A Striking Likeness: The Life of George Romney

George Romney long has been considered the third most important portrait painter practicing in London during the second half of the eighteenth century. Not as influential in the contemporary art world as Joshua Reynolds or as favored by royal patronage as Thomas Gainsborough, Romney nevertheless holds a special appeal for a biographer: virtually everyone of importance commissioned him for portraits, yet he always wanted to succeed as an historical painter and consequently left dozens of unfinished portraits and thousands of drawings of multi-figured, narrative subjects; he was (along with William Cowper and John Flaxman) a member of William Hayley's circle; he was enraptured by Emma Hart (Lady Hamilton); he left his wife in Cumbria during his entire career; and he was prone to depression and hypochondria. David Cross has endeavored to present an exhaustive study of this artist. In doing so, he has consulted a wide range of even very recently published sources, and has corresponded with many people whom he enthusiastically thanks in his acknowledgements and notes. His ability to weave together information from the early biographies is impressive; unfortunately, insignificant details sometimes hinder his ability to synthesize that information into a coherent portrait.

Cross's early training was as a psychologist, and in an early note he states that his aim has been to begin the psychological study of Romney's life and works that Patricia Jaffé had called for in 1977 (210). This is a welcome approach, not only because it suits the artist's mental condition but also because it leads the way in understanding that Romney's, Gainsborough's and Reynolds's very different personalities influenced their art and milieu, a circumstance not penetrated in traditional artists' biographies and catalogues raisonnés. The fact that Cross mentions this particular goal in a note is indicative of the ordering of details that makes the book a less compelling whole than his research would have warrented. He is up front in stating that Romney suffered from "'hypomanic excitability'" (4), but his diagnosis would have been more effective if it had not been given before the evidence.

The chapter titles end with dates showing the topics to be arranged chronologically. Like any insightful biographer, Cross does not adhere rigidly to this order in his text. In the chapter called "Patterns of Friendship 1775-86" he is particularly good with Romney's preference for informal gatherings after diligently working in his studio, and in "The Man in Cavendish Square" the author rather refreshingly discusses portraits painted during this period by compositional type, such as poses and attributes. But the discussion of the artist and his pupils in the friendship section turns into a consideration of seemingly every young painter Romney was associated with, and the categories of settings and objects used in portraits are so numerous that these good beginnings degenerate into tedium. Cross gives the impression that he does not want to leave anything out. He writes in an earlier chapter that the new building for the Society of Artists that opened in 1772 "became the Lyceum Theatre, the scene of numerous triumphs of Sir Henry Irving" (41), for instance, even though the transformation did not occur until 1794. Yet he sometimes omits relevant material, most noticeably citations (which generally are plentiful). No sources are given for the paragraph on Romney's prices and the difficulty he sometimes had in extracting payment from his work (81). Moreover, his friend the actor John Henderson, is described without a reference as having been "berated by Gainsborough for his gluttony" (127). While the latter does not add to an understanding of the artist in any case, one cannot fully comprehend Romney's dealings with his clients without knowledge of the documentation. Cross's criteria for the inclusion or exclusion of details and citations are not apparent.

Cross describes Romney as a "closet romantic" (162) and emphasizes protoromantic aspects of his works whenever possible. He fully acknowledges the artist's affinity with neoclassicism (93, 150), but maintains that "neo-classicism is a style … romanticism is an attitude of mind" (60). This distinction is debatable, and certainly there were other artists who straddled the two camps. The breadth of Romney's pictorial vocabulary actually is shown in the paintings and drawings quite decently reproduced in this volume, and the author carefully gives the present location of all the artist's paintings and drawings mentioned in the text, thereby showing that, as with written sources, he has seen a lot. His selection of what to present to the reader again is erratic, such as his illustration of only one portrait of Mrs. Wilbraham Bootle (sold June 18, 1976, through Christie's) when its idealization is contrasted with another (Edinburgh, National Gallery of Scotland) as proof of the painter's ability to capture individuality (80-81). There is no reason to doubt Cross's assessment of these images: reproducing both simply would have given his point an impact it otherwise lacks. Readers interested in visual matters will be somewhat disappointed with this book, among other things with its failure to identify by current attribution the painting of Judith and Holofernes in Genoa which Romney "had been greatly beguiled by" and had thought was by Raphael (58).

Those interested in biographical tidbits certainly will find more grist for their mills: the admonitions that Richard Cumberland "must not be confused with his relative George Cumberland, the friend of Blake" (216) and "Major Thomas Peirson must not be confused with Major Francis Peirson (sometimes spelled Pierson) whose death, also in 1781, was recorded in J. S. Copley's The Death of Major Peirson (London, Tate Gallery)" (217) make one wonder whom this study was written for, however. One thing is clear: this book requires a persistent reader. Sometimes patience is rewarded, as in the good discussion of the artist's relationship with the Frenchwoman "Thelassie" (169) after she had been only briefly referred to (136, 142), but Cross leaves many questions unanswered, most curiously Hayley's motivations in befriending the painter. This is a convoluted portrait of Romney in which the author does not refer to primary material if it is available in the secondary source cited. Perhaps if he had felt compelled to extend his thoroughness with modern material back into the eighteenth century and consulted, among other things, contemporary newspapers, the result would have been more "striking."