Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Life of Benjamin Robert Haydon, Historical Painter, From His Autobiography and Journals, 1853, Vol. 2 of 3
AT this point Haydon's autobiography breaks off. Henceforward his life must be traced by help of his journals. These journals are curious volumes, twenty-six in number, bulky, parchment-bound, ledger like folios. He has recorded in them the incidents of his days, his deductions from books he has read or pictures he has seen, and such passing thoughts as seemed to have been worth arresting and fixing in this way. By their help one may follow the progress of all his pictures from the first conception, - often the best, - through all the alterations in composition, the trials of effects in light and shade, studies of groups, single figures, and parts of figures. All these drawings are dashed in with pen and ink, careless and hasty, but almost always spirited and instinct with characteristic action. Under sketches of the same subject in different arrangements are often written the reasons why one is better than another; and so with draperies, hands, and feet. From these may be determined with tolerable precision the time each picture was in hand from first to last.
I find the earliest sketches for Lazarus about June, 1820; but it was not till his return from Edinburgh that he fairly began the work on canvas.
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