The sum charged the public for viewing this Gallery was one shilling,
and for the descriptive catalogue, sixpence. The receipts of the
exhibition during the first month amounted only to one hundred and
seventeen pounds, and the two succeeding ones were each even less than
this sum; so that when it was closed, at the end of July, the whole of
the money taken at the doors was not adequate to the payment of the rent
of the premises and the expenses incurred for advertisements and
attendants. Fuseli was somewhat dismayed by this, and thus expressed
himself: "I have dreamt of a golden land, and solicit in vain for the
barge which is to carry me to its shore." But the consciousness of his
own merit did not allow him to sink under the disappointment; he
determined to try the effect of another season, and laboured diligently
upon pictures to be then added to the Gallery.
Barry, who was at this time professor of painting to the Royal Academy,
had for a long period made himself obnoxious to the members, first by
his undeserved attacks upon the works of his earliest and best friend in
the art, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and afterwards by occasionally delivering
in his lectures the most severe criticisms upon the works of living
artists, and among others upon those of West, the then President, and
Fuseli. The latter were, however, in some degree provoked by the
frequent although just sallies of wit, which Fuseli employed on Barry's
pretensions to learning. The President and Council of the Academy
pointed out the impolicy of such proceedings, and indeed reprimanded
Barry; but this, instead of checking, had the effect of increasing the
violence of his abuse. A meeting of the whole body of the Academicians
was consequently summoned, and they not only dispossessed him of the
Chair as Professor, but expelled him the Academy. The Chair of the
Professor of Painting being by this resolution vacant, Opie intimated
an intention of offering himself as a candidate; but, upon being told
that Fuseli intended to do the same thing, he immediately withdrew his
name, paying at the same time this merited compliment to his genius and
talents: "I would not," said he, "have surrendered my pretensions to any
other artist but Fuseli," who was therefore elected on the 29th of June
1799. The powers which he had displayed in the pictures of "The Milton
Gallery," his learning and well-known critical knowledge, were the
causes which influenced the Academicians in their choice.
It has been insidiously asserted, that after Fuseli left Zurich in 1779,
he was not on friendly terms with the members of his family; and that
they took little or no interest in the success of his efforts in the
Fine Arts. The following translation of a letter from his eldest
brother, Rodolph, proves the assertion to be unfounded.
"Vienna, May 7th, 1799.
"DEAREST BROTHER,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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