Chalcographimania or, the Portrait-Collector and Printseller's Chronicle, with Infatuations of euery Description. A humorous poem in four books. With copious notes explanatory. By Satiricus Sculptor [i.e. S. W. H. Ireland] |
 |
|
| 1. |
| 2. |
| 3. |
| 4. |
PICTURE MANIA. |
 | Chalcographimania |  |
PICTURE MANIA.
On such as boast a rage for pictures;
Who like friend Catalogus con
The page renown'd of Pilkington:
Wherefore sage leader of the van,
Comes St---ff---rd's Marquis, mighty man ,
To make election of one Br---t---n,
As register of pictures grand,
Though Painting he don't understand .
View D---v---ds---n great Alexander ,
Books, prints, and pictures, manfully;
With just such judgment as appears
To grace the creature with long ears.
Comes Bristol D---v---s, christ'ned Hart ,
That adds to name an M. and P.
A banker who in arts ranks shallow,
But famous judge of Russian tallow ;
As glimmer of a farthing light:
'Tis money makes the mare to go.
A R---v---sly comes, who buys and sells ,
To wearer of Right Reverend wig;
He ranks true dealer, more or less.
Must Leicester's Baronet be nam'd ,
Rewarding worth of modern days;
Such as by Stothard is possess'd,
A Wilkie, Beechy, or a West.
As the Marquis of Wellington ranks generalissimo on the Peninsula, even so does St---ff---rd's peer boast the title of commander-in-chief among the picture collectors of our island: nor can I in justice deny that many specimens in this nobleman's gallery are superlative examples of the graphic art.
Mr. Br---t---n, the publisher of some very choice specimens of architectural gothic remains, was elected Fellow of the Antiquarian Society, on account of his enthusiastic research, as I conjecture, into stone walls; for independently of their pictorial representation, I cannot divine a cause the nomination in question should have taken place. To the present personage also devolved the task of cataloguing the pictures of the last-mentioned nobleman: a labour he was in no respect capable of judiciously performing, having never been inducted to any refined knowledge of the graphic art.
This gentleman, who is immersed in the dunnest smoke of Bœotian ignorance, has nothing but money to recommend him: backed however by such a requisite auxiliary, he stands forward a great collector, purchasing at random, without either taste, judgment, or science.
Mr. H---t D---v---s, member of parliament, is deeply infected with the Picture Mania, which money, acquired in that emporium of ignorance, the city of Bristol, enabled him to indulge in its fullest extent.
Some years back this senatorial banker, realized £.40,000 in one day, by a lucky speculation in Russian tallow; but as I am now occupied upon the topic of a Bristolian lover of pictures, I cannot resist the desire of giving my reader the following poetical quotation from an unknown writer, as highly descriptive of the Bristol race, when considered under the head of the arts.
Of the arts I must speak, so at once to define,A Bristol Apelles—behold but the sign
Of red rampant Lion, a Savage and Bell,
Their talents such daubs comprehensively tell;
While taste is display'd in a breach of those rules,
Which genius has sanction'd and use of the schools,
Here quantum of colours on pallet ne'er fail
To make Iris blush, and outvie peacock's tail;
The true line of beauty your optics can't trace,
In figures possessing no vestige of grace.
Whose outlines display—or I'm not a bard,
True emblems of adamant, tasteless, and hard.
O! artists of Somerset Place, prithee say,
Are such the aspirers to envied R. A.
Shall vestments of pinks, blues, and reds, nature shock,
Arraying each portrait, a true barber's block!
Shall faces of chalk and vermilion's hot glow,
Shall hands, precise models of pale lumpy dough,
In short, can endowments like these prefer claim,
To ought pictatorial, worthy of fame?
Or if at their landscapes a slight glance we take,
The trees are green brooms, and the skies all opake;
In lieu of the rivers transparently bright,
'Tis an expanse of azure, or one plane of white;
The villas all staring prove wond'rous defective
In that most essential of points—true perspective.
While cows, dogs, and horses, like sticks void of motion,
Of playthings from toyshop convey a just notion.
Cuyp, Waterloo, Wouvermans, Ruysdale, they scorn,
Poor souls, if in Bristol, they'd all pine forlorn;
Their just compositions no patrons would find,
Bristolians for nature possess not the mind;
When they part with their guineas they claim what is rare,
A Picture of Pictures, to make people stare,
Determin'd they'll get what is sterling for gold,
Their uniform practice I'll instant unfold:
To those tenets close sticking of Cocker profound,
They purchase no Pictures, but Paint by the pound!
O shame! Science droops while true artists deplore,
That Genius at Bristol does nothing but snore.
Yet ah! sons of lucre, tho' bound by the spell
Of ignorance black as the dun shades of hell,
Though Bœotia's dark Erebus hangs o'er your spheres,
Enshrouding your senses and eke asses ears,
In short tho' of painting ye deem yourselves judges,
Your knowledge in this at a snail's pace slow trudges,
Like glazier's as bright; who, for publican shows,
On shutter fine checkers in orderly rows.
Yet do not despair, friends, ye still boast a charm,
To kindle in painters a fire brisk and warm;
I mean not of genius the flame trite and old,
Extinguish'd in Bristol—I mean, Sirs, your gold;
Since lucre makes daubers clean canvass defile,
And paint not by yard or by ell—but the mile;
In fine they have sense to avow ye are ninnies,
And all that they crave is your guineas, your guineas;
Your gold they will have, they declare by the pallet,
And knock ye down, using the brush for the mallet;
That weapon tremendous which nothing withstands,
Making dull heads more dull, when design'd by such hands.
In brief it requires no small sense to decide,
Whether artist or cit is to sense most allied;
But of this I'm convinc'd none would ever aspire,
To say that conjoin'd they would set Thames on fire.
But now to discover their learning let's try,
A task mighty easy betwixt you and I;
There's no need to put nice research into fetters,
When lords of the fine arts do not know their letters;
In short I would wager what any dares lay,
In lieu of a C they'll spell College with K.
The reverend gentleman above quoted, as illustrative of my page, may be regarded as a private collector by such individuals as do not understand the meaning of the word dealer; but not being altogether a stranger to lexicography, I must certainly apply the above term to Mr. R---, who ranks a vender as well as Smart, Woodburn, or any other of the renowned canvass merchants. In addition to the specimens of Chalcographians, quoted in my poetic ledger, I must not omit to mention by way of addenda, Dog J---nn---ngs, who acquired this canine addition to his name from having purchased the celebrated antique of Alcibiades's mongrel for one thousand guineas. Mr. J---s, who is now about ninety years of age, continues infected with a cacoëthes of collecting any thing that is in opposition to what is possessed by others, wherefore it is merely necessary to say that the walking stick of Mr. Tompkins is made of ash, whereas the one offered him for sale is of elm, but he will instantly demand the price, and become the fortunate possessor. Nor let me forget the deceased W---lsh P---rt---r, so renowned for embellishing cottages, and whose taste was consulted in the arrangement of Carlton House. This gentleman not only collected for himself, but would undertake to store the mansions of others with pictures and antiques, and in short, was a complete Proteus, attuning his versatile taste to the wish of every new customer.
Sir John Leicester, to whom I may well apply the following couplet of Boileau:
La docte antiquité fut toujours venerable,Je na la trouve pas cependant adorable,
Boileau.
Has in a very praiseworthy manner extended his aid to the living, by patronizing artists of the present era, of whose performances he has to boast a very choice collection. Being thus engaged on existing painters, I think it may not be unfair to designate Stothard the British Parmegiano; Wilkie, the Gerrard Dow; Beechy, the true delineator of nature; and West, the Poussin of England. With respect to the last mentioned artist's talents, too much encomium cannot be lavished upon his celebrated picture of Christ Healing the Sick, which performance, thanks to the Prince Regent, was prevented from being exported to America. Neither can I pass over in silence the late Mr. Barry, who, in order to refute the assertions of Zimmermann and the Abbé Dubois, (who have stated that the clouded and foggy atmosphere of England incapacitate our countrymen from excelling in the graphic art) produced a series of paintings, now preserved in the apartments of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, &c. that would confer honour on the talents of the most sublime painters of antiquity.
| Chalcographimania | |