Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1887 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XXI. "THE Derby Day." As I have said earlier in these reminiscences, the shock that the first sight of a picture in the Exhibition causes to its author can with difficulty be imagined by artists even, who have not experienced the sensation; the influence of the surrounding works, the glare of frames, and the unaccustomed light, all combine to produce so complete a transformation as to create doubts that the black, dirty, inky, thing that affronts you can be the clear, bright, effective production that was so admired by your friends and yourself before it left your painting-room. Wilkie felt the full force of this, for in speaking of his splendid "Chelsea Pensioners reading the Gazette announcing the Battle of Waterloo," he says: "This is the only instance of one of my pictures which has not suffered terribly by the Exhibition." My "Birthday" was a very painful example of the effect produced by its surroundings; being hung in a wellknown and dreaded dark part of the large room and being a low-toned picture, the consequences were dreadful. I can never forget the shock of the first sight of it. Some one endeavoured to console me by saying that if a fine picture by an old master were hung in a modern Exhibition it would be destroyed. I was, and am still, inclined to agree with my friend, but I could find no consolation in the reflection; and I very soon discovered that my new effort was considered a great falling off from "Ramsgate Sands," some kind critics going so far as to say I was "done for;" the decline had begun, speedily to terminate in a series of performances disgraceful to myself and the body which had elected me so prematurely. For a time I was crushed, but a reaction soon took place. Though the subject of "The Birthday..".