Daniel Maclise | |
|---|---|
 Daniel Maclise photographed by William Lake Price (1857) | |
| Born | (1806-01-25)25 January 1806 Cork, Ireland |
| Died | 25 April 1870(1870-04-25) (aged 64) Chelsea, England |
| Known for | History painting;Portrait painting |
Daniel MacliseRA (25 January 1806 – 25 April 1870) was an Irishhistory painter, literary andportrait painter, and illustrator, who worked for most of his life in London, England. His works included a series of murals at thePalace of Westminster, among themThe Death of Nelson.
Maclise was born inCork, Ireland, the son of Alexander McLish (also McLeish, McLish, McClisse or McLise), a Scotsman who had come to Ireland with the army and subsequently become a tanner and shoemaker. His education was of the plainest kind, but he was eager for culture, fond of reading, and anxious to become an artist. His father, however, placed him in employment, in 1820, in Newenham's Bank, where he remained for two years, before leaving to study at theCork School of Art. In 1825,Sir Walter Scott was travelling in Ireland, and Maclise, having seen him in a bookseller's shop, made a surreptitious sketch of him, which he afterwardslithographed. The print became very popular, and led to many commissions for portraits, which he executed in pencil.[1]
Various influential friends recognised Maclise's genius and promise, and were anxious to furnish him with the means of studying in London; but refusing all financial assistance, he saved the money himself and arrived in the capital on 18 July 1827. There he made a sketch ofCharles John Kean, the actor, which, like his portrait of Scott, was lithographed and published, making the artist a considerable sum. He entered theRoyal Academy schools in 1828, eventually being awarded the highest prizes open to students.[1]
Maclise exhibited for the first time at theRoyal Academy Exhibition of 1829 atSomerset House. Gradually he began to confine himself more exclusively to subject and historical pictures, varied occasionally by portraits – such as those ofLord Campbell, novelistLetitia Landon,Dickens, and other of his literary friends.In 1833, he exhibited two pictures which greatly increased his reputation, and in 1835 theChivalric Vow of the Ladies and thePeacock procured his election as associate of the Academy, of which he became full member in 1840.[2]The years that followed were occupied with a long series of figure pictures, deriving their subjects from history and tradition and from the works ofShakespeare,Goldsmith andLe Sage.
He also designed illustrations for several of Dickens's Christmas books and other works. Between the years 1830 and 1836 he contributed toFraser's Magazine, under the pseudonym of Alfred Croquis, a remarkable series of portraits of the literary and other celebrities of the time – character studies, etched or lithographed in outline, and touched more or less with the emphasis of the caricaturist, which were afterwards published as theMaclise Portrait Gallery (1871).[3] During the rebuilding of theHouses of Parliament in London in 1834–1850 byCharles Barry, Maclise was commissioned in 1846 to paint murals in theHouse of Lords on such subjects asJustice andChivalry.[4][5]
In 1858, Maclise commenced one of the two great monumental works of his life,The Meeting of Wellington and Blücher after the Battle of Waterloo, on the walls ofWestminster Palace.[6] It was begun infresco, a process which proved unmanageable. The artist wished to resign the task, but, encouraged byPrince Albert, he studied in Berlin the new method ofwater-glass painting, and carried out the subject and its companion,The Death of Nelson, in that medium, completing the latter painting in 1864.
Maclise's vast painting ofThe Marriage of Strongbow and Aoife (1854) hangs in theNational Gallery of Ireland, Dublin.[7] It portrays the marriage of the main Norman conqueror of Ireland "Strongbow" to the daughter of his Gaelic ally. The painting is said to relate Maclise's nationalist feelings and his knowledge of ancient, Irish, civilization.[8]
By the grand staircase ofHalifax Town Hall, which was completed in 1863, there is a wall painting by Maclise.[9][10]
The intense application which he gave to these great historic works, and various circumstances connected with the commission, had a serious effect on the artist's health. He began to shun the company in which he formerly delighted, his old buoyancy of spirits was gone, and when, in 1865, the presidency of the Royal Academy was offered to him he declined the honour. He died of acutepneumonia on 25 April 1870 at his home 4 Cheyne Walk,Chelsea.[2][11]
His works are distinguished by powerful intellectual and imaginative qualities, but, in the opinion ofWilliam Monkhouse, a late Victorian critic, somewhat marred by harsh and dull colouring, by metallic hardness of surface and texture, and by frequent touches of the theatrical in the action and attitudes of the figures. His fame rests most securely on his two greatest works at Westminster.[2]
A memoir of Maclise, by his friend William Justin O'Driscoll, was published in 1871.[1]
The works of Maclise in portraiture were celebrated in 1972 at an exhibition in theNational Portrait Gallery.[12]
TheCrawford Art Gallery inCork, Ireland, Maclise's native city, held a major exhibition of his works,Daniel Maclise: Romancing the Past (28 October 2008 - 14 February 2009), opened byDavid Puttnam.[13]
The preliminary sketch forThe Meeting of Wellington and Blücher was displayed at theRoyal Academy of Arts from 2 September 2015 to 3 January 2016, to commemorate the 200th anniversary of theBattle of Waterloo.[12][14] It had been displayed previously from 23 May until 23 August at theRoyal Armouries in Leeds as part of theWaterloo 1815: The Art of Battle exhibition.[14]
.jpg)
_-_A_Scene_from_Gil_Blas_-_RCIN_407173_-_Royal_Collection.jpg)
_-_Robin_Hood_and_His_Merry_Men_Entertaining_Richard_the_Lionheart_in_Sherwood_Forest_-_NCM_1984-400_-_Nottingham_Museums.jpg)
_-_The_Sleeping_Beauty_-_HAPMG%2c_1920.53_-_Hartlepool_Museums_and_Heritage_Service.jpg)
_-_The_Play_Scene_in_%2527Hamlet%2527_-_N00422_-_National_Gallery.jpg)
_-_Waterfall_at_St_Nighton%2527s_Kieve%2c_near_Tintagel_-_F.22_-_Victoria_and_Albert_Museum.jpg)
_-_Catherine_Dickens_(1815%25E2%2580%25931879)_-_DH715_-_Charles_Dickens_Museum.jpg)
_-_Macready_as_Werner_-_F.21_-_Victoria_and_Albert_Museum.jpg)
Attribution
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Maclise, Daniel".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 17 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 262–263.
The Hall of Glennaquoich—A Highland Feat. for Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1837 with a poetical illustration byLetitia Elizabeth Landon.
