第 8 页

Edinburgh was at that time the resort of many county families. The war which raged abroad prevented their going to the Continent. They therefore remained at home, and the Scotch families for the most part took up their residence in Edinburgh. There were many young ladies desiring to complete their accomplishments, and hence the establishment of my sisters' art class. It was held in the large painting-room in the upper part of the house. It soon became one of the most successful institutions in Edinburgh. When not engaged in drawing and oil painting, the young ladies were occupied in sketching from nature, under the superintendence of my sisters, in the outskirts of Edinburgh. This was one of the most delightful exercises in which they could be engaged; and it also formed the foundation for many friendships which only terminated with life.

My father increased the interest of the classes by giving little art lectures. They were familiar but practical. He never gave lectures as such, but rather demonstrations. It was only when a pupil encountered some technical difficulty, or was adopting some wrong method of proceeding, that he undertook to guide them by his words and practical illustrations. His object was to embue the minds of the pupils with high principles of art. He would take up their brushes and show by his dexterous and effective touches how to bring out, with marvellous ease, the right effects of the landscape. The other pupils would come and stand behind him, to see and hear his clear instructions carried into actual practice on the work before him. He often illustrated his little special lessons by his stores of instructive and interesting anecdotes, which no doubt helped to rivet his practice all the deeper into their minds. Thus the Nasmyth classes soon became the fashion. In many cases both mothers and daughters might be seen at work together in that delightful painting-room. I have occasionally met with some of them in after years, who referred to those pleasant hours as among the most delightful they had ever spent.

These classes were continued for many years. In the meantime my sisters' diligence and constant practice enabled them in course of time to exhibit their works in the fine art exhibitions of Edinburgh. Each had her own individuality of style and manner, by which their several works were easily distinguished from each other. Indeed, whoever works after Nature will have a style of their own. They all continued the practice of oil painting until an advanced age. The average duration of their lives was about seventy-eight.

There was one point which my father diligently impressed upon his pupils, and that was the felicity and the happiness attendant upon pencil drawing. He was a master of the pencil, and in his off-hand sketches communicated his ideas to others in a way that mere words could never have done. It was his Graphic Language. A few strokes of the pencil can convey ideas which quires of writing would fail to impart. This is one of the most valuable gifts which a man who has to do with practical subjects can possess. "The language of the pencil" is a truly universal one, especially in communicating ideas which have reference to material forms. And yet it is in a great measure neglected in our modern system of education.

The language of the tongue is often used to disguise our thoughts, whereas the language of the pencil is clear and explicit. Who that possesses this language can fail to look back with pleasure on the course of a journey illustrated by pencil drawings? They bring back to you the landscapes you have seen, the old streets, the pointed gables, the entrances to the old churches, even the bits of tracery, with a vividness of association such as mere words could never convey. Thus, looking at an old sketch-book brings back to you the recollection of a tour, however varied, and you virtually make the journey over again with its picturesque and beautiful associations. On many a fine summer's day did my sisters make a picnic excursion into the neighbourhood of Edinburgh. They were accompanied by their pupils, sketch-book and pencil in hand. As I have already said, there is no such scenery near any city that I know of. Arthur's Seat and Salisbury Crags, Duddingston Loch, the Braid Hills, Craigmillar Castle, Hawthornden, Roslin, Habbie's How, and the many valleys and rifts in the Pentlands, with Edinburgh and its Castle in the distance; or the scenery by the sea-shore, all round the coast from Newhaven to Gullane and North Berwick Law.

The excursionists came home laden with sketches. I have still by me a multitude of these graphic records made by my sisters. Each sketch, however slight, strikes the keynote, as it were, to many happy recollections of the circumstances, and the persons who were present at the time it was made. I know not of any such effective stimulant to the recollection of past events as these graphic memoranda. Written words may be forgotten, but these slight pencil recollections imprint themselves on the mind with a force that can never be effaced. Everything that occurred at the time rises up as fresh in the memory as if hours and not years had passed since then. They bring to the mind's eye many dear ones who have passed away, and remind us that we too must follow them.

It is much to be regretted that this valuable art of graphic memoranda is not more generally practised. It is not merely a most valuable help to the memory, but it educates the eye and the hand, and enables us to cultivate the faculty of definite observation. This is one of the most valuable accomplishments that I know of, being the means of storing up ideas, and not mere words, in the mental recollection of both men and women.

Before I proceed to record the recollections of my own life, I wish to say something about my eldest brother Patrick, the well-known landscape painter. He was twenty-one years older than myself! My father was his best and almost his only instructor. At a very early age he manifested a decided taste for drawing and painting. His bent was landscape. This gave my father great pleasure, as it was his own favourite branch of art. The boy acquired great skill in sketching trees, clouds, plants, and foregrounds. He studied with wonderful assiduity and success. I possess many of his graphic memoranda, which show the care and industry with which he educated his eye and hand in rendering with truth and fidelity the intimate details of his art. The wild plants which he introduced into the foregrounds of his pictures were his favourite objects of study. But of all portions of landscape nature, the Sky was the one that most delighted him. He studied the form and character of clouds--resting cloud, the driving cloud, and the rain cloud--and the sky portions of his paintings were thus rendered so beautifully attractive.

He was so earnest in his devotion to the study of landscape that in some respects he neglected the ordinary routine of school education. He successfully accomplished the three R.'s, but after that his school was the fields, in the face of Nature. He was by no means a Romantic painter. His taste was essentially for Home subjects. In his landscapes he introduced picturesque farm-houses and cottages, with their rural surroundings; and his advancement and success were commensurate with his devotion to this fine branch of art. The perfect truth with which he represented English scenery, associated as it is with so many home-loving feelings, forms the special attractiveness of his works. This has caused them to be eagerly sought after, and purchased at high prices.

Patrick had a keen sense of humour, though in other respects he was simple and unpretending. He was a great reader of old-fashioned novels, which indeed in those days were the only works of the kind to be met with. The Arabian Nights, Robinson crusoe, The Mysteries of Udolpho, and such like, were his favourites, and gave a healthy filip to his imagination. He had also a keen relish for music, and used to whistle melodies and overtures as he went along with his work. He acquired a fair skill in violin playing. While tired with sitting or standing he would take up his violin, play a few passages, and then go to work again.

Patrick removed to London in 1808, and exhibited at the Royal Academy in the following year. He made excursions to various parts of England, where he found subjects congenial to his ideas of rural beauty. The immediate neighbourhood of London, however, a bounded with the most charming and appropriate subjects for his pencil. These consisted of rural "bits" of the most picturesque but homely description--decayed pollard trees and old moss-grown orchards, combined with cottages and farm-houses in the most paintable state of decay, with tangled hedges and neglected fences, overrun with vegetation clinging to them with all "the careless grace of Nature." However neglected these might be by the farmer, they were always tit-bits for Patrick. When sketching such subjects he was in his glory, and he returned to his easel loaded with sketch-book treasures, which when painted form the gems of many a collection.

In some of these charming subjects glimpses of the distant capital may be observed, with the dome of St. Paul's in the distance; but they are introduced with such skill and correctness as in no way to interfere with the rural character of his subject. When he went farther afield --to Windsor Forest, Hampshire, the New Forest, or the Isle of Wight --he was equally diligent with his pencil, and came home laden with sketches of the old monarchs of the forest. When in a state of partial decay his skilful touch brought them to life again, laden with branches and lichen, with leaves and twigs and bark, and with every feature that gives such a charm to these important elements in true English landscape scenery. On my brother's first visit to London, accompanied by my father, he visited many collections where the old Dutch masters were to be seen, and he doubtless derived much advantage from his careful studies, more particularly from the works of Hobbema, Ruysdael, and Wynants. These came home to him as representations of Nature as she is. They were more free from the traditional modes of representing her. The works of Claude Lorraine and Richard Wilson were also the objects of his admiration, though the influence of the time for classicality of treatment to a certain extent vitiated these noble works. When a glorious sunset was observed, the usual expression among the lovers of art was, "What a magnificent Claudish effect!" thus setting up the result of man's feeble attempt at representation as the standard of comparison, in place of the far grander original!

My brother carefully studied Nature herself. His works, following those of my father, led back the public taste to a more healthy and true condition, and by the aid of a noble army of modern British landscape painters, this department of art has been elevated to a very high standard of truth and excellence.

I find some letters from Patrick to my father, after his settlement as an artist in London. My father seems to have supplied him with money during the early part of his career, and afterwards until he had received the amount of his commissions for pictures. In one of his letters he says: "That was an unlucky business, the loss of that order which you were so good as send me on my account." It turned out that the order had dropt out of the letter enclosing it, and was not recovered. In fact, Patrick was very careless about all money transactions.

In 1814 he made the acquaintance of Mr. Barnes, and accompanied him to Bure Cottage, Ringwood, near Southampton, where he remained for some time. He went into the New Forest, and brought home "lots of sketches." In 1815 he exhibited his works at the Royal Academy. He writes to his father that "the prices of my pictures in the Gallery are-- two at fourteen guineas each (small views in Hampshire), one at twelve guineas, and two at fourteen guineas. They are all sold but one. These pictures would now fetch in the open market from two to three hundred guineas each. But in those days good work was little known, and landscapes especially were very little sought after.

Patrick Nasmyth's admirable rendering of the finer portions of landscape nature attracted the attention of collectors, and he received many commissions from them at very low prices. There was at that time a wretched system of delaying the payment for pictures painted on commission, as well as considerable loss of time by the constant applications made for the settlement of the balance. My brother was accordingly under the necessity of painting his pictures for the Dealers, who gave him at once the price which he required for his works. The influence of this system was not always satisfactory. The Middlemen or Dealers, who stood between the artist and the final possessor of the works, were not generous. They higgled about prices, and the sums which they gave were almost infinitesimal compared with the value of Patrick Nasmyth's pictures at the present time.

The Dealers were frequent visitors at his little painting-room in his lodgings. They took undue advantage of my brother's simplicity and innate modesty in regard to the commercial value of his works. When he had sketched in a beautiful subject, and when it was clear that in its highest state of development it must prove a fine work, the Dealer would pile up before him a row of guineas, or sovereigns, and say, "Now, Peter, that picture's to be mine!", The real presence of cash proved too much for him. He never was a practical man. He agreed to the proposal, and thus he parted with his pictures for much less than they were worth. He was often remonstrated with by his brother artists for letting them slip out of his hands in that way--works that he would not surrender until he had completed them, and brought them up to the highest point of his fastidious taste and standard of excellence. Among his dearest friends were David Roberts and Clarkson Stanfield. He usually replied to their friendly remonstrances by laughingly pointing to his bursting portfolios of sketches, and saying, "There's lots of money in these banks to draw from." He thus warded off their earnest and often-repeated remonstrances. Being a single man, and his habits and style of living of the most simple kind, he had very little regard for money except as it ministered to his immediate necessities. His evenings were generally spent at a club of brother artists "over the water;" and in their company he enjoyed many a pleasant hour. His days were spent at his easel. They were occasionally varied by long walks into the country near London, for the purpose of refilling his sketch-book.

It was on one of such occasions--when he was sketching the details of some picturesque pollard old willows up the Thames, and standing all the time in wet ground--that he caught a severe cold which confined him to the house. He rapidly became worse. Two of his sisters, who happened to be in London at the time, nursed him with devoted attention. But it was too late. The disease had taken fatal hold of him. On the evening of the l7th August 1831 there was a violent thunderstorm. At length the peals of thunder ceased, the rain passed away, and the clouds dispersed. The setting sun burst forth in a golden glow. The patient turned round on his couch and asked that the curtains might be drawn. It was done. A blaze of sunset lit up his weary and worn-out face. "How glorious it is!" he said. Then, as the glow vanished he fell into a deep and tranquil sleep, from which he never awoke. Such was the peaceful end of my brother Patrick, at the comparatively early age of forty-four years.