His intimate and fellow-sculptor--a painter also--Adrien Charpentier,
executed a characteristic portrait of Roubiliac. He is represented at
work upon a small-size model of his Shakespeare. He is touching the eye
of the figure with his modelling tool, and the task, one of some
delicacy and difficulty, adds to the animation of the operator. His
head, where it is not covered by the fanciful loose head-dress affected
by poets and artists of the period, is bald: possibly shaven, for the
convenience of wig-wearing, after the custom of the time. His dress is
disordered, his bosom bare, his wristbands loose. Had Roubiliac carved
his own statue in stone, it would probably, in treatment, have closely
followed Charpentier's picture.
A portrait of Roubiliac, painted by himself, was sold for
three-and-sixpence only at the sale of his effects. The prices, indeed,
at this sale seem to have been desperately low. There were no
antiquities or objects of _virtu_ brought to the hammer: and Mr. Canto
was not the auctioneer! A copy by Reynolds of the Chandos portrait of
Shakespeare, with seven other pictures, was knocked down for ten
shillings only, the father of John Flaxman being the purchaser. Reynolds
had painted the picture as a present to his friend, Mr. Roubiliac. It
afterwards became the property of Mr. Edmond Malone.
THE RISE OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY.
The famous artists of the Continent almost invariably organize schools
of art, converting their studios into miniature academies, surrounding
themselves with pupils and disciples who sit at their feet, listen to
their teaching, assist them by painting for them the less important
portions of their works, adopt their processes, and follow their styles
of drawing and colouring. There is something to be said for the system.
It is an advantage to the young student to be constantly brought into
contact with a real master of the art; to have the opportunity of
working under his supervision, and, on the other hand, of watching him
at his labours, and of witnessing the birth, growth, and completion of
his best pictures. The main objection to the plan is that it may develop
merely imitative ability rather than stimulate genuine originality; that
it inclines the student to follow too scrupulously a beaten track rather
than strike out a fresh pathway for himself. He may reproduce the
virtues of his exemplar's art, but he will certainly copy its vices as
well. And then the difficult question arises: when is he to assert his
independence? At what period in his career is he to cease leaning on his
teacher, and to pursue his own devices unaided and alone? He may have
tied his leading-strings so tightly about him that liberty of thought
and action has become almost impossible to him, and the free use of his
limbs, so to speak, has gone from him. It is quite true that the artist
should be a student all his life; but then he should be a student of art
generally, not of any one professor of art in particular, or he will be
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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