To
the most distinguished circle of that kind in London, our painter
Reynolds belonged.
In the eighteenth century, society had also begun to divide its time
in modern fashion between town and country. Many of the large country
houses of to-day, and nearly all the landscape-gardened parks, belong
to that date. Nevertheless it was a time of great artificiality of
life. The ladies had no short country skirts, and none of the freedom
to which we are accustomed. In London they wore long powdered curls
and rouged, and in the country too they did not escape from the
artificiality of fashion. Indeed, their great desire seems to have
been to get away from everything natural and spontaneous. The
artificial poetry of that time deals with the patch-boxes and
powder-puffs of the fashionable dames of the town, and with nymphs
and Dresden china shepherdesses in the country.
Even on Reynolds' canvases the desire to improve upon nature is
apparent. In his young days he painted the local personages of
Devonshire. Then he made a journey abroad and spent three years in
Rome and Venice.
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