Excerpt from Sir Henry Raeburn: A Selection From His Portraits Men's Sight than one of the half-dozen true royalties of art - is a fact that should astonish nobody. Portraiture, indeed, is probably the most popular, being certainly the most 'interesting, ' of all the departments of painting; and from Holbein downwards through the centuries, its practitioners amongst us have lacked neither oppor tunity nor recognition in their lives, and in their deaths have been remembered and esteemed with an enthusiasm sometimes wholly dispr0portionate to their deserts. For one or another reason Romney commands a higher price than Van Dyck, unless Van Dyck be at his very best; while you could furnish a gallery with Lelys and Knellers, and have something over to spend in Raeburns, for the cost of a single Gainsborough. This, of course, is fame - fame of a kind; but the fame of Raeburn is far other in type, and rests on very different grounds. He has neither Romney's sentiment' nor Gainsborough's charm his achievement is largely wanting in that purely personal' quality so dear to the British mind, and is touched with scarce a vestige of that imperfect, or 'wholly individual', craftsmanship so near to the British heart. It is sane in ambition, severe in style, distinguished in method, nothing if not artistic in effect. For all such qualities as 'latent poetry of suggestiveness', as 'exquisite yet lofty subjee tivity', as passionate yet almost morbific subtlety of vision and realization - for them and their like, I say, you must look elsewhere than here. He was content to be a painter, and to invest his work with the unpopular yet sovereign element of style. Fashion. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.