which we like the least is the figure of the
Saviour. It is stiff, and in the studio sense of the word, "mean ;" it is at least neither impressive nor characteristic. The figure is seated with his hands in his lap, clad in a long straight robe; the face fronting the spectator is expressive, to us at least, only of immoveability of purpose. To the left site Herod, bending forwards towards Christ; to the right are some priests with scrolls, protesting vehemently ; to the right and left are groups of the sick and paralytic people who had been brought to be healed ; while the whole panel is filled up with subordinate figures of courtiers, centurions, and soldiers. The work has been baked in several pieces, but it is put together with so much skill as to appear perfectly solid.
As this is the first time that Mr. Tinworth has modelled life- size figures, the question will naturally be asked whether, from the technical point of view, he has been successful in the execution, and whether the panel as a whole can be considered a fine work of art. To this latter question, which we will answer first—and from the answer to which we may gain a reply to both—we have no resource but to admit that we do not consider life-size compositions suitable to the capacities of Mr. Tinworth's art. This panel is not a success as a whole, partly from the reasons we have stated, partly because the rich- ness of Mr. Tinworth's fancy—which has a liking for composi- tions of numerous figures and strong action—has been baulked by the scale on which he is at present working. For instance, gestures tolerable in little figures of six or eight inches, or even in those of a foot high, need to be studied with very much greater care, and more intimate knowledge both of form and habitual action, when they come to be executed in life-size; and we consequently find in the present composition that the modelling of what may be called the more pronounced actions, is erode and exaggerated. The two best figures in the group are both in repose, the best being that of the girl to which we have alluded; the second-best, of a sick boy who is laid on the ground at the feet of Christ. Another reason, intimately allied with the above, is that beauty of form is not—save in rare instances—one of this sculptor's strong points ; and in his small figures, owing to the cleverness of their grouping, to their number, and to their expression, this defect is comparatively unnoticeable. When the scale and the number of the figures are both increased, attention naturally becomes con- centrated more upon individual figures than upon the facts of the grouping and action; on the whole, in response to this individualised attention, the reply is insufficient.
It is a panorama of Bible stories which Mr. Tinworth gives us beet, and the more figures he puts therein, and the more inci- dents to which he introduces us, the happier we are in his work. He has succeeded in realising the entourage of the New Testament story, and in showing us the way in which he thinks the people in that time received its incidents; and this he has done with great fecundity of illustration, and with a simple belief which renders the work unique. But he is not a great sculptor otherwise considered; be does not feel the subtlety of the human form ; he has not studied the nude model sufficiently ; his hand has not acquired more than a rough-and-ready power of expression of his thought; indeed, it is easy to see that the purely artistic expression of thought, apart from the intellectual and the emotional one, has little attraction for him. His figures stand firmly on their legs, and are generally—though not always, by-the-way,—in fair proportion ; but they are clumsily made, and, for the most part, rather ugly people. The artist does not care to have them otherwise ; we might almost say that when he thinks about the matter, he will not have them otherwise, and that he only strays into beauty when he has intellectually lost his way. He might be a workman of the thirteenth century, so little is he affected by the feverishness of modern life, and the desire for self-advertisement. Indeed, his life forms a curious parallel—though the motives which actuate him are so widely different—to that of Rossetti; the art of both these men was affected in its technical development by their spiritual and in- tellectual conceptions in a somewhat similar manner.
Some years ago, the present writer said of Mr. Tinworth that probably his very virtues would prevent his carrying his work farther than he did at that time ; that if his sculpture became more perfect, it would become absurd ; it was only while it remained childlike in its execution that we could condone its simplicity of thought and frankness of expression. From that opinion we see no occasion now to dissent ; the present panel appears tons to prove its accuracy ; and we conclude the present article as we did our former one, by saying of Mr. Tinworth's. sculpture, that it will not bear elaboration.
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