de la Fin du dix huitieme Siécle; ou, Tableaux de la Vie. Small 8vo. 2
Vols. pp: 360 in all. 6s. Boards. Dilly. 1790.
Art. 53. Pictures of Life: or, a Record of Manners,
Physical and Moral, on the Close of the Eighteenth Century. Translated from the
French. Small 8vo. 2 Vols. pp: 440, in all. 6s. Boards. Dilly. 1790.1
The author of these descriptions sets out with promising to exhibit pictures of the
modes of thinking, and manners of acting, peculiar to
the present age: this led us to expect some novelty in the subjects of these paintings; of course we were a little disappointed to
meet with none but old pictures: the same dissipation,
the same frivolité, and disposition to gallantry, and
the same general profligacy among the great, are here represented as they have been
so often described in past ages: nor can we perceive any peculiar excellence in this painter's performances: his colours are often coarse: he has not taken a good
likeness of Nature, either in her moral or physical character; and she is mostly
drawn in unbecoming dresses. In a picture of her in her
physical capacity, we are presented with an accouchement.2 This is a favourite subject with the artist, and he [Page 107]paints it con amore3 The companion to it is a mother surrounded with one-and-twenty children, a groupe that not a
little enhances our admiration of French population:
nor can we contemplate this Gallic Hecuba4 without some degree of respect. Among the best of the pictures, is a gambling
party, where the fatal consequences of that pernicious vice are affectingly
pourtrayed. A melancholy story, displaying some of the cruel effects of the present
commotions in France, concludes the exhibition.
The translator is a faithful copyist: but the colouring
to which we object, in some of the original pictures,
is still coarser in the copies—This is not the fault of
the translator, but of the languages.