ART.
MR. MARSHALL'S DRAWINGS OF LONDON.t
MR. HERBERT MARSHALL is an artist—a water-colour artist—of whom little is generally known, though we have for many years praised his pictures in the Old Water-colour Society. Indeed, as early as 1879 we mentioned one of his works in the Dudley Gallery, and he was shortly afterwards elected an Associate of the Old Water-colour Society. The present collection of-his works has been made by the Fine Art Society, and is distinctly interesting, though the drawings, no doubt, suffer from so many of them being seen at the same time; for Mr. Marshall has few * Spectator, May 27th, 1876.
t Fine Art Society, New Bond Street.
pictorial motives, and, indeed, in his successful work scarcely more than one. He is a quiet, methodical artist, who has had the rare good-fortune to hit upon a subject—or, rather, a class of subjects—which was exactly suited to his capacities, and that in a field which was practically unoccupied. Broadly speaking, it may be said that no one has ever yet attempted to paint London at all ; and this was the subject that Mr. Marshall chose, and to which he has almost entirely confined himself. It is difficult to say, on looking round these pictures, whether his failures or his successes are the most apparent ; for, in truth, he has both failed and succeeded in no mean measure. What is good in his work is of such excellent quality, that it renders his limitations only the more evident ; he sees some truths so clearly, that it is hardly possible to believe he should not see others at all. If one wished to speak crudely of his merits and demerits, it might be said that a horizontal line drawn midway across each of these drawings would divide them not only into equal halves, but into halves which were respectively good and bad. The upper portion of the composi- tions is, as a rule, fine alike in colour, in effect, and in the relation of one part to another. The houses and trees take their right places against the sky ; the clouds and sunlight behind them are finely drawn and poetically felt, if we may use a slang studio term ; and there is a total absence of exaggeration of effect, a veracity which is none the leas delightful because it is so unas- seining. These houses and skies, towers, spires, and domes, could belong to no other city in the world than London ; the smoky sunrises and sunsets are those which we have all seen a hundred times,—only, perhaps, we have not quite understood how beau- tiful they were till the artist made it evident. But when we come to the lower part of the picture, the record is altogether changed. Mr. Marshall has, it is true, considerable facility in depicting waggons, cabs, and carriages, and street strollers, vagabond and proper, of every description ; but he entirely fails in con- vincing us of their existence, in making us believe in them. His figures are poor, characterless, and, if a hard word must be used, stupid ; they intrude upon the pictures, rather than form a part of them. The more empty grow his streets and squares, the pleasanter grows the impression given by the work. Indeed, the best picture here has only a hansom and a crossing-sweeper in it, and would be better without those. The reason for this may, perhaps, be found in 'Mr. Marshall's early training, or, rather, his lack of it, for he was at college till long past the age when most artists begin their work ; and for some time even after leaving the University, he studied with the intention of becoming an architect. From the effects of this early work he has never quite escaped, and his figures, cabs, &c., are exactly of the kind which we may see in any architectural drawing, and have exactly the same lack of reality. It is strange to notice that they not only possess this unreality of impression, this sort of stiff, doll-like action, but that they are very frequently out of tone with the rest of the drawing, and have that appearance of being slightly sketched to fill np a space which they would have in an architectural elevation, instead of being part of the work.
What, then, are the merits of these drawings P They are very considerable, especially at the present time. To begin with, they are singularly unaffected ; their limitations are those of their artist's character, not any which were induced by sloven- liness, haste, or desire of effect. All the better works, such, for instance, as No. 2:5—a large picture of Westminster Abbey, entitled " The Fiery Portal of the East "—are quietly complete throughout, full of delicate, harmonious colour, of unhurried observation, and detailed truth. These remarks apply alike to their drawing and their brushwork. Again, they are in no slight degree genuinely poetical. Mr. Marshall does evidently feel the beauty of the smoky sunlight, either at dawn or evening, which is our city equivalent for fine weather. And this beauty he has caught, and set down, so that anybody can see it. When he gets into sunlight pure and simple, the quality of his work, in our opinion, completely changes. His pictures of sunny days which are here, miss the point entirely. He gives to London in these, a thin, bright, foreign aspect, than which nothing can be more untrue; and he sticks in sharp, black waggons, and bright patches of colour amongst the passers-by, till he wholly destroys the harmony as well as the truth of his work. This is especially evident in his drawings of the river. But he has a very considerable power of composition, and in this respect the pictures are, as a whole, extremely satisfactory ; and occasionally even in his vehicles and horses, be bits the nail upon the head very happily. Look, for instance, at the " Sunrise in Broad Sanctuary," with the two hansom-cabs, and at the drawing of the horse in the right-hand one of these. This is quite an in- disputable broken-down London horse, resting as well as it can on one of its shaky old legs, and with that air of huddling itself all up together which we see so frequently. The present exhibi- tion is by no means, however, a complete collection of Mr. Marshall's works; and one of the most beautiful of these—the one, indeed, which we should, as far as our recollection goes, select as the best type of this painter's ability—is not present. This is a view of Hyde Park Corner at the time of late after- noon, with a whole crowd of vehicles going down towards Knightsbridge.
On the whole, we may say of Mr. Marshall, that he is a painter thoroughly deserving of respect and even honour. He has, it is true, taken but a small portion of the world of beauty as his subject; but he has taken it honestly, and cultivated it diligently, and by sheer force of patient perseverance has made it his own. He is one of those painters whom we fancy come late to their full artistic development, and he might give us in the future far finer work than he has done in the Fast; but he must try and conquer that temptation to be content with his own achievements which is the besetting sin of English art. He must try and see a little more of the highways and byways of London life than has yet been revealed in his grey mornings and dusky-orange evenings; and if he only succeeds in the future in telling us the story of the streets as well as he has told the story of the smoke and the sunlight, he should become one of our most notable painters.
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