THE RECKONING
By GEORGE MORLAND


THE RECKONING
By GEORGE MORLAND (1763-1804)
IN THE VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM, LONDON

Morland's chief characteristic was that he painted the life that he knew. His pictures were of the everyday life of his time, and of the experiences of the folk with whom he mixed. His father was a pastellist, and from him Morland received his first lessons in art. The parental discipline was unusually stern, and if the idea was to crush vice out of the boy, the result was not of the nature anticipated, for as soon as he was free of the paternal control, the painter plunged into those excesses which, though they did not diminish his output, hampered his life by keeping him in a state of privation, and ultimately cut short his career in his forty-second year. Only the greatest gifts and the rarest facility could survive such conditions of living as Morland experienced; and, fortunately for Art, he possessed them. In the last eight years of his life he produced some nine hundred paintings, besides over a thousand drawings.

Morland's work necessarily has the defects of his qualities and of his life. He was a rapid worker and in his haste he often seems to have sacrificed some of the power which a more deliberate method might have imparted. Yet, in spite of all, he is one of the greatest masters of The English School, uniting in his work the magic of Gainsborough with the delicacy of an old Dutch painter. Though he made a speciality of horses, he painted life on the high road and scenes of rural life with marvellous insight and skill, If his women are not great ladies, they still possess a charm and grace of their own; and if his fame rests mainly upon his power of painting animals, his best attributes are shown in the social scenes which he portrayed so faithfully,

From the book "Famous Paintings" Volume 2 printed in 1913.

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Online "Name the Painting"









George Morland
at Wikipedia

Morland Prints

George Morland Online
links at ArtCyclopedia.com


Famous Paintings in this Series





James Archer
My Great Grandmother


Bashkirtseff
The Meeting


Bouguereau
Charity


John Brett
From the Dorsetshire Cliffs


Arnesby Brown
The River Bank


Joseph Clark
Mother's Darling


John Constable
The Hay-Wain


Jean Baptiste Camille
Corot
The Fisherman's Hut


Jean Baptiste Camille
Corot
A Flood


Leonardo Da Vinci
Monna Lisa


Edouard Detaille
The Dream


Henri Fantin-Latour
Flowers


Thomas Gainsborough
Queen Charlotte


Thomas Gainsborough
The Market Cart


Jean Baptiste Greuze
The Head of a Girl


Jean Baptiste Greuze
Fidelity


James Clark Hook
Home With the Tide


Alfred William Hunt
Windsor Castle


Josef Israels
The Shipwrecked Mariner


B.W. Leader
The Stream in Summer-time


Madame Vigee Le Brun
Portrait of the Artist

Alphonse Legros
A Canal With a Fisherman


Anton Mauve
Watering Horses


J.L.E. Meissonier
The Cavalier


Sir J.E. Millais
Speak! Speak!


Sir J.E. Mallais
My First Sermon


George Morland
The Reckoning


George Morland
The Inside of a Stable


Murillo
The Immaculate Conception
of the Virgin


Alfred Parsons
When Nature Painted
All Things Gay


Ralph Peacock
The Sisters


Rembrandt
Syndics of the
Cloth Merchants' Guild


Guido Reni
"Ecce Homo"


Sir Joshua Reynolds
Portrait of Mrs. Richard Hoare
With Her Infant Son


Briton Riviere
The Temptation
in the Wilderness


Dante Gabriel
Rossetti
Day Dreams


John Singer Sargent
Miss Ellen Terry
as Lady Macbeth


Lady Stanley
(Dorothy Tennant)
His First Offence


Jan Steen
Grace Before Meat


Marcus Stone
On the Road from
Waterloo to Paris


Constant Troyon
Watering Cattle


H.S. Tuke
"All Hands to the Pumps"


Velazquez
King Philip IV. of Spain


S.E. Waller
Sweethearts and Wives


Thomas Webster
The Smile

Index
Famous Paintings Volume 1
Art Gallery

Index
Famous Paintings Volume 2
Art Gallery

Index
Art Appreciation
Lessons