FINE ARTS.

DEATH OF SIR DAVID WILKIE.

THE death of Sir DAVID WILKIE, on his passage homeward from Egypt in the Oriental, is a great loss to the British school of painting, of '

which he was one of the most distinguished ornaments ; more espe- cially as the world is thus deprived of the fruits of his Eastern travel which, bad he lived, would have enriched many future exhibitions, The immediate cause of his death is understood to have been the " Syrian fever"; but it did not manifest itself till on his voyage home : indeed, he had enjoyed good health during the whole of his

journeyings in the East. The Oriental left Alexandria with a clean bill of health, and all the passengers appeared well when she touched at Malta on the 26th ; but the next day Sir Davin complained of a slight

attack of fever ; which, however, he thought would subside if he con- fined himself to spare diet and avoided exertion. On the 31st, the

vessel entered the Bay of Gibraltar, and laid to for despatches ; but no one was allowed to go on shore : shortly after she got under weigh, Mr. WOODBURN, who was Sir DAVID'S travelling-companion, went to beg

him to come to breakfast ; but he wished first to see the doctor. Mr.

GATTIE, a medical man, immediately went, and found him in a very dangerous state ; and, in conjunction with Dr. BROWNE, used every en- deavour to save him, but in vain. Sir DAVID gradually sank, though without apparent bodily suffering ; and expired at eight on the morning of the 1st June. The captain, at the request of the passengers, returned to land the body at Gibraltar ; but the Governor would not permit this to be done ; and the remains of the great artist were consigned to the deep with the usual solemnities. Sir DAVID, it is said, had been anxious

to return home for some time, and declined visiting both Cairo and Athens on account of the delay. He was bringing to England for pub- lication portraits of the Sultan and the Pasha of Egypt ; the latter being almost the last work of his pencil.

Dawn WILKIE was born in 1785 ; consequently be was only in his fifty-sixth year—an age when the artist's career is often far from the

close. The first picture that Wham exhibited at the Royal Academy

was the Village Politicians: its extraordinary merits at once stamped the reputation of the young painter, and laid the foundation of his fame. This was in 1806: the next year he produced the Blind Fiddler, which adorns the National Gallery, and may be regarded as the perfection of his first style. He continued to exhibit at least one finished picture every year, and sometimes two : the Card Players, Rent-day, Cut Finger, Vil- lage Holyday, Blind Man's Buff, Distraining for Rent, Penny Wedding, and Reading the Will, followed in succession, with others of less note,

until the production of Chelsea Pensioners Reading the Gazette of the

Battle of Waterloo, in 1822. Up to this time his manner of painting had been gradually becoming more free and forcible, and his colouring more

rich and brilliant; his execution being equally remarkable for finish and elaboration. His subsequent visit to Italy and sojourn in Spain effected a complete alteration in his style, which he appears to have remodelled after the Spanish school : this change was strikingly manifested on his

return, in the Siege of Saragossa, and other pictures exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1829 ; and its influence has continued with slight

modifications ever since. It would be tedious to enumerate the various works WILKIE subsequently produced ; almost every annual exhibi- tion contained from four to eight. Among them may be mentioned

John Knox Preaching, in 1832, which was purchased by Sir ROBERT PEEL for fifteen hundred guineas ; and the First Council of Queen Victoria, in 1838. In short, from the first date of his exhibit-

ing till the present time, scarcely a year passed, excepting in his

absence on the Peninsula, without the appearance of some remarkable picture ; and during these thirty-five years they numbered about a hun-

dred, including portraits. This is perhaps fewer than successful artists are in the habit of painting, though it does not include all his works ; but WILKIE, especially in the first twenty years of his career, wrought most laboriously : he considered no pains too great to perfect his ideas, which were slowly matured, and elaborated with infinite care and patience. He was accustomed to model the figures for his compositions in wax or clay, and arrange the groups in a box, to which the light was admitted through a hole, that he might judge of the effect of chiaro- scuro : besides this, he made studies of the effect of colour, and separate

studies of the details. Mr. WINDUS of Tottenham possesses a cabinet of WILKIE'S sketches to the number of six hundred ; some dashed off with the pen on backs of letters, others carefully drawn with the lead- pencil, and some freely painted : this valuable collection was authenti- cated by the painter himself, who examined the whole, and only re- jected one item as spurious. WILKIE was a great painter of petty incidents; his fancy was homely and material, and never rose to the height of a lofty theme. He seems to have conceived no subject, however humble, in the abstract or as a whole ; but to have accumulated a number of little points, from which he selected such as suited his purpose. These he combined with great judgment, and presented with extraordinary force and distinctness ; for his perception was microscopic both in intensity and minuteness. His mental vision was short-sighted, so to speak ; hence his conceptions were limited in their scope, and pinned down to details. He depicted what he saw with marvellous fidelity and consummate skill ; bat in observing character he bad a quicker eye for little peculiarities than broad, distinguishing traits : he was extremely felicitous in expressing momentary action and sensation. Almost every person in his pictures is actually engaged in doing something : this conveys that impression of life and reality which constitutes the interest of WILKIes pictures, and contributes so greatly to their popularity. Nearly every one of his paintings has been engraved, and the prints are mostly popular. The power and mastery of his execution and the refinement of his art were undoubtedly important elements in his success : no painter, indeed, owed more to elaboration and finish than WiLarz. He excelled in scenes of common life and comic character, but failed in his attempts at historical subjects ; while in portraiture he oftener disappointed than pleased. Up to the time of his departure for the Peninsula, when he followed the bent of his genius and preserved the style so well suited to his powers, he was unvaryingly successful ; but thereafter his ambition to attain the grand style led him astray. His new manner of painting was as ill adapted to his minute perceptions as were the elevated themes he afterwards chose. Yet in his most signal failures there is always much for the artist to admire. We reserve a detailed review of his various pro- ductions until the opportunity that, we trust, will ere long be afforded the public of appreciating the merits of this great painter, by an exhi- bition of all his works. In 1812, WILKIE, then R.A., opened an exhibi- tion of his pictures and sketches, to the number of thirty, in Pall Mall ; but the speculation seems to have been a losing one, for they were seized for the rent of the room. Mr. Boys, of Golden Square, has a curious memento of this occurrence, in the shape of a catalogue, on which the broker, who had taste enough to wish to possess some of the paintings though he was not acquainted with their value, has marked the prices he proposed to buy them at : the Blind Fiddler, we believe, is put down for the munificent price of three pounds, and others for like sums. This, though the estimate of an ignorant man, serves to show how limited was the fame of WJLKIE at that time, notwithstanding he had then achieved what will always be esteemed as masterpieces in their way : now, a scrap of paper with a few strokes of his pen is worth more. The tide of fortune, however, soon turned, and WILKIE ob- tained high prices : doubtless his pictures will always fetch much more than he got for them. He has received, perhaps, larger sums for copyright than any artist of the present day : for that of the Chelsea Pensioners he was paid 1,2001.. and for others in proportion.

WILKIE was knighted in 1837, soon after Queen Viczoraa's acces- sion to the throne. He was never married ; and his sister presided over his household at Kensington.