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ALLAN, SIR WILLIAM, R.A.,
President of the Royal Scottish Academy of Painting. This distinguished
painter was born at Edinburgh, in the year 1782, and was the son of William
Allan, who held the humble office of macer in the Court of Session.
Notwithstanding the circumstances of his birth, he was destined, like others
of the same grade in Scotland, to undergo a classical education, before his
future path in life was selected. Accordingly, he was sent, while still in
early boyhood, to the High School of Edinburgh, and placed under the
preceptorship of Mr. William Nichol, whose memory will descend to posterity
more for the "peck o’ maut," which he brewed to supply one memorable sitting
where Burns was the laureate, than for all his classical attainments,
respectable though they were. The future artist, however, was a poor Latin
scholar, though Nichol was a stern and able teacher. In fact, the young boy
already felt nature strong within him, so that he was employed in sketching
the objects around him with whatever instrument came to hand, while his
class-fellows were occupied with the commentaries of Caesar, or the longs
and shorts of Ovid. So keen was this artistic tendency, that the forms and
floor of the class-room were frequently chalked with his juvenile efforts,
while their excellence invariably pointed out the offender who had thus
transgressed against academic rule. Another luxury in which he indulged, was
to linger near a group of boys playing at marbles; and while studying their
attitudes and the expression of their countenances, he neither thought of
the class hour that had elapsed, nor the punishment that awaited his
remissness. After striving against the bent, Mr Nichol saw that he could not
transform his pupil into a lover of Latin and Greek; but his pupil had long
been of the same opinion. He felt within himself not only his natural
tendency, but a vague conception of the eminence to which it would lead him;
and his usual reply to paternal remonstrance was, "Father, in spite of all
this spending of money in learning Latin, I will be a painter." A painter
accordingly it was consented that he should be, but his noviciate in the
profession was sufficiently humble: he was bound apprentice to a
coach-builder in Leith Walk, to paint the armorial bearings on the panels of
carriages. But Hogarth himself had a less promising commencement. William
Allan, although a stripling not more than thirteen years of age, soon gave
such indications of pictorial excellence, that he was employed in the
delicate task of painting certain anatomical preparations at Surgeon’s
Square Hall. At the commencement of his labours there, he was locked up by
mistake at night in the room where he had been occupied all day, and was
thus compelled to spend the hours of darkness amidst the skeletons and
mangled relics of the dead. The hideous effects upon the imagination of a
timid susceptible boy in such a charnel-house; the sights he saw by the
glimmer of the moon through the crevices of the window-shutters, and the
still more terrible phantasms which his fancy conjured up, formed such a
night of horror as no artist but Fuseli could have relished. Allan himself
was wont at a late stage in life, and amidst the literary circles of
Edinburgh by which he was surrounded, to detail the particulars of this
ghastly bivouac with a force of description and amount of merriment that
never failed to set the hearers in a roar. It was making Yorick’s skull to
speak anew, for the mirth of a present, as well as past generation.
The high promise of excellence
which the coach-panel painting of William Allan afforded, so won upon his
employer, that, through the influence of the latter, he was entered in the
Trustees’ Academy, where he was a pupil for several years; and it is worthy of
remark that Wilkie entered this school at the same period with Allan, sat on the
same form, and copied from the same models and drawings. This circumstance,
independently of their mutual enthusiasm for the art in which they were
afterwards so distinguished, ripened an affection between them which no jealous
rivalry could subsequently disturb. Their friendship continued unabated till the
close of Wilkie’s life; and Allan was wont, while training his scholars, to
refer to his illustrious fellow-pupil, as their best model and example. After he
had spent several years in the lessons of the Trustees’ Academy, where he had a
faithful and efficient teacher in Mr. Graham, of whose instructions he always
spoke with gratitude and respect, Allan went to London, and was admitted to the
school of the Royal Academy. On commencing active life, however, he soon
experienced the difficulties with which the Fine Arts, as a profession, have to
contend in the great metropolis of merchandise: his superiority was not
appreciated with that readiness which his youthful enthusiasm had anticipated,
and the demands upon his pencil were so few, as would soon have been
insufficient to furnish him with the means of a mere subsistence. Like his
countrymen so situated, he resolved to try the experiment elsewhere, and find,
or make a home, wherever his talents could be best appreciated. The place which
he selected for trial was Russia, a country still semi-barbarous, and but
imperfectly known in general society, and where the Fine Arts seemed to have
little chance of a cordial reception, amidst the recent, and as yet, imperfect
civilization of the people. The boldness of his choice also was fully matched by
scantiness of means for its execution; for he knew nothing of the Russ language,
was slenderly provided with money, and had only one or two letters of
introduction to some of his countrymen in St. Petersburg.
Thus inadequately equipped, the
artist-adventurer threw himself into that bold career which was ultimately to
lead to fame and fortune. Even the commencement was attended with a startling
omen; for the ship in which he embarked for Riga was tossed about by adverse
winds, and at length driven almost a wreck into Memel. Thus, contrary to his
purpose, Allan found himself the temporary inhabitant of a sea-port town in
Prussia, in the midst of a people to whose tongue he was a stranger, and with
pecuniary resources which a few days would have exhausted. Still, however, his
stout heart triumphed over the difficulty. Having settled himself at an inn, he
commenced in due form the occupation of portrait painter, and had for his first
sitter the Danish consul, to whom he had been introduced by the captain of the
vessel that brought him to Memel. Other sitters followed; and having thus
recruited his exhausted purse, he resumed his original purpose of travelling to
Russia, which he did by land, passing on his way to St. Petersburg through a
considerable part of the Russian army, which was at that time on its march to
the fatal field of Austerlitz. At St. Petersburg, he found an effectual patron
in his countryman, Sir Alexander Crichton, physician to the imperial family, to
whom he was warmly recommended by Colonel Crichton, the physician’s brother, one
of his early patrons in Scotland, and by Sir Alexander he was introduced to an
extensive and fashionable circle of society, where his artistic talents were
appreciated, and his opportunities for their improvement furthered. To
accomplish that improvement, indeed, was so strongly the desire of his ardent
enthusiastic mind, that neither the motives of personal comfort and safety, nor
the attractive society of the Russian capital, could withhold him from a course
of adventurous self-denying travel. He therefore repaired to the Ukraine, where
he resided for several years, studying the wild scenery of the steppes, and the
still wilder costume and manners of its inhabitants, with a fearless and
observant eye. He also made occasional journeys to Turkey and Tartary, as well
as to the remote dependencies of the Russian empire, dwelling in the hut of the
barbarian serf, or the tent of the wandering nomade, as well as the palace of
the boyar and the emir; and amidst the picturesque tribes of the east and north,
with whom he thus freely fraternized, he enjoyed a daily intercourse with those
whom his less adventurous brethren at home are contented to delineate from the
narratives of the traveller or the waking dreams of the studio. The large
collection which Allan made of the dresses, armour, weapons, and utensils of the
various communities among whom he sojourned, and the life-like ease and fidelity
of form, feature, and costume, by which the figures of his principal paintings
are distinguished, attest how carefully and how completely he had identified
himself with Russian, Turk, and Pole, with Cossack, Circassian, and Bashkir. It
is much to be regretted that no journal appears to have been kept by the artist
of the many stirring scenes he witnessed, and the strange adventures he
underwent in this novel pilgrimage in quest of the sublime and the beautiful.
That they were pregnant with interest and instruction, and worthy of a permanent
record, was well evinced by the delight with which his hearers were wont to
listen to his conversational narratives, when he happened—which was but
rarely—to allude to the events of his travels. He appears also to have become an
especial favourite with those rude children of the mountain and the desert among
whom he sojourned, and whose language, dress, and manners he adopted, so that he
is still remembered by the old among them as an adopted son or brother, while in
Poland, the usual name by which he is distinguished is, le Raphael Ecossais—the
Scottish Raphael.
After this romantic
apprenticeship to his beloved profession, in which he established for himself a
high reputation as a painter among foreigners, while he was still unknown at
home, Allan resolved in 1812 to return to his native land, for which he had
never ceased, amidst all his travels, to entertain a most affectionate longing.
But the invasion of Russia by Napoleon obliged him to postpone his purpose; and,
in addition to the large stock of ideas which he had already accumulated for
future delineation, he was compelled to witness, and treasure up remembrances of
the worst effects of war upon its grandest scale— bloodshed, conflagration, and
famine maddening every human passion and feeling to the uttermost. On the
restoration of peace in 1814, Allan returned to Edinburgh after a ten years’
absence, and commenced in earnest the work for which he had undergone so
singular a training. His first effort, which was finished in 1815, and exhibited
in Somerset House, was his well-known painting of the "Circassian Captives;" and
after this, followed the "Tartar Banditti;" "Haslan Gherai crossing the Kuban;"
"A Jewish Wedding in Poland;" and "Prisoners conveyed to Siberia by Cossacks."
But, notwithstanding the now highly established reputation of these and other
productions, which he exhibited in his native city, along with the costumes and
weapons of the countries by which his paintings were illustrated, a home
reputation was very hard to establish: his countrymen, with their proverbial
caution, were slow to perceive the excellencies that addressed them in such an
unwonted form, and refused to sympathize, at first sight, with Poles, Tartars,
and Circassians. It was well, therefore, for Allan that his labours had already
been prized in Russia, so that he had not been allowed to return home
empty-handed. He persevered with the same boldness that had carried him onward
through the encampments of the Calmucks, or the defiles of the Caucasus; and to
all the remonstrances of his relations, who advised him to leave such
unprofitable work and betake himself to portraits, by which he would gain both
fame and money, his invariable answer was, "I will be a historical painter." His
perseverance was at last rewarded. Sir Walter Scott, John Lockhart, and John
Wilson, with others, who were able to appreciate the artist’s merits, combined
to purchase the "Circassian Captives" at a price adequate to its value; and
having done this, the individual possession of the painting was decided among
them by lot, in consequence of which it became the property of the Earl of
Wemyss. "Haslan Gherai," and the "Siberian Exiles," also found a munificent
purchaser in the Grand Duke Nicholas, now Emperor of Russia, when he visited the
Scottish capital. The tide had thus changed; and it bore him on to fortune, not
only in pecuniary matters, but to what he had still more at heart— the
establishment of his reputation as a Scottish painter of history. Although they
are so well known, the following list of his principal productions may here be
fitly introduced:—
THE SLAVE MARKET AT
CONSTANTINOPLE—Purchased by Alexander Hill, Esq, and now the property of Miss
Davidson of Durievale, Fife.
JOHN KNOX ADMONISHING MARY QUEEN
OF SCOTS.—This is the well-known scene described by the Reformer himself,
in which the beautiful queen, irritated by his bold sentiments about the limited
power of sovereigns, and the liberty of their subjects, burst into tears.
THE ORPHAN, a scene at
Abbotsford, in the interior of Sir Walter Scott’s breakfast-room.
THE MEETING OF DAVID DEANS WITH HIS DAUGHTER JEANNIE AT
ROSENEATH. In the tale of the "Heart of Mid-Lothian," Sir Walter Scott, after
describing the dress, look, and attitude of the stern old father, adds, "So
happily did they assort together, that, should I ever again see my friends
Wilkie or Allan, I will try to borrow or steal from them a sketch of this very
scene." This was a fair challenge, which Allan gladly accepted, and the picture
of the meeting at Roseneath was the result. -
THE REGENT MURRAY SHOT BY
HAMILTON OF BOTHWELLHAUGH.—In this great event of Scottish history, the
painter, instead of confining himself to the strict historical record, has
adopted the poetical description of Sir Walter Scott in his ballad of Cadzow.
This gave the artist an opportunity of introducing several personages who were
not present at the scene, such as John Knox, and the Earl of Morton.
THE MURDER OF DAVID RIZZIO.
THE FAIR MAID OF PERTH.
—The scene is that in the glover’s house, when Henry of the Wynd was suddenly
awoke on Valentine’s morn by the bashful salute of the fair object of his
affections, according to the established custom of the festival.
THE BATTLE OF PRESTONPANS.—The
central and chief object in this painting is the death of Colonel Gardiner,
amidst the small handful of English infantry whom he joined when his cavalry had
deserted him.
THE ETTRICK SHEPHERD’S BIRTHDAY.--In this painting, the
portraits of the principal friends of the artist and poet are introduced within
the interior of Hogg’s house at Eltrive, after a day spent in trouting
and rambling among the mountains.
THE DEATH OF ARCHBISHOP SHARPE.
A PRESS-GANG.—The terrible and
heart-rending fidelity and power of this delineation have always placed
it in the foremost rank of Allan’s artistic productions. A young man, the son of
a fisherman, has just returned from a long voyage in a merchant ship, and been
welcomed by his parents, relatives, and mistress: the triumphant feast is
prepared, and the happiness of the party has reached its height, when a
press-gang suddenly rushes in, and the sailor-boy is within their grasp, and
about to be carried off. The agony of the parents; the fruitless attempt of the
mother to bribe the leader of the gang; the stupor of the aged grandfather and
grandmother, with whom this seems to be the last, as well as the most crushing
affliction which a long-spent and now worn-out life could have in store for
them—and saddest of all, the half-dressed maiden who has hurried to welcome her
lover’s return, but only to lose him, and who has fallen into an insensibility
that might be mistaken for death—compose a group of misery which art has seldom
equalled, and perhaps never surpassed.
These are but a few of Allan’s
many productions, which were prized by competent judges as masterpieces of
historical painting, and the greater part of which have been familiarized to the
public at large through the medium of engraving. His labours, however, were more
than once subject to interruption from ill health; and at last, a complaint in
the eyes suspended his exertions for several years, and threatened to end in
total blindness. By medical advice he went to Italy; and after sojourning a
winter at Rome, and spending a short time in Naples, he visited Constantinople,
Asia Minor, and Greece, and returned with recruited health to his beloved studio
in Edinburgh. He became once more a traveller in 1834, being desirous of
visiting the romantic and historical scenery of Spain. His journey on this
occasion extended into Western Barbary, and would have been still further
lengthened, but for a sudden necessity of returning home, after which he
continued to produce many of his best paintings. A desire also to paint the
Battle of Waterloo led him several times to France and Belgium, that he might
collect sufficient materials in costume, scenery, and incident, and study
accurately the field of conflict. The result was a magnificent view of this
great combat of nations, which, at the exhibition of the Royal Academy in 1843,
was purchased by the Duke of Wellington, who testified his approbation of its
truth and accuracy. Allan had now done enough for fame and fortune, both as
artist and traveller; but in 1844, he again grasped his pilgrim’s staff for a
journey into the far north. He visited Russia, and there produced his painting
of "Peter the Great teaching his subjects the art of shipbuilding;" which, after
being exhibited in the Royal Academy in 1845, was purchased by the Emperor of
Russia, for the winter palace of St. Petersburg. In consequence of the success
of his first painting of Waterloo, he resolved on producing a second; and, as
the former was delineated as viewed from the French side of the action, the
latter was from the British. Independently also of the stirring nature of the
subject, his personal as well as patriotic feelings were engaged in this new
effort, for it was intended for the competition of Westminster Hall in 1846.
Great, however, as were its merits, it was unsuccessful. It was afterwards
purchased by the Junior United Service Club in London, of whose splendid rooms
it now forms a conspicuous ornament. The public honours which had already
rewarded him, might indeed sufficiently console him under this disappointment;
for in 1826 he was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy, and in 1835 an
Academician. Four years later, on the death of Watson, he was unanimously
preferred to the office of President of the Royal Scottish Academy; and in 1842,
after having been appointed her Majesty’s Limner for Scotland on the death of
Wilkie, he received the honour of knighthood. He was now also the venerable
father of Scottish painting, and could look around him with pleasure upon a race
of promising artists whose genius his example and labours had kindled in a
department which, as yet, his countrymen had almost wholly neglected.
The last professional labour in
which Sir William Allan was engaged was the Battle of Bannockburn, into the
difficult and complicated details of which he entered with all the inspiration
and vigour of his best days. The period of action selected was the critical
moment when the English, daunted by the discomfiture of their bowmen, the
overthrow of their splendid cavalry among the concealed pits, and the appearance
of what seemed a fresh Scottish army descending from the Gillie’s Hill, gave way
on every side, and were pressed and borne down by the resistless effort of the
four Scottish bodies, now united into one, with the heroic Bruce at their head.
But this painting, to which he clung to the last, and touched and retouched with
a dying hand, he did not live to finish. He died at his house in Great King
Street, Edinburgh, on February 23, 1850. As a painter, Sir William Allan will
long be gratefully remembered in the annals of Scottish art, for the impulse
which he gave to historical composition. For this department he was eminently
fitted; for his excellence in painting did not so much consist in character and
colour, as in his admirable power in telling a story and his general skill in
composition, by which each of his productions is a striking poetical narrative.
Sir Walter Scott, a congenial spirit, who highly prized and affectionately loved
him, was wont to speak of him under the familiar endearing name of "Willie
Allan." |
