 After Sirens , Etty 's output remained as high as ever , with seven paintings exhibited at the 1838 Summer Exhibition , but the quality of his work is generally considered to have gone into decline . By 1838 critics began to comment that Etty 's paintings were no longer inventive but simply reworkings of his earlier paintings , while in June of that year William Makepeace Thackeray ( under the pen name of Michael Angelo <unk> ) wrote that " [ Etty ] is , like great men , lazy , or indifferent , perhaps , about public approbation " . By 1839 , criticisms of Etty were being raised in even those newspapers and journals which had previously championed his work . A new type of criticism of Etty also began to appear in 1839 , from a new generation led by The Art Union , who praised Etty 's technical abilities but saw his choice of subjects as out of touch and anachronistic , and " very frequently doing as little good for mankind as the priest who preaches his sermon in Latin " . 
