: The Yale Center for British Art is presenting an exhibition of
paintings, watercolors, prints, drawings and manuscripts by one
of the most neglected British artists of the Romantic period.
"The Art of James Ward," on view May 21-August 22, features more
than 30 paintings and 60 works on paper, drawn almost entirely
from the collections of the Yale Center for British Art.
At the height of his career, James Ward, RA (1769-1859), was
known as the "Mammoth of animal painters." His reputation rose so
high in the Regency period that his client Lord Fitzwilliam
predicted that posterity would eventually say that "Milton was
born near James Ward and not Ward near Milton." It is a measure
of the artist's vanity that Ward told this story about himself.
That vanity was kindled by the opportunities that came during
Ward's early career as a member of the Royal Academy Arts (RA).
At the end of the Eighteenth Century, the RA was still a
relatively young organization that offered Ward and other animal
painters large audiences and new clients and kindled a variety of
aspirations.
Prior to his membership in the RA, Ward had emerged from his
impoverished youth as a brittle, pious and argumentative young
man with incredible talents. Early on, he learned the process of
mezzotint from his brother William, an engraver. Through the
influence of his brother-in-law, the artist George Morland, Ward
found his way to oil painting. He later became devoted to the
painting techniques of Rubens and Van Dyck, as well as to the
careful study of nature through drawing and copying fragments of
ancient sculpture, including the Elgin marbles. Ward achieved
great success with his animal portraits, some of which became
famous through prints, particularly the paintings of the horses
Marengo and Copenhagen, who belonged, respectively, to Napoleon
and the Duke of Wellington. Those paintings are today in the
collection of the Duke of Northumberland.
Ward survived a professional setback when his grand allegory of
the "Battle of Waterloo" was deemed a colossal failure. He soon
rallied and went on to enjoy continued prosperity, living
extravagantly and working well into the mid-Nineteenth Century.
Toward the end of his life, however, his style of painting fell
out of fashion; he encountered financial troubles and collided
unhappily with the Pre-Raphaelites. He died in his 90th year a
disappointed man.
Today Ward is remembered as a key painter in the British Romantic
tradition and certain of his paintings, such as his enormous
"Gordale Scar" (Tate Gallery), are among the most important
manifestations of Regency gigantism and the widespread taste for
the sublime.
This exhibition takes advantage of the depth and range of the
center's collection of more than 280 works by Ward, presenting
his work according to the principal subgenres in which he
excelled. These include livestock, horse and dog portraits; other
studies of wild or domestic animals, such as bats, ferrets and
swine; sporting or hunting pictures; sublime and picturesque
landscapes; rustic subjects (both human and topographical); and
portraits, as well as history, religious and allegorical studies.
The Yale Center for British Art is at 1080 Chapel Street, on
the corner of High Street. For information, 203-432-2853.
