Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (2147 page)

“April 15th. — Since the pictures were removed to the Academy, until to-day, I have led a very uncomfortable and dronish life — almost sleepless nights, and sleepy days; no attempt at work, longing for weather fitting for going out. On Sunday, 13th, (Easter Sunday — blessed day, ‘He is risen’!) — I made my first excursion, walking for about twenty minutes in the sun, on the Terrace. On Monday, 14th. — Easter Monday; intended to go to church — gave this up, fearing the weather; but this day, (15th,) blessed be God, was permitted to go to the eleven o’clock service — the Communion only; may this beginning be the earnest of good things, for Jesus Christ’s sake!”

“May 15th. — From the above period, just one month to-day, I have been incapable of exerting myself sufficiently to paint, and have been kept back in bodily health, by the state of the weather, (cold — generally easterly winds.) I have occasionally gone out in a carriage; contrived to go to the Royal Academy, to see, and, indeed in a small way, to touch upon two of my pictures. Although I suffer a good deal of general pain and restlessness, my breathing is easier, and a small quantity of Battley’s Drops procures sleep; and, God be praised, I am better altogether. Richardson promises great things from fine weather. God’s holy will be done.”

With such pious resignation and cheerful hope, closes the final entry in Mr. Collins’s last Journal; in which an opportunity has been afforded to the reader of appreciating, from the painter’s own simple narrative of the sufferings that darkened his last days of study, under what combination of bodily obstacles he persevered in the practice of his Art. It is now necessary to turn our attention to the nature and merits of the works thus painfully and patiently produced.

“Early Morning,” (painted for Mr. Gillott) was the largest of the four pictures exhibited by Mr. Collins, and connected remarkably his first and last successes, as the painter of the beauties of his native shores — for it was identical, in distribution of figures, local scenery, and general tendency of effect, with one of the first two sea-pieces exhibited by him, on his return from Hastings, in 1817; and then entitled, “Sunrise.” In “Early Morning,” were the same two fisher boys in the foreground, brilliantly touched by the rays of the rising sun; the same sheltering hill to the left, terminating in the same long and lovely strip of distant sea; the same various bursts of growing light, which distinguished “Sunrise,” and which will be found well noticed in the criticism on it by Mr. Carey, extracted in that former part of these pages, treating of the Exhibition of 1817. Beyond these points of general resemblance, however, it is probable that no more minute analogy could be found, could the pictures be seen together. The painter produced “Early Morning,” from a former rough design for “Sunrise;” not only without seeing the picture of 1817, but without knowing into whose possession, in the lapse of time, it might have passed. The main features of his old design reproduced, his regulated fancy and reinforced experience were left, therefore, to supply all the details of the composition, without constraint. Never had his mastery over the minutest phenomena of cloud, sunlight, and atmosphere; his power of blending careful finish with brilliant effect; and his deep feeling for
chiaroscuro
and colour, been more admirably exhibited than in this picture. The wild, transitory, morning clouds; the bursting sunlight, flashing upon them from the horizon of the fresh, cold, green sea, warmed by one vivid streak of golden light; the shadowy beach, covered in places with the thin transparent flow of water, left by the retiring tide; the vigorous reality of the figures; the pure depth and brilliancy of the whole composition, invested this work with a power and originality, which profoundly impressed all who beheld it. The critic in the “Art-Journal,” writing of the picture — produced as it was, in the painting- room now become a sick-room as well, under all the adverse influences of a fatal disease — finds it difficult to believe that it was all executed within doors. “The picture,” he observes, “has not the appearance of one that has been entirely wrought out in the studio, (although it may be so;) such is the entire absence of affectation, the genuine simplicity of every motive, that it looks like a locality and an effect painted faithfully and absolutely from the reality. When weary with the platitudes of every day affectation, it is refreshing to turn to Art like this. Mr. Collins was wedded to Nature, and the match has turned out a happy one.”

The notice of this picture cannot be better concluded, than in the language of the eloquent author of “Modern Painters;” who, in the second volume of his work, thus writes of its leading characteristics: “One more picture I must mention, as a refreshing and earnest study of truth, yet unexhibited, but which will appear in the Royal Academy — a Seashore, by Collins; where the sun, just risen and struggling through gaps of threatening cloud, is answered by the green, dark, transparent sea, with a broad flake of expanding fire. I have never seen the oppression of sunlight in a clear, lurid, rainy atmosphere, more perfectly or faithfully rendered, and the various portions of reflected and scattered light, are all studied with equal truth and solemn feeling.”

“The second picture, “Mede-foot Bay,” (painted for Mr. Ellison,) was a clear, tranquil representation of Devonshire coast scenery. An undulating rocky cliff, painted with extraordinary elabourateness and effect, occupies the greater part of the whole middle distance of the picture. At its base, reflecting its outermost rocks, lies the calm, waveless sea; rippling round the sandy rim of the beach at the foot of the cliff, as it curves gently onward to the rocky foreground. Here are placed some lovely children, grouped with all the painter’s usual truth and felicity, and treated with remarkable brightness and purity of colour: the left-hand distance is all that is visible, and is closed by a bright glimpse of the Devonshire coast. The whole composition is tenderly and clearly lighted by a serene sky, over parts of which float light, still, summer clouds. The effect of this picture is surpassingly tranquil and airy: it is an epitome of the painter’s best works, depicting the most delicate aspect of ocean scenery.

“Hall Sands,” (painted for Mr. Sheepshanks) was another recollection of the Devonshire coast. In this picture, a cottage on the Beach; a little stream crossed by a bridge, with an old woman leading a horse, about to pass over it; a long expanse of distant sands, ending in a light green strip of sea, over-hung at the horizon by delicate showery vapours, formed the simple materials of a composition, whose purity and truth of effect, once seen, could not be easily forgotten. As an union of delicacy of execution, transparency of tone, and breadth of effect, it is one of the painter’s most successful works.

The small upright picture, called “Shrimpers hastening Home,” was one of those brilliant, sunny glimpses of the seashore in which Mr. Collins delighted. Of the Shrimp-boy on the Beach in the foreground, wending gladly homewards, and of the little child that he holds by the hand, it is enough to say that they were as bright, as natural, and as simple in treatment, as any of the long series of the painter’s other seashore figures, which year after year had received the same welcome from all lovers of Art; from the time when they first appeared on his canvas. This little picture was painted for Mr. Gillott, the possessor of “Early Morning.”

Such were the four pictures — all painted from the sources of his early subjects — which closed Mr. Collins’s career in the Art, after it had honourably extended to nearly forty years. It would be perhaps impossible to find in the same number of any of his other sea-pieces, could they be produced together, four works so perfectly comprising in themselves all the various characteristics of this most popular branch of his Art, as the four last he produced. Within the limits of these, he summed up every quality that had hitherto been spread over a larger surface: they were at once the index to his style, the evidence of his knowledge, the assertion of his genius, as the most varied and original painter of English coast scenery, that this country ever produced.

Whatever hopes my father’s medical attendants now entertained of successfully combatting his disease, still centred in a change to country air. A cottage was engaged for him, in the little village of Iver, in Buckinghamshire; and thither he departed, hopeful even yet for himself, in the month of June. A place better adapted for him could not have been chosen: the village was quiet and retired, the country presented a pretty combination of lane and heath scenery — of those winding level paths, smooth fertile meadow-lands, clear brooks, and open commons, which had so often employed his pencil, and which were so thoroughly in harmony with all his earliest, studies in Nature and experiments in Art good and careful medical advice was always close at hand, kind friends lived in the immediate neighbourhood — there was nothing that could be desired for him, that Iver did not afford; but his disease was already beyond the pale of any ordinary influences: week after week, it now gained perceptibly upon his frame. Rarely and more rarely, were his sketching materials employed; (although when they were used, they were as powerful in his hands as ever) less and less frequently was he able to walk, even in the little garden of his cottage. It was evident to every one who saw him, that the pure air, the warm sunlight, and the easy tranquillity of his country sojourn, were as powerless over his complaint, as the best efforts of medical skill had proved before them.

Still however, though less and less competent for any bodily exertion, the resources of his Art did not fail him. As he drove through the pretty inland scenery of Iver — now hardly ever able to study it, as had been his wont he acquired the habit of imprinting the different objects he beheld on his memory, with extraordinary vividness and tenacity. The irregular outlines of old cottages; and the soft lights and shadows on distant woods; the broad glow of the undulating field; the smooth dock-leaves, speckling the banks, and the tangled weeds festooning the marshy hollows of the road-side ditch; the passing shadow of a showery cloud; and the penetrating radiance of the summer sunlight all objects that caught his eye, whether ample or minute; were now stored up in his mind, as they had formerly been collected in his sketch-book. When night came, and whenever the complication of his sufferings from his complaint defied even the power of opiates to procure him sleep, it was his sole and constant solace during the weary hours of darkness, to make his recollection yield up all the new impressions of natural scenery, garnered there during the day; and from these visionary materials to compose new pictures, arranging their colour, their light and shade, their effect, incident and detail, before his “mind’s eye,” as he was used to arrange them on his canvas, in happier days. By this occupation, he declared that he robbed his wakeful hours of half their monotony and pain; preserved his mind from dwelling too exclusively on his malady; and fortified his hopes for an ultimate recovery and a return to his old pursuits. Such is the Art to a painter who serves it with the devotion which is its due; thus, not failing with failing strength, does it remain to him the solace of sickness, after it has ceased to exist as the charm of health.

After upwards of three months’ stay at Iver, when all that could be done for my father’s case had been done, and without effect, it was thought expedient by his medical attendants that he should return to London while he was yet able to accomplish the journey. On the 23rd of September he bade farewell (a final farewell, as it afterwards proved,) to country scenes.

Within a month from the time of his return, his increasing debility confined him entirely to his bed- room. After this period, to dwell more particularly upon any of the more personal passages in his life would be but to weary the reader with an unvaried detail of monotonous suffering and unavailing fortitude. It will be more fitting to pass to the few remaining acts of his career, which are of general importance enough to be here noticed. Among these was a letter dictated by him in the month of November, which may be perused with interest, as being the last communication of the kind which he was enabled to make to any of his friends, and as exhibiting a pleasing testimony of his regard for the high character of a brother painter, now, like himself, numbered among the dead. The “ proposition “ referred to in the letter, was communicated to him by Mr. Reinagle. It stated the propriety of inviting the late Mr. Howard, R.A., then Secretary of the Royal Academy, to retire from his arduous duties (on full-pay) in consideration of his failing health:

“To R. R. REINAGLE, ESQ., R.A.

“Devonport-street, Nov. 4th, 1846.

Dear Reinagle, — I do indeed most sincerely and most heartily concur in the proposition which your note this day conveys to me, and which can never fail to be unanimous. There can be no question that the genius and talent displayed by Mr. Howard for so many years on the walls of the Royal Academy, in the best days of that Institution, have had a very large share in procuring for our country a lasting name in Art. Mr. Howard, too, in the discharge of his duties as Secretary, has been in every way worthy of that character for integrity and Christian-like moderation, which are, I must say, the certain consequences of so happily constituted a mind and temperament as his.

“Under the pressure of a long and very distressing state of ill-health, I am obliged to abstain from any further attempt to express my sentiments, and from making this letter any longer than is absolutely necessary. I shall therefore only add that I cordially agree in the proposition, that ‘ Mr. Howard be invited to retire on full-pay.’