ART.

INSTITUTE OF PAINTERS IN OIL-COLOURS.

THIS Exhibition is one of considerable importance ; indeed, after that which is held at the Royal Academy, it may be con-

sidered the chief picture-show of the year ; and with regard to enjoyment, it is superior to the one at Burlington House, for several reasons. In the first place, it is smaller ; in the second, the line is not occupied by so many large works of comparatively little interest as we find every year at Burlington House. The Scotch Landscape School here are rather at a discount than a premium. MacWhirter, Maccallum, Colin Hunter, and Co. are mainly conspicuous by their absence. As a rule, the pictures are, if not better, smaller and less conventional than the majority of Academic work. Young painters are seen, or at least hung, in great profusion. There seems to be an evident desire to treat all- corners on their merits, and on the whole the attempt is suc- cessful. That there is very little work of absolutely first-rate quality, is a matter of coarse ; but this is so in every English

exhibition. The average here is a high one, considering the large number,—nearly nine hundred oil pictures,—and as a

whole, the Gallery may be said to be more fairly representative of the present state of English painting than any other. This being so, we must also acknowledge that English painting is, on the whole, a very dull matter just at the present time. Rather like a young lady's novel are most of the pictures here,—half an idea beaten-out thin into a meta- phorical three volumes, the grammar a little doubtful, the sentiment a little strained. Almost a pity, we think, that there is not a pictorial Mudie for much of this work, who would send us half a dozen pictures for a day or two, and take them back the next week, and send us half a dozen more. For with the exception of some good portraiture and a few quiet landscapes, there is little in the prevalent style of subject and method of treatment which it would be attractive to live with continually. With very rare exceptions, the pictures of the majority of English painters at the present time are produced with no other object than that of the celebrated green spectacles in the " Vicar of Wakefield,"--made to sell at a fair to any fool who will buy them. However, we have spoken of this frequently of late. Let us walk round the Gallery, and see what is to be seen. We will take the pictures more or less in their catalogue order.

In a previous notice of this Gallery, we had occasion to remark upon the similarity of Mr. George Clausen's work, to that of the celebrated French painter, Bastien-Lepage. To speak plainly, Mr. Clausen's painting for the last three years has been little but an unconcealed imitation of the foreign master. He has deserted Haverstock, and Primrose Hills, and Dutch fishing villages, and taken to rough peasants and a very large, realistic rendering of rural English life. His picture in the present exhibition is the head of an old woman with a seamed face, and knotted, brown hands, and a general' aspect of having lived all her life in the fields. It is, in our opinion, the strongest piece of work that Mr. Clausen has done, and is, taking it on the whole, the best realistic study in the Gallery.

Mr. Matthew Hale's small nude study, entitled "The Bath,"—a woman crouched down on a marble pavement, with the water splashing all over her from the fountain above,—is noticeable for its freshness and ease of painting. It seems to have been done by a man who knows his business, and is, at all events, bright and pretty. No. 70, " My New Shoes," by Mr. Jerry Barrett, should be looked at, as a specimen of a class of work which is now happily passing into obscurity. It is a young lady of the seaside circu- lating-library type, with her head bent down, and one • foot stretched out for the examination of the said shoe. The work is thin, trivial, and vulgar ; as poor in its execution as it is futile in its motive. Mr. Arthur Severn's " Fresh Breeze off the Coast of Scotland" is a fine study of blue sea, having only this one great defect, that it looks as if it were painted from

a photograph. We do not state that this is the case ; but that there is a curious absence of movement and life in the water, despite very accurate drawing of the wave-forms, such as would

naturally result from a painter having studied his subject.

chiefly through the camera. The same painter has a large sunset picture that also deserves attention, the sky being

specially fine. Mr. Blair Leighton's " Vanquished " is pro- bably the best picture in the exhibition, if we take into account both the motive of the work. and its execution.

variety of mould into which each individual mind has the power to pour that imaginative utterance. Except as re- gards the difference between sex and sex, Florien acid her over speak the same dialect of passion ; and even the old gold- smith, who suffers such grievous wrong, and who is (somewhat unnecessarily, one would think, considering the feebleness of his old age) murdered at the close of the tragedy, rises now and then to the more imaginative level, without betraying at all the special personality in which imagination should clothe itself when it speaks through his mouth. Take the very opening of the play, which is true poetry, but poetry in which you see no mark of the speaker's individual character :-

" MARY. No sign of Roy ! Where is the truant gone ?

FI-nnEs. 'Tis a bad Roy, my child ; a useless Roy,

As idle as the leaves in summer time, Which sleep and nod the sunny boars away, Until the grip of autumn dries them up, And winter sweeps them from the face u' the earth.

So will it be with Roy—an idle lad, Making and marring poetry all day, And ever dreaming of his destinit s, Wrought out in work as cunning as mine own, And choicely carved in filagree and gold.

But all his work is air-drawn ; mine is solid,

And makes a solid man of me."

And this is the case all through. The:story of the apprentice's madness and guilt is unrolled for us with fire and force ; the passions on the power of which the plot turns are painted with a true poet's intensity of feeling ; but we do not seem to know any one of the characters, unless, per- haps, it be Tim and Dolly,—who are known simply by their lightness of heart and superficiality of character, — with any deeper individual knowledge at the close than we do at the beginning. We have fine delineations of passion ; but not so much of Florien's and Roy's, as of woman's and man's. We have fine delineations of guilt; but, again, not so much of the farms which guilt takes in an individual soul, as of the form which it takes in every soul that has to choose between the claims of passion and the claims of duty. There is but little personal accent in the play, though much of human depth and tenderness. The situations are great and the poetry is true ; but the special fascination which distinctly-marked personality exerts, is wanting. We do not find in Florien the distinctiveness which Goethe, for instance, gives to all the women of his great dramas. We do not find in Roy that strength of indi- viduality which we discover in the merest accessories of a play

of Shakespeare's. With all its beauties, and they are great, Florien, is rather a fine dramatic poem than a fine

drama in which the play of character, and the effect of character on character, form the life of the whole. This is the only defect we can find with Mr. Merivale's beautiful poem. The occasional songs are full of life ; the poetry is as fresh as it is vivid, and never produces the slightest sense of effort or strain. There is no aastheticism in the book, not a word which seems to have been studied, which seems to have been put there for the purpose of effect, or from the point of view of

a self-conscious impressionism. Every line in the play is clear, healthy, and natural, and destitute of the attitudinising of the

most modern school.

For the expression of the central conception of the play,—the sudden kindling of an overmastering passion in an ambitious and inflammable nature, by a mere glance from a beautiful woman who seems to live in a world far above it,—Mr. Merivale's powers are singularly well fitted. The apprentice's self-distrust- fill, bat on that account all the more inflammable passion, and its recklessness when once he believes that the object he seeks is within his reach, are drawn with great force. Here is his first account of the fair vision which ultimately so completely carries him away that he falls not only into madness, but into crime :-

" Roy. I saw her too ! a princess to the core,

Surely a princess, with a winsome grace,

None but herself can wear—an eye of light,

That danced a measure full of merriment, Which did infect the very lips of ber With half-a-hundred smiles, that in and out About the arching mouth played hide-and-seek, Vanished or e'er the gazer's greedy eye Could fix them to a memory. But her voice Lives with me as she spoke, and spoke to me !

Oh, Mary, am I mad with vanity ?

Or when the dainty lady stepped away, Did she not bend a tender look on me,

Which seemed to say—you please me, and remember."

And later on he gives this account of the suddenness of the transformation in his life :-

" ROY. Oh, lady, I am come by note of band, Scarce knowing, and scarce asking, what I wish !

One day, when I was working in the sun,

Whose golden blazon seemed to mock my toil On gems of mortal lustre—when my heart

Felt sick within of nothing, and my life Grew in its every-day mechanic round More void of purpose and more grey of hue—

One strange enchantress, with a single wave Of her slight wand, made as her fairy foot Brushed by in passing, changed the universe !

A royal palace took the workshop's place, The gems outshone the sun—my heart grew light, And gladdened to a beating, burning thing ! The grey was turned to rose, and purpose filled The void of longing. She had spoken once, And once looked on me ! Then she passed away, But voice and look left this behind them—love !"

And Florien herself is as suddenly seized and transformed by the intoxicating thrill of passion as the poor apprentice was. In her,. too, the instantaneous thrill of the enchantment is very power- fully described :-

" Am I upon the verge ? the boy is there, Whose very look quickened a pulse in me,

Which never beat before, and gave a form To dreams and fancies which had gathered wild .

In an untrained, =lessened, yearning heart, Which, reaching forth for something, found it not, But only wildered in its own amaze, Blank, sad, and tearless ! Is he there, the boy ?

I said I would not see him. If I do,

The plunge is taken, and the future spreads A chartless sea of danger in the front, -

Threatening a shipwreck. No—he shall not come.

Back to thy follies, Florien ! for to thee

One drop of Truth were as a draught of wine,

Poisoned to murder ! Thou art born to play, And be a plaything."

Of course a passion like this is not left to run its own course.. It is made the instrument of criminal designs, under the guidance of a master-hand, and by it the apprentice is turned into the robber, and ultimately the murderer, of his benefactor who had taught him his trade. The scene in which Roy is encountered by Master Fuller, the goldsmith, in the very act of robbing him of the king's jewels,—the scene is laid in the reign of James I.,— and entreated by the old man to return into the path of humble•

virtue, and to save the life of his daughter, who is dying of her- unrequited love, is a very effective one :—

" Fur.. Say, have you beard

Of what has happened here the robberies That have been done ?

ROY. I ?—No.

Fun. You lie. You did them.

You did them, for I saw you.

ROY. (sinking down with his head hidden) Shame ! oh,.

shame !

Fun. I heard your whisper : Shame ? ah, shame indeed)

Upon your father's honourable breeding, Your mother's stainless name ! But the confession Shows yet the way to penitence. Look up,

And listen to me.

Roy. I will listen, sir, I cannot look.

Fun. I knew you from the first Guilty of this ingratitude of wrong. Roy. How did you know ?

Fun. I do not go to rest As early as 1 did. I cannot sleep As was my wont, since you destroyed my home, Blighting my Mary's life.

Roy. Upon my honour —

Fun. Still you appeal to that ? Well, be it so..

I would not blame you more than your desert ; But Mary loved you.

ROY. No !

Fun. She is dying for it, To seal her love.

Roy. I never knew of this.

Fun. It may be so : I hope so : Listen on.

It would have killed her, if a single breath

Of such suspicion had but entered in The porches of her sense. She loves you, Rey,.

And sbe is dying. For her sake alone I kept the bitter secret of your sin,

And I will keep it still, so you atone.

ROY. And what atonement do you ask of me ?-

Fun. I have bat waited till you came again; Knowing you would, when you had once begun.

Evil as you have been, you still are young,

Nor are you yet all evil. There is time.

Will you come back to us, and marry her ?

ROY. Can I do this ? and can you think of it ?"

Fun. It is to save her life. Not anything In the wide range of all the things to do Should be undone to save it. Will you—Roy ?'

I can forgive, ay, and forget—as freely

As Heaven itself can pardon a nd forget,

If you will hear me.

ROY. (aside) Is redemption here ?

And must I pass it by P—Master — FuL. You will For you look up again. You are not evil : Your face defends you."

That is powerful, and the art which makes Roy say, "I will listen, Sir, I cannot look," is as noble and simple a dramatic touch as the English drama has produced for many a day. But Roy is too deeply committed to his mistress for any escape, and the scene ends, of course, in the tragic way. The final act does not seem to ns quite as powerful as the last but one. Probably in genuine tragedy it seldom is. The crisis of the story must be more thrilling than the immediate consequence. Even Macbeth culminates in the murder ; though there, indeed, the different workings of guilty conscience in the two murderers are almost more awful than the murder itself. But the last portion of the last act, the glare and passion of the march against Macbeth's castle, is more or less an anti-climax. In Othello, again, the crisis is passed when Desdemona is killed. Mr. Merivale does not succeed so well in painting the self-loathing conscience of the wretched murderer, as he had done in painting the horror and the struggle of the rush into crime itself. Still, the drama is a fine drama, and the poem still more certainly a fine poem.

Of the "other poems " it hardly becomes us to speak, as all of them have appeared some time or other in these columns.

But we may just say that the dedicatory sonnet, but for the slight obscurity and consequent vagueness of the last few lines, in which even the correction of the erratum does not make every- thing plain, would be one of the most beautiful in the language. We cannot say too much of the beauty of the first ten lines. We would earnestly entreat Mr. Merivale in his next edition to bring the closing lines up to the level of all those which pre- cede it in lucidity and beauty. " Florien " would, we imagine, make a fine acting play ; for it is rapid in movement and strong in situation, though the play of personal characteristics is not in the highest sense dramatic. It is certainly a charming poem, which occupies to the full the imagination of the reader.