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ORIENTAL PICTURES BY MR. SEDDON.
Mr. Thomas Seddon, an artist whose name has been known within the last two or three years by pictures of some mark exhibited at the Royal Academy, has recently returned from a tour in Egypt and Palestine per- formed in the company of Mr. W. Holman Hunt, and has brought back several works, now open to semi-public exhibition at his studio, No. 14 Berners Street. An intense respect for truth is stamped upon the face of them, in such unmistakeable characters as cannot fail to carry convic- tion to the beholder, whether personally familiar with the spots depicted or not. It is this scrupulously conscientious accuracy which must confer On the works an universal value as representations of scenes whose in- terest is universal ; but, beyond this, the artistic excellence displayed is such as will greatly enhance their attraction in the eyes of artists or in- telligent amateurs. Vivid impulse in the general conception of the sub- jects and broad fullness of treatment are not so perceptible as the quali- ties upon which truth is more immediately dependent. A quick and well directed observation is seconded by precision and delicacy of handling, and by an independent determination to leave nothing undone because it is difficult or unusual. The principal work is Jerusalem from the Valley of Jehoshaphat, where the Mount of Olives occupies a conspicuous space. A goatherd lies stretched opt in the foreground under the shade of a pomegranate-tree. Almost perplexing at first sight from the multiplicity of its detail, and singular in its tawny violet-shadowed tone, the picture is evidently as correct in a topographical sense as a photograph, and will similarly bear looking into with a deepening impression of its truthfulness in effect as well as in delineation. Mount Zion, not yet entirely fi- nished, is one of the most finely painted of the series. A third Scriptural view is the Threshing-floor of En-rogel; excellently done in water- colours, which Mr. Seddon uses with a somewhat warmer effect than oils, and remarkable for showing no horizon, the hills shutting in the view to its highest point. It was in the well of En-rogel that Jonathan and Ahimaaz lay concealed to evade the hostile army of Absolom. The Pyramids of Ghizeh is the chief of the Egyptian pictures ; the fore- ground, solemn in character, reflecting the opal-hued sky in the ooze of the receding Nile, and the sky itself, barred with sunset, a daring and interesting essay, although deficient in liquid quality. The Citadel of Cairo seen by Evening is less elaborate in its style than the others ; but it is warm, rich, and broad, with a fine Eastern feeling in it The great Sphinx and a Cairene Interior are both water-colours capitally ex- ecuted ' • the latter, in its completeness of detail and effect, reminding one of Lewis, and full of beauty and tempting refreshment. The last three are figure-subjects,—an Arab and Dromedary at the city of the dead, Cairo ; an Arab Sheikh ; and a Sheikh with camel lying down. Here the same earnest fidelity which distinguishes the landscapes is ap- plied to human and brute life ' • and here also we are reminded of the excellences of Lewis, simply because we recognize the higher excellence of truth.
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