Thomas Jones Barker

Background

Thomas Jones Barker was born in Bath, England in 1815, the eldest son of a prominent painter, Thomas Barker.

Education

After receiving an education at Heckingham College, Thomas commenced the study of painting under his father, then went to Paris in 1835, and entered the studio of Horace Vernet, whose pupil he was for many years.

Career

During his residence in France, Mr. Barker was a frequent exhibitor at the Salon and received three gold medals from the Government. He painted several pictures for Louis Philippe, the principal one being a very large canvas representing "The Death of Louis XIV." It was, unfortunately, destroyed, together with one by Horace Vernet and another by Paul Delaroche, at the sacking of the Palais-Royal in 1848. For Princess Marie, youngest daughter of Louis Philippe, Mr. Barker painted in 1840 "The Bride of Death", for which he received the decoration of the Cross of the Legion of Honour.

When Mr. Barker returned to England, in about 1845, he exhibited some portraits at the Royal Academy; for example, two single portraits, with a group entitled "Beauties of the Court of Charles II.: Portraits." That picture shows a cavalcade of fair ladies, including Queen Catherine, the Duchess of Cleveland, and others, attended by the King himself, who occupied a conspicuous place in the foreground, the Duke of Hamilton, the Chevalier de Grammont, etc., all attired in the extravagance of the fashion of the time. The picture was highly elaborated.

In 1849, Thomas sent to the Academy a subject called "The Troubadour", suggested by a passage in a poem by Sir Walter Scott describing the death of one of these wandering minstrels on the battle-field, whose last song expressed the duty of a "valiant troubadour" to fall in fight for love and fame. The next year he contributed to the same Gallery "News of Battle - Edinburgh after Flodden." Randolph Murray, arrayed in plate-armor, having escaped from the disastrous field of Flodden, was seen riding slowly and sadly through the streets of Edinburgh, surrounded by a concourse of people demanding intelligence of the fight.

In 1851, Mr. Barker exhibited at the Academy a very large painting with groups of figures and animals the size of life, illustrating, and called "An Incident in the Life of William Bums", who, while hunting in the New Forest, was jeopardised by a stag at bay, when Adela, a lady of the Court, "seeing the danger of the king spurred up in time to kill the deer and save the life of her royal lover." The action of the whole group was full of spirit, and the drawing of the whole was good. From an episode in the history of the "Red King", viewers were invited by the painter, in 1853, to one on the life of Wellington, during his campaign in the Peninsula.

Being in the village of Soraulen, near Pampeluna, on July 27, 1813, Thomas observed a movement of the enemy which induced him to dismount instantly from his horse, write a hurried note in pencil on the parapet of the bridge, and send it off to one of his generals by Lord Fitzroy Somerset. The incident was skilfully depicted, and the picture may be considered as the first of those scenes of modern warfare by which Mr. Barker chiefly made his reputation, and that became popular by means of the engraver's aid; many of those pictures have never been exhibited except in the galleries of the printsellers for whom they were painted.

Two pictures, suggested by incidents in the Crimean campaign, were sent to the Academy exhibition of 1855; one was called "An Incident at the Battle of Balaklava", and showed a trooper's horse standing by the side of his dead master, which an eye-witness stated he saw the faithful animal do for upwards of an hour. The other represented the charger of Captain Nolan bearing back his dead master to the British lines. From 1855 to 1860, Mr. Barker was absent from the exhibitions of the Royal Academy; but in the last-named year he sent "The Horse-race at Rome", the first idea of the large engraved picture "II Corso"; and a portrait of Lieutenant-Colonel Lockhart, painted for the County Hall, Lanark. In 1862, he contributed "The Dawn of Victory - Lord Clyde reconnoitering the position of the Enemy."

Mr. Barker had laid aside, at least for a time, what may be called his "war canvases", and employed his pencil on subjects of a less exciting nature. Such was his "Studio of Salvator Rosa", exhibited at the Academy in 1865: he had sent nothing there since 1862. The composition was full of appropriate character; it showed that wild, weird-like, yet vigorous Italian painter a prisoner among the banditti of the Abruzzi, painting the portraits of those picturesque outlaws, according to what Lady Morgan described in her "Life of Salvator Rosa." The next year he exhibited a scene from Goethe's "Faust", "Margaret in the Cathedral: the Whispering of the Evil Spirit."

When the Royal Academy opened its new galleries at Burlington House, Mr. Barker was there with two pictures; one "A Moss-trooper", raising himself in his stirrups to take a survey of the country before him; the other, a scene between "Dean Swift and Stella." "Woman interceding for the Vanquished", exhibited at the Academy in 1871, was a very different version of the subject given by Etty many years ago, in his large and well-known picture. Mr. Barker showed the interior of a cottage in the olden time, in which was a woman pleading with the officers of justice on behalf of a wounded poacher; a composition manifesting great skill and energy. The latter quality was carried almost to the extreme, yet it aided the attractiveness of the picture.

From the year 1872, Mr. Barker had exhibited nothing but war pictures; in that year he sent to the Academy "The Melee: Charge of Prussian White Cuirassiers and Chasseurs d'Afrique, near Vionville, 15th August, 1870" - a composition much in common with all such scenes: a few men desperately engaged in the front, and in the background smoke and inextricable confusion; it was almost beyond the ingenuity of any artist to give much variety to subjects of this description. Mr. Barker showed in 1873 at the Academy a pitiful example of the kind in his "Riderless War-horses, after the Battle of Sedan", painted from a sketch he made on the spot on September 3, 1870.

In 1874 appeared "Balaklava: One of the Six Hundred"; a subject which took a wider scope in the year 1876, when he exhibited the picture "The Return through the Valley of Death", representing Lord George Paget, with his brave companions of the 11th Hussars and 4th Light Dragoons, about seventy men out of the "gallant six hundred", forcing their way through the forest of Russian lances which vainly interposed to bar their way. It was the last picture exhibited at the Academy by the artist. He died in London on March 27, 1882.

Achievements

• On the outbreak of the Franco-German war in 1870, Barker became prominent as a painter of military works. His most outstanding works are "The Prince of Wales", "Devereux Cockburn, Royal Scots Guard, and His Sister Anne Russell", "The Relief of Lucknow, 1857", and "The Secret of England's Greatness."

Works

More photos

• painting

  • Sir Edward Cockburn and Colonel George Cockburn

  • Surrender of Napoleon III at the Battle of Sedan

  • Self Portrait

  • An Incident in the Napoleonic Wars

  • The Prince of Wales

  • Mark Firth, Mayor of Sheffield

  • The Charge of the Light Brigade

  • Self Portrait

  • Colin Campbell, 1st Baron Clyde, Field-Marshal

  • Charles Henry and Mary Crompton-Roberts and Their Children at Field House, Clent

  • News of Battle. Edinburgh after Flodden

  • The Trumpeter

  • Riderless War Horses After the Battle of Sedan

  • Marie Effie, née Wilton, Lady Bancroft

  • Landscape with Figures

  • Spanish Officers Surrendering Their Sword to Nelson

  • Scene in the Piazza del Popolo, Rome

  • The Faithful Knight

  • Angel with a Child

  • Napoleon at Waterloo

  • Devereux Cockburn, Royal Scots Guard, and His Sister Anne Russell

  • Edward Hopper Hebden

  • The Secret of England's Greatness

  • Interior with British Army Officers

  • Wellington at Sorauren, 27 July 1813

  • A Successful Hunt

  • Arthur Clutton-Brock, Aged 10

  • The Spa Promenade

  • Nelson Receiving the Swords of the Spanish Surrendering on Board the ‘San Jose’

  • The Battle of Vittoria, 21 June

  • The Dawn of Victory

  • John Newton Mappin

  • The Capitulation of Kars, Crimean War, 28 November 1855

  • Landscape with Cattle

  • Devonshire

  • Landscape

  • The Girls We Left Behind

  • The Relief of Lucknow, 1857

Views

Thomas Jones Barker adhered to the artistic traditions of Romanticism.

Connections

Father:

Thomas Barker

tutor:

Horace Vernet

Friend:

Charles Empson