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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