English essays; English literature -- 20th century; Short stories, English
the _Greek Studies_ will be found a graceful reference to the 'young
Hebrew painter' whose 'Bacchus' at the Academy obviously contributed to
the 'gem-like' flame of which we have heard so much.
In a short-lived magazine, the _Dark Blue_, of July 1871, may be found a
characteristic review by Swinburne of Solomon's strange rhapsody, _A
Vision of Love Revealed in Sleep_, his only literary work, now a great
rarity. This is the longest, and with one exception the most
interesting, tribute to Solomon ever published. 'Since the first years
of his early and brilliant celebrity as a young artist of high
imagination, power, and promise,' Swinburne says, 'he has been at work
long enough to enable us to define at least certain salient and dominant
points of his genius . . . I have heard him likened to Heine as a kindred
Hellenist of the Hebrews; Grecian form and beauty divide the allegiance
of his spirit with Hebrew shadow and majesty.' It would be difficult to
add anything further, in praise of the unfortunate artist, to the poet's
eloquent eulogy of his friend's talents. An interesting piece of
autobiography is afforded in the same article, where Swinburne tells us
that his own poem of 'Erotion,' in the first series of _Poems and
Ballads_, was written for a drawing by Simeon Solomon; and in another
number of the same magazine there appeared 'The End of the Month,' to
accompany a new design of Solomon's, the poem appearing later in the
second series of _Poems and Ballads_. Very few English artists--not even
Millais--began life with fairer prospects. Thackeray wrote in one of the
'Roundabout Papers' for 1860: 'For example, one of the pictures I admired
most at the Royal Academy is by a gentleman on whom I never, to my
knowledge, set eyes. The picture is (346) "Moses," by S. Solomon. I
thought it finely drawn and composed. It nobly represented to my mind
the dark children of the Egyptian bondage. . . . My newspaper says: "Two
ludicrously ugly women, looking at a dingy baby, do not form a pleasing
object," and so good-bye, Mr. S. S.' This beautiful picture, painted
when the artist was only nineteen, is now in the collection of Mr. W. G.
Rawlinson, and was seen quite recently at the Franco-British Exhibition,
where those familiar with his work considered it one of Solomon's
masterpieces. Very few students of Thackeray realised, however, that the
painter thus singled out for praise formed the subject of a sordid
inquest reported in the _Times_ of August 18th, 1905.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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