and careful painter of pretty
landscapes ; and Miss Nancy Rayner, who died in 1855 ; and in
1851 John Burgess, John Bostock, the former of whom was a
spirited draughtsman of architectural subjects, and a very skilful
sketcher in black and white. Bostock was deprived of his
Associateship in 1855 because he contributed nothing to the
exhibition that year. He only showed four drawings altogether,
and these were sentimental figure compositions.
John Gilbert began in 1852 a forty-five years' connection with the
Society, and one which was as distinguished as it was lengthy. He
was then a man of thirty-five, and already well known as a subject
painter, and as an extraordinarily prolific and facile illustrator. His
illustrative faculty was of the greatest value to him in his water-
colour work, for it enabled him to give to his drawings a dramatic
quality which is scarcely to be found even in the compositions of
such a master as Cattermole, and it affected beneficially even his
technical method. The range of his subjects was very wide ; he
managed modern subjects with conspicuous skill, but he excelled in
romantic and fanciful designs in which he reconstructed in a robust
and convincing manner scenes from the life ot past centuries, and he
drew many of his motives from the plays of Shakespeare and from
the works of other great writers. As a splendid colourist and a
masterly though essentially unacademic draughtsman, he ranks with
the best of the painters who have built up the reputation of the
British school ; and as a characteristically English artist he was very
well fitted for the prominent part he played in the affairs of a
Society which has a iust claim to be considered a truly national
institution.
M xxxvii
THE MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY
In 1852 there were also elected Henry Parsons Riviere, who spent
a considerable part of his life in Rome, and found his best material
in and about that city ; and Miss Margaret Gillies, a popular artist,
who had made a success by her miniature portraits. Her chiet
exhibits with the Society were sentimental figure compositions.
Four more names appear for the first time in the following year,
Frederick Burton, Walter Goodall, Samuel Phillips Jackson, and
Henry Brandling. Burton, an able artist and a well-known expert,
was for some years Director of the National Gallery ; he retired
from the Society in 1870, but returned as an honorary member in
1886. Goodall was a figure painter who preferred rustic subjects,
and sought them among the peasantry of England and other
countries ; and Jackson, a son of the earlier Associate, Samuel
Jackson, attained great popularity by his coast scenes and views on
the Thames. He was a pleasant colourist, and a careful executant,
and he managed subtle effects of atmosphere with much skill.
Brandling ceased to exhibit in 1856, and then left the Society.
The few drawings by which he was represented in the exhibitions
were of architectural subjects.
Seven more Associates were added in the interval between 1853 anc^
1860: William Collingwood, Charles Davidson, George H.Andrews,
Samuel Read, Samuel T. G. Evans, Edward A. Goodall, and Alfred
Pizzey Newton. Collingwood was a pupil of J. T. Harding and
Samuel Prout, and was best known by his drawings of Alpine
scenery, Davidson painted landscapes, Andrews landscapes and
marine subjects, and Read architectural motives. Of Read it is
recorded that he was the first special artist sent abroad by an illus-
trated paper to provide drawings for reproduction ; he was for nearly
forty years associated with the " Illustrated London News," to which
paper he began to contribute in 1 844. Evans was a son of " Evans
of Eton," and can fairly be considered to be entitled to the same
designation, for he succeeded to his father's position as art master,
and spent his life at Eton. His tragically sudden death in the
gallery of the Society is a matter of recent memory. Goodall was
an elder brother of Walter Goodall, who had been elected in 1853 ;
he came into the Society in 1858, and is happily still counted
among its members. A. P. Newton died in 1883, four years
after he had attained the rank of full member. He exhibited chiefly
Scottish landscapes, but he varied the series of these subjects with
occasional drawings of the scenery of foreign countries, especially
Italy and Greece.
Birket Foster, an artist whose domestic scenes and landscapes with
M xxxviii
THE MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY
rustic figures have always been exceedingly popular, came into
the Society in 1860, and with him! Frederick Smallfield, who is
best known by his figure subjects. Birket Foster died in 1899, after
a very successful career, and is now, judging by the prices which his
drawings fetch in the sale-rooms, reckoned among the masters of
water colour. His popularity has undoubtedly come from the
prettiness of his motives and from the minute elaboration of his
work. As an exponent of the stippled method of water-colour
painting he has a very definite right to attention. No election took
place in either 1861 or 1863, but in 1862 three Associates were
chosen, Alfred William Hunt, Henry Brittan Willis, and James W.
Whittaker. Hunt remained a supporter of the Society until his
death in 1896, and took a distinguished place as a landscape painter,
a place which he well deserved, for his work can be frankly admired
for its delightful sensitiveness and beauty of atmospheric quality. He
was a delicate and yet vigorous executant, with an eminently true
appreciation of the refinements of technical practice. Brittan Willis
painted cattle and landscapes in an able manner, and occasionally
attempted figures. Whittaker was well known by his powerful
Welsh landscapes. He had begun life as an engraver, but gave
up this profession to become a painter. He was drowned in 1 876
in a stream near his house at Bettws-y-Coed.
The year 1864 may be called an important one in the history of the
Society because it saw the election of Frederick Walker and Edward
Burne-Jones. With them came George P. Boyce, a dainty technician
whose studies of groups of buildings, and of what may be called,
without disparagement, suburban landscapes, are marked by quaint
and charming originality ; and Egron Sillif Lundgren, a Swede, who
travelled much in many parts of the world and painted the people of
the various countries he visited. Frederick Walker, at the time of his
election, was only twenty-four, but was already well known as a
charming illustrator and an accomplished water-colourist. He
became a full member of the Society in 1866, and contributed
regularly to its exhibitions until his death in 1875 ; his rare merits
were also recognised by the Royal Academy, of which institution he
was made an Associate in 1871. To the Society, however, belongs
the credit for having shown a practical appreciation of his abilities at
a time when the Academy was treating his work with rather scanty
consideration. Edward Burne-Jones was advanced to full member-
ship in 1868, but withdrew in 1870 because what he felt to be an
unjustifiable accusation of impropriety was brought against a drawing
which he had sent in for exhibition. Happily this separation was
M xxxix
THE MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY
not destined to be permanent ; after the lapse of sixteen years he
was again enrolled among the members.
Only nine new Associates were added in the period intervening
between 1864 and 1870 : Frederick Shields and J. D. Watson in
1865 ; Edward Killingworth Johnson and T. R. Lamont in 1866;
Basil Bradley, Thomas Dan by, and Francis Powell in 1867 ; and
William Holman Hunt and George John Pinwell in 1869. Three
of these are still living : Frederick Shields, who resigned his member-
ship in 1900 ; Francis Powell, still a regular contributor to the
exhibitions of the Society, and the President as well of the Royal
Scottish Society of Painters in Water Colours ; and William Holman
Hunt, the veteran Pre-Raphaelite, who now holds the position of
Honorary member. Of the others, Thomas Danby was the only
one who devoted himself solely to landscape. He was a son of
Francis Danby, the Associate of the Royal Academy, who achieved
a considerable reputation by his strongly treated sunsets ; but he can
scarcely be said to have followed in his father's footsteps. The art
of the younger Danby was of a much more delicate type, poetic and
sensitive, and concerned with subtleties of atmospheric effect, rather
than with the vehement and dramatic aspects of nature. J. D.
Watson preferred romantic figure subjects, but he also painted land-
scapes, in which the figures were comparatively unimportant ; and
T. R. Lamont, Basil Bradley, and E. K. Johnson must also be counted
among the figure men. Pinwell will always be remembered as one
of the most brilliant members of that group of illustrators which was
headed by Fred Walker, and as a draughtsman of the rarest capacity.
He died, at the age of thirty-two, in the same year as Walker, whose
junior he was by two years.
In 1870 and 1871 the total number of elections equalled that of the
preceding five years. The three Associates for 1870 were W. C. T.
Dobson, a skilful figure painter, who was already an Associate of
the Royal Academy; William Wood Deane, an architectural draughts-
man of very great ability, who died less than three years after his
election ; and Arthur H. Marsh, whose pastorals are still to be seen
in the exhibitions of the Society. Six artists of distinction were
chosen in the following year : Albert Goodwin, the accomplished
painter of poetic landscapes ; R. W. Macbeth, now a Royal Acade-
mician ; W. M. Hale, widely known by his landscapes and figure
subjects ; H. Stacy Marks, a pictorial humorist, who was for many
years a special favourite of the public ; J. W. North, a landscape
painter of particular delicacy and charm ; and Arthur Boyd
Houghton, an illustrator who belonged to the Walker and Pinwell
M xl
THE MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY
group. Two of these have died: Houghton in 1875, and Stacy
Marks in 1898. R. W. Macbeth subsequently resigned his Asso-
ciateship, but was re-elected in 1895.
The newcomers in 1872 were Oswald W. Brierley, a painter of sea
and shipping, who was afterwards appointed marine painter to Queen
Victoria, and received the honour of Knighthood ; and H. Clarence
Whaite, whose poetic landscapes are still appearing in the Gallery
of the Society. There was only one in the following year, Laurence
Alma Tadema, the popular Royal Academician. There were two in
1874, Walter Duncan, best known by his romantic figure composi-
tions, and Miss Clara Montalba, a charming colourist, who has
devoted herself consistently and with much success to Venetian sub-
jects ; and three in 1875, Edward P. Brewtnall, and Edward Radford,
both figure painters, and Mrs. Allingham, a follower of Fred. Walker,
who shows in her dainty renderings of English rural scenery that she
has studied with unusual intelligence the methods of her master.
No less than five Associates were elected in 1876, R. Thorne Waite,
whose vigorous and well-designed landscapes show plainly the
influence of the earlier leaders of the water-colour school ; John
Parker, a pleasant painter of rustic scenes ; Robert Barnes ; Otto
Weber, a German artist, well known by his pictures of cattle in
landscapes ; and Henry Moore, whose superb studies of the sea
and masterly landscapes are justly reckoned among the greater
achievements of British artists. In his sea pictures especially he
has never been equalled, and in his treatment of skies and effects of
atmosphere he has few rivals. His association with the Society
lasted till his death in 1895. Of the three artists who came in
during 1877, one, Edwin Buckman, occupies himself chiefly with
compositions of modern figures arranged in a semi-decorative manner ;
one, Cuthbert Rigby, mainly with landscapes ; and the third, Arthur
Hopkins, sometimes with figures and sometimes with sea or coast
subjects ; and next year there was an equally varied group of four,
Henry Wallis, whose particular preference was for Eastern scenes ;
Tom Lloyd, who has for some considerable time painted pastorals
with accessory figures ; W. E. Lockhart, a historical painter ; and
Norman Taylor, who is best known by his drawings of rustic life.
In 1 879 appear Herbert M. Marshall, deservedly popular as a practical
and sincere advocate of the claims of London to be considered a happy
hunting-ground for the sketcher ; and Mrs. Helen Angell, who died
only five years later. She handled still-life subjects with exceptional
skill, and was by many people regarded as the legitimate successor of
William Hunt.
M xli
THE MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY
The most prominent of the four artists who were made Associates
in 1880 was Ernest Albert Waterlow, who was destined seventeen
years later to succeed Sir John Gilbert in the office of President, and
to fill with distinction a post which is as responsible as it is honour-
able. With him came in Walter Field, an earnest student of the
beauties of the Thames ; Thomas J. Watson, a pleasant and unaffected
painter of quiet landscapes ; and W. Eyre Walker, whose subtle
sense of colour and sensitiveness to delicate refinements of atmospheric
effect have been convincingly displayed in the many attractive
drawings he has since shown in the Gallery. An artist of a different
type was elected in 1881 — George Du Maurier, the draughtsman
whose contributions to " Punch " were long counted among the
most attractive features of that journal. At the same time appeared
Wilmot Pilsbury, a clever student of nature, with a real faculty for
choosing and presenting her most attractive aspects.
Another large addition was made to the list in 1882 and 1883,
Charles Gregory, Samuel J. Hodson, Richard Beavis, J. Jessop
Hardwick, and Miss Constance Phillott, in the former year ; and
Edward J. Poynter, Frank Roll, John R. Burr, Henry G. Glindoni,
J. Henry Henshall, and William J. Wainwright, in the latter. With
the exception of Samuel J. Hodson, who seeks his subjects chiefly in
the picturesque streets and market-places of quaint old towns, and
J. J. Hardwick, who digresses frequently from flowers into pure
landscape, these must all be counted as figure painters. Some of the
others, like Sir Edward Poynter and Richard Beavis, have not
confined themselves to one class of motive, and have exhibited
sometimes landscapes and sometimes figures as opportunity offered ;
but the chief contributions of Charles Gregory have been idealised
rustic subjects ; of J. H. Henshall, modern life incidents ; of H. G.
Glindoni, groups illustrating the manners and customs of the people
of past generations, when social existence was gayer and more
picturesque than it is to-day ; and of W. J. Wainwright, studies of
types, mediaeval and modern, which give him scope for the exercise
of his wonderful executive powers, and for the display of his love of
sumptuous colour. Miss Phillott paints pretty figures and faces with
much grace and delicacy. Frank Holl's name remained on the list
of Associates till his death in 1888 ; but one drawing which he
exhibited in 1883 was all that ever represented him in the Gallery.
Neither of the two Associates for 1884 were connected with the
Society for any very long period. Miss Mary Forster, who after-
wards became Mrs. Lofthouse, died in the following year, so that her
tenderly-treated landscapes were seen in only four exhibitions ; and
M xlii
THE MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY
Albert Moore's death occurred after the lapse of nine years. The
total number of drawings by which he was represented was incon-
siderable, but they were distinguished by all the admirable qualities
of design and colour management and by all the fascinating indi-
viduality of manner which make his oil paintings so memorable. It
is a matter for great regret that he did not live to take a more
prominent part in the activities of the Society, for he struck a new
note in water-colour painting and proved its applicability to a type
of figure composition that no other artist has ever attempted. More-
over, the technical beauties that have secured for his pictures a place
apart in British art lost none of their persuasiveness in the process of
translation into another medium. His touch was as certain, his
draughtsmanship as sure and masterly, and his rare decorative sense as
perfectly displayed in his water colours as in his larger and more
elaborate canvases.
For the next tew years there was no very rapid increase in the
number of new men admitted. Two were elected in 1885, Charles
Roberson and Heywood Hardy, the former of whom died about nine
years afterwards, and the latter ceased to exhibit in 1902; two in
1886, David Murray, now a Royal Academician and an extremely
popular painter of attractive landscapes, and Colin Bent Phillip, the
son of a famous Academician and a water colourist with a preference
for mountain scenes, which he treats with remarkable breadth and
largeness of style ; and two in 1887, Robert W. Allan and Miss
Maud Naftel. R. W. Allan is still a busy member of the Society,
and his broad, expressive drawings of sea and coast subjects, and ot
scenes in picturesque towns abroad, are among the most striking
features of the periodical shows ; Miss Naftel, a daughter of Paul
Naftel, and herself an artist of the greatest promise, died only three
years after her election. This sequence of small additions was
broken in 1888 when four Associates, Walter Crane, Alfred Edward
Emslie, Arthur Melville and Miss Edith Martineau, were chosen,
and the President of the Royal Academy, Sir Frederick Leighton,
was made a full member without passing through the Associate rank.
The death of Arthur Melville, one of the most brilliantly accom-
plished of the many able artists who have belonged to the Society, is
a matter of recent memory. His chief contributions were Eastern,
Spanish, or Venetian scenes painted with superb directness and with
a consummate knowledge of craftsmanship. Walter Crane sends
sometimes landscapes, sometimes figure subjects, stamped always with
his particular personality ; A. E. Emslie, pastorals and imaginative
compositions of figures ; and Miss Martineau began with figures,
M xliii
THE MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY
but has since diverged almost entirely into landscape. 1889 saw the
election of George Clausen, one of the most original of living painters
of rustic subjects, and George Lawrence Bulleid, who has confined
himself almost entirely to classic motives treated with suave elegance
and elaborated with minute care.
During the nineties eighteen Associates were enrolled, a number
which by its comparative smallness shows how careful the Society is
in its selection of only those artists whom it considers to be indis-
putably worthy of recognition. One new name appears in 1 890, that
of C. Napier Hemy, the painter of marine and coast pictures ;
but there are three in 1891, Charles E. Fripp, Edward Robert
Hughes, and Thomas M. Rooke. C. E. Fripp is a son of George
Fripp, who entered the Society exactly fifty years earlier, and is,
perhaps, most widely known by his work as a war correspondent,
though he has also attracted attention by his sketches in Japan and
in other distant countries. E. R. Hughes has made a distinguished
place for himself among the painters of subjects from romance, and
especially from Italian tales and legends ; and T. M. Rooke, though
he has exhibited figure drawings on many occasions, is most success-
ful as a student of picturesque architecture. Lionel Smythe, an
Associate of the Royal Academy, who has a very attractive manner
of dealing with what may be called rustic sentiment ; and Robert
Little, a painter of romantic landscape, who is endowed with a
sumptuous sense of colour and a keen appreciation of decorative
essentials, were elected in 1892 ; and in 1893 Hubert von Herkomer,
that amazingly versatile and accomplished artist,whose brilliant achieve-
ments in water-colour painting mark him as a specially qualified
exponent of this branch of practice. He has been a strong supporter
of the Society, and has sent to its shows a large number of drawings
of memorable quality.
The one newcomer in 1894 was John Reinhard Weguelin, a painter
of the nude figure, with a very charming appreciation of graces of
composition and a most sensitive instinct for subtleties of colour
combination. His drawings have a. remarkable degree of distinction
as technical performances, and are full of dainty fancy. In 1895 **••
W. Macbeth returned, and with him was elected Edwin Austin
Abbey, the American artist who, after achieving world-wide repute
as an illustrator, has now taken his place among the most successful
of our producers of historical and romantic pictures. He has not
been a frequent contributor to the exhibitions of the Society. The
following year saw the accession of John M. Swan, one of the
greatest animal painters whom this country can claim, and a water-
M xliv
THE MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY
colourist of memorable power ; Henry Silkstone Hopwood, whose
broadly handled studies of cottage interiors have unquestionable
beauty of rich and low-toned colour ; and two ladies, Miss Rose
Barton, a pupil of Paul Naftel, and known both by her drawings
of children and by her studies of London streets, and Miss Mildred
Anne Butler, whose drawings of animal life and birds alternate with
records of pretty garden subjects. Louis Davis, a decorative artist
and designer of much ingenuity, was elected in 1898 — there was no
successful candidate in 1897 — and with him James Paterson, a
Scottish landscape painter with a rarely broad and telling method and
a sumptuous sense of colour ; and there were three additions in 1899 :
Edwin Alexander, who may be credited with the discovery of a new
and wholly admirable manner of dealing with flowers and still life ;
Alfred Parsons, an Associate of the Royal Academy, whose landscapes
and gardens are always notable for their sunny brilliancy and high
finish ; and Mrs. Elizabeth Stanhope Forbes, an artist of robust and
attractive originality. Her chief contributions have been rustic
groups or figures in costume with landscape backgrounds.
The five years, 1900 to 1904, have seen the addition of thirteen
Associates, Walter Bayes in 1900 ; Reginald Barratt, Robert
Anning Bell, James Walter West, and Miss Minnie Smythe, in
1901 ; Arthur Rackham and Miss Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale in
1902 ; Edmund J. Sullivan, and Miss Alice M. Swan in 1903 ; and
John Singer Sargent, D. Y. Cameron, Henry Scott Tuke, and F.
Cadogan Cowper in 1904. Walter Bayes paints prettily imaginative
landscapes with accessory figures ; Reginald Barratt, Venetian archi-
tecture, with admirable delicacy and sureness of draughtsmanship ; R.
A. Bell, figure compositions, in which he shows a splendid romantic
sentiment and great power of design ; J. W. West, figures in costume
treated with exquisite charm ; and Miss Smythe, a daughter of
Lionel Smythe, follows worthily in her father's footsteps. Arthur
Rackham is one of the most inexhaustibly imaginative painters of
poetic and grotesque fantasies whom our water-colour school has ever
produced, Miss Fortescue-Brickdale, a member of the new Pre-
Raphaelite school and an artist of high ability, E. J. Sullivan, an
accomplished illustrator, and Miss Swan, a sister of J. M. Swan,
paints flowers and figures in costume in which she displays unusual
technical powers. The last four include two members of the
Academy, J. S. Sargent, the most brilliant and audacious of living
painters, and H. S. Tuke, whose sea and figure pictures are keenly
appreciated by all lovers of sincere and well-studied art ; D. Y.
Cameron, famous as an etcher, is held in not less esteem as a painter
M xlv
THE MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY
of romantic and finely conceived landscapes ; and F. C. Cowper,
another modern Pre-Raphaelite, promises to take high rank among
our water colourists. The Associates elected in the spring of 1905
were H. E. Crocket and Herbert Alexander. Decidedly the Society
by electing artists so dissimilar in views and intentions has plainly
signified at the end of the first century of its history its adherence
to the same enlightened and broad-minded policy which it adopted
in the earliest years of its career.
A. L. BALDRY.
M xlvi
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(By Permission of Messrs. Thos. Agnew * Sons )
PLATE vii. "ROSES." BY WILLIAM HUNT.
PLATE ix. " ONE OF THE HOWLING DERWEESHES, CAIRO." BY CARL HAAG.
(By Permission of Messrs. Ernest Brown & Philips.)
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PLATE XMI. "SIDONIA THE SORCERESS." BY SIR E. BURNE-JONES.
(By Permission of Edward Clifford, Esq.!
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(By Permission of Harold Hartley, Esq.)
PLATE xvi. "THE FALLS OF THE TAY." BY J. W. NORTH.
(Copyright Reserved.)
PLATE xvil. "AN OLD SURREY COTTAGE." BY MRS. ALLINGHAM.
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(By Permission of William Newall, Esq.)
PLATE XXV. "COMRADES." BY ALBERT MOORE.
(By Permission of Dr. Greviile MacDonald.)
PLATE xxix. "A PASTORAL." BY E. R. HUGHES.
(Copyright Reserved.)
PLATE XXXili. "BY THE BROOK." BY MRS. STANHOPE FORBES.
(By Permission of Mrs. Todd.)
PLATE xxxiv. "THE SILVER MIRROR." BY j. WALTER WEST.
(Copyright Reserved.)
PLATE XXXV. "THE MAGIC CHRYSTAL." BY R. ANNING BELL.
(Copyright Reserved.)
PLATE xxxvi. "A CANAL IN VENICE." BY REGINALD BARRATT.
(Copyright Reserved.)
PLATE XXXVii. "THE WINDFALL" BY ARTHUR RACKHAM.
(By Permission of C. Dowaesweii, Esq.) PLATE XXXVIII. "THE CUNNING SKILL TO BREAK A HEART."
BY MISS E. FORTESCUE-BRICKDALE.
(By Permission of Frederick Macmillan, Esq.) PLATE XXXIX. "THE CLOISTERS, MONTEVILLIERS." BY D. Y. CAMERON.
(Copyright Reserved.) PLATE XL. STUDY FOR "A BLUE-JACKET'S YARN." BY H. S. TUKE, A.R.A.
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