The “portrait-painter” must dress his manikin in clothes that will “paint,” for the manikin is worse than nothing for the picture. There must be a gown of brilliant stuffs, and either a hat or the hair-dresser,--who also has made and unmade portraits,--or there must be a uniform, hunting-breeches, judge’s gown and wig, accordingly as the manikin is woman or man; and it is the theatrical trappings that are painted, and, incidentally thereto,--manikin. * * * * * Reynolds painted something like two thousand canvases. In 1758 one hundred and fifty persons sat to him,--an average of three portraits a week. He was as methodical as an automatic machine. Rose early, breakfasted at nine, was in the studio at ten, worked by himself until eleven, when his first sitter of the day would appear, to be succeeded by another precisely one hour later, and so on, a sitter an hour, until four o’clock, when the popular painter made himself ready for a plunge in the social swirl. Portraits produced under such conditions cannot be made more than technically brilliant,--superficial likenesses of the great majority of the sitters,--and are unworthy the painter’s art. After a brief study of their careers, and without seeing a portrait by either, one would be warranted in looking for a masterpiece among Gainsborough’s two hundred and twenty portraits rather than among the two thousand canvases of Reynolds. Great facility of execution is not necessarily a condemnatory feature of a man’s art, but it is a dangerous feature, and with most men it is a fatal feature. The hand of the master must be entirely subservient to the brain. No obstacle should intervene between the inspiration and its complete expression, but the hand must not force the imagination; and it is true that command of technic--mere digital dexterity--does lead the performer, whether painter or musician, to speak when he has nothing to say. Happily for the reputation of Reynolds, he painted now and then a portrait in which he took more interest, and these have some--possibly not many--of the qualities that live. For the most part his reputation rests on mere volume of brilliant and high-grade work,--very much as one factory has a greater reputation than another. And he did more than any man who ever lived to reduce “portrait-painting” to a trade, a mechanical pursuit. In the modern sense of the phrase, he was one of the greatest of “portrait-painters;” certainly the most “successful”--again in the modern sense--the world has known, of talent supreme, in genius wanting. * * * * * But there are portraits and portraits,--to illustrate: There are portraits. There are portraits that are also pictures. There are pictures that are also portraits. There are pictures.