EXHIBITION OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY.

TI1E SCULPTURE.

THE display of Sculpture may be taken as a fair sample of the talent of the British school ; for though IVEsestacorr has but one figure, and Sievirm and CAMPBELL contribute only a bust each, while Loenii and Cutesy are wholly unrepresented, and the animal sculptor Wean', of cocked-hat and pigtail eelebrity, has not sent so much as a horse's head, GIBSON, BAILY, and CHANTREY, are in full force, and the young mo- dellers furnish their quota.

Of the higher qualites—invention and sentiment—there is as lament- able a deficiency as in the department of painting, and about the same average amount of executive skill. There are some clever and pretty things, but nothing great. Among the works of fancy, GIBSON'S group of" Hylas Surprised by the Naiades," (1178,) is the most elaborate ; but the conception of the subject is utterly unimaginative, and the expression of the faces is blank of meaning. As a group, the composition of the three figures is not felicitous, and its merits are confined to the execution. The figures are graceful, especially the young Hylas, correctly modelled, and in a classic style ; but it is that of the later period of Greek art, after it bad become corrupted by the Roman effeminacy—it wants the noble simplicity of the Piddle,' age. The chiselling is over-wrought, giving by its polish a hardness to the fern's and increasing that rigidity which is the effect of subduing the musculation. It is not flesh, but marble : the limbs could not move from t eir position. A statue should not be a petrifaction : the marble ought to represent not form merely, but life and motion. Without going to the Elgin Marbles, it is sufficient

to turn to a" Fawn Sleeping," (11630 by Bay SI, a sculptor of the French school : here is a figure that could rise up and walk : the recumbent posture is not graceful, and the form is meagre, but you see that it is made of bone and muscle, and that it lass joints to move withal. This is an example of the natural style as opposed to the conventional classical of GIBSON: both are equally highly.tinished, but one is real, the other artificial.

A small statue by Ginsosr," Love disguised as a Shepherd," (11690 is a bijou of sculpture. "Sylvia and the Wounded Stag," (1170,) by Gerry, is another specimen of the petty-classic or Roman-Greek style, in which

its vicious qualities are exaggerated to a ludicrous extreme : the folds Of drapery are like a net-work of macearoni. \Years's " Nymph at the Bath," (11800 is the most graceful figure in the room, but still too much in the modern conventional style; in

aiming at ideal beauty, the artist has sacrificed truth : the nymph has no blade-bones—her shoulders are cushions. Compare the back of the nearest of GIBSON'S nymphs with hers. WESTMACOTT'S Euphrosyne, (1160,) is an effort of fancy for a modern sculptor to make, but The goddess fair and free,

In Heaven yclept Euphrosyne, And by men heart-easing mirth,"

looks rather melancholy-mild, and might better pass for a personifica. tion of Spring. The modelling of this figure is really disgraceful to a sculptor of Mr. WESTMACOTT'S standing : he cannot surely have wrought from the life. The lower limbs have no power to support the body. If the ideal be the unnatural, or, as it was defined to us by a sculptor, consist in showing the form in motion without muscul i ar

action, then this s ideal ; though, by the by, some appearance of muscle was recognized as an essential by this definition, and in this figure the is none. PARK'S " Splicerobolos, or Ballthrower," (117%) errs in the opposite extreme ; but the spirit and energy of the action redeem its faults of exaggeration. The attitude, though too much strained to be natural, even for SO violent an exertion, expresses the purpose vigorously: the muscles are alive with extreme activity—the fore.arm of the hand that holds the ball excepted, which is passive and poorly modelled : indeed the execution is very unequal, and there sore oibei parts equally faulty. But PARK is a young man, and in a wet!: evincing such originality and high promise we are not disposed to he hyper: critical: The companion-figure, " The Eagle-shooter," (1176;) by BELL, is extravagant in attitude, and tame in action : the muscles are in repose. The " Infant Hercules," (1197,) by this artist, is a ludicrous caricature ; and his " Psyche," (1173,) mere commonplace. An alto. relieve of " Mercury presenting Pandora to Prometheus," (11900 by WEsvitacorr junior, is an Academical thesis in marble. That of " Wickliffe Preaching " has more interest and character.

BAILEY has carved in marble his beautiful group of " Maternal Affection," (11790 a mother playing with her infant, who has climbed upon her back : it is charming for its simplicity, tenderness, and de. gance, and has an interest which is too commonly wanting in tic subjects chosen by sculptors. Another "Group of Affection," a mother and child, by SHARP, (1171,) is naturally conceived and admirably modelled; the child, in particular, has beautiful infantine character. There is some merit also in CARDWELL'S " Girl and Lizard," (11770 and " 11 Segue, or the Dream," (11740 by E. RICHARDSON. The most charmiug figure of all is a statue of a girl reading, (1216,) by M'Dowat.t. The union of ideal grace and simple nature, the life-like look of intent- ness, and the ease and repose of the attitude and air, give it an interest beyond that of mere individuality : it is a personification of he beauty and innocence of girlhood. The Portrait Statues strikingly exemplify the supremacy of

CHANTRF.Y in this department of sculpture, not only as regards the likeness but the general treatment of the figure. His modelling is fat from being faultless, and he displays little invention or refinement in design : his peculiar excellence consists in the system on which he works. He is the only sculptor who gives massiveness and breadth of effect to his figures without heaviness, and who attains the true ideal in portraiture, namely, individuality in feature and enression without meanness or defermity. This he accomplishes by seizing upon the pro- minent points of the physiognomy and the character—massing the fea- tures of the mind as well as the form. The colossal statue of Dr. Dalton, (1162,) is a fine example of (711ANTREY'S skill; vigour of thought, sagacity, and penetration, are depicted in the face ; the fore. head is grand, and an air of greatness and simplicity breathes in the meditative repose of the figure. These leading characteristics, too, would be visible at a distance. The attention is not unduly attracted by the dress or the action or the chemical apparatus on the pedestal: they are but accessories to the general idea, which is that of a philo- sopher profoundly engaged in thought. Turn to the other sitting figure beside it—a monumental statue, (11670 by GIBSON: how meagre, stiff, and unimpressive ! it is a man turned to stone: CHANTREY'S is marble endowed with life and mind. The difference consists in this,—GinsoN has carved out the form and features with literal exactness ; CHANTREY has modelled his figure in such a way that the effect produced by the lights and shades of the forms represents the man. On this principle CHANTREY proceeds in his busts also ; mid hence that vitality of look which overcomes the stony and deathlike aspect of ordinary sculpture. The sculptor has to represent not form only, but to portray, by means. of form, all that it can be made to express. Sonic try to produce effect by variety of surface, but this is a trick that does not succeed : see the hair in GIBSON'S group, passim. To imitate substance in marble or metal, the general appearance of the object in the mass must be imitated, not its minuthe; else you get a brazen feather or stone hair, not the re-

presentation of hair or the feather. This is the mistake which helps to make Mr. WvArr's statue of George the Third so ludicrous. The Lord Mayor, by the by, deserves a vote of thanks for rescuing the Wellington Statue from such hands, and giving it to CHANTREY.

BAILY'S recumbent figure of Viscount Brome, (1167,) is graceful, simple, and interesting—a compromise between sleep and death ; but in the hand on the breast the want of massing is felt as a defect : it is a hand of marble, not a hard in marble. The corpse-like look of PARK'S statue of Sadler, (1166,) is owing to the same cause, as well as to the absurdity of representing a person in the nineteenth century with a sheet round him as if doing penance. Beness's statue of Dr. Babington, WOO looks heavy and ungraceful beside CHANTBEY'S: the expression of the face, too, is vacant, and the eyes look sightless— a common defect in sculpture that CHANTREY'S busts are free from. There has been much disputation among academies as to whether the " sight," as it is technically termed, should be marked in the eyes of a statue : to us it seems to depend upon the nature of the look to be ex- pressed; but whether it be marked or not, the eyes of a bust should never convey the idea of blindness or a vacant stare. In CHANTBEY busts of Mrs. Somerville, (12720 and Professsor Horace Wilson of Oxford, (1286,) the eyes are not pierced, a mild contemplative aspect ' I:.0Se

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being required ; but in that of Sir Jeffrey Wyattville, ,) whose characteristic expression is a penetrating shrewdness, the light in the eye is represented by deeply-drilled holes. The short,

dark, .. curled hair of Southey, is as admirably indicated in his bust, (12■1,) by CHANTREY, as the calm energy of a man of active thought in his look, and the peculiarity of his falcon-features.

Moone's bust of O'Coneell, (1241,) is an exact and speaking like- ness of the man, and conveys a correct idea of his bulk Its Well as his physiognomy; but its effect is destroyed by the very means tuken.to give it life. The sculptor has carved out the lips and nostrils with such relief, that the strongest light and shade are seen there, while. the brow and eyes, where the broadest and most striking effect is required, are ineffective. This is the consequence of the literally imitative sys- tem of modelling being carried out to an extreme degree. 1 he same mistake greatly detracts from the effect of an otherwise clever bust of son of Dr. Ash‘vell, (1212,) by TOWNE. It is the absence of light and shade that makes the colossal bust of Lord Melbourne, (128004 FRANCIS, look like a great block ; and CAMPBELL'S of Sir John Hob- house, (263,) appear too young, as well as tame and weak in style. IpThe two busts of Earl Grey by BAILY, ( 1273), and STEEL (1264), are disagreeable, and not correctly characteristic ; and the other of Lord Melbourne, by TERS:OUTH, (1266), is poor, formal, and uncharacteristic. DAVIS'S three busts of Blagrove the violinist, (1232), and Messrs. Whichelo and Say the artists, (1228 and 13290 are clever, but too much alike in proportion, air, and character : they have a gaunt look also that is unpleasing. BEIINES has attempted a novelty by intro- ducing the arms in a bust of Miss Kirkpatrick, (1287): the experi- ment is not successful, because the bust looks not like the head of a statue, but a quarter of a human form. His bust of Lord Brougham, (12780 which we before spoke of, is not seen to such advantage here as in his atelier. This is doubtless the case with others : indeed the want of proper space is aggravated by the cross-light, which must ma- terially injure the effect of the sculpture.