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ALLAN, DAVID, a painter of
great merit, was born at Alloa, February l3th, 1744. He was the son of Mr
David Allan, shore-master at that small port. The mother of Allan, whose
maiden name was Gullan, brought him prematurely into the world, and died a
few days after his birth. The young painter had so small a mouth that no
nurse could be found in the place fitted to give him suck; at length, one
being herd of who lived at the distance of some miles, he was packed up in a
basket amidst cotton, and sent off under the charge of a man who carried him
on horseback, the journey being rendered additionally dangerous by a deep
snow. The horse happened to stumble, the man fell off, and the tiny wretch
was ejected from the basket into the snow, receiving as he fell a severe cut
upon his head. Such were the circumstances under which Mr David Allan
commenced the business of existence.
Even after having experienced
the tender cares of his nurse, misfortune continued to harass him. In the
autumn of 1745, when he must have been about eighteen months old, a battery
was erected at Alloa, to defend the passage of the Forth against the
attempts of Prince Charles's army. While the men were firing the cannon for
experiment, the maid entrusted with the charge of young Allan ran across the
open space in front, at the moment when they were discharged, and he only
escaped death by a hair-breadth.
His genius for designing was
first developed by accident. Being confined at home with a burnt foot, his
father one day said to him, "You idle little rogue, you are kept from
school doing nothing! come, here is a bit of chalk, draw something with it
upon the floor." He took the chalk, and began to delineate figures of
houses, animals, and other familiar objects; in all of which he succeeded so
well that the chalk was seldom afterwards out of his hand. When he was about
ten years of age, his pedagogue happened to exercise his authority over some
of the boys in a rather ludicrous manner: Allan immediately drew a
caricature of the transaction upon a slate, and handed it about for the
amusement of his companions. The master of the ferule, an old vain conceited
person, who used to strut about the school dressed in a tartan night-cap and
long tartan gown, got hold of the picture, and right soon detected that he
himself was the most conspicuous and the most ridiculous figure. The satire
was so keen, and the laugh which it excited sunk so deep, that the object of
it was not satisfied till he had made a complaint to old Allan, and had the
boy taken from his school. When questioned by his father how he had the
effrontery to insult his master, by representing him so ridiculously on his
slate, his answer was, "I only made it like him, and it was all
for fun!"
The father observed the
decided genius of his son, and had the good sense to offer it no resistance.
At this time, the establishment of the Messrs Foulis' academy of Arts at
Glasgow was making some noise in the country. Allan, therefore, resolved to
apprentice his son to those gentlemen upon the terms given out in their
prospectus of the institution. On the 25th of February, 1755, when exactly
eleven years of age, the young draughtsman was bound apprentice to the
Messrs Foulis for seven years, to attend their painting academy in the
university of Glasgow. In Newhall house there is a sketch in oil, done by
him, representing the inside of the academy, with an exact portrait of
Robert Foulis in the act of criticising a large picture, and giving
instructions to his principal painter about it.
In the year 1764, some of his
performances attracted the notice of lord Cathcart, whose seat, Shaw Park,
was situated in Clackmannanshire near Alloa. Lady Cathcart introduced him to
the notice of lady Frances Erskine, daughter of the insurgent earl of Mar,
and mother of the gentleman to whom the peerage was restored in 1824; as
also to lady Charlotte Erskine, to Mrs Abercromby of Tullibody, mother of
Sir Ralph, and to some other personages of distinction in the neighbourhood
of his birth-place. By the associated purses of these kind patrons, Allan
was enabled to go to Italy, where he studied with unremitting application
for eleven years. During his residence there, lady Cathcart used to write to
him with all the care and affection of a mother. In 1773, while living at
Rome, he gained the prize medal given by the academy of St Luke for the best
specimen of historical composition; being the only Scotchman who had ever
reached that honour, besides Mr Gavin Hamilton.
After his return in 1777,
Allan resided for about two years in London; but, falling into a bad state
of health, he was ordered home to Scotland for a change of air. Soon after
his arrival in Edinburgh, he was appointed successor to Runciman (deceased),
as master and director of the academy established by the Board of Trustees
for Manufactures and Improvements, for the purpose of diffusing a knowledge
of the principles of the fine arts and elegance of design, in the various
manufactures and works which required to be figured and ornamented; a charge
for which he was peculiarly well qualified, by the extensive knowledge he
possessed of every branch of the art. He retained the situation till his
death.
Allan was much admired for
his talents in composition, the truth with which he delineated nature, and
the characteristic humour which distinguished his pictures, drawings, and
etchings. There are several engravings from his pictures, as, "The
Origin of Painting, or the Corinthian maid drawing the shadow of her
lover," and four in aqua-tinta by Paul Sandby, from drawings made by
Allan when at Rome, representing the sports during the carnival. Several of
the figures were portraits of persons well known to the English who visited
Rome between 1770 and 1780. There is one caricature by Allan, which is well
known to Scottish collectors: it represents the interior of a church or
meeting-house at Dunfermline, at the moment when an imprudent couple are
rebuked by the clergyman. There is a drollery about the whole of this
performance that never fails to amuse. The alliance of his genius to that of
our national poets, led Allan, in 1788, to publish an edition of the Gentle
Shepherd, with characteristic drawings. He also published a collection of
the most humorous of the old Scottish songs, each illustrated by a
characteristic etching. At his death, which happened on the 6th of August,
1796, he left a series of drawings designed for the poems of Burns, in an
equally graphic and humorous style. There is one property which runs through
all the designs of Allan, and by which his productions may be distinguished
at the most casual glance: this is a peculiar elegance of form which he
always gives to the limbs of his figures - elegance to such a degree, that,
in many cases, it may be pronounced out of nature.
Allan, by his wife, whom he
married in 1788, left one son, bearing his own name, and who was sent out as
a cadet to India, and one daughter named Barbara. In person, our Scottish
Hogarth, as he was called, had nothing attractive. The misfortunes attending
his entrance into the world were such as nothing in after life could repair.
"His figure was a bad resemblance of his humorous precursor of the
English metropolis. He was under the middle size; of a slender, feeble make;
with a long, sharp, lean, white, coarse face, much pitted by the small-pox,
and fair hair. His large prominent eyes, of a light colour, were weak,
near-sighted, and not very animated. His nose was long and high, his mouth
wide, and both ill-shaped. His whole exterior to strangers appeared
unengaging, trifling, and mean; and his deportment was timid and obsequious.
The prejudices naturally excited by these disadvantages at introduction,
were, however, dispelled on acquaintance; and, as he became easy and
pleased, gradually yielded to agreeable sensations; till they insensibly
vanished, and at last, were not only overlooked, but, from the effect of
contrast, even heightened the attractions by which they were so unexpectedly
followed. When in company he esteemed, and which suited his taste, as
restraint wore off, his eye imperceptibly became active, bright, and
penetrating; his manner and address quick, lively, and interesting - always
kind, polite, and respectful; his conversation open and gay, humorous
without satire, and playfully replete with benevolence, observation, and
anecdote." - Brown's edition of
the Gentle Shepherd, 1808.
The author who thus forcibly
delineates his external appearance, gives the following character of his
genius. "As a painter, at least in his own country, he neither excelled
in drawing, composition, colouring, nor effect. Like Hogarth, too, beauty,
grace, and grandeur, of individual outline and form, or of style, constitute
no part of his merit. He was no Corregio, Raphael, or Michael Angelo. He
painted portraits as well as Hogarth, below the middle size; but they are
void of all charms of elegance, and of the claro-obscuro, and are
recommended by nothing but a strong homely resemblance. As an artist and a
man of genius, his characteristic talent lay in expression, in the
imitation of nature with truth and humour, especially in the representation
of ludicrous scenes in low life. His eye was ever on the watch for every
eccentric figure, every motley group, or ridiculous incident, out of which
his pencil or his needle could draw innocent entertainment and mirth." |
