--ROMNEY, OPIE, HOPPNER,
AND LAWRENCE.
BY WILL H. LOW.
At the period when in France David and his followers had resuscitated
a dead and gone art, and by dint of governmental patronage had infused
into it a semblance of life, across the Channel, in a provincial town
of England, a little group of painters were quietly doing work which,
if it did not in itself change the face of modern art, was at least
indicative of the change soon to be accomplished by the advent of
Constable.
The leader of this group, which has been of late years in the hands
of zealous amateurs and dealers elevated to the rank of "school," was
John Crome, born at Norwich, December 22, 1768. The son of a publican,
he was first an errand boy to a local physician and afterwards
apprenticed to a sign painter. Without instruction, hampered by
an early marriage, he forsook his occupation, and sought to paint
landscapes; meanwhile finding in the houses of the neighboring gentry
pupils in drawing. The lessons gave him a living; and in the houses
where he taught were many Dutch pictures which he carefully studied,
so that he is in a sense a follower of the Holland school.
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