12 MAY 1860, Page 20

/ha arts.

THE ROYAL ACADEMY.

Although the exhibition is ,not distinguished by any new reaches of genius in art, it shows in some minor matters of economy and policy, a spirit of improvement which will be welcomed by all. So long as year after year showed no evidence of a disposition to compromise with the artist and the general public, upon the grievances inseparable from hanging pictures high out of sight, and placing sculpture in a damp dark cave, it was not worth while to waste breath in advocating rational ad- vance with the times. But now that the Academy has announced its convictions in favour of reform, and in the exhibiting of the pictures has shown a decided change for the better, we feel some interest in en- couraging the progress of the movement. This year the plan of hanging the pictures close to the ceiling has been given up, and nothing is now quite out of range. Some five hundred pictures have been politely re- turned ; but this the artists will not generally regret, for the annoyance of seeing his work unfairly hung is no doubt a pungent one, and the course now adopted is known to be preferred by many contributors to the ex- hibition. However, all this pinching for room compels attention to the question of enlargement of the gallery ; and the densely crowded state of the rooms during the past week, should urge the Academy to forward any plans for enabling artists to show their works and the public fully to enjoy the pictures. It is surprising to see how very little in the way of facilitating the seeing of the pictures is done at the Academy, when want of room is the source of so much annoyance on all sides, and when the simple expedient of a rail in front of the picture would enable twenty persons to see comfortably, where now a fourth of that number obtain only an imperfect sight. In the large room, the attention of the crowd is fortunately divided between some half-dozen pictures. Of these, Landseer's great picture of " The Highland Flood" appears to " draw " as much or more than any. It is pretty generally know a that our great animal painter has, for some years past, meditated this picture as a chef-d'eeuvre ; but the greatest achievements of genius have not generally been those which had received the longest incubation, and, in a subject of such tremendous excitement as this of Landseer's, 'much premeditation was not favourable to the realization of any grand conception of the scene. When this extensive canvas was placed before the painter, doubtless the idea of the sweeping ...rilood, with all its train of desolation, was fresh and vigorous in the mind, feand the grandeur of the subject and scope for an animal painter's powers ciamade it a fascinating one ; but it required striking off at once. As it is, Naze see a picture that tells the story, but feebly, by a number of isolated

hi• groups, as if added at different times, and of these man plays but a very 'secondary part in the contest against the elements ; indeed, the only int of action is reduced to a minor incident in the middle ground, q. here two small figures are trying to save their horse and cart from the ' i:torrent. The principal group of the mother with her babe, the old 4 "'cotter, the boy with his favourite puppy, the cradle and articles of house- : t old use, rescued and safe upon the roof of the hut, is quite unconnected

i with the efforts being made to save the team. Upon this shelving roof,

i hwe have a strange huddling of animals, intended perhaps to suggest the -:Tumerging of all natural and instinctive aversions in this extreme peril to 'Mile—the rabbit and the dog, the cat and the mouse, and even the mother s vlbrgetting for a moment her babe. The only attempt to bring us in con- j etact with the overwhelming power of the flood is in the struggling ox at )ilflie corner of the picture, striving to hold on with his hoofs to the door- Vway of the hut. The sky and landscape contribute little to the picture, ')being is all wrapped in one tone of leaden gray, the only relief of colour 4 The given by a red cloak, fastened as a signal to a stick in the roof. -?The painting of the animals and the figures is just what Landseer only - could do, and it is this power which forms the pretext for their intro- duction into the picture, and at the same time suggests an apology for a treatment of the subject that we have no hesitation in accepting as the Choice of so eminent a painter of animal character, which is, after all, the great forte of Sir Edwin Landseer. The group of ducks, and the cat looking disgusted at the broken egg, are most characteristic bits of animal paint- ing. A not unworthy follower of Landseer is Mr. Ansdell ; and, as re- gards animal character, he is seen to great advantage in his smaller of two works—" Buy a Dog, Ma'am?" one of the familiar dog-sellers of Regent Street,with his arms full of pets, and a fine pointer and setter on the ground. His more ambitious picture, "The Lost Shepherd," is a large work in which he attempts to depict a harrowing scene of distress in the wife finding her husband lying frozen on the mountains with his dog dead and crouched upon his master. The picture is so thoroughly in the style of a composed tableau vivant that it fails to convey, to us at least, any feeling for the suffering of such a moment of agony, beauti- fully as the dogs ate painted, and clever as the manipulation is. Mr. Sidney Cooper shows that he is more sensible of that nice point of self- knowledge, which, in rifleman's phrase, would be expressed as—knowing one's range—thus he avoids difficulties which are by no means necessary for an animal painter to encounter ; he knows how high his art will reach, and he hits his mark while men of higher endowments miss their aim at the sentimental and the moral. We should be disposed to

rank Mr. Cooper's picture of a "Flock and Shepherd in a Snowstorm" amongst his choicest works ; although the animals are small, the effect of the snowdrift fills up the measure of the scene and completes a picture which will always charm, by its perfect resemblance to a wild aspect of nature by no means devoid of its romance.

No one who has considered the recent tendencies of art can help re- marking how the leading men endeavour to combine realism with senti- mentalism. The works of three different painters are well calculated to il- lustrate this disposition—Mr. Herbert, Mr. Dyce, and Mr. Millais. There was a time when thelast-named painter' who ismuch the junior, stood alone from his fellow artists, and was even called a heretic ; but a dispassionate observer would now say that he has converted his two academic brethren. Mr. Herbert's picture of Mary the Virgin hastening to Hebron to tell the marvellous story of her vision to Elizabeth, is quite in the same cate- gory with "an incident in the life of the Saviour' by the young Millais. The spring flowers planted by the artist around her in such ornamental profusion correspond to the shavings on the floor of Joseph the carpenter's shop. The lambs have abundance of quaintness about them, and the figure is certainly not remarkable for grace and beauty although the ex- pression of the countenance is refined and elevated. Then the subject is one that must be classed with the favourite themes to which the painters before the time of Raphael devoted themselves—" the annunciations," "the salutations," and "the beatifications" of their church. The realism of the landscape brings the picture just near enough to nature to be ridi- culous; and the idealism in the face and form of Mary is as earthly as the snake in the heads of Parmigiano is compared with the Madonnas of Raffaelle. Mr. Dyce is not more happy in his picture of "St. Sohn lead- ing home his adopted Mother from the Sepulchre" ; here is a similar minute study of landscape detail, though with a finer sense of beauty in the sky, but the figures are conceived in a spirit of unnatural severity as if this were wanted to remove them to the holier regions. Mary carries home the crown of thorns, and we looked naturally for the golden halo round the heads, but that is not added; however, the treatment of the figures is so entirely conventional and dogmatical tit, apart from the able drawing, not the painting, for in this the outline is harder and more incised than in a fresco of the largest size, while there is not the least attempt to attain the vanishing roundness of nature, we are unable to rank this picture amongst the high in art. The landscape "Pegwell Bay," by Mr. Dyce, is a far more successful effort, and in dila he com- pletely suggests the vague and silent beauty of nature in that glowing evening sky, fading each instant, and retiring to give place to the beauty of the night and the silvery blaze of the comet. We cannot help re- marking of this work so minutely painted, how strange it is to find an artist dis-tinguished for his figure-drawing giving himself up to a work of imitation—a study ever the furthest from high art!

"The Black Brunawicker" is analogous to the works just spoken of in its realistic and imitative aim, in which respect, indeed, it surpasses them in some parts as in the dresses of the figures for example ; but in it the expression of sentiment is more forcible and the thought more subtle. As we read the picture, the young hussar, bound by the fatal oath of his regiment, expresses not anger at being opposed, but that pang of regret that hovers always round our most cherished moments of happiness ;—till this time' he only fancied that she loved him; now, the truth breaks upon him at the instant of parting for ever. The fair girl has been surprised into a silent, but not less forcible and touching sign of her love—instinctively she has seized the handle of the door, and at the same moment meets him as he presses forward—she leans upon his breast and hangs her head, ashamed in her natural modesty to find her secret confessed. That we are able to perceive all this romantic story and much more in the vista of their acquaintance at Brussels, de- notes the noble purpose of the painter and his great faculty of execu- tion. Where such great merit of expression is shown, it would be un- gracious to speak of some trumpery points of mere painting, which may not be quite the thing. A more serious objection, because one of a more intellectual kind, might be made to the suggestions conveyed by the en- graving of Napoleon the Great on the wall, and the little begging spaniel —the pet of the young lady ; these are means a little unworthy the use of a painter who is capable of portraying the tenderest sentiments of the hu- man heart.