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GIBSON, PATRICK, an eminent
artist and writer upon art, was born at Edinburgh, in November, 1782. He
was the son of respectable parents, who gave him an excellent classical
education, partly at the High School, and partly at a private academy. In
his school-boy days, he manifested a decided taste for literature,
accompanied by a talent for drawing figures, which induced his father to
place him as an apprentice under Mr Nasmyth, the distinguished
landscape-painter; who was, in this manner, the means of bringing forward
many men of genius in the arts. Contemporay with Mr Gibson, as a student
in this school, was Mr Nasmth’s son Peter; and it is painful to
think, that both of these ingenious pupils should have gone down to the
grave before their master. Mr Nasmyth’s academy was one in no ordinary
degree advantageous to his apprentices: such talents as they possessed
were generally brought into speedy use in painting and copying landscapes,
which he himself finished and sold; and thus they received encouragement
from seeing works, of which a part of the merit was their own, brought
rapidly into the notice of the world. About the same time, Mr Gibson
attended the trustees’ academy, then taught with distinguished success
by Mr Graham. While advancing in the practical part of his profession, Mr
Gibson, from his taste for general study, paid a greater share of
attention to the branches of knowledge connected with it, than the most of
artists had it in their power to bestow. He studied the mathematics
with particular care, and attained an acquaintance with perspective, and
with the theory of art in general, which was in his own lifetime quite
unexampled in Scottish—perhaps in British art. Mr Gibson, indeed, might
rather be described as a man of high literary and scientific
accomplishments, pursuing art as a profession, than as an artist, in the
sense in which that term is generally understood. In landscape painting,
he showed a decided preference for the classical style of Domenichino and.
Nicholas Poussin; and having studied architectural drawing with much care,
he became remarkably happy in the views of temples and other classical
buildings, which he introduced into his works. When still a very young
man, Mr Gibson went to London, and studied the best works of art to
be found in that metropolis, - the state of the continent at that time
preventing him from pursuing his investigations any further.
Mr Gibson painted many
landscapes, which have found their way into the collections of the most
respectable amateurs in his native country. His own exquisitely delicate
and fastidious taste, perhaps prevented him from attaining full success at
first, but he was continually improving; and, great as the triumphs of his
pencil ultimately were, it is not too much to say, that, if life had been
spared to him, he must have reached still higher degrees of perfection.
Mr Gibson’s professional
taste and skill, along with his well known literary habits, pointed him
out as a proper individual to write, not only criticisms upon the works of
modem art brought under public notice, but articles upon the fundamental
principles of the fine arts, in works embracing miscellaneous knowledge.
He contributed to the Encyclopedia Edinensis an elaborate article under
the head "Design," embracing the history, theory, and practice
of painting, sculpture, and engraving, and concluding with an admirable
treatise on his favourite subject, "Linear Perspective." This
article extends to one hundred and six pages of quarto, in double columns,
and is illustrated by various drawings. It is, perhaps, the best treatise
on the various subjects which it embraces, ever contributed to an
encyclopaedia. To Dr Brewster’s more extensive work, entitled the
Edinburgh Encyclopaedia, Mr Gibson contributed the articles, Drawing,
Engraving, and Miniature-painting, all of which attracted notice, for the
full and accurate knowledge upon which they appeared to be based. In the
Edinburgh Annual Register for 1816, published in 1820, being edited by Mr
J. G. Lockhart, was an article by Mr Gibson, entitled "A View of the
Progress and Present State of the Art of Design in Britain." It is
written with much discrimination and judgment, and is certainly worthy of
being transferred into some more extended sphere of publication than the
local work in which it appeared. An article of a similar kind, but
confined to the progress of the Fine Arts in Scotland, appeared in the New
Edinburgh Review, edited by Dr Richard Poole. In 1818, Mr Gibson published
a thin quarto volume, entitled "Etchings of Select Views in
Edinburgh, with letter-press descriptions." The subjects chiefly
selected were either street scenes about to be altered by the removal of
old buildings, or parts opened up temporarily by the progress of
improvements, and which therefore could never again be observable in the
point of view chosen by the artist. The most remarkable critical effort of
Mr Gibson was an anonymous jeu d’esprit, published in 1822, in
reference to the exhibition of the works of living artists then open,
under the care of the Royal Institution for the encouragement of the Fine
Arts in Scotland. It assumed the form of a report, by a society of
Cognoscenti, upon these works of art, and treated the merits of the
Scottish painters, Mr Gibson himself included, with great candour and
impartiality. The style of this pamphlet, though in no case unjustly
severe, was so different from the indulgent remarks of periodical writers,
whose names are generally known, and whose acquaintance with the artists
too often forbids rigid truth, that it occasioned a high degree of
indignation among the author’s brethren, and induced them to take some
steps that only tended to expose themselves to ridicule. Suspecting that
the traitor was a member of their own body, they commenced the
subscription of a paper, disclaiming the authorship, and this being
carried to many different artists for their adherence, was refused by no
one till it came to Mr Gibson, who excused himself upon general principles
from subscribing such a paper, and dismissed the intruders with a protest
against his being supposed on that account to be the author. The real
cause which moved Mr Gibson to put forth this half-jesting half-earnest
criticism upon his brethren, was an ungenerous attack upon his own works,
which had appeared in a newspaper the previous year, and which, though he
did not pretend to trace it to the hand of any of his fellow labourers,
was enjoyed, as he thought, in too malicious a manner by some, to whom he
had formerly shown much kindness. He retained his secret, and enjoyed his
joke, to the last, and it is only here that his concern in the pamphlet is
for the first time disclosed.
In 1826, he gave to the
world, "A Letter to the directors and managers of the Institution for
the encouragement of the Fine Arts in Scotland." Towards the close of
his life he had composed, with extraordinary care, a short and practical
work on perspective, which was put to press, but kept back on account of
his decease. It is to be hoped that a work composed on a most useful
subject, by one so peculiarly qualified to handle it, will not be lost to
the world.
In June, 1818, Mr Gibson
was married to Miss Isabella M. Scott, daughter of his esteemed friend Mr
William Scott, the well-known writer upon elocution. By this lady he had
three daughters and a son, the last of whom died in infancy. In April,
1824, he removed from Edinburgh, where he had spent the most of his life,
to Dollar, having accepted the situation of professor of painting in the
academy founded at that village. In this scene, quite unsuited to his
mind, he spent the last five years of his life, of which three were
embittered in no ordinary degree by ill health. After enduring with manly
and unshrinking fortitude the pains of an uncommonly severe malady, he
expired, August 26, 1829, in the forty-sixth year of his age.
Mr Gibson was not more
distinguished in public by his information, taste, and professional
success, than he was in private by his upright conduct, his mild and
affectionate disposition, and his righteous fulfilment of every moral
duty. He possessed great talents in conversation, and could suit himself
in such a manner to every kind of company, that old and young, cheerful
and grave, were alike pleased. He had an immense fund of humour; and what
gave it perhaps its best charm, was the apparently unintentional manner in
which he gave it vent, and the fixed serenity of countenance which he was
able to preserve, while all were laughing around him. There are few men in
whom the elements of genius are so admirably blended with those of true
goodness, and all that can render a man beloved, as they were in Patrick
Gibson.
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