Page 25 - James Ward - A Lioness with a Heron

towards the picturesque (i.e. a barn or dairy interior staffed with rosy-cheeked workers and happy
livestock, accessorized with hay and sunbeams), he fills his scenes with subtle, but distinct incidental
details, such as an over-turned wheelbarrow, a battered milk-pail or the well-worn sole of a child’s
shoe. These objects impart an immediate realism to his compositions, and his genre style evolved
towards paintings like The Swineherd (1810, Fig. 2) a work that prefigures that of Gustave Courbet
thirty years later. It was his relationship with Morland that Ward himself credited with sparking his
desire to paint.26 Although he now enjoyed a firm reputation as a brilliantly innovative engraver, trusted
to reproduce some of the most demanding and complex works by some of the most important painters
of his day, Ward was resolute. He began to paint copies after works by Titian, Giorgione, Reni,
Rembrandt and Rubens, several of which he had already successfully engraved. The work of Rubens
in particular exercised a profound influence over his brushwork and approach to landscape. Indeed,
Ward displayed such a deep understanding of Ruben’s technique and palette, that his copies were said
to rival the originals.27

By 1793, Ward, who had built a significant reputation as possibly the best mezzotint engraver working
in England, had been appointed Engraver in Mezzotint to the Prince of Wales. This was a significant
professional honour, but Ward viewed it as something of a poisoned chalice, a prestigious, but
inconvenient stumbling block in the way of achieving his true artistic potential as an Academic
painter.28 No doubt emboldened by his successes as a painter and a printmaker and by his royal
appointment, Ward applied to the Royal Academy Schools in 1797, but despite the backing of
Benjamin West (1738-1820) he was rejected. Now, more determined than ever to prove himself as a
painter, and too impatient or exasperated to wait another year to re-apply, Ward took formal training
into his own hands.

At this time, there were very few options for study outside the Academy, but one such alternative was

the Sketching Society, an informal group of young artists in the circle of Dr. Thomas Munro that had
been started by Thomas Girtin. The Society’s ‘Brothers’, as they called themselves, met regularly at the
house of each member in turn in order to draw figurative landscape subjects inspired by romantic
literature, their aim being to foster a ‘School of Historic Landscape’. Ward attended these meetings
regularly for at least six years, and his participation must have coloured his understanding of the
romantic potential of landscape.

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