Life of Benjamin Robert Haydon Author:Benjamin Robert Haydon Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: sorrow,—great promise, — great mercy,— shocking disappointment,— but a glorious victory. " I have lost more time in this year than in any before during my lif... more »e from eighteen years old. I began several pictures, and have finished none. I have never had so many unfinished pictures at once in all my life. " In all my troubles I have had reason to be deeply grateful. My children are improved and good. My eldest boy has undoubted and high genius, and my dear Mary is spared to me in health and happiness. In fact I can't be low-spirited. I can't complain. I have a tendency to feel my heart warm towards my good Creator under all circumstances, and think life a blessing even in a prison." 1837. There was little in this year of Haydon's history to call for particular remark, if it be not the unusual absence of money cares and embarrassments. This was owing to his lectures, the delivery of which in London, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Hull, and other of our large towns, brought him in the means of supporting his family, while it gratified his strong craving for personal display, and for assertion of his views about Art. As I have said before, these lectures have been published; and any elaborate account of them therefore would be out of place here. The published ones are twelve in number; on the state and prospects of British Art; on the skeleton; on the muscles; on the standard figure of the Greeks; on composition; on colour; on invention in Art; on Fuseli; on Wilkie; on the effect of societies of literature and Art on public taste ; on a competent tribunal in Art; on fresco painting ; on the Elgin marbles; on the theory of the beautiful. In the course of his lecturings Haydon gained many acquaintances and friends. His strong enthusiasms and his passionate and...« less