Victorian Art in Britain

Contemporary Comment

From

Painting In the Queen's Reign 1897

By Sir Alfred Temple

PORTRAIT painting is a branch of art that requires no ordinary qualities. To excel in it demands the most dexterous execution as well as a sustained strain on the mental resources of the painter. I remember the late Frank Holl saying that the painting of a portrait was as emotional to him, and if anything taxed him in a greater degree than any of his subject pictures, intense though many of these were in feeling as we all know. It is said that Millais was the first to discern the capacity that lay in mr Ouless for portraiture. Soundly trained in the technicalities of painting, one of his earliest ventures at the Academy was at the age of twenty-three, an historical work incident to the French Revolution. From that time onward portraiture has exclusively claimed him, and many men of prominence in public life have sought their portraits at his hand. His work is seldom merely a portrait; it is almost invariably a fine work of art, worthy of possession as such, independent of the person it may represent. Painters there are who catch a likeness quickly, and stop, content, it may be, to let it go ftom their hand with its details and accessories in a condition the incompleteness of which disturbs, if it does not offend, the experienced eye. With Ouless this is never the case; examine the entire canvas of any of his portraits and you will discover no part to which more finish could outrageously applied. the delineation of feature is rendred as firmly as with a sculptor's chisel, and the warm tints f life are brought into it in a manner indicating a surprising control of the palette and the brush. We do not look for poetry or mystery in his portraiture, any more than in Holl's: he gives us fact, the outward presentment of the man as others see him; but he gives it with a thoroughness, an earnestness, a determination not to put down his brushes until the canvas in its every detail has had the utmost from him that he is capable of. The consequence of this is that a slovenly Ouless is not known. It is always a great pleasure to examine his work, if only on account of its technical qualities. Other schools come forward and have their day, with this or that teachin applied to them; Oules has long since formed his opinion of what really good painting is, and has never swereved a hair's breadth from it; if he be not so fre, he is at least as firm and as finished as Frans Hals. Millais, as we have said, detected at the outset the possibilities that lay before him, encouraged him, presumably, in his method, and the painter having found solid ground has wisely kept to it. He has only occasionally engaged in female portraiture (a great pity. PHR), one of his latest, Mrs Henry Whiting, being admirable in its delicate modelling and fleeting sensitive colour. Lady Currie, painted in 1892, or Lady Manisty in 1889, are also excellent in their expression of sweet and gentle womanhood. It is to men, however, that his art has been chiefly applied, and his industry in that direction may be gauged by the fact that that nearly one hundred and thirty examples have been seen on the Academy walls in the last twenty-five years. Charles Darwin, John Bright, Cardinals Newman and Manning, Lord Roberts, J E Hodgson RA., Sir George Scharf, the Duke of Rutland (who was Lird John Manners at the time, 1882), are among the best of his efforts, though there is little to gain in mentioning any in particular where all are good. Public bodies have largely sought him for presentation portraits, one of the lates of these being the Grocers' Company of London, at whose commission he panted the portrait of the Duke of Cambridge (HRH Prince George 1819-1904 Commander-in-Chief of the Army, and first cousin of Queen Victoria, who would have been King but for her birth. He gained revenge of a sort by outliving her.), which now hangs in the Company's Hall, in Prince's Street.

The Times Wednesday December 27, 1933

Death Notice

OULESS : On Christmas Day 1933 after a short illness at 12 Bryanston Square W1 Walter William Ouless Esq, RA aged 85. Funeral arrangements later. It is requested that no flowers be sent.

Obituary

Mr W W Ouless RA - A DISTINGUISHED PORTRAIT PAINTER

Mr Walter William Ouless, RA, the portrait painter died on Christmas Day after a short illness at his residence at Bryanston Square. For 56 years he has been a member of the Royal Academy, and a regular exhibitor since 1869.

Born in St Helier, Jersey, on September 21, 1848, the son of Mr P J Ouless, a painter of marine subjects, he entered the Royal Academy schools at the age of 17. His succession of portraits was so much admired that he was elected an ARA in 1877, before he was 30, and a full RA in 1881. He had since become on of the senior Academicians. From the beginning he was trusted as a thoroughly trustworthy portrait painter; sitters and committees were sure that they would get what they asked for, a good likeness painted with a high degree of technical skill. One of his earliest works was the Charles Darwin portrait of 1875, painted for the family; soon afterwards came the Russell Gurney for the Fishmongers Company (1877), the Cardinal Newman for the Oratory, Birmingham; the Sir Frederick Roberts (Lord Roberts) for the Mess, Woolwich (1882). Later came portraits Sir William Bowman, the great oculist; Cardinal Manning; Bishop King of Lincoln; Sir Evlyn Wood. Another which hangs in the National Portrait Gallery, of which Ouless was so long the amiable and competent director is the portrait of Sir George Scharf, in which he caught the old scholar-artist to the life. Many more might be named, but it is enough to mention these, nearly all of which are easily accessible. They justify the step taken by the authorities of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, when they paid Ouless the compliment of asking him for a portrait of himself to add to their famous series.

Ouless was for long an active member of the Royal Academy Council, occupying himself with the Dulwich Gallery, of which the council acts as a sort of advisory committee. Personally he was much liked, though of late years he was troubled with partial deafness, which prevented his joining in general society. He married in 1878, the daughter of (Her name was Lucy. PHR) Dr T K Chambers, a physician well known in his day (he was Hon. Physician to the Prince of Wales PHR). She died on September 30, 1931 leaving three daughters, of whom one, Miss Catherine Ouless, is a talented artist. Until 1928 when he was represented by a portrait of Sir Arthur Keith, Ouless, though he had ceased to take an active part in its affairs, sent at least one picture each yearly to the exhibition of the Royal Academy. During his long life he received gold and silver medals for his work at Berlin, Paris, Munich, and Vienna, and he was a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, and a member of the Order of Leopold. He was elected to the Athenaeum under rule11 in 1888.