The Fortnightly Review: No. CCCCLXIII, New Series [‎591v] (73/239)

42
A MORNING IN THE GALLERIES.
produced that she is about ten inches taller than her husband. I
have not the honour of their acquaintance, but I doubt if the differ
ence is as much as that. The Duke seems rather embarrassed by
the weight of his robes, and the beautiful head of her Grace is
stuck upon an elongated neck which reminds one of the new
saurian, Diplodocus Carnegii.”
“ Yes! ”, said Van Dyke, ” he has the defects of his qualities.
He can’t resist a sensation; and the millionaires with their big
prices are leading him to scamp it. But when he tries his best,
as in his Mrs. Raphael, he is as serious as Rembrandt himself.”
“ It’s a fatal snare to a painter to become the rage in the smart
world,” said I, “especially when the smart world is vulgar and
tasteless. Even Vandyke and Reynolds had too many sitters,
though their sitters had beauty, manners, and refinement.”
“ The worst of it is,” said Visto, “ that Sargent, like every man
of original genius and splendid success, is teaching two or three
other good men to imitate his bravura and his scene-painting
legerdemain. Sargent can make a satin gown dazzling bright
with fifteen sweeps of a thick brush. But when other men try to
do it, they seem to be using a mop or a broom.”
“ He is the greatest master of portrait we have had since Millais
stormed the town,” said Van Dyke, “ and has an even subtler eye
for character.”
“Yes! ”, said Visto, “but the genius he has for characteristic
points is so keen that it betrays him now and then to make an
actual caricature—I daresay quite unconsciously. He sees a trait
in a sitter’s face or figure, and in his eagerness to catch it he
makes it almost ridiculous.”
“ Come and look at the Burghers of Landsberg," said I; “ there
is a solid piece of work indeed. Look at it across the Central
Hall, and you might fancy at a first glance the R.A.’s were sitting
in council. One feels that there are the very Bavarian citizens,
simple, serious, thoughtful men of business—full of character, and
composed with skill and truth. It is no bad revival of the old
Dutch Corporation groups to be seen at Haarlem, the Hague, and
Amsterdam. It is a real success in a difficult subject.”
“ Not much of the ideal, not quite high art,” said the Con
noisseur.
“The ideal be d d,” laughed the painter; “the Von has
scored this time. All his portraits are first-rate. A good many
oi the old gang seem to have been waked up. Why, old Leader
has broken out in a new place; and, after fifty years of Surrey
pinewoods and commons, silvery Thames, and such serenities, he
has found his way to the coast and the crags of the Cornish bays.”
A very good way it is, I added, “ I know the cove well; and