Artaud, William
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- Artaud, William
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(1763 - 1823), painter; RA Schools 1778, gold medal 1786, travelling studentship 1795; SA silver palettes 1775/6, 1777, 1782; exh. RA 1784 - 1822.
1795 - 8 [dep. Portsmouth Jul. 1795] Leghorn (6 - 25 Dec. 1795), Rome (Jan. - 25 Feb. 1796), Naples (8 Mar. - Apr.), Rome (May 1796 - Feb. 1797), Naples (24 Feb. - Jun.), Rome (by 27 Jun. 1797 - Mar. 1798), Florence (29 Mar. - Aug.), Venice (by 7 Sep. 1798) Vicenza, Padua [England, Oct. 1799]
By the time he took up the RA travelling scholarship to Italy in 1795 at the age of thirty-two, Artaud was established as a history painter. The four years he spent in Italy, which coincided with the French invasion, are vividly described in a series of letters and draft letters now preserved in the John Rylands Library at Manchester.1
He sailed from Portsmouth at the end of July 1795 but, being detained at Gibraltar, did not arrive at Leghorn, where he faced two weeks quarantine, until 6 December. He sailed on to Civitavecchia to reach Rome in January 1796. Already news was arriving of the French invasion of northern Italy and by the end of February Artaud left for Naples.2 A 'violent Democrat', according to Farington,3 Artaud assured his father (4 Jun. 1796) that he 'contemplated the progress of the French with no other emotion than what was excited by the wonderful exertions of that extraordinary people'. He spent two months in Naples, with Henry Thomson and his father; he witnessed Emma Hamilton's 'attitudes' and made sketches of Neapolitan costume (BMPL). By 10 May he was back in Rome, lodging in the Piazza Barberini. He was sharing rooms with Mercati, a landscape painter whom he had met through Guy Head; he knew the sculptor John Deare, whose wife he drew in May 1796 (BMPL sketchbook) and met the miniaturist Alexander Day, the elderly Gavin Hamilton (whose antiquarian business was then in a state of collapse) and Thomas Jenkins. At Tivoli in October, Artaud found himself part of an international gathering of artists at Chico's Inn.
Throughout his stay he maintained his resolve to be a history painter, although circumstances were not in his favour; Thomas Macklin, the London publisher for whom he had previously undertaken work, stayed silent, and there was in any case the difficulty of transporting large pictures back to England in unsettled times. In June and July Artaud proceeded with his copies of Titian, Raphael, Andrea del Sarto, Giulio Romano and Schidone (VAM sketchbook). By 17 September 1796 he had painted the portrait of William Hillary and was contemplating an Ossianic subject, The Spirit of Loda (exh. RA 1800).
He remained in Rome for the Carnival in the New Year, but as the French approached, he again left for Naples, taking his paintings and leaving his books to be forwarded. He arrived on 24 February 1797. His lodgings were too small to paint in, but he continued copying at Capo di Monte, even though, as he told his father (25 Mar.), 'I am fully convinced that there is more improvement in painting one original Picture while surrounded by the fine Works of other Masters to which you can occasionally refer, than in making twenty copies from those Works themselves.' He met Hillary again, as well as Edward Swinburne, John Rushout and William Henry Lambton. In May, with Richard Duppa, R.R. Reinagle, Thomson and Swinburne, he toured round the bays of Salerno and Naples (VAM and BMPL sketchbooks). They returned to Rome in June 1797 and Artaud began work on another large history piece commissioned by Robert Bowyer for a new edition of Hume's History of England. The picture remains unknown, but there are various sketches of historical scenes (the Maid of Orleans and the Discovery of Arthur's Tomb) in Artaud's sketchbook in the BMPL. On 20 November 1797 Artaud told John Landseer that he had done all the studies for this picture, although he would have difficulty in conveying it to England.
Perhaps because of such constraints, Artaud diversified his activities, finding employment as a guide and dealer. He commissioned Italian views for Hillary and Graves (draft to Hillary, 4 Dec.), but his principal client was Lambton, a fellow democrat, from whom he received 'a continuous series of civilities' (draft to Hillary, 27 Aug.). Artaud acted as his cicerone, although the changing face of Rome made instruction difficult; works of art were being removed against the arrival of the French and 'museums and churches are stripped of their choicest ornaments, Miserable copys or casts in Plaster substituted for the most exquisite originals - everything in a state of disorder' (draft to Wilson, Jul. 1797]). He procured for Lambton paintings by other artists in Rome, as the Swiss Franz Kaisermann and 'Fredrigo the German', and was himself commissioned to paint Lambton's new-born son, three copies of portraits and, of greater interest, an allegorical composition based on Erasmus Darwin's Loves of the Plants, 'illusive to the French Revolution', provisionally entitled by Artaud Liberty tearing the veils of ignorance and superstition from his Eyes (a drawing for which is in the VAM). But in October Lambton, in failing health, left for Pisa where he died in November. Artaud was then attending a Mr Fuller, a young amateur (20 Nov., draft to John Landseer), who introduced him to the traveller and writer Mariana Starke. She was evidently impressed with him, and in her Travels in Italy (1:252) described Artaud as 'a young painter ... whose distinguished abilities and close application have already placed him, in the opinion of foreign connoisseurs, at the head of this elegant and fascinating art'.
His letters at this time describe the Roman nobility fawning on Joseph Bonaparte (4 Dec., draft to Hillary; 15 Dec., draft to Terrey), and in February 1798 the French finally invaded Rome. 'The temporal power of the Papacy is extinguished - the Roman Republick now successfully re-established', Artaud enthused; 'Fired with the glow of patriotick enthusiasm, every roman should now exert all his effort and endeavour to make the new Republick rival the Old' (draft to Mariana Starke, c.Feb. 1798). But Artaud's enthusiasm was soon tempered. His last letter from Rome to his father (24 Feb.) lamented that the city would never again be the place for study to any artist but an architect, 'for except the Stanze of Raphael and the works of Michael Angelo in the Sistine Chapel, every other fine thing will be sent to Paris'. He later told his father (2 Apr.) he had seen the 'licentious' French cavalry and, while dining with Lord Ossulston and Davy near the Trinita dei Monti, he had witnessed an uprising against the French followed by summary executions. He also discovered that he was liable to join the National Guard and at this point, as he explained to his father, he 'thought it high time to be off, for I had no idea of hazarding my life for a set of people like the Romans, who are so completely corrupted and depraved that they are equally incapable of fulfilling the duties either of good subjects or good Citizens under any form of Government. Their situation is, however, in some measure to be commiserated, for, to use their own expression, their old Government robbed them of their garments, but their liberators will even carry off their skins' (1 May 1798).
At the end of March he left Rome for the third and last time. He spent five months in Florence where he painted the portrait of Fabroni, the Grand Duke's Professor of Chemistry and Natural Philosophy, who held distinguished conversazioni (1 May, 2 Jul., to his father). On 7 August, preparing for his return to England, he advised his father to collect his cases of books and prints accompanied by two Academicians, who would vouch at Customs that they were essential for study. He then found that English travellers were forced to proceed via Vicenza, and on 7 September 1798 he wrote from Venice that he would make short excursions to Vicenza and Padua before embarking for Trieste. After spending nearly a year in Dresden, he finally returned to England in October 1799.
1. Artaud MSS; dates of letters in brackets. K. Sloan, Burl.Mag., 137[1995]:76 - 85. 2. Gandy letters MSS (25 Feb. 1796). 3. Farington Diary (29 Jan. 1796).