12 DECEMBER 1835, Page 19

FINE ARTS.

THE COPIES AT THE BRITISH INSTITUTION.

IT was a melancholy spectacle to witness the exhibition this year of the proofs that the tribe of copyists annually afford—at a much greater expenditure of time and labour than is at all necessary to convince us of the fact—that they can neither comprehend the principles upon Which the fine works they try in vain to imitate were painted, nor the spirit and beauty of the pictures themselves. What a contrast the Gallery presented to its appearance when we last saw it—the walls glowing with the rich colours and all but living forms and scenes of the great painters ! A few pictures only remained, scattered here and there upon the dingy walls, surrounded by a cluster of abortive imita- tions, all different, but resembling each other in one particular—that of being utterly unlike the originals. The scene seemed like a place of torture, where the unhappy victims were nailed to the wall, and con- demned to be miserably mocked by wretched dwarfs aping their air and costume, and trying to swell out their own distorted forms to the noble stature of the captives. It is well that the Great Masters are spared the infliction of seeing this "sorry sight." We must, however, in justice make an exception in favour of two masterly and finished miniature studies of the Get:acne° and the Vecas- QUEZ, by Mr. FROST. These showed what copies of fine pictures should be. The great mass of the artists (?) who are permitted to copy at this Gallery, need to learn the mere mechanism of their art. As well might a boy hammering over his Latin Accidence be set to trans- late an ode of HORACE or a book of the Xneid. There is one conso- lation, however—the wretched daubs are in no danger of being mis.. taken for originals, by the most unpractised eye ; so that if the copyists let no good, there is no berm done.