The Gallery of Portraits: with Memoirs. Volume 1 (of 7) — John Shaqi
The Gallery of Portraits: with Memoirs. Volume 1 (of 7)Malkin, Arthur Thomas
History
The Gallery of Portraits: with Memoirs. Volume 1 (of 7)
Malkin, Arthur Thomas
Biography
Amongst the different classes of his works, the religious and the poetic
were those in which he chiefly excelled. The number of pure and exalted
conceptions, which he has left sketched in plaster or outlined in
pencil, is quite extraordinary. “His solitude,” observes Sir Thomas
Lawrence, “was made enjoyment to him by a fancy teeming with images of
tenderness, purity, or grandeur. His genius, in the strictest sense of
the word, was original and inventive.” Among the most important of his
works not before noticed, is his monument to the memory of Sir Francis
Baring, in Mitcheldever Church, Hants, a work of exquisite beauty, both
in design and expression, embodying the words, “Thy kingdom come—thy
will be done—deliver us from evil.” He also executed, among others,
monuments to the memory of Mary Lushington, of Lewisham, in Kent, to the
Countess Spencer, to the Rev. Mr. Clowes, of St. John’s Church,
Manchester, and to the Yarborough family at Street Thorpe, near York.
This last, and one to Edward Bulmer, representing an aged man
instructing a youthful pair, Flaxman considered the best of his
compositions.
He executed several historical monuments to naval and military
commanders. These deal too largely in emblems and allegories,
Britannias, lions, victories, and wreaths of laurel, to add much to the
reputation of the artist: especially as his forte lay in the exquisite
feeling and grace of his conceptions, not in manual dexterity of
execution; the chief merit to which such cold and uninteresting
productions can lay claim. He executed statues of Sir Joshua Reynolds;
of Sir John Moore, in bronze, of colossal size, for Glasgow; of Pitt,
for the Town-Hall of the same city; of Burns; and of Kemble, in the
character of Coriolanus. That of Sir Joshua Reynolds (one of his
earliest) is perhaps the best. Many of his works were sent abroad: for
India he executed a statue of the Rajah of Tanjore, and a monument to
the celebrated Schwartz; two monuments in memory of Lord Cornwallis, a
figure of Warren Hastings, and a statue of the Marquess of Hastings.
Since the death of Flaxman, six plates have been published by his
sister, from his designs. The subjects are religious; the engravings are
admirable fac-similes of the original drawings, which were made in his
best time; and perhaps there is no published work of his more
illustrative of the peculiar taste and genius of the artist.
Our Portrait has been engraved from a fine picture by Jackson, in the
possession of Lord Dover. There is also an excellent portrait painted by
Howard, and a good bust of Flaxman was executed by Baily some few years
before our artist’s death.
[Illustration: [“Feed the hungry,” from a bas-relief of Flaxman.]]
[Illustration]
COPERNICUS
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