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MACLISE, DANIEL (1806-1870)

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Originally appearing in Volume V17, Page 263 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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MACLISE, See also:DANIEL (1806-1870) , Irish painter, was See also:born at See also:Cork, the son of a Highland soldier. His See also:education was of the plainest See also:kind, but he was eager for culture, fond of See also:reading, and anxious to become an artist. His See also:father, however, placed him, in 182o, in Newenham's See also:Bank, where he remained for two years, and then See also:left to study in the Cork school of See also:art. In 1825 it happened that See also:Sir See also:Walter See also:Scott was travelling in See also:Ireland, and See also:young Maclise, having seen him in a bookseller's See also:shop, made a surreptitious See also:sketch of the See also:great See also:man, which he afterwards lithographed. It was exceedingly popular, and the artist became celebrated enough to receive many commissions for portraits, which he executed, in See also:pencil, with very careful treatment of detail and See also:accessory. Various influential See also:friends perceived the See also:genius and promise of the lad, and were anxious to furnish him with the means of studying in the See also:metropolis; but with rare See also:independence he refused all aid, and by careful See also:economy saved a sufficient sum to enable him to leave for See also:London. There he made a lucky See also:hit by a sketch of the younger See also:Kean, which, like his portrait of Scott, was lithographed and published. He entered the See also:Academy See also:schools in 1828, and carried off the highest prizes open to the students. In 1829 he exhibited for the first See also:time in the Royal Academy. Gradually he began to confine himself more exclusively to subject and See also:historical pictures, varied occasionally by portraits of See also:Campbell, See also:Miss See also:Landon, See also:Dickens, and other of his See also:literary friends. In 1833 he exhibited two pictures which greatly increased his reputation, and in 1835 the " Chivalric See also:Vow of the Ladies and the See also:Peacock "procured his See also:election as See also:associate of the Academy, of which he became full member in 1840. The years that followed were occupied with a See also:long See also:series of figure pictures, deriving their subjects from See also:history and tradition and from the See also:works of See also:Shakespeare, See also:Goldsmith and Le See also:Sage.

He also designed illustrations for several of Dickens's See also:

Christmas books and other works. Between the years 1830 and 1836 he contributed to See also:Fraser's See also:Magazine, under the See also:pseudonym of See also:Alfred Croquis, a remarkable series of portraits of the literary and other celebrities of the time—See also:character studies, etched or lithographed in outline, and touched more or less with the emphasis of the caricaturist, which were afterwards published as the Maclise Portrait See also:Gallery (1871). In 1858 Maclise commenced one of the two great monumental works of his See also:life, the " See also:Meeting of See also:Wellington and See also:Blucher," on the walls of See also:Westminster See also:Palace. It was begun in See also:fresco, a See also:process which proved unmanageable. The artist wished to resign the task; but, encouraged by See also:Prince See also:Albert, he studied in See also:Berlin the new method of " See also:water-See also:glass " See also:painting, and carried out the subject and its See also:companion, the " See also:Death of See also:Nelson," in that See also:medium, completing the latter painting in 1864. The intense application which he gave to these great historic works, and various circumstances connected with the See also:commission, had a serious effect on the artist's See also:health. He began to shun the See also:company in which he formerly delighted; his old buoyancy of See also:spirits was gone; and when, in 1865, the presidentship of the Academy was offered to him he declined the See also:honour. He died of acute See also:pneumonia on the 25th of See also:April 187o. His works are distinguished by powerful intellectual and imaginative qualities, but most of them are marred by harsh and dull colouring, by metallic hardness of See also:surface and texture, and by frequent touches of the theatrical in the See also:action and attitudes of the figures. His fame rests most securely on his two greatest works at Westminster. A memoir of Maclise, by his friend W. J.

O'Driscoll, was published in 1871.

End of Article: MACLISE, DANIEL (1806-1870)

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