FINE ARTS.

THE BRITISH INSTITUTION.

THE exhibition at this gallery opened to private view on Saturday last, and to the public on Monday,—mitiating, as usual, the year's picture-shows. Its augury is but so-so. Intellectual purpose al- ways stands at a very low figure in an English exhibition. Here it is al-. most " nil "; while stupidity, vacant no-meaning, conventionalism, and self-repetition, rem riot Proteua-shaped. Some remedy begins to be loudly demanded far the mental inanity which prevails among our artists, and which is such that their very titles are foolish. A dog is not a dog, but " A Protectionist " ; a study of fish becomes " A few of the finny tribe from the soft-flowing' Avon." As for intellectual subjects or intellectual treatment, not one man in a hundred dreams of such a thing. " The Cir- cassian Slave," "The Organ-boy," "Head of a "The Parting," "La Contadina," " Zulaca"—sueb, culled from the first two pages of the catalogue, is the trash which exhausts the powers of their minds, or the old, old commonplaces, which one generation of sterile pretenders hands down to another. And the treatment! That " Organ-boy" of Mr. Buckner—elsewhere appearing as " Agostino Belli Monti "—when shall we see the last of that etherial idiot ? When will Mr. Brocky understand that, to be an artist, a man must be competent to some- thing other than a nude Delight," or a " Head of an Old Man" at a shilling di hour ?—Mr. Brooks the of " Crossing the Moor," and leave the lecturing on " Want and Abundance " to more earnest social reformers and less uninventive painters ?—Mr. Frost allow women, and even Academy models, to bathe in some " Cool Retreat" without degrading them into wax dolls ? The re- cording angel, as well as the recording critic, must surely be weary and

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ashamed of entering, year after year, new "Fishermen" and "Fish- sellers" to the credit or discredit of Mr. Hollins ; new lifeless female heads, with a toss-up for a name and a motto, to Mr. Johnston's ; new "Cottage-doors," "Italian Boys with Dolls," or "Village Springs" to Mr. Marshall's ; new nymph-fairyisms to Mr. Naish'a, line-of-beauty rusticities' with the finish and style of a scene-painter, to Mr. F. C. Un- derhill's, and "Sea-nymphs," human or fabulous, gleaming in the hues of a washed-out rainbow, to Mr. Woolmer's. Will our Academicians never cease to bestow their honotue on the want of brains, which, moving eternally within a narrow range of subjects—like Mr. Goodall's "Tired Gleaners "—is impotent to make subjects of them, as Wilkie could ? Mr. Goodall's accustomed qualities,—common arrangement, the common conventional trick of feeling, and common execution made to bear a de- lusive surface-look of finish,—have presided at a work which is never- theless -certainly one of his best. Perhaps similar powers, with less knack and rather more good faith, will carry Mr. Rankley among the A.R.A.s. at no distant day : his " Home " is mediocre enough to warrant one in thinking so.

Yet worse than the poverty of mind which consents to go on elabora- ting nonentities is the profane recklessness which inspirits the very un- derlings d'art to brood harpy-like over the Bible or the creations of some literary giant. That indefatigable misdemeanant Mr. Barraud appears this year with " Daniel delivered from the Lions" ; Mr. Le Jeune with "The Spirit's Flight," the engraving of which, already published, was quite sufficiently nauseous for any one ; Mr. Montaigne with a " Good Samaritan" as truculent as Judas; Mr. J. Bowles with an imbecility he coolly names " Christ beginneth to preach" ; and Mr. O'Neil with a " St. Agnes " more execrable in feeling than even in art. All this re- minds us of the old mummings in churches at feast-tides ; but the mum- mers would have been kicked out had they attempted to prolong their in- decencies beyond the term of licence. Our art-saturnalia have now lasted longer than enough ; though Mr. W. W. Hay, an aspirant whose almost first essay is entitled " Rejected of Earth, received of Heaven," does not appear to think so. Really, the directors of the British Institution ought to have made the first half of the title a fact ; the other half, like the pounds in the proverb, would have " taken care of itself"—we suspect, in a negative sense. Mr. Selous's " Macbeth" is as shameless an outrage on Shakapere as are the preceding upon' religious sentiment; and com- bines into the bargain an outrage on Maclise, whose style it travesties.

The gross faults and follies we have been protesting against attach not to the British Institution particularly, but to English art in general ; and will continue to do so, it is to be feared, a long while yet. The ex- hibition itself left an impression on us not altogether unhopeful,—as pleasant, certainly, as its recent predecessors.

The best figure-piece is " The Night March," by Mr. Glass, an artist who has developed rapidly within the last year. Well conceived and thoroughly carried out, it presents every requisite of the subject. On a bright moonlight night, a troop of horse defile down a rooky pass, their arms and armour glinting coldly afar. The foremost soldiers have entered a stream which lies in the line of march ; the horses bow their necks to drink, but without pausing ; and between the two leaders rides a petulant who acts as guide. All is secrecy and anxious purpose. The leaders lean their heads in silenoe, with watchful eyes and ears, to catch the words which accompany the guide's indication of the route ; and they hold their pistols ready for use on a moment's suspicion of foul play. There are a manifest capacity and unity in this work amounting to power. The painting is bold, broad, and effective, if somewhat coarse. We remark that the two foremost troopers bear such strong similarity to each other in cast of countenance as to suggest that they may have been painted from the same model. This is a serious objection ; and the like had existed in Mr. Glass's chief work of last year. The artist exhibits also "A Study at Apsley House,"—the Duke's•groom mounted, waiting with his master's horse,—well painted, with good colour, only rather too yel- low ; and a " Study from nature of a barn in Kent" (373), which evinces much ease and quiet truth. It is well that Mr. Glass, who has so decided a bent towards subjects of the description to which his principal picture belongs, should vary them with such studies as this. Next in excellence to the "Night .March" stands "The Reformer's House, Edinburgh, during the sixteenth century," by that superior but unprominent artist Mr. J. D. Drummond. It represents John Knox bringing home his second wife, Margaret Stewart, and contains some two hundred small figures and heads. There is an uniform style of cha- racter about all, but they are well diversified. Thus, within a few square inches of canvass, we have among the lookers-on a comely dame, a girl and a youth conversing, a young man, a Highlander, an elderly Edin- burgian, specimens of the urchins native to the soil, pipers, fiddlers, and other musicians. The child in gold brocade to whom the brave sight is explained by her attendant, the two lithe boys, one of whom leans on the other's shoulder, and the old lady, mother to Knox's first wife, are particularly nice. The whole is painted with great brightness and dis- tinctness—perhaps with too little shadow and too much isolation of the several and ever-varying points of colour. Too clean it decidedly is; or the Old Town of Edinburgh, and the denizens of its wynds and alleys, impish children, and gaunt men and women, are altered much for the worse since the sixteenth century. However this may be, the picture is an artistic, uncommon, and agreeable one. Of Mr. Bant's two contributions, we prefer No. 175, " She never told her love " ; which is the least meretricious work he has exhibited for some time. The face is delicate, and has expression; the action—that of looking at a miniature—though old enough, is not made too obtrusive ; and there is a good deal of clever painting. The relief of the right hand especially is excellent. Mr. George Smith sends the best of his small domestic treatments yet exhibited. " The Reading Lesson" (236) stands at the head of them all for agreeable selection of nature, and for conformity to that order of familiar truth whose sentiment implies beauty. In these respects it is altogether of a superior class to his pre- vious productions ; and " The Old Lace-maker " and " Chimney-cor- ners," indicate, as far as they can, the same advance. Mr. Hemsley also, among the domestic artists, shows to some advantage. Mr. Gale is one of the chief offenders in the matter of absurd titles ; his " Going to the Sistine Chapel" being nothing more than a small head of a lady in a black mantle ; but it is carefully and nicely painted, especially the flesh and the pearl bracelet, although a little flat. From Mr. Phi lip's hand we have the first fruits of his Spanish tour, in "A Spanish Gipsy Mother," which is sufficiently effective ; and from Mr. H. W. Phillips's comes a portrait of Rachel, as " .Lycisca " ; somewhat idealized in the sense of merging the actress in the personage, but by no means beautified. The accessory objects display the powers of a good colourist repressed on sys- tem. Mr. Piokersgill again appears with a couple of inane and odious fancy portraits. The slight pictures of small size include a sketch by Mr. Deverell, " The Pet Parrot," very unaffected and pretty ; and a female head, painted with dashing freedom by Miss A. S. W. Daniel, who, in strong-minded fashion, has had recourse to Don Juan for a title, and names the hooded lady " Her frolic grace Fitz Fulke."

Mr. Dawson, Mr. Linnell, and Mr. Lear, take the lead among the landscape-painters. "Dartmouth from the Castle Churchyard," by the first, is as poetical a landscape (if we except some of Mr. Anthony's, poetical in another way) as we have seen since the time of Turner. The

sky lowers ; it has got well-nigh black all of a sudden, and with it the waters too become black and troubled. As the gloom grows onwards, sea-

birds fly to labor; and the trees have a dull yellow reflection on them.

The way in which an abrupt and threatening change is indicated is very powerful, and reveals the true artist. The storm gathers on his canvasa In manipulation, the work is somewhat less true than in aspect. Mr.

Lintreff s two contributions are both fine, though comparatively =ela- borate. "The Weld of gent" is pale in tone, and does not contain much work. But the advancing high road and its banks, the donkeys, one of which squats in the path, the cows on the hillock, the approaching figures, and the wold-country stretching blue along the horizon, are all stamped with the painter's peculiar truthfulness. "Shallow rivers" has equal perceptive faculty, and is fine in relief; but the title is not fully realized. The stream seems to constitute a good volume of water, al- beit not very watery. Mr. Lear takes us to "The Mountains of

Thermopylie." Here we are unmistakeably out of F. • And; and a some- thing is present, we scarcely know where or why, which strikes us as

distinctively Greek—appropriate to this land, and to no other. Perhaps the secret lies in the clearly defined forms, the stony yet not barren as- pect of the land, and the intense purity of colour. Of this we have seen no actual prototype, yet can believe it to be not overdone; it is far too simple to be got up for mere effect. The nearer mountains are of perfect purple, the more distant of the most positive blue. Deep bine are the

shadows even of the foreground; the sky blue, with a greenish tinge at the horizon ; and arms of green-blue sea intersect the plain. Goats browze in the rocky paths ; and a group of a Greek with his wife and child, as well as more remote figures, localize the scene completely. This is decidedly Mr. Lear's most finished and best work.

A remarkable picture is the " Stonehenge " of Mr. Nieman ; but its force becomes fierceness. It is a grand caricature. The dreary marshy plain, the blue moon rising, the sunset-dyed clouds agglomerated massive as Stonehenge itself, are nature in convulsions. " Norwich " also is a clever bold sketch. The " Moss Troopers," with its murky looming sky, is extreme even to falsehood. Mr. Niemann wastes great artistic energy through want of measure. Mr. Oakes furnishes the best sea- piece of the gallery in " Formby Shrimpers at the mouth of the river Alt "; where the buoyant swell of the water is excellent, the sky, white -with brooding piles of cloud, very like a seaside sky, and the distance capitally felt. The banging of this work above the line is one of the few instances in which serious wrong has been done to an exhibiter this year. Mr. Thomas Denby has a good subject in the "Moonlight Feast," where, in the lustre of a low moon, a stork consumes a frog amid all the personnel of a swamp's edge. More might have been made of it, how- ever ; the greys are too slaty, and the reds too brickdusty in the sky and reflections. His other painting, " A River-side," is slightly worked, but has a certain spiritual look that compensates for much. Mr. Branwhite's " Winter Sunset " is, as usual, exceedingly clever and taking, but got np : we can conceive it to have been painted altogether without nature. The artist has worked himself out in this line, and he should abandon it, at least for the present. The " Borrowdale " of Mr. G. E. Hering is dim with asphaltum rather than twilight ; yet its sentiment is impressive. The hills close cuplike round the lake, and seclude it from all visitants save a lonely heron. A " View of the Isle of Staffs," by Mr. Copley Fielding, finely grim in its plashy broken sea and slaty sky, is well contrasted by Mr. Holland's " Port of Genoa " ; where the moon, shining amid varied clouds, opens up the long vistas of the firmament, above the pier, with a boat and figures brown in its shadow, and the spotty city-lights. A " Midsummer Midnight, Norway," by Mr. West, is well-painted and interesting for its subject—never before, that we know, represented on canvass.

Oar elder reputations do not muster in any force. Mr. Stanfield's "Dort" has nothing to distinguish it among his own works, or above those of many another painter; Mr. Linton carries carelessness to the point of eccentricity ; and Mr. Creswiek sends a mere mite of a thing, of remote date probably, for the sole purpose, we presume, of having his in- fluential name in the catalogue. " The Village of Waterloo in 1815," by Mr. Jones, R.A., showing "the inn in which the Duke of Wellington slept the night before and the night after the battle," is a neat little study, with a quiet feeling for colour and truth. The aspect of the inn and of the whole street promises accommodation far from ducal. Among names new—or almost new—to fame, we have to note Mr. Whaite, Mr. W. S. P. Henderson, Mr. Dell, and Mr. Carswell. The " Moel Siabod, N. Wales" of the first, though ebelky and dim, and green to a degree, evi- dences a true poetic apprehension. The day is more luminous than light, the sun spreading a diffused radiance from behind white shifting clouds. The feeling and the point of view are fresh ; and the small children in the foreground painted with nice truth and sentiment. Mr. Henderson seems to have great adaptative versatility of style. He is Maeliseish in the "Ring's Chamber, Knole," Hardyish in "A peep into a Cottage-Dairy," and somewhat Anthonylike in "Shadows of the Past, Haddon Hall." In all, he is firm, clear, and truthful ; especially in the last, which is well lighted, and altogether a capital study. Mr. Dell appears to be yet in the experimental stage of art ; but his view "On the Tamar" (7), though very sketchy, is broad, and has a quiet grace that promises well. Mr. Carswell's "View on Loch Lomond" wants style, but shows percep- tion of his subject. Amateur art is creditably represented byethe " Sego- via " of the Honourable C. Hardinge. Its tone is ochrey ; but the can- vass is well filled, and a certain historical look has been conveyed.

The presence of Mr. Wolf insures a good bird-piece, though under a ridiculous title—" Just out, the tale (tail) of a teal" ; which, being in- terpreted, means a couple of hawks wrangling over their spoil, the tail- feathers of a teal, at which both have made a simultaneous pounce, while meantime the prey escapes, quacking delight. The clawing tearing tyrants are excellent, and the -lucky fugitive quite equally so. The co- lour, indeed, is not satisfactory, being rather dull and opaque, especially in the sky, and the minor objects painted timidly, if truthfully so far as they go. The gravelly stones by the water-side are, however, very skil- fully rendered. Mr. Ansdell and Mr. Herring are at their ordinary strength—the former fully so ; Mr. Earl, constant in his devotion to dogs, advances. Mr. G. W. Horlor has facility, but founds himself on Land- seer to the verge of plagiarism. Mr. Lance is the champion of still-life, with one superior example (161) and two pretty good ones. The sculpture signalizes itself chiefly by a vile specimen of a vile style —" Helen veiled before Paris," by Mr...m; where the Milanese ab- surdity of the Great Exhibition is indifferently imitated. Mr. Park's "Dying Child" is natural and deathlike; but the artist falls into a mis- take of a similar hind in 'trying to repreeenteurls an nature], and even copying the quilt pattern ! It is earnestly to be hoped that these per- versions of the art may be stifled with a summary hand. The directors of the British Institution have made a common-sense move this year by reducing the size of their catalogue, and its cost to sixpence, at the same time that its arrangement is improved by the printing of the prioe of the pictures in substitution for their dimemaions.