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Overview
Faces are more than a montage of organs that see, breathe, speak, hear, eat, sing, smell, and yell. As Josephine Tey points out in her mystery novel, The Daughter of Time, the slant of an eyebrow, the set of a mouth, the look of the eye, the firmness of a chin, often can provide evidence of character that is as telling as a report card or a police blotter. Those features depicted on portraits of individuals can be equally telling of the person’s inner nature or perhaps of what the artist thinks (or wants the viewer to think) about the person being portrayed. Sometimes a portrait might be even more useful than a biography.
While examining these portraits, the author considers three questions: what was Wesley’s attitude toward the portrait (if any), how did the public respond to these portrayals, and what was the artist attempting to convey? This book focuses on the main portraits and their derivatives, looking at them within the three main categories that developed over the years: Oxford don, Methodist preacher, and notable person. Although these types seemed to arise in chronological order, there is some overlap between categories, especially toward the end of Wesley’s life and beyond.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781501816611 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Abingdon Press |
| Publication date: | 04/05/2016 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| File size: | 8 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
An Exact Likeness
The Portraits of John Wesley
By Richard P. Heitzenrater
Abingdon Press
Copyright © 2016 Richard P. HeitzenraterAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5018-1661-1
CHAPTER 1
Early Portraits of Wesley
This survey of Wesley portraits starts with a brief mention of two etchings that precede the first painted portrait.
Wesley's diary from the period mentions visiting the home of George Vertue, artist and engraver, in April, and then again on June 3 and 5, 1741. These last two visits to Vertue, presumably in his studio, were for two or three hours in the morning, the time of day when many artists were hosting sitters for portraits. These visits seem to have resulted in an early engraved portrait of Wesley, a proof of which was dated by hand in pencil as by Vertue ("del. & sculpt.") in 1742 and probably published shortly thereafter.
This engraving contains a ribbon on the top of the oval containing the portrait, saying "Thro' evil report and good report," and a small vignette at the bottom showing Wesley's escape from the Epworth fire in 1709, with the note, "Anno Ætat 6° [sexto — six]" — close to correct: he was actually in his sixth year, a few months from his sixth birthday. Below that is the quotation, "Is not this a brand pluck'd out of the fire?" — handwritten on the early proof but engraved on the later published editions.
Samuel Badcock refers back to this vignette on an early portrait, in a reflection published in 1784, as proof that Wesley from an early stage had an image of himself as having been preserved by God for a special destiny, a charge that Wesley disputed in writing. By 1742, Wesley had published a few minor items, including one installment of his journal, but was not a major figure on the British religious scene yet, certainly not as notorious as George Whitefield, who was the "Methodist" most frequently attacked in print in the early forties. So it is no surprise that no one had thought to do a portrait of Wesley up to this time.
The portrait of Wesley that is often said to be the earliest is somewhat primitive in form and technique. It has the head tilted slightly backward, giving Wesley a somewhat haughty appearance (easily interpreted as looking "down the nose" at the viewer), which might be the result of artist's instructions, or perhaps was a natural inclination of the Oxford don whom some people criticized as being somewhat aloof. But Peter Forsaith has made the credible suggestion that this portrait is what Wesley was describing in his comments about Downes in November 1774 after the latter's death. At that point, Wesley noted that thirty years previous, John Downes was a young Methodist preacher who accompanied Wesley. One day while shaving, the latter noticed Downes carving the head of a stick. When asked what he was doing, Downes said, "I am taking your face, which I intend to engrave on a copperplate." This early pose, then, could easily be seen as having the head tilted in a shaving position, thus connecting it with the comment of Downes, who then made the necessary tools and materials, engraved a copperplate, and produced a print. If that connection is the case, then one might presume that this engraving is the Downes portrait of Wesley, published on October 10, 1741. The fact that this date is not exactly thirty years before Wesley's comment is not a major problem.
Some of the characteristics that will become familiar features of the young Mr. Wesley's face in these portraits are noticeable in both of these early engravings: the long nose, the dimpled chin, the thin lips turned up on the ends in a slight smile, and the clerical garb, including Geneva bands.
CHAPTER 2Wesley the Oxford Don
The earliest known painted portrait of John Wesley was also in 1742, by John Michael Williams. At the time, Wesley was still in his late thirties and, as has been pointed out, working in the shadow of people like George Whitefield until well into the 1740s. But Wesley was becoming well enough known that Williams seems to have produced this painting as a private means of procuring income for himself. Advertisements of the day indicate that the portrait was to be exhibited at the artist's home, probably in order to sell the piece.
The Williams portrait is rather fulsome, with a draped red curtain in the background, shelving filled with imposing tomes on Wesley's left, a large edition of the "Holy Bible" on the desk in front of him, and a copy of volume two of the Book of Homilies, of the Church of England, held vertically under Wesley's crossed hands in front of him. Some crumpled papers, perhaps notes, appear under the edge of the large tome on the desk. The setting is clearly scholarly with the library of large volumes on the shelves. The context seems religious, given the clerical collar with Geneva tabs that he is wearing, but there is no hint of an ecclesiastical setting, so the occasion is an academic lecture — ordination was a requirement for most teaching (tutorial) positions at Oxford University and the required curriculum was based on a mixture of classical and religious works. Wesley's hair is portrayed as dark, but with hints of the auburn color that was remembered later by Philip Thicknesse, who had been Wesley's housemate in Georgia. He is portrayed as the scholarly Oxford don, having graduated with a baccalaureate and master's degree from Christ Church and being now a Fellow of Lincoln College, where he tutored pupils.
Other artists began to copy this 1742 Williams portrait and especially began to use Williams's portrayal of Wesley's face as a model for their own work. Vertue, who had already done one or two engravings, produced two new versions in 1745: a published edition and a proof copy. Although these portraits were contained in the same oval as before in 1742 — with books on either side at the bottom, not in the background — and these engravings also had the same ribbon motto at the top and the same vignette of the Epworth rectory fire and caption at the bottom (similar to his earlier 1742 engraving), the portrayals of the face were markedly different from his earlier versions (see p. 6 above) in several ways. The second state of the engraving, published and dated 1745 in the engraving itself, refines the printing on the lower vignette, but alters the face itself so that it matches very closely the Williams painting. Williams is now noted on the left bottom as "pinxt" — painter. In the second of these new ones (state 3), the proof copy dated 1745 in pen and sequenced by close examination of the alterations, the artist tries to combine his earlier two versions of the face. It is softer, more oval than the earlier engraving, and the eyes are dreamier; the hair is not as harshly curly, especially on the top half of the head; the clerical bands are broader and shorter; and the gown has a different configuration — especially the folds of the material in the right shoulder. In most of these changes, the new version seems to have been influenced by his own earlier version as well as the Williams portrait.
This proof, dated 1745, bears a remarkable resemblance to another engraving produced about the same time except that in the new copy the oval outline is simpler, leaving off the ribbon, the saying at the top, the books under the oval, and the vignette of the burning Epworth rectory. The scroll and the subject, however, face in the opposite direction, which is often the result of copying, since the traced drawing, when engraved on a plate, produces a print in the opposite direction. The scroll at the bottom of the oval frame contains an excerpt from a poem purportedly by Emily Wesley instead of the vignette of the Epworth rectory fire. The relationship between the two is still a matter for conjecture, but the caption on the latter, the "Moravian" engraving, states clearly that it was produced and sold by Thomas Bakewell in Cornhill, the location of many printers and sellers of books, maps, and portraits.
Other engravers such as James Faber (1743) produced copies that were quite faithful to the original Williams painting, which became the favorite for engravers to reproduce for more than a decade, with some prints being re-struck as much as thirty years later. Most engravers gave credit to Williams as the painter (pinxt). Copies also by James Watson, Richard Houston, and others altered the face only slightly, sometimes softening its features and making the Oxford don's visage a bit more friendly.
The three-quarters-length Williams painted portrait of Wesley of 1742, library books and red drape in the background, with books on a table in front, was reproduced fully by John Harley, perhaps in 1745. The portrait is known as the "Mission House" portrait, referring to its twentieth-century location in London. It is remarkable for its faithfulness to the Williams model, with only minor differences.
John Harley then painted a copy of his portrayal of Wesley, using only the upper portion of Wesley's image, as it had appeared in the Williams (and later the Vertue) portrait. He removed all the background drapery and library, as well as the foreground paraphernalia, in the Vertue manner, focusing merely on the face. The result was a simple head and shoulders painting similar to a bust. Other engravers and painters then began to produce the Vertue/Harley type of head-and-shoulders portrait with the Williams face.
Mezzotint engravings of this head-and-shoulders version were done by William Faber and later versions by John Tinney and John Haid, although the dates are uncertain. Tinney (1706–61) had apprenticed as an engraver, worked for a time in France, and then went into business on Fleet Street, London, as a print-seller in 1734. He began engraving there before 1741 and apparently sold prints of country houses with Robert Sayer and Carington Bowles in the 1750s. In the decade after his death in 1761, his engraving of Wesley was reprinted from the same plate by Sayer. Tinney had no great ability as an artist, but made some alterations as he copied the plates, such as altering the length of Wesley's tabs (see also Vertue, p. 12 above).
Johann Jacob Haid (1704–67) produced his closely cropped portrait of Wesley's face in the family printing house in Augsburg, Germany — "A.V." for August Vindelicorum, the Latin name for the city. It is one of the few Wesley engravings that bears a Latin caption. On his engraving, Haid spelled the original artist's name incorrectly — "Wiliams."
The Williams rendition of Wesley's face by that time had become the model of choice for the other engravers who were producing pictures of Wesley during that first decade or so, although many of them left out the books, following Harley and Vertue, and used a head-and-shoulders approach.
Methodist personality John Downes also produced an engraving of Wesley in the 1750s. This perhaps second Downes engraving of Wesley's portrait was nearly a replica of the foreground of the Williams portrait, with the features a bit more crudely portrayed. Downes generally followed the pattern of the Williams portrait, including the desk and books at the bottom, but made the setting a bit less scholarly by following the Harley pattern of omitting not only the background library shelves with all the impressive books but also the rather large drapery, leaving Wesley with only a Bible and one untitled publication on the desk in the foreground. This Downes portrayal of Wesley was chosen by the Methodist leader as the frontispiece for the first two editions of his Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament (1755 and 1757). Wesley liked the John Downes copy of the Williams painting. He viewed the engraving as somewhat amazing, given Downes's plain background.
Toward the end of the first fifteen years of these portrayals of John Wesley, then, the Williams portrait had become the defining model for various artists. Often the inscription at the bottom of the picture identified Wesley by name and listed him as a Fellow of Lincoln College, a true fact until 1752. But the age was sometimes listed as older than thirty-nine on some of the later engravings, although the image was obviously a copy of the 1742 Williams painting, which was apparently done from a live sitting at that time.
Although Wesley never mentioned the Williams portrait, the portrayal was just what Wesley would have liked people to consider when they thought of his name: a sober, learned clergyman. That period of the forties and fifties saw many riots aimed at Wesley as a radical field preacher seen by many, especially Anglican clergy, as a ranting enthusiast, rather than the careful scholar of The Appeals to Men of Reason and Religion (1745), toward which this portrait leans. Many of the preachers who were being sent back to their trades during this period also saw the Wesleys as hardnosed autocrats rather than leaders who found their guidelines for spiritual vitality in the Holy Bible and whose services expressed the warmth of God's love, a constant Charles Wesley theme in the hymns. So this type of portrait seems to have filled an important niche in the Wesleyan scheme of apologetic propaganda, not unlike the literary role played by John's published Journal.
CHAPTER 3Wesley as Seen by Critics
The anti-Methodist movement arose about as soon as the Revival began to spread throughout England. One of the most notable of the critics was William Hogarth, who made his living by portraying aspects of British society with which he disagreed, from the gin trade to prostitution to idleness to fanaticism.
In 1761, he engraved a portrait that he called "Enthusiasm Delineated," published the following year as "Credulity, Superstition, and Fanaticism." Among its various notable features that attack Methodism in general, the print shows a preacher in the pulpit with Geneva tabs, thus an ordained priest. Many viewers assumed that he intended it to represent Wesley yelling at the fanatical congregation. Two features that he included, however, bring one to the conclusion that it is not John Wesley: (1) the preacher is so animated that his wig is falling off (Wesley did not wear a wig as early as 1762), and (2) the scale on the right, marked from 0 to 100, indicates the "Bull Roar" or "W[hitefield]'s Scale of Vociferation," letting the knowledgeable viewer know the actual identity of the Methodist preacher. The print does take a poke at Wesley also, however, since one of the books shown at the base of the pulpit is the publication of his sermons.
However, another print from a decade later does show Wesley on the title page as a devil's head, wearing the Geneva tabs. Another small vignette sketch of Wesley's head is on the title page of the satirical poem, "Perfection," also published in 1778. The following year, another long poem in this anti- Methodist series included an engraving by James Green of Oxford, showing Wesley as a poorly drawn fox, teaching his converts. A fourth bawdy portrayal of Wesley in this series depicts him as Reynard the Fox (a preacher with a fox's head), standing on a table in a barn and haranguing a congregation of animals and characters gathered around him. Shown round him are supposedly risqué events from his Journal, with citations to the year and page.
These portrayals make little attempt to portray Wesley himself, except to display the Geneva bands and sometimes a robe — very seldom the typical long nose or the curls at the bottom of his hair.
CHAPTER 4Wesley the Pious Person
The next major paintings of Wesley were done in the 1760s by Robert Hunter and Nathaniel Hone. Hunter and Hone were Irish artists, the latter eventually settling in London and helping to found the Royal Academy in 1768. Wesley's visage was portrayed during his lifetime by seven academicians of the Royal Academy as well as some Associate Members.
In his journal, Wesley mentions sitting for Hunter "at the earnest desire of a friend" while he was traveling through Dublin at the end of July 1765. It seems that Wesley's sittings for portrait artists, so far as is known, were nearly always at someone else's request. It would be important, in any case, for him to give that impression, even if he did have some desire for such recognition. For one thing (not an inconsequential matter of principle), the other person would then be expected to pay for the process of having the portrait painted. During the three-and-one-half-hour sitting, Hunter finished only the face, a typical beginning point for such a work. Wesley's reaction to the results is notable: "In that time, he began and ended the face, and with a most striking likeness."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from An Exact Likeness by Richard P. Heitzenrater. Copyright © 2016 Richard P. Heitzenrater. Excerpted by permission of Abingdon Press.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Introduction,Early Portraits of Wesley,
Wesley the Oxford Don,
Wesley as Seen by Critics,
Wesley the Pious Person,
Wesley the Preacher,
Wesley the Methodist Preacher,
Wesley as Satirized,
Wesley the Methodist Leader,
Wesley as Ceramic Model,
Wesley the Anglican Preacher,
Wesley the Notable Person,
Wesley the Notable Methodist,
Wesley the Notable Scholarly Person,
Wesley the Aging Methodist Leader,
Wesley in Death,
Wesley Portrayed Post-Mortem,
Portraits Purported to Be Wesley,
Later Portraits of Wesley,
Portrait Painters,
Engravers, Printers, and Sellers,
Study of Wesley Portraits,
Concluding Comments,
Acknowledgments,
List of Illustrations and Permissions,
Selected Bibliography,
General Index,