Gilbert the artist
Sir John Gilbert was born on July 21, 1817, in Blackheath, London. His father, George Felix Gilbert, worked as a land and estate agent. Gilbert left school in 1833 to work for the real-estate firm Dickson & Bell, though he spent most of his time sketching.[1] After two years at the firm, Gilbert’s parents let him pursue his passion for the arts. Failing to obtain admission to the Academy schools, Gilbert became his own teacher, training himself to paint in oils, watercolors and fresco; to draw, engrave, and etch; to carve wood, chisel stone, and model clay.[2] The painter George Lance (1802–1864), famous in his day as a fruit painter, offered Gilbert a few lessons on the use of color.[3] In 1897, Charles Lee, a writer for The Leisure Hour, stated that Gilbert received an informal education from his surroundings:
The teachers from which he learned most were the park at Greenwich, with its ancient gnarled trees and rugged slopes; the commons at Blackheath and Woolwich with their gorse and sandpits, their wide free horizons and their manœvring soldiers; the London streets as seen from his desk, with their moving masses of people and horses, and pomp of Mayoral processions; and, lastly, his books, his Shakespeare, his Walter Scott, and his English history.[4]
In 1836, Gilbert made his first appearance as an exhibitor with two drawings of historical subjects in Suffolk Street, with the Society of British Artists, and in 1837 he sent two oil paintings to the British Institution.[5] Some of the most important pictures exhibited at the British Institution include Brunetta and Phillis (1844), King Henry VIII (1845), and The Charge of Prince Rupert’s Cavalry (1849). In 1838, Gilbert made his first contribution to the Royal Academy, but after 1851 exhibited no pictures there until 1867.[6] The paintings that attracted the most attention at the Academy were The Convocation of the Clergy, The First Prince of Wales, and The Field Cloth of Gold. Exhibited in 1871, The Convocation of the Clergy features a group of bishops and is rich and deep in color. The First Prince of Wales, exhibited in 1873, depicts the king as he presented his child to the Welsh princes. The following year, Gilbert exhibited the historical work The Field Cloth of Gold.[7]
On February 9, 1852, Gilbert was elected an Associate of the Water-Colour Society, and on June 12, 1854, he became a full member. Gilbert was instrumental in inaugurating regular winter exhibitions from 1862, and he remained connected to the institution until his death, exhibiting approximately 270 works in the Society’s gallery, including numerous paintings focusing on themes ranging from Don Quixote to Shakespeare. It was not until 1872, once he had turned his attention to oil painting, that Gilbert became an Associate of the Royal Academy, having been nominated by J. E. Millais; just four years later, he was elected a full member. His RA colleagues called hi "the doctor" because, he explained, "I am always called in to attend to picture which need looking to and doctoring. Millais has got a bad picture, and he knows it is bad. I took his palette and brushes and set to work upon it, for which he was grateful."[8]
Gilbert’s illustrations for books and periodicals generated most of his income. The New York Times obituary recognized his success and productivity, stating that “the name of Sir John Gilbert is intimately associated with modern book illustration.”[9] He was a regular contributor to the London Illustrated News from its very first edition in May 1842 and even drew the paper's first masthead at the age of twenty-five.[10] Gilbert illustrated works for many English poets and novelists, produced some religious compositions, and made drawings for books of ballads and other anthologies: to quote Gilbert himself, “I have illustrated nearly every British poet, illustrated newspapers, cheap weekly publications, books of all kinds, too numerous to name.”[11] The most famous of his illustrations are those for Howard Staunton’s edition of Shakespeare, including Hamlet and King Lear, published by George Routledge and Sons in monthly parts beginning in December 1856.[12] The critic John Oldcastle praised the artist’s ability to capture the words of English classics pictorially: “As if inspired by his text, he has, with happy fittingness, put his very best work between those pages that, of secular writings, are perhaps the most immortal of all.”[13]
Gilbert was able to produce so many artworks because he worked fast and efficiently. Reportedly, book publishers would send Gilbert instructions for a certain picture with orders for the messenger to just wait until Gilbert finished; the messenger would be expected back at the office within an hour, the finished drawing in hand.[14] On March 14,1872, Gilbert was knighted, which both honored his own achievements in painting, engraving, and watercolor, and indicated royal recognition of watercolor's importance as a discipline of art.[15] Gilbert died on October 5, 1897, a bachelor, at his home, Ivy House, Vanbrugh Park, in Blackheath, where he had lived his entire life.
Gabriella Meier
[1] Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, s.v. “Sir John Gilbert,” by Lisa Small, accessed September 4, 2016, http://www.oxforddnb.com.proxy.library.emory.edu/view/article/10693?docPos=1.
[2] Marion Harry Spielmann, “Sir John Gilbert, R.A., P.R.W.S.: A Memorial Sketch,” Magazine of Art 22 (1897-98): 53, accessed November 28, 2016, https://archive.org/stream/magazineofart22londuoft#page/52/mode/1up.
[3] John Oldcastle, “Our Living Artists: Sir John Gilbert, R.A.” Magazine of Art 1 (1878): 134.
[4] Charles Lee, “Sir John Gilbert, R.A.,” The Leisure Hour 47 (1897-98): 425.
[5] Oxford DNB, “Gilbert.”
[6] F. G. Stephens, Artists at Home (London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle and Rivington; New York: Appleton & Co., 1884), 63.
[7] Oldcastle, “Our Living Artists,” 134.
[8] Oxford DNB, “Gilbert”; quoted in Vivien Knight and Mark Bills, "Sir John Gilbert: A Biographical Sketch," in Sir John Gilbert: Art and Imagination, edited by Spike Bucklow and Sally Woodcock (Burlington, VT: Lund Humphries, 2011), 45.
[9] “Sir John Gilbert. Death,” The New York Times, October 30, 1897, p. 1. F. G. Stephens recounts the same anecdote in his memorial essay on Gilbert: "It was quite usual with the editors of periodicals for which he worked to send an office-boy to Blackheath with a wood-block of the size required and a note naming the subject to be illustrated. The boy waited til the block was drawn upon, and brought it back to town ready to be cut and printed from." "Sir John Gilbert, R.A.," The Athenaeum, no. 3650 (October 9, 1897), 495.
[10] Oldcastle, “Our Living Artists,” 134; Neil Rhind, "The Blackheath of John Gilbert," in Sir John Gilbert: Art and Imagination in the Victorian Age, edited by Spike Bucklow and Sally Woodcock (Burlington, VT: Lund Humphries, 2011), 71.
[11] Lee, “John Gilbert,” 425.
[12] Oxford DNB, “Gilbert.”
[13] Oldcastle, “Our Living Artists,” 134.
[14] “Sir John Gilbert,” New York Times.
[15] R. Davies, “Sir John Gilbert,” Old Water-Colour Society's Club 10 (1932-33): 40, accessed October 18, 2016.
In December, 1856, was published the first monthly part of Routledge's "Illustrated Shakespeare." For three years Gilbert was occupied on it, at the rate of a play a month, and the completed edition is, perhaps, the finest and most enduring monument of his fame. Here all his best qualities had ample play, and he was further equipped for the task with a thorough knowledge and a deep love of his author. It is a remarkable achievement. From the beginning it captured the popular imagination, and for forty years it has held its own against numerous rivals. It is not too much to say that the "Shakespeare" of the last two generations is Gilbert's "Shakespeare"; from childhood we have grown up with an unquestioning belief in the poet's characters as Gilbert saw them, and we find it hard to give credence to the conceptions of other artists.
Charles Lee, "Sir John Gilbert, R.A.," The Leisure Hour (London), 1897–98, p. 427