f, evidently possessed examples, Raeburn no
doubt derived much instruction as to design, the use of chiaroscuro and
the like. It has also been suggested with considerable likelihood that
mezzotints after portraits by Sir Joshua Reynolds had a considerable
effect upon him.

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PLATE V.--PROFESSOR ROBISON.

(University of Edinburgh.)

Painted about 1798, "Professor Robison" is one of the most notable
portraits painted by Raeburn before 1800. It represents the
culmination of his _premier coup_ manner. (See pp. 63 and 73.)

[Illustration: Plate V.]

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Passing from supposition, which, however interesting and plausible,
throws no very definite light upon the formation of Raeburn's style, to
his early work itself, one finds it chiefly remarkable for frank
rendering of character. Obviously he believed in his own eyes, and
sought simple and direct ways for the expression of his vision.
Certain of what he saw, and desiring to set it down as he saw it, lack
of training in the traditional methods of painting by process probably
led him to attempt direct realisation in paint. Here is at once the
simplest and the most reasonable explanation of how he became an
exponent of direct painting, of how, isolated though it was, his art
came to be perhaps the most emphatic statement of this particular
method of handling between Velasquez and Hals and comparatively recent
times. Of course at this early stage his technical accomplishment was
not at all equal to his frankness of vision. His drawing, although
expressing character, was uncertain and not fully constructive; his
sense of design was rather stiff and occasionally somewhat archaic in
character; his handling and modelling, if broad and courageous, were
insufficiently supported by knowledge; his colour was apt to be dull
and monotonous, or, when breaking from that, patchy and crude in its
more definite notes which do not fuse sufficiently with their
surroundings.

Gradually these deficiencies were mastered, but in some degree they
persist in most of the comparatively few portraits which can be said
with certainty to have been painted before he went to Italy. He had
been in no hurry to go. Ever since marriage with one of his sitters in
1778, when he was only twenty-two, his future had been secure. The
lady, _nee_ Ann Edgar of Bridgela