The Galleries of the Exposition
The Galleries of the Exposition
Book Excerpt
of form and color.
Sir William Beechey's large canvas of a group of children and a dog
probably presented no easy task to the painter. The attempt at a
skillful and agreeable arrangement of children in pictures is often
artificial, and so it is to my mind in this canvas. Nevertheless the
colouring, together with the spontaneous technique, put it high above
many canvases of similar type. The Spanish painting on the right of the
Beechey could well afford to have attached to it the name of one of the
best artists of any school. The unknown painter of this Spanish
gentleman knew how to disclose the psychology of his sitter in a
straightforward way that would have done honor to Velasquez, or to Frans
Hals, of whom this picture is even more suggestive.
Below this very fine portrait Sir Godfrey Kneller is represented by a canvas very typical of the eighteenth century English portrait painters. The canvas has a little of the character of everybody, without being sufficiently individual. Reynolds' "Lady Ballingto
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