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SCOTT, DAVID.—Of this
poet-painter, whose whole life was a feverish struggle with great
conceptions, and whose artistic productions showed that, had his life been
but continued, he might have embodied these conceptions in paintings that
would have created a new school of art—of him it may truly be said, that a
generation must yet pass away, and a new world of living men enter into
their room, before his talents are fully appreciated, and their place
distinctly assigned. David Scott was the youngest of five children, all
sons, and was born either on the 10th or 12th of October, 1806; but only a
year after his birth he was the sole surviving child of his parents, the
rest having died, with only a few days of interval between each. Like other
boys of his standing in Edinburgh, David was sent to study Latin and Greek
at the High School; but, like the generality of artists, he made no great
proficiency in these languages. Is it that nature has implanted such a
different spirit of utterance within the artistic heart, as to make words
unnecessary? As his father was an engraver, of respectable attainments in
his profession, having had, among other pupils, John Burnet, the engraver of
some of Wilkie’s best drawings, and John Horsburgh, David had thus, even in
his earliest boyhood, such opportunities for pictorial study as formed an
excellent training for the profession to which nature had designed him. He
also learned the art from his father, and became one of his assistants. But
the mere mechanical work of engraving was not enough for such an original
spirit: he must draw as well as engrave, create as well as copy; and
therefore he frequently drew those designs which he afterwards produced with
his graver, as the frontispieces and vignettes of books. Although he
abandoned the graving-tool for the pencil, as soon as circumstances
permitted the exchange, he did not lose sight of the early art which had
formed the chief stepping-stone of his progress; and, accordingly, he etched
with his own hand the "Monograms of Man," and the Illustrations of
Coleridge’s "Ancient Mariner," and just previous to his death, had purposed
to do the same for his designs expressive of the emotions produced by the
contemplations of sidereal astronomy. Still, however, his love of painting
so completely predominated, that among his early sketches there were two
that especially indicated the ardour of his aspirations. The one was
inscribed, "Character of David Scott, 1826," in which he was delineated as
seated at the engraving table, with his hands clenched in despair. Another,
of a similar bearing, dated 1828, represents him with the engraving tools
thrown away, and the palette pressed to his heart. But he did not confine
himself to aspirations merely; on the contrary, he accompanied them with
that laborious diligent practice for which his life was distinguished to the
close. Having associated himself with the young lovers of art, with whom
Edinburgh even already had begun to abound, he formed with them the Life
Academy in 1827, in which, as the name indicates, the living model was the
subject of study and delineation. In the following year he attended Dr.
Munro’s class of anatomy, and made a short visit to London, for the purpose
of taking sketches in the National Gallery and the British Institution. Of
the same date, also, was his first exhibited picture, entitled "The Hopes of
Early Genius dispelled by Death." As may be supposed, it was a stern,
Dante-like allegory, chiefly valuable for the indication it gave of the bent
of the young artist’s mind, and the struggle, already commenced, that was
certain to lead to high excellence. His next, of a similar unearthly
character, was the "Combat of Fingal with the Spirit of Lodi," on which a
considerate friend remarked to him, "Shoot a lower aim; you speak a dead
language." Following these were his "Adam and Eve singing their Morning
Hymn," "The Death of Sappho," "Wallace defending Scotland," and "Monograms
of Man;" and subsequently, "Lot," "Nimrod," "Sarpedon carried by Sleep and
Death," and "Cain," These, and several other intermediate sketches, were
produced between the years 1828 and 1832; and as most of them were sent to
the exhibition, the talents of Mr. Scott, as an artist of high promise, were
generally felt, although this feeling was mingled with much wonderment, and
not a little misgiving as to the ultimate tendency of such fervid idealism.
This inability of the public to sympathize in his views, and consequent
tendency to disparage them, Scott, as might be expected, very keenly felt;
and he thus writes of the subject in his journal: "Various are the causes
that render my going abroad necessary. I lose myself in thinking over the
journey, and what it may do. Everything I have yet attempted has been
unsuccessful; so many disappointments make effort appear vain. What I must
do is to cut off all recurrence to former efforts, except in so far as they
may coincide with my later formed ideas of art, and to hold grimly on in the
conscientious course. A great happiness it is that futurity is yet unseen
and unmade; therein yet may be somewhat to answer my desires. Happy are
those new hopes and wishes that still descend on us when all we value in
ourselves is burned up and scattered!"
David Scott had now resolved
to become the pupil of art, as he had formerly been of nature; and for this
purpose, to repair to Italy, and study in its galleries the productions of
those great masters whose excellence had endured the test of centuries, and
come out more brilliant from the ordeal. He would there learn the mighty
secret by which they had enthralled the world so completely and so long—that
true utterance of painting which every age and nation can understand. He set
off upon his quest in August, 1832, and, after a short stay in London,
visited Paris and Geneva, where the Louvre and the Alps alternately
solicited his study. Milan and Venice, Parma and Bologna, Florence and
Sienna, followed in turn, until he finally settled at Rome, once the
nursing-mother of heroes, but now of painters and sculptors, by whom her
first great family have been embalmed, that the present world might know how
they looked when they lived. It seems to have been only by degrees that the
true grandeur of these objects fully dawned upon the mind of David Scott;
for there was within him not only much that needed to be improved, but much
to be unlearned and renounced. His impressions upon all the principal works
of art are contained in his diary; and these will, no doubt, be studied as a
rich suggestive fund of thought by our future young artists who repair to
the great Italian fountainhead. But indefatigable though he was in these
explorations, the most striking, though the least ostentatious part of his
diary, is to be found in the scattered notices that everywhere occur of his
own daily occupations, and from eight to sixteen hours seem with him to have
been nothing more than an ordinary diurnal measure. The fruits of this
diligence, independently of his critical writings upon works of art, are
thus summed up by his biographer:— "During that short residence in Rome, he
made a set of eleven sheets of anatomical drawings, forming one of the most
perfect artistical surveys of superficial anatomy ever made, with 137
studies from life, in oil or chalk; and in painting he did four small
pictures of the ‘Four Periods of the Day;’ a copy of the ‘Delphic Sybil,’
from the Sistine, with a number of studies from the ‘Last Judgment;’ several
exercises in fresco; painted ‘Sappho and Anacreon,’ a picture with life-size
figures; and two or three smaller, but well-finished pictures; and, last and
greatest, the picture of ‘Family Discord,’ or, as it was afterwards called,
‘The Household Gods Destroyed.’ The size of this last was nearly thirteen
feet, by ten and a half. This amount of work, if we consider the time lost,
in a new scene and among new habits, and add the designs, sketch-books, and
other little matters which he accomplished, shows us a Hercules in
perseverance and impulse." It is interesting to see Scott’s own account of
the effect produced upon him by this pilgrimage and labour; and this we have
in his diary, a short time after his return home, under the date of 16th
August, 1834:—" The anniversary of my leaving Scotland two years ago—the
crowning of my desires—the journey of art—the sacrifice to enthusiasm—the
search after greatness, in meeting the great men of the present, and the
great labours of the past. Among my old pictures and people, I now feel how
different I am from the man who left this but so short a time ago. I have
looked too much for what was without individual prototype in nature. The
veil withdraws and withdraws, and there is nothing left permanent. But I
believe I can now meet difficulties practically. Analyzing one’s own
thoughts and actions—studying things in their relations—is often a painful
task; but he who has not done so is a child."
Having returned to Scotland
inspired with new perceptions, as well as braced with fresh courage, David
Scott commenced the business of life in earnest, and his whole course from
this period was one of continual artistic action. He must give full proof of
high talent as a painter, if he would reap the renown and win the emoluments
of such a position; and, to indicate his claims, he must descend into the
arena, and let the on-lookers judge what he was worth. In these
competitions, we shall content ourselves with summing up his future history.
To the Edinburgh exhibition
of 1835 he sent four pictures: these were "Sappho and Anacreon," "The
Vintager," a fresco, and "Sketch of the Head of Mary Magdalene."
In that of the following year
were exhibited his "Descent from the Cross," a painting which he had
prepared as an altar-piece for the new Roman Catholic chapel, in Lothian
Street; "Oberon and Puck," and "Macchiavelli and the Beggar." The first of
these was made the subject of the annual engraving circulated by the
Association for the Promotion of the Fine Arts; the last was the
commencement of a series of historic sketches, which Scott continued till
near the close of his life.
To the exhibition of 1837 he
sent only two pictures, "The Abbot of Misrule," and "Judas betraying
Christ." This paucity was chiefly occasioned by the time he devoted to the
Illustrations of the "Ancient Mariner," in which he evinced a congenial
spirit with that of the author of the wild and wondrous legend. Indeed,
Coleridge himself thought it incapable of pictorial illustration, until
these productions of David Scott agreeably convinced him of his mistake.
"The whole series," he thus wrote to the painter, "is exceedingly
impressive, and gives you a good claim to be our Retsch, if that is a
compliment. It is curious to see how many conceptions may be formed of the
imagery of a work of pure imagination. Yours is not like mine of the
‘Ancient Mariner,’ and yet I appreciate, and am deeply sensible of the merit
of yours."
As an artist, Scott, whose
commencement with the exhibition of 1835 had been both unpromising and
disheartening, was now successfully surmounting the public neglect, as well
as its inability to appreciate him, and steadily winning his way to that
eminence which would place him among the highest of his degree. Invigorated
by this prospect, his four pictures which he sent to the exhibition in 1838,
had a sunniness of fancy as well as completeness of touch, that indicated
the hopeful feelings under which they were executed. The subjects were,
"Orestes seized by the Furies after the Murder of his mother, Clytemnestra,
to which he was prompted by his sister, Electra, in revenge of the
Assassination of their father, Agamemnon;" "Rachel Weeping for her
Children;" "Puck fleeing before the Dawn;" and "Ariel and Caliban." About
the same time he also painted, as a companion to the "Orestes," "Achilles
addressing the Manes of Patroclus over the Body of Hector." Another, which
he painted during this year, and which was the most successful he had
hitherto produced, so that it took the stubborn criticism of Edinburgh by
storm, was the "Alchymical Adept Lecturing on the Elixir Vito." This picture
was purchased by the Association for the Promotion of the Fine Arts for
£200. Turning his attention also to the literary department of his
profession, he published, in 1839, and the two following years, a series of
essays in "Blackwood’s Magazine," of which the subjects were, "The Genius of
Raffaele," "Titian, and Venetian Painting," "Leonardo da Vinci and Correggio,"
and the "Caracci, Caravaggio, and Monachism."
The year 1840 was signalized
in Scott’s life by the exhibition of his terrible painting, which he had
executed at Rome, under the title of "Agony of Discord, or the Household
Gods Destroyed," and over which he exclaimed, when it was finished, "That is
the work I must live by!" The figures of this strange myth are scarcely
human, or if human, at least pre-adamite, when stature, and strength, and
passionate expression may be supposed by a poet or artist to have far
transcended the present type of humanity; while over them towers a colossal
Lacoon-like form, exhausted in the struggle, and about to sink with crushing
downfall upon those members of the rebellious home with whom he has been
contending to the last. In the midst of this wild strife, the mother has
thrown her infant upon the floor; the household altar is overturned, and the
household god broken. It was the impersonation, in a single tremendous
scene, of the continual strife and struggle of humanity in its path of
progress from age to age; and therefore fraught, in every part, with deep
and hidden meaning, which nothing but careful examination could detect, and
anxious study comprehend. Of course, it was "caviare to the
multitude," who gazed helplessly upon it, and shook their heads: it was such
also to not a few of those penny-a-line critics whom our provincial journals
extemporize for the nonce, to fill up a column with a "Report of the
Exhibition," and whose whole stock consists of a few terms of art, which
they sow at random over their paragraphs. But was it not thus at first with
"Paradise Lost" and the "Excursion;" or, to come nearer to the comparison,
with "Christabelle" and the "Ancient Mariner?" The highest excellence is
slowly appreciated, and thus it fared with Scott’s "Discord;" but who would
now venture to criticize it in the style that was used in 1840? At the same
exhibition were Scott’s "Philoctetes left in the Isle of Lemnos by the
Greeks, in their Passage towards Troy," a painting also finished during his
stay in Rome; "Cupid sharpening his Arrows," and "The Crucifixion."
In 1841 Scott sent to the
exhibition "Queen Elizabeth in the Globe Theatre," "Queen Mary receiving the
Warrant for her Execution," "The Death of Jane Shore," "Ave Maria," aiid "A
Parthian Archer." In "The Globe Theatre," which was a painting of large
dimensions and plentiful detail, there were, besides the audience, draped
and arranged in the fashion of the period, the virgin queen herself,
listening to the "Merry Wives of Windsor," which had been written at her
desire—its still more illustrious author—and Spenser, Fletcher, Sackville,
Ben Johnson, and other towering spirits of the age, with whom Shakspeare was
wont to wage such glorious conflicts of wit at their meetings in the
Mermaid.
In 1842 Scott exhibited "The
Duke of Gloucester taken into the Water Gate of Calais," "Silenus praising
Wine," and "The Challenge." At the commencement of this year also, being
excited to the task by the proposal of painting the new houses of parliament
with designs in fresco, he published a pamphlet, entitled "British, French,
and German Painting." At the close of this year he likewise exhibited, on
his own account, in the Calton Full Rooms, his large picture of "Vasco de
Gama, the Discoverer of the New Passage to India, encountering the Spirit of
the Storm while attempting to double the Cape of Good Hope," but at that
time known as Capo Tormentoso. Magnificent though the original conception is
in the "Lusiad" of Camoens, it falls greatly short of its illustration by
the painter—and how seldom can this be said of imitation, whether in poetry
or painting! The terrible apparition of the "stormy Spirit of the Cape,"
whose frown itself seems enough to annihilate a navy—the daring
hero-navigator, recovering from his astonishment, and preparing to confront
the prohibition of this unknown power with defiance, or even with actual
battle, if such should be needed—and the strange figures upon the crowded
deck, each of which tells its own tale, compose, of themselves, an epic such
as mere narrative would find it difficult to equal. But who in Edinburgh
cared about De Gama, or had read the "Lusiad," even in a translation? The
exhibition, therefore, so far as pecuniary profit went, was a failure; and
it was not until historic knowledge, combined with critical taste, had
pointed out the striking merits of this production, that public attention
atoned for its neglect. It was afterwards secured for the Trinity House of
Leith, where it now remains.
To the exhibition of 1843
Scott sent his paintings of "Richard III. receiving the Children of Edward
IV. from their Mother;" "The Four Great Masters, being Michael
Angelo, Raffaele, Titian, and Coreggio," which were in separate pictures,
but forming one series; and the "Belated Peasant," from Milton. These are
reckoned to be among the best of his productions. At this period, also, in
consequence of the competition for the painting of the new houses of
parliament, Scott, whose emulation had been roused by the subject, sent two
cartoons as a competitor, the subjects being "Drake witnessing the
Destruction of the Ships of the Spanish Armada" and "Wallace defending
Scotland." These he painted exclusively in his own style, and with a
reference to his own principles of art; but as they had a different ordeal
to pass through, they were tried and rejected. When the competition in
fresco for the same purpose succeeded, Scott, who was one of the few
Scottish artists that understood this style of painting, sent two specimens,
executed upon the principles which had occasioned the condemnation of his
first attempts, and these also shared in the fate of their predecessors.
Returning to a species of competition in which he now had better chances of
success, he sent to the exhibition of 1844, "Wallace the Defender of
Scotland;" "Sir Roger Kirkpatrick Stabbing the Red Comyn, in the Cloisters
of the Greyfriars, Dumfries;" the "Baron in Peace;" and "May," from the
Merchant’s Tale, in Chaucer’s "Canterbury Pilgrims."
The contributions of David
Scott to the exhibition of 1845 were two pictures, the one having for its
subject, "Christian listening to the Instructions of Piety, Charity, and
Discretion;" and of the other, "The Dead rising at the Crucifixion." In 1846
were exhibited his "Peter the Hermit preaching the Crusades," "Dante and
Beatrice," "Fragment from the Fall of the Giants," "Rhea bewailing the
Overthrow of her Titan Sons," and "The Ascension." In 1847 he had only two
paintings in the exhibition; these were "The Triumph of Love," and a small
fresco which he had formerly exhibited in London. In 1848 he sent to it
"Time Surprising Love," "Children Following Fortune," "Queen Mary of
Scotland at the place of Execution," "Hope passing over the Sky of
Adversity," and "The Baptism of Christ." To the exhibition of 1849 he sent
"Delusive Pleasures," "A Sketch of the Fire of London," and "The Domestic
Arcadia."
In this catalogue of his
annual productions, great though it is, and implying an amount of diligence,
perseverance, and intellectual enterprise, such as the artistic studio can
seldom equal, we have not taken into account the numerous portraits and
sketches with which every interval of leisure seems to have been fully
occupied. Alone and unaided, and confronted by a whole world of hostile
criticism, Scott had fought the battle step by step, and been obliged to
struggle for every inch of ground that brought him nearer to the mark of his
ambition. Could such a struggle be either useless or unsuccessful? The
result was thus summed up, soon after the grave had closed upon him, by one
who could well appreciate his worth, as well as commemorate it for the
instruction of posterity:—"In the course of the last fifteen or twenty
years, Scott had steadily become one of the most note-worthy of native
artists. Without fortune, without office, without professional success
commensurate with his undisputed superiority, and living in a state of
seclusion, if not alienation from society, he exhibited a wonderful series
of pictures from year to year; recognized by all but the most frivolous
spectators to be the manifestations of a powerful and exalted soul. The
superficial observer was frequently so much startled, as to find no suitable
expression for his perplexity, except in the sneer of presumptuous folly;
the technical critic was often confounded by the careless pride with which
his rules were set at defiance and superseded; the deeper judge of painting,
considered as one of the forms of art, might occasionally descry some reason
to question the principles of the artist’s procedure; but the thoughtful
were always sure of the striking and original utterance of some new insight
into the nature of man, or into the resources of art. Everybody capable of
forming and pronouncing such a judgment, was aware that only genius of the
most personal and lofty order could have even endeavoured to give itself
expression in the large majority of those singular pieces of work. Even
those who may have been the most inflexibly disposed, upon well-considered
aesthetical grounds, to dispute the painter’s whole idea of art, both in its
scope and in its materials, were also free to confess that he could be
nothing less than a gifted and self-reliant poet at heart. All men felt that
they stood before the works of a mind grandly endowed with ‘the faculty
divine,’ if they were likewise of opinion that he had not completely
achieved ‘the accomplishment of verse.’ Nor can there be any doubt but that
the mass of discerning people did invariably assign him a far higher rank in
the hierarchy of intellect than all his competitors in the race of fame,
even while they honestly refused to his intensely idiosyncratic productions
an equal meed of praise and more substantial encouragement."
The following account of
David Scott’s artistic and social everyday life, as given by the same pen,
is too important to be omitted: "In fact, the large and solemn studio in
which he painted and preserved his picture-poems, had gradually become one
of the most curious and significant features of Edinburgh and its school of
art; and its master-spirit, one of the most individual of Scottish
characters belonging to the age in which we live. It was there that men of
eminence in the church, in politics and law, in science, in literature, and
in life, discovered what manner of man he was, and left him with surprise,
seldom unmingled with pain, and always ennobled by admiration. It was there
that intellectual strangers, of all the more elevated classes of mental
character, found another ‘wise man in a little city,’ not without
astonishment that they had scarcely heard of him before. It was there that
many a tender-hearted lover of whatsoever is great and good, was at once
melted and uplifted by the spectacle of so much cool self-possession, such
unquenchable perseverance, such intrepid independence, and such height of
contemplation, displayed in circumstances which were evidently the reverse
of propitious. It was there that the enamoured students of poetry, in its
essence rather than in its manifold embodiment, stood with reverence by his
side, and, perhaps as proudly indifferent to particulars as he sometimes was
himself, penetrated, by means of imaginative sympathy, to the soul of truth
and beauty, that stirred under the surface of all his happier efforts. It
was there that congenial poets took his cold hand in theirs, and bade him
God-speed, with tears threatening in their eyes. It was there, also, still
more than at the household hearth, that his friends descried the heart of
unflaming fire which glowed within the distant quietude of his manners. It
was there, alas! it may almost literally be said, that he died."
That mournful closing event
occurred on the 5th of March, 1849. As yet only at the period when life is
strongest, and hope, if not at the brightest, is yet the most firmly
established—it was then that he passed away, worn out and weary, and longing
to be at rest, he thus added one name more to that long list of the sons of
promise who have been snatched from the world, when the world could least
spare their presence, and when their loss was to be most regretted. But in
the case of David Scott, how, indeed, could it be otherwise with such a
restless, fervid, sensitive spirit, inclosed. within such a delicate frame
and sickly constitution? But he had held out bravely to the last; and even
during his final illness, his love of art predominated in conceptions that
needed full health to embody, and sketches that were left unfinished. At the
most, he was only in his forty-third year at the period of his decease. |
