Gibson, JOHN

Gibson, JOHN, sculptor, was born a market-gardener's son, at Gyffin, near Conway, North Wales, in 1790, but from his tenth year was brought up at Liverpool, where at fourteen he was apprenticed to cabinet-making. This he exchanged for carving, first in wood, then in stone, his love of art having manifested itself strongly even while he was a mere boy at school. He found a patron in Roscoe; and, proceeding to Rome in 1817, became a pupil of Canova, and after his death of Thorwaldsen. Gibson then fixed his residence in that city, and very seldom revisited his native country. At first he was a faithful follower of Canova, whose graceful softness he made his own. But, advancing to the study of the antique, he finally rose to ideal purity and a thorough realisation of the grace of form. Amongst his finest works may be mentioned 'The Hunter and Dog,' 'Thessens and the Robber,' 'Amazon thrown from her Horse,' the two bas-reliefs of 'The Hours leading the Horses of the Sun' and 'Phaethon driving the Chariot of the Sun,' and 'Hero and Leander.' In these the most characteristic trait is perhaps that of passionate expression; they are, moreover, thoroughly classical, and are marked by a refined and noble severity. The innovation of tinting his figures (e.g. his Venus), which he defended by a reference to Grecian precedents, has not commended itself to the public taste. Among his portrait-statues, those of Huskisson, Dudley North, Peel, George Stephenson, and Queen Victoria are the best. In 1833 he was elected an associate, in 1836 a member of the Royal Academy, to which he left a representative collection of his works. He died at Rome, 27th January 1866. See Life by Lady Eastlake (1869).