James Baker Pyne was a distinguished British painter of landscapes.
Hailing from Bristol, Pyne’s early artistic prowess was somewhat hindered by a lengthy spell apprenticed to a solicitor. His father, a broker, urged the young man to pursue a ‘proper career’, dissuading him from becoming an artist. But at the age of 21, upon completing his apprenticeship, he took his first steps on a journey to becoming a well-regarded painter of merit.
With little in the way of support, he made his own way through the artistic world. Initially, he studied with the ‘Bristol School’ of painters who held evening get-togethers. They’d travel to nearby scenery, sit awhile to sketch and compare various ideas. The principal in this merry group was Francis Danby (1793-1861), an Irish painter famed for his ‘poetical’ landscapes and imaginative style. In 1822, he painted a view of the Avon Gorge depicting figures by a river.
Pyne was inspired by Danby and his early works exhibit similar traits. In his ‘Lake Scene with Boat and Figures’ from 1828, he leans upon Danby for tone and composition.
In 1832, Pyne travelled to France with the artist Edward Villiers Rippingille and, shortly after, debuted at London’s British Institution. Around this time, his style began to shift towards lighter tones and broader classically-inspired vistas. He soon moved to the capital and from his studio at Dorset Square, Marylebone, began his career in earnest.
Critics began to compare his expansive views to the great JMW Turner - they were awash with tinted Italianate skies, Claudian sunsets, and strong vertical ‘framing’ trees. The Art Journal published the following:
“With the exception of Turner, no living landscape-painter sees nature, and depicts it too, under such a glorious ‘flood of light;’ so brilliant is its effulgence as to leave little space for shadow in his compositions, except here and there in the foreground, where a few figures are introduced; or a clump of bushes, or a rugged bank, intercept the daylight.”
Seven of his works were shown at the Royal Academy before he switched to exhibiting regularly at the Society of British Artists. From here, he gained further acclaim and various forms of patronage.
A stickler for details, in 1846, he travelled to Germany, Switzerland and Italy, for the sole purpose of studying light effects on snow. It was a perilous journey, particularly when traversing the peaks in all conditions. The following year, he was rewarded with a commission from Thomas Agnew & Sons to produce numerous views of the Lake District for circulation as prints. He returned to Italy in 1851.
Alongside his airy visions of sublime topography, he also treasured the iconic sights that peppered the British countryside, particularly watermills. Often, we’re reminded of the great John Constable who was so obsessed with accurate textures that he’d collect ‘bits’ of the landscape for later study. Indeed, a view of Arundel Mill was Constable’s last known work.
Pyne spent the remainder of his life living in London with his wife and children, continuing to exhibit at the foremost venues. He also became an educator, publishing various notes in periodicals. He’s represented at The British Museum, V&A Museum, Walker Art Gallery and the Tate.
In the words of the poet John Keats (1795-1821):
“these scenes make man appear little. I never forgot my stature so completely - I live in the eye, and my imagination, surpassed, is at rest.”
Exhibited
Royal Academy, Society of British Artists, British Institution, Royal West of England Academy in Bristol.
Public Collections
The British Museum, V&A Museum, RISD Museum, Walker Art Gallery, Tate, Bristol Museum & Art Gallery, Bury Art Museum, Danum Gallery, Dove Cottage and The Wordsworth Museum, Eton College, Ferens Art Gallery, Gallery Oldham, Government Art Collection, Guildhall Art Gallery, Harris Museum & Art Gallery, Haworth Art Gallery, Kelmarsh Hall, Laing Art Gallery, Leeds Art Gallery, Leicester Museum & Art Gallery, Manchester Art Gallery, Merchants Hall Society of Merchant Venturers, National Museum Cardiff, National Trust at Anglesey Abbey, National Trust at Tyntesfield.
Timeline
1800
Born in Bristol to Thomas Bryant Pyne, a broker, and Elizabeth Martin Pyne.
Apprenticed to a solicitor.
1820s
Associated with the sketching activities of the Bristol School.
1821
Embarked on his artistic career.
1825
Worked as a picture dealer with Joseph Naish.
1832
Undertook a study trip to France with the artist Edward Villiers Rippingille (c.1790-1859).
1828/1833
Debuted at the British Institution.
1835
Moved to London and established a studio at Dorset Square, Marylebone.
1836
Debuted at the Royal Academy with ‘Morning - Windsor Castle from the Thames’. Seven works were shown between 1836 and 1855.
1840
Married Anne Welchman at Saint Giles Cripplegate, London.
1841
Lived in Fulham, London, with his wife and children. Occupation recorded as “Landscape Painter”.
1846
Travelled to Germany, Switzerland and Italy.
1848
Commissioned by Thomas Agnew & Sons to produce views of the Lake District.
1851
Lived in Fulham, London, with his wife and children. Occupation recorded as “Landscape Painter”.
Undertook a tour of southern Europe following a commission from Thomas Agnew & Sons to produce a series of pictures “commencing with the Rhine, and extending to the furthermost part of Italy.” He travelled with the Bristol watercolourist, Williams Evans.
1861
Lived in Kentish Town, London, with his wife, children and servants. Occupation recorded as “Landscape Painter”.
1870
Died at Camden Road, London.
Reviews
The Art Journal, 1849
"They who, like ourselves, are accustomed to mark the rise and progress of artists, must often feel with what slender materials a biographer is necessitated to put forth the story of a life.
Unobtrusively, yet anxiously-through long years of patient endurance, self-denial, mortification, and laborious exertion, the artist toils; and when at length he has gained the eye of the public, has made his name familiar to them, and some record of his life is demanded as a matter of interest, the most that can frequently be said may be told in a few words, - yet these, not in the spirit of the laconic epistle of the Roman conqueror, ‘Venit, vidit, vicit,’ - but that the victory had been won only by weariness and watching - a long and hard battle with an opposing world. ‘Tis an old song, and often sung.’
J. B. Pyne, one of our most distinguished landscape-painters, though unadorned with academical honours, was born in Bristol on the 5th of December, 1800. At an early age he exhibited an unquestionable taste, and a decided inclination, for the Fine Arts; but his father, either unable to comprehend the value of the gift which nature had given to his son, or unwilling to foster it, engaged him to a solicitor, at whose desk he was chained till he had reached his twenty-first year.
On the very day, however, on which his term expired, and he had become his own master, the pen was exchanged for the pencil, and he devoted himself heart and soul to the profession for which he had so long panted. Several years were thus passed in Bristol, painting, teaching, and repairing old pictures; about 1835 Mr. Pyne came to London, where he remained a year without attempting to effect the sale of a single picture. He then received an introduction to Mr. Carpenter, of Old Bond Street, a gentleman whose taste in Art, and whose patronage of British artists we have before had the pleasure of commending. ‘Mr. Carpenter,’ to use Mr. Pyne's own words to us, ‘immediately became my patron, bought my first picture, gave me excellent advice, cautioned me against money-lenders, and told me to apply to him when in any emergency. He never bought a painting of me at a low price when I went to him for pecuniary assistance, but always freely lent me what I wanted, and received it again at my own convenience. I speak of my obligation to Mr. Carpenter with much pleasure; it is his due.’
Another liberal patron of Mr. Pyne's was Mr. Rought, the picture-dealer, in Regent Street. Of him we are told, - ‘to the fine taste, integrity, and enterprise of this gentleman and friend, I am indebted for more than half of the success I have met with since my residence in London.’*
A year or two after Mr. Pyne's arrival in the metropolis he began to exhibit at the Royal Academy; but about ten years since he joined the Society of British Artists, in Suffolk Street, (of which institution he is now Vice-president,) and to this circumstance Mr. Pyne attributes nearly all the private patronage he possesses, in consequence of his power to place his pictures where they may be fairly seen.
In 1846 he visited Italy, Switzerland, Bavaria, &c., returning with his portfolio enriched with numerous sketches, from which he has exhibited several admirable pictures. With the exception of Turner, no living landscape-painter sees nature, and depicts it too, under such a glorious ‘flood of light;’ so brilliant is its effulgence as to leave little space for shadow in his compositions, except here and there in the foreground, where a few figures are introduced; or a clump of bushes, or a rugged bank, intercept the daylight. Yet there is no extravagance of colour, nor slightness of manner; every portion of his work is brought forward boldly and forcibly, and is combined into one ‘harmonious whole.’ When time shall have softened down, as it has in his earlier pictures, the apparent rawness of their tints, they will possess a value few other modern landscapes will ever attain.
Mr. Pyne is at present engaged upon a series of large pictures of the English Lakes, intended for publication; subjects for which his pencil is pre-eminently adapted.
*It affords us no little gratification to hear an artist thus speak of a patron in the trade; we never doubted that there were liberal and honourable men among the dealers. Unfortunately, they are the exception and not the rule; but while we shall continue, as we ever have done, to expose the harpies who thrive upon the bodies and the brains of the friendless artist, we shall always feel pleasure in recording the good deeds of those who know how to estimate talent aright-to foster and encourage it.”
The Art Journal, 1856
“They who are familiar with English Art only as it is seen within the walls of the Royal Academy can know little or nothing of the works of one of our best landscape-painters. It is now some thirty-three years since, when a number of artists, finding that the rooms of the Academy, then in Somerset House, offered but little space for the suitable exhibition of their pictures, associated themselves together for the purpose of exhibiting their own works, in conjunction with those of other artists who might choose to unite with them; and hence arose the ‘Society of British Artists,’ whose galleries are in Suffolk Street.
Among the earliest members of this Institution, or regular contributors to its annual exhibitions, were - Haydon, Martin, Hofland, D. Roberts, Stanfield, Creswick, Hart, Frith, Linton, &c.; but as by the rules of the Academy no artist who is a member of any other society is eligible for admission into the former, and as it is a very natural ambition to desire the honours which the Academy is entitled to bestow, the association in Suffolk Street has from time to time lost the aid of many who were its strongest supports: one, however, though not among its earliest members, has bravely clung to its fortunes, whether good or ill, and freely acknowledges that the patronage he enjoys is owing to his connection with this society, as here he has the power to place his own pictures where they may be advantageously seen. Mr. Pyne, to whom we allude, is now Vice-president of the Society of British Artists.
In the Art-Journal for the year 1849, when we published a series of ‘Portraits of British Artists,’ appeared one of Mr. Pyne, with a few remarks on his life and works: we must, on the present occasion, go back to that report for whatever information it affords us.
James Baker Pyne was born at Bristol, on the 5th of December, 1800. From his earliest years a love of pictures was the ruling passion of his mind, and, as a consequence, his greatest desire was to become an artist; but his father had other views concerning him, and placed him with a solicitor, in whose office he was employed till his twenty-first year. At the expiration of his term, however, he bade farewell to deeds and parchments, and assiduously set to work to acquire a knowledge of painting. Several years were thus passed in Bristol, in practising his Art, teaching it to others, and in studying and repairing old pictures. In 1835 he came up to London, where he remained a whole year without attempting to exhibit or sell a picture; but in 1836 he sent to the Royal Academy, ‘Windsor Castle, from the Thames-Morning,’ and to the Society of British Artists, a ‘View of Clifton;’ the latter picture was, we believe, bought by the late Mr. Carpenter, the eminent bookseller of Old Bond Street, father of Mr. W. H. Carpenter, author of the ‘Life of Vandyck,’ and Keeper of the Print Room in the British Museum.
Mr. Carpenter senior was a man whose taste and judgement in Art-matters is unquestionable; Mr. Pyne had received an introduction to him, and there is little doubt he at once saw in the works of the painter evidences of talent of a superior order. He immediately became his patron, bought his first picture, and, as the artist told us some years back, ‘He gave me excellent advice-cautioned me against money-lenders, and told me to apply to him in any emergency. He never bought a painting of me at a low price when I went to him for pecuniary assistance, but always freely lent me what I wanted, and received it again at my own convenience. I speak of my obligation to Mr. Carpenter with much pleasure -it is his due.’
We believe that this gentleman was also the first to recognise the merits of another distinguished artist, R. P. Bonington, and to foster his genius; at least, we are certain he aided most effectively in making it known to the British public, through the series of prints from his works which were published in Bond Street. We have heard Pyne speak in most commendable terms of Mr. Rought, the picture-dealer, in Regent Street, as of ‘a gentleman and friend to whose fine taste, integrity, and enterprise,’ he has been indebted for more than half the success he has met with since his residence in London.
In the years 1837-38-39 respectively, Pyne exhibited at the Royal Academy, ‘Clifton, from the Avon,’ ‘Nightingale Valley, Clifton,’ and ‘Eton College;’ and in 1841, ‘Hostel at Upnor Castle, on the Medway,’ and ‘Sandwich, on the Kentish Coast.’ From this period we find his name no longer on the list of exhibitors at the Academy. His subsequent pictures were to be found at the British Institution, and at the Suffolk Street Society, of which he had now become a member. Almost from the outset of his career he had aimed at the representation of open expansive landscape, where distance demands light and atmosphere, and of lake scenery, where the same qualities of painting are required, united with powerful effects of chiaro-oscuro. We scarcely ever remember to have seen a picture by him of any close subject-shady lanes, entrances to woods, deep glens, &c. We should be inclined to apply the word ‘clearness’ as the principal quality characterising his works, and which is only to be obtained by, or rather is the combined result of - to use his own words:
‘aerial perspective, a frequent alternation of the transparent, semi-transparent, and opaque media; distinct detail, and bold chiaro-oscuro..... Impalpable in itself, it should pervade every part while destroying all idea of the surface of a work; and so absorbing, when attained, is the full sense of its influence, that the minor and precise beauties of the finished schools vanish, and become dry and opaque when brought in contact with the pure effulgence of this vital quality. Pictures without it have an unpleasant and opaque palpableness, and seem really to form part of the useless furniture of a room; while those which possess it in any extraordinary degree, present for the refreshment of the eye so many delicious apertures of more than mimic light and air and sunniness, which glow without heating, and shine without dazzling, and, like the face of health, and youth, and beauty, shed a warmth around them whose brilliancy neglect cannot entirely deface; while all the varnish amendments of the picture-dealer, added to all the wash-leather rubbings of all the curators of public and private collections in existence, must still leave those which have it not, as at first-dry, life-less, and repulsive.’*
In this passage we seem to discover an index to the style of painting adopted by this artist, or, more correctly speaking, to its character. In 1839 he exhibited at the British Institution the first, so far as our recollection serves, of those ‘Lake pictures’ with which his name in subsequent years has been so frequently identified: it was a view of ‘Rydall Water, Westmoreland,’ and treated in a manner to illustrate the lines- ‘On throne of cloud, with pure and silvery ray, The young moon steals upon the lingering day.’
To Suffolk Street he sent the same year a ‘View from the Cheddar Hills - Bridgewater Bay in the distance.’ In this work we recognised the dawning, as it were, of those effects of light and sunshine which have ever been regarded as the great charm of his works. Windsor and its vicinity had, from the artist's arrival in London, been a favourite place of study with him. In the summer of this year there was published a series of sketches, executed by him in lithography, of views of ‘Windsor, with the surrounding Scenery, the Parks, the Thames, and Eton College’ - a volume of great pictorial interest, the subjects all well selected, and most carefully and truthfully represented. His solitary contribution to the Suffolk Street Gallery in 1840 - another ‘View from the Cheddar Hills’ - forced from us the following remarks:-
‘It is one of the most perfect works in the collection; the mode in which this artist manages to preserve distance is absolutely wonderful. The eye traces miles upon miles; and while every hedgerow seems distinctly marked, there is no appearance of anything like artifice, nor the remotest approach to stiffness or formality.’
There were two pictures exhibited by Pyne in 1843, which to this day have not passed away from our recollection: one, a distant view of ‘Shakespeare's Cliff,’ hung at the British Institution, in which the cliff appears rising from a bank of mist; the sun is low in the horizon, its brightness softened down by the hazy atmosphere, producing an effect of exquisite tenderness and beauty. In the other, exhibited at Suffolk Street, London, as seen from Greenwich Park on a warm summer's afternoon, is presented. The vast extent of the metropolis, the river, and all the distant objects, are dimly apparent through a thick veil of smoke, suffused with the hot colouring of the sunshine. We have often stood upon the spot from which this view was sketched, observing the effects described by the artist, and can testify to their absolute truth.
We have notes of four pictures from his pencil exhibited at Suffolk Street in 1844 ‘In the Basse Ville, Calais,’ a subject scarcely worthy of his talent, but interesting, not less from its novelty than for his judicious treatment of it; ‘Upnor Castle, on the Medway,’ in which the river and the misty distance are rendered in his happiest manner; ‘Scarborough, from the South Sands,’ a sunset scene, painted with a perfect harmony and richness of colour, and suggesting an idea of absolute repose; and ‘Recollections of the Floating Harbour at Bristol,’ also an evening scene, luminous to a degree.
In 1845 we find him exhibiting in the same gallery ‘Sand-gatherers, Yorkshire Coast,’ a small picture, remarkable for its brilliancy, breadth, atmosphere, and sweetness of colouring; ‘The Vale of Neath, Glamorganshire,’ the largest picture, we believe, he had painted up to that time. Perhaps in the whole of North Wales there is not a more picturesque locality than this; and in its character one peculiarly adapted for the display of this painter's peculiar style. The manner in which he has arranged his light and shade throughout the picture shows the most consummate skill, and knowledge of the true principles of chiaro-oscuro. ‘A Daughter of the Emerald Isle,’ as its name indicates, is a figure subject, and was a novelty from the hand of the artist, but a successful study. ‘Sunshine after a Storm,’ another figure subject, small, in which a blind man is led by a dog; ‘Staithes-Fishing Town on the Yorkshire Coast,’ a theme of very ordinary interest, but under the glow of Pyne's sunshine made beautiful; ‘Hastings' Beach,’ and ‘Vale of the Taff, North Wales,’ both of them pictures that would grace any collection.
In 1846 Pyne set out on his first pilgrimage to Italy; but before starting he sent to the British Institution one of the finest landscapes he had as yet exhibited-a view of ‘Snowdon,’ the grand old mountain literally enveloped in a garb of dazzling sunlight, but without any exaggeration of truth. Nothing that we have seen from the pencil of this artist carries out more satisfactorily his own principles of Art, which we believe to be true principles, than does this glorious picture. To the gallery at Suffolk Street he sent also this year - ‘The Floating Harbour at Bristol, with St. Mary Redcliffe Church restored;’ another view of the ‘Floating Harbour;’ ‘Grist and Fulling Mills on the Machno, Denbighshire,’ one of the few close scenes painted by him; the precipitous watercourse, and the whole of the hard, rugged, natural materials which make up the composition, are admirably represented. But his principal picture in the rooms was ‘The Menai Straits,’ seen from an elevated point, below which the landscape spreads out into a vast expanse of country of infinite diversity of character. This is treated by the artist in his most felicitous manner; air and light seem to have been the pervading influences of his mind while working on the canvas, and they are forcibly presented over the beautiful scenery that meets the eye of the spectator.
Mr. Pyne's first visit to Italy was made for the express purpose of study in the snow-country - that is, in the neighbourhood of the Alps - to satisfy his mind on the subject of the variously described phenomena attending the Alpine regions under the effects of snow, modified by various degrees of coloured light from midday to twilight. The Bernese Alps, and those visible from the Northern Lake district, principally furnished him with such experiences. The result of his observations confirmed him in a pre-conceived opinion-that artists have been much misled by those writers who have stated that these phenomena, though always represented as exceedingly beautiful, are unaccountable. He asserts they are by no means so, except to persons altogether unacquainted with the most ordinary laws of Light and Colour, with their reflection, and that they obey a law in every way certain and sequential. We would take the liberty of suggesting to him a paper on this subject for our Journal: it would be of value to our artist-readers, many of whom, we know, have derived much instruction from his contributions to our pages.
He returned to England in time to ‘put in an appearance’ at his accustomed places of exhibition, and of course his pictures presented the results of his foreign travel, though not of the ‘snow-crowned hills’ he went out to see. He contributed to the British Institution in 1847 - ‘On the Margin of Zurich's fair Waters' Market Boats with Saints' Sails,’ a luminous and brilliant work; and to Suffolk Street - ‘The Neckar, at Heidelberg;’ ‘Lago di Garda;’ and another view of a favourite spot, frequently painted - ‘The Floating Harbour at Bristol.’ In the ‘Heidelberg’ picture the spectator has a kind of bird's-eye view of the town, beyond which flows the river, till it is lost in a distance of misty light, painted in a manner we can only designate as ‘delicious,’ so soft and tender is the atmospheric effect.
The ‘Harbour’ picture is a triumph of sunlight painting. In this year the artist received a commission from Mr. Agnew, of Manchester, to paint a series of twenty-four views of the English lakes, and their immediate vicinity, for the purpose of being lithographed on a large scale, and published. This work has made its appearance at intervals within the last two or three years, and has been included within our ‘Reviews’ as the parts reached us. It is a beautiful pictorial exposition of our picturesque lake country.
Pyne sent to the British Institution in 1848 two pictures - ‘Staithes, Yorkshire Coast,’ and ‘Night at Merthyr, South Wales,’ the latter representing the effects produced over the landscape after dark by the Welsh Iron Works; and to the Society of British Artists - ‘Pallanza, on the Lago Maggiore;' ‘Mill at Plassynant, North Wales,’ a dark picture, differing materially from the majority of his works, yet distinguished by originality and truth of treatment; a ‘View of the Dogana, Venice, on a Saint's Day,’ a picture so full of light as to be almost shadowless, and yet most effective; and ‘Caernarvon,’ in which the appearance of a rising storm is finely represented. His exhibited pictures of 1849 were only to be seen in the last-named gallery: they were- ‘The Wreck Ashore,’ a small painting; and ‘Oberwesel, on the Rhine,’ in which the artist has adopted a low tone of colour very unusual with him, but nevertheless applied with the nicest discrimination, and with the most pleasing results.
Among his works contributed to Suffolk Street in the following year were a view of ‘Ehrenbreitstein,’ painted, we believe, from the sketch from which our print is taken, with some slight alterations; ‘Thames Recollections;’ and another ‘Wreck Ashore:’ and to the same gallery, in 1851 - ‘Landing Herrings on the Yorkshire Coast,’ a work in which light, air, and space, were never more skilfully idealised.
In 1852 we remember to have seen in Suffolk Street two pictures painted from his ‘Lake Sketches’ - ‘The Head of the Wastwater, with Scawfell and Scawfell Pike,’ under the effects of a storm; and ‘The Screes at Wastwater,’ of which we shall have to speak presently.
In 1851, Pyne started a second time for a tour in the south of Europe, having received another commission from Mr. Agnew to execute a series of pictures - commencing with the Rhine, and extending to the furthermost part of Italy. He returned, after an absence of three years, with an extraordinary mass of sketches, in the production of which he acknowledges to have received most valuable aid, with regard to details, from his friend and compagnon de voyage, Mr. W. Evans, of the Water-Colour Society, and with a very considerable number of large finished drawings, all of them painted on the spot. We had the gratification of passing an evening in his studio a short time since, looking over the portfolios containing these drawings, as varied in subject and treatment as they are numerous.
Those only who have been through Italy to study the characteristics of its scenery can form any idea of the extraordinary labour and perseverance, to say nothing of talent, required to produce such an accumulation of subject matter. For nine months of the year study out of doors is considered at least injudicious, and frequently dangerous, independently of the annoyances and discomforts to which every traveller is exposed who does not journey as ‘Milord Anglais.’ One has only to see this series of drawings to be satisfied they must have been made under circumstances of much difficulty, and by a man whose constitution was proof against peculiarities of climate and atmosphere. To attempt anything approaching to a detailed description of them would occupy the entire space we have given to this notice, and would still leave us much to say. There are towns and cities, mountains and valleys, rivers, lakes, and sea-coast, represented at all hours of the day, and under every variation of weather-clear and bright with the freshness of morning, parched with the noontide heat, blazing with the crimson hues of sunset, dark with the shadows of the thunder-cloud. Highly as we have always estimated the talents of the artist, they have risen immeasurably in our opinion after seeing these charming works. We hope he will be prevailed on to exhibit them publicly: we are quite sure they will be as much appreciated by others as they are by ourselves.
There was a picture exhibited by Pyne at Suffolk Street, in 1853, which we presume was made from one of the sketches taken on his first visit to Italy; it had no title in the catalogue, but the subject was a passage of Alpine scenery under an effect of sunlight: in treatment it was eminently successful in the quality of light. His two contributions to the same gallery in the following year were also of foreign scenery: one a ‘View of Berne, Switzerland;’ the other entitled only a ‘View in Italy.’ Of his last year's picture, also in the Suffolk Street gallery - ‘Evening at Chelsea,’ we shall only repeat the remarks it suggested to us at the time: - ‘We had expected to have saluted this painter on the Rialto at Venice, or to have picked him up somewhere in Sicily; but lo! we find him painting Chelsea Church, and writing ‘mixed teas’ on the thresholds of the Chelsea grocers. The sunny glow of this admirable picture is felt over the whole of this end of the room. It has no exaggerated colour, yet it is powerful in that quality by a treatment which raises all the warm and cool greys into colour at once rich and harmonious. It is, in short, a production embodying the rarest qualities of Art.’
The four subjects we have selected as examples of this painter's style of composition and treatment include views of English and Italian scenery, and are chosen chiefly on account of their diversity. The view in Venice, introducing the ‘Church Of St. Georgio Maggiore,’ is a simple, well-arranged composition, in which the purity of an Italian atmosphere is admirably exemplified. ‘The Villa D'este, Near Tivoli,’ sketched from the gardens, is represented under the effects of morning; it is painted with great tenderness, but the picture acquires force from the group of dark trees rising up almost in its centre. ‘The Screes At Wastwater, Cumberland,’ is a passage of lake scenery, which in itself offers little to charm the eye as a picture, yet the artist has made it one of great interest by the broad play of transitory light he has thrown over the side of the mountain.
‘Ehrenbreitstein,’ is gilded with the red rays of the setting sun:- ‘The moon is up, and yet it is not night; Sunset divides the sky with her:’ in strong opposition to the brilliant hues on rock and castle is the deep, rich colouring of the objects in the foreground. The great charm of this picture is perfect repose; its intense heat would seem to render exertion impossible.
With the exception of Turner, no painter of our school has so thoroughly mastered the difficulties of aerial perspective and atmospheric phenomena as Pyne; without detecting the least approximation to the copying of that great artist, his pictures very often remind us of those by Turner. He never aims at the same extraordinary, and often apparently unnatural, effects; he does not exhibit such a redundancy of poetical imagination in his compositions, such a profusion of what may be called the ‘flowers of painting;’ and yet his mind is amply stored with visions of the true and the beautiful, gathered from a close and attentive study of Nature in her most attractive aspects, and these he transfers to his canvas with a bold and unfaltering pencil, that shows his mastery over his materials, as well as a perfect knowledge of their individual and relative value; while to this freedom of execution are superadded great delicacy and attention to form and detail.
We have frequently heard similar objections taken to his colouring, as have been made to Turner's - especially in the too abundant use of white; but such objections can only come from those who have not closely analysed the colouring of Nature. We were one day discussing this very question with an acquaintance by the sea-shore on a bright summer morning. Directing his attention to the tranquil surface of the ocean, then brightly reflecting the sun's rays, we asked him its colour. "White," he replied, after looking at it for a few moments; ‘yes; white, from the horizon almost to our feet, gradually harmonising into a tender blue as far as the eye reaches left and right.’ - ‘Are Turner and Pyne wrong, then?’ we again asked. - ‘No; right - there cannot be two opinions on the matter.’
It is this inability to see things as they are in Nature which produces so much false and unsound judgement among the frequenters of our Art-exhibitions: they have not yet learned the ‘art of seeing,’ and are therefore incapable of pronouncing a verdict upon truths. It is only when they have acquired this power that they are in a position to form something like a just opinion of the relative merits of artists; ‘for, although with respect to the feeling and passion of pictures, it is often as impossible to criticise as to appreciate, except to such as are in some degree equal in powers of mind, and in some respects the same in modes of mind, with those whose works they judge; yet with respect to the representation of facts, it is possible for all, by attention, to form a right judgement of the respective powers and attainments of every artist. Truth is a bar of comparison at which they all may be examined, and according to the rank they take in this examination will almost invariably be that which, if capable of appreciating them in every respect, we should be just in assigning them.’
But a word, before we close, respecting the writings of Mr. Pyne; for, unlike too many of our painters, he is desirous, and has the ability, to impart to others the knowledge he has himself acquired. The series of papers - ‘The Nomenclature of Pictorial Art’ - commenced in the Art-Journal some years since, and, after a considerable lapse of time, continued during the last year and the present, contains a very large amount of theoretical information, most valuable to every amateur and artist; and his ‘Letters on Landscape,’ which appeared also in our publication in the years 1846-47, must take their place, if published separately, as we trust they may be some day, among the best manuals of instruction which can be placed in the hands of the young landscape-painter.”