LIKE FATHER LIKE SON: `RUSSIAN` BRITISHERS

by kuechelchen

JAMES WALKER (1748 – after 1808) (1758-after 1823)

How much employment is given to the artist and labourer by the vanity, caprice and wealth of individuals`. James Walker

James Walker born in London had served an apprenticeship to Valentine Green (1739-1813), the distinguished mezzotint engraver, before leaving for Russia where he was appointed an Imperial artist engraver at the courts of Catherine II, Paul I and Alexandre I. Mr. Walker spent 1785-1801 in Russia and achieved considerable renown for his engravings of portraits of the Imperial family. [B]On the other hand, he became one of certain foreign artists who focused on the lower strata of Russian society. [/B] In 1802, James Walker was awarded a title of the Academician and Councillor of the Russian Imperial Academy of Fine Arts. After that he had to have four Russian apprentices and a bonus of 30 sazhens (measure of length = 2.34 metres) of firewood and 4 poods (Russian pound of 16.8 kg) of candles. Upon return from Russia Walker wrote a book of 76 `scraps`, as the anecdotes were called, preceded in each case by a reflective `introduction`: `Walker, J. Paramythia, or, mental pastimes: being original anecdotes, historical, desciptive, humourous, and witty: collected chiefly during a long residence at the court of Russia /by the author. London : Lawler and Quick, 1821`. The book that was published anonymously by Walker in 1821, and the numerous Russian grandees figured in the book under discreet initials. From his Paramythia Walker emerges as a democrat, wryly observing the passing show, but full of genuine praise for his patroness. The most famous anecdote, one of those that had saved this book from oblivion, since many other reminiscences tend to be banal, is the story of how Catherine the Great might have had cricketers of her grandsons had it not been for the veto of the Grand Duke Constanine`s German tutor, alarmed by the lethal potential of the bat and ball. (Rosalind Polly Gray,Rosalind Polly Blakesley. Russian Genre Painting in the Nineteenth Century). Catherine the Great, concerned with the education of her grandsons, the future Alexander I and his brother Constantine, and informed about the curricula of English public schools, approached her Court Engraver, an Englishman named James Walker, hailing not from Yorkshire but from a Minor County, Norfolk, and asked about ‘an amusement she had heard talked of, called cricket, enquiring whether it would not be a good exercise for the young princes’. Walker was requested to demonstrate the game to General Sacken, the Grand Dukes’ tutor: “I procured the apparatus, and waited upon his excellency, who viewed them with great attention, and, taking up the bat, exclaimed, ‘Call you this amusement! why, it is the club of Hercules’: then, feeling and weighing the ball in his hand, he pronounced it as dangerous as a four-pounder; and, turning to me, said, ‘No, no, my dear Mr W-, no cricket for their Imperial Highnesses my pupils; it is too much to run the risk of a death-hlow in play.” (A. G. CROSSBy the Neva, By the Aire p. 11) Walker spent 16 or even 18 years in St. Petersburg in Russia. His book of anonymously published anecdotes on Russia (1821) was a kind of an account of the career of James Walker and remains an important addition to the literature on Catherine’s Russia from contemporary English visitors and residents.

A Russian Peasant One Hundred and Eight Years of Age with her Children. Dedicated to Her Imperial Majesty Catherine the Second, Empress and Autocratrix of the All Russias. By her much obliged most devoted & very humble Servant James Walker, Engraver to I.M. London, 1792. The engraving of 617х435 mm is an aquatint print from the Hermitage Museum`s painting by Vigilius Eriksen (1722 -1782), a Danish artist who served in Russia.

JOHN AUGUSTUS ATKINSON (1775 – after 1833)

`The Russian, always a great and powerful nation, but little known to the rest of Europe, till drawn into notice by the creative mind and genius of their great law-giver, Peter the first, have at the present day assumed a weight and importance in its scale, that must necesssarily give an interest to anything, that may tend to elucidate or make better acquainted with their customs and manners`. John Augustus Atkinson

John Augustus Atkinson (1775– after1833) was an English artist engraver and watercolourist. In 1784, aged 9, he went to St. Petersburg to his uncle (according to other information, his stepfather) James Walker, engraver to the Empress Catherine the Great. (Another version: `Atkinson came to St. Petersburg in 1787 as a boy of twelve – with his uncle and father-in-law the engraver James Walker in the service of Catherine II, Empress of Russia- and lived on the banks of Neva for eighteen years`. (Russia: Engages the World, 1453 – 1825 Cynthia Hyla Whittaker, Edward Kasinec).

Retreat of Napoleon Army from Moscow 1812 (700×483).

John Augustus Atkinson subsequently gained the patronage of the Empress and her son, Paul I (reg 1796-1801). He was educated as a painter in the Russian picture galleries. Atkinson`s precocious artistic talent attracted the attention of the Empress herself. Later he was commissioned by Paul I to paint portraits and large genre and historical paintings. His ouput included several paintings on themes from Riussian history (Mamay`s Slaughter, Victory of the Cossacks of the Don over the Tartars and the Baptism of Rus), as well as a series of portraits, a large number of landscape and genre sketches.

Golubtza. Russian folk dance. 1804 Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, British Columbia.

He returned to England in 1801 and by 1808 was exhibiting as an Associate at the Royal Society of Painters in Water-Colours, showing such literary and patriotic pictures as Shakespeare’s ‘Seven Ages’. A series of his soft-ground etchings, The Miseries of Human Life, by One of the Wretched (London, BM), was published in London in 1807. He also produced sets of engravings of military costumes, such as A Picturesque Representation of the Naval, Military and Miscellaneous Costumes of Great Britain (London, 1812) and painted numerous watercolours (e.g. HRH The Prince Regent, the Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia Attended by Marshal Bluecher at the Review in Hyde Park, 20 June 1814, c. 1814; London, N. Army Mus.). In 1815 Josiah Boydell (1752-1817) sent him to the site of the Battle of Waterloo to collaborate with Arthur William Devis on a painting of the event (watercolour study, London, BM). In 1819 the painting was engraved by John Burnet. He painted many battle scenes of the Napoleonic wars including a Battle of Waterloo. That time Atkinson aspired towards recognition as a painter of historical subjects and competed unsuccessfully in a competition sponsored by the British Institution for a military painting to hang in the Royal Military Hospital in Chelsea, London. His last contribution to the Royal Academy exhibition was in 1829.

Panoramic view on S. Petersburg of the Vasilievsky Island in St. Petersburg, dedicated by permission to his Imperial Majesty Alexander 1st. by his much obliged humble servant J.A. Atkinson / drawn on the spot by J.A. Atkinson, from the observatory of the Academy of Sciences. 1805-1807. Caption: “Plate 4th. Exchange et Warehouse. New Exchange. Fortress of St. Peter et St. Paul”

Upon his return to England after eighteen years in Russia in 1801, James Walker and his stepson, John Augustus Atkinson began a series of prints entitled `A picturesque representation of the manners, customs, and amusements of the Russians: in one hundred coloured plates : with an accurate explanation of each plate in English and French: in three volumes / by John Augustus Atkinson, and James Walker. London : W. Bulmer and Co., 1803-1804.3 v. (published in three volumes on 1 May 1803, 1 February 1804, and 2 July 1804, and reissued in 1812). The series, in which etchings by Atkinson (the work contains 100 sheets engraved in soft laquer with aquatint and very finely colored by hand appeared alongside a text by Walker, was available in Russia, and became one of the first publications to deal directly with Russian everyday life. Abbey notes that Atkinson’s plates “show the spontaneity and spirit possible when the artist is his own engraver… the colouring is skilfully done, in soft washes”. Many of the views depict leisure activities and include the racecourse, swings, boxing, wrestling, toboganning on ice hills, skittles, dancing, the fairground and public festivals. Atkinson`s engravings are quite varied in theme, albeit traditional; theу depict not only games and amusements, but also Russian rituals, urban and village types, and people at work. However, Atkinson behaved first as a talented and poetic artist and only secondarily as an ethnographer and documentary artist; these are highly artistic works distinguished by dynamic composition and unique painterly qualities. Unlike many other foreign artists, he knew Russia as the Russian, this country was not foreign for him. He creates unusually lyrical and warm engravings such as depicting the washing down of horses, a well on a village street, a lively winter bazaar, sledding down enormous ice hills, steam baths, the feast of blessing water on the Neva enbankment. Published in folio, the Atkinson-Walker album was dedicated to Alexandre I, Catherine the Great`s favourite grandson, who ascended the Russian throne in March 1801, but the artist nontheless portray the faces, mores, and lifestyle of the inhabitants of Catherine`s day.

John Augustus Atkinson. Katcheli (The Swings). London, 1803. Hand Painted Oil Painting Reproduction on Canvas