George Morland : a biographical essay / by J.T. Herbert Baily, with a catalogue of the engraved pictures.

Abstract

SketcfiAcademy, where in 1785 she showed two picturesa girl with a guinea pig and a girl washing.Her husband was presented by her with three sons and two daughters, and whatever be the merit of his pictures, the world owes our gratitude for the gift of George, whose genius was a goodly heritage in English art.Many curious stories are told of the lad's up-bringing, and is must be confessed that some of them tax one's credulity severely According to Dawe, his early friend and not too kind biographer, the boy was made his father's little slave, and kept long hours every day shut up in an upper room, copying his father's pictures, and the works of Ruysdael, Hobbema, Gainsborough, and other masters.He had shown an astonishing precocity even in his babyhood, and the usual tales of genius were told of him, such as his childish drawing of a beetle on the floor so extraordinarily life-like and accurate that his father went to crush it with his foot.Such a story is to be read with a smile, but we can believe more easily that in his first drawing of a coach and horses his father detected a quick observation and an instinctive talent for drawing.The boy was always happiest with a pencil, and afterwards a brush, in his hands, and this alone makes it rather difficult to believe the accusations of " cruelty " against his father for keeping him too hard at work, and allowing him no relaxation.Like many boys George went through a period of intense shyness, the boyishness of the hobbledehoy, and it was probably his passion for art, and an excuse of his own awkwardness in society, which made him shun his father's fine company and retire to the solitude of his little studio with his brushes and paints.It was a strange household, rather disorderly and Bohemian, one would imagine from all accounts.George's two brothers both ran away to sea, probably to escape the paternal tyranny of Henry Morland, who in spite of the artistic temperament does not seem to have escaped the austerity and domineering character of the typical eighteenth century father.But his two sisters were homely and attractive girls, and kept the house meny with their high spirits.There were numerous visitors to the house, for Henry Morland was on familiar terms with his fellow artists, and Flaxman, and the great Sir Joshua himself, would often call in to George Morland pay their respects to Mrs. Morland and to discuss the mezzotint process and art generally with her versatile husband.But while the elegant Sir Joshua and his friends were downstairs, in an upper room young George sat alone with his genius unknown as yet to those who admired his father's inferior work.His chief recreation at this time was music, for when he laid down his brushes it was to pick up his violin and fill his lonely room with throbbing, tumultuous sounds.It would make a subject for a genre painter, this picture of young Morland, a dark-eyed, bullet- headed fellow, standing in the midst of a disorder of canvases, brushes, paints, and palettes, playing alone in his garret.His one tried friend at this period of his life seems to have been a lad named Dawe, who afterwards wrote his biography.This youth became a pupil of Henry Morland, and young George used to go long walks with him on a Saturday afternoon.Dawe describes how they went once to some sandpits at Blackheath, and how amazed he was at the memory of his comrade, when, some weeks later, George made a picture of the scene with such accuracy of detail that it was almost impossible to believe he had not painted it

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