Robert Smirke was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 painter

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

 and illustrator

Illustrator

An Illustrator is a narrative artist who specializes in enhancing writing by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text...

.

Life and work

Smirke was born at Wigton

Wigton

Wigton is a small market town and civil parish outside the Lake District, in the administrative county of Cumbria in England, and traditionally in Cumberland. It is the bustling and thriving centre of the Solway Plain, situated between the Caldbeck Fells and the Solway coast...

 near Carlisle, the son of a clever but eccentric travelling artist. In his thirteenth year he was apprenticed in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 with an heraldic painter, and, at the age of twenty, began to study at the schools of the Royal Academy

Royal Academy

The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...

. In 1775, he became a member of the Incorporated Society of Artists, with whom he began to exhibit by sending five works; he showed works there again in 1777 and 1778. In 1786 he exhibited "Narcissus" and "The Lady and Sabrina" (from Milton's

John Milton

John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...

 "Comus

Comus (John Milton)

Comus is a masque in honour of chastity, written by John Milton. It was first presented on Michaelmas, 1634, before John Egerton, 1st Earl of Bridgewater at Ludlow Castle in celebration of the Earl's new post as Lord President of Wales.Known colloquially as Comus, the mask's actual full title is A...

") at the Royal Academy; these were followed by many works, usually small in size, illustrative of the English poets, especially James Thomson.

In 1791 Smirke was elected an associate of the Royal Academy, in which year he exhibited "The Widow", and became an academician in 1793, when he painted as his diploma work "Don Quixote and Sancho". His last contribution to the academy, entitled ‘Infancy,’ appeared in 1813, but he continued to exhibit occasionally elsewhere until 1834.

In 1804 he was nominated to succeed Joseph Wilton

Joseph Wilton

Joseph Wilton was an English sculptor and one of the founding members of the Royal Academy in 1768 .Born to a wealthy family in London, Wilton trained in Flanders, Paris, Rome and Florence...

 as keeper to the Royal Academy, but George III

George III of the United Kingdom

George III was King of Great Britain and King of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of these two countries on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until his death...

 refused to sanction the appointment on account of the artist's revolutionary opinions; the appointment went instead to Henry Fuseli

Henry Fuseli

Henry Fuseli was a British painter, draughtsman, and writer on art, of Swiss origin.-Biography:...

.

Smirke's pictures were usually of small size and painted in monochrome, as being best adapted for engraving

Engraving

Engraving is the practice of incising a design on to a hard, usually flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing...

. He designed illustrations for the Bible, ‘The Picturesque Beauties of Shakespeare’ (1783), Johnson's ‘Rasselas’ (1805), ‘Gil Blas’ (1809), the ‘Arabian Nights’ (1811), ‘Adventures of Hunchback’ (1814), ‘Don Quixote,’ (translated by his daughter, Mary Smirke, 1818), and the British poets, especially Thomson. His works are characterised by good drawing, refinement, and quiet humour. ‘The Pedagogue,’ engraved by Joseph Goodyear

Joseph Goodyear

Joseph Goodyear was an English engraver.Goodyear was born in Birmingham in 1799. He was first apprenticed to an engraver on plate in that town named Tye. He also studied drawing under G. V. Burkes at Birmingham. He came to London, and was employed at first by Mr. Allen on engraving devices for...

 for the ‘Amulet’ of 1830, is an excellent example of his style. Of equal interest are ‘The Rivals,’ engraved by William Finden

William Finden

William Finden was an English line engraver.He served his apprenticeship to one James Mitan, but appears to have owed far more to the influence of James Heath, whose works he privately and earnestly studied...

 for the ‘Keepsake’ of 1828; ‘The Secret,’ engraved by James Mitchell for that of 1830; and ‘The Love Letter,’ engraved by Alfred W. Warren for the ‘Gem’ of 1830.

Smirke painted also some pictures for John Boydell

John Boydell

John Boydell was an 18th-century British publisher noted for his reproductions of engravings. He helped alter the trade imbalance between Britain and France in engravings and initiated a British tradition in the art form...

's "Shakespeare Gallery

Boydell Shakespeare Gallery

The Boydell Shakespeare Gallery in London, England, was the first stage of a three-part project initiated in November 1786 by engraver and publisher John Boydell in an effort to foster a school of British history painting...

" and for Bowyer's

Robert Bowyer

Robert Bowyer was a British miniature painter and publisher.Bowyer was born in Portsmouth to Amos and Betty Ann Bowyer and baptized on 18 June 1758. His first job was as a clerk to a merchant in Portsmouth and then London. Two different accounts of his career shift survive...

 ‘History of England.’ These works included ‘Katharine and Petruchio,’ ‘Juliet and the Nurse,’ ‘Prince Henry and Falstaff,’ and ‘The Seven Ages.’ A large commemorative plate, with fifteen medallion portraits, of ‘The Victory of the Nile’ was engraved by John Landseer, A.R.A., from his design. In the Guildhall Art Gallery

Guildhall Art Gallery

The Guildhall Art Gallery houses the art collection of the City of London, England. It occupies a building that was completed in 1999 to replace an earlier building destroyed in The Blitz in 1941...

, is a picture by him representing ‘Conjugal Affection, or Industry and Prudence,’ and a series of scenes from ‘Don Quixote’.

In 1815 the British Institution

British Institution

The British Institution was a private 19th-century society in London formed to exhibit the works of living and dead artists; it was also known as the Pall Mall Picture Galleries or the British Gallery...

 upset many British artists by a preface to the catalogue of their exhibition of Old Masters, implying rather too strongly that British artists had a lot to learn from them. Smirke is generally accepted as the author in 1815–16 of a series of satirical "Catalogues Raisonnés", which savagely lampooned the great and the good of British art patronage.

Smirke died at 3 Osnaburgh Terrace, Regent's Park, London, on 5 Jan. 1845, in his ninety-third year, and was buried in Kensal Green cemetery

Kensal Green Cemetery

Kensal Green Cemetery is a cemetery in Kensal Green, in the west of London, England. It was immortalised in the lines of G. K. Chesterton's poem The Rolling English Road from his book The Flying Inn: "For there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen; Before we go to Paradise by way of...

.

Of his sons, Richard Smirke (1778–1815), was a notable antiquarian artist. Robert

Robert Smirke (architect)

Sir Robert Smirke was an English architect, one of the leaders of Greek Revival architecture his best known building in that style is the British Museum, though he also designed using other architectural styles...

 and Sydney

Sydney Smirke

Sydney Smirke, architect, was born in London, England, the younger brother of Sir Robert Smirke, also an architect. Their father, also Robert Smirke, had been a well-known 18th Century painter.Sydney Smirke's works include:...

 both became accomplished architect

Architect

An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...

s and were both elected members of the Royal Academy. His fourth son, Edward

Edward Smirke

-Life:The third son of Robert Smirke, and brother of Sir Robert Smirke, and of Sydney Smirke, he was born at Marylebone. He was educated privately and at St. John's College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1816, and M.A. in 1820...

 was a noted lawyer and antiquary.

There is a portrait of Smirke by John Jackson

John Jackson (painter)

John Jackson was an English painter.Jackson was born in Lastingham, Yorkshire, and started his career as an apprentice tailor to his father, who opposed the artistic ambitions of his son...

 taken from an original picture by Mary Smirke, engraved by Charles Picart. Sir William John Newton painted several miniatures of him.

External links

• Robert Smirke online (Artcyclopedia)