14 MAY 1864, Page 14

Jin arts.

THE ROYAL ACADEMY.

ON what principle are pictures selected by the managers of exhibitions for the so-called place of honour ? To judge from the practice of the Royal Academy, no kss than of other societies of artists, it would seem to be too often a principle of compromise. The rival claims of really good pictures appear to be decided by refusing the best place to any of them, and jealousies to be composed by substituting works which being clearly inferior to allcannot by their position be supposed to have inflicted a defeat on any one of the genuine claimants. Only, if this be the fact, let the phrase "place of honour" (which, after all, perhaps has been invented by the public outside) be discontinued, and the world

disabused of the notion that because a picture occupies the much coveted station it is of a kind which councils and committees delight to honour. We should then be relieved of the hard task of inventing reasons why precedence should have been given to such a work as Mr. J. Lewis's "Courtyard of a House at Cairo" (110) over many a better picture painted by other members of the Academy, besides a host of others contributed by indepen- dent exhibitors. The spectator need not then attempt to reconcile his own views with those of men who, he assumes, have hung the picture according to its merits and not according to its demerits, nor lose time in poring over endless inanities which serve only to fret and to irritate him. The picture in question is flat and not very agreeable in colour, and the execution of count- less details which forms Mr. Lewis's chief claim to popularity is here inferior to what he has done previously, as well as in other pictures at this exhibition. Compare, for instance, the chequered sunshine and shadow on the pavement of the court- yard with a similar effect in "Caged Doves" (577). If Mr. Lewis must needs stand first let this latter picture be the evidence of his title. The truth seems to be that this artist began at the wrong end. H is early works were characterized by an excessive disregard for detail. But few artists can resist the temptation of, some time in their lives, pushing imitation to its furthest reach ; and happy they who do this soon enough to have time left for perceiving that they have not thus won the goal of their calling, but have only passed through a transitional condition indispensable for enabling them to express their thoughts in a way that shall gain the sympathy of bthers. Mr. Lewis entered late on this stage, and seems in- clined to stay there. One would think that he had painted a whole Cairene street in detail, inside and out, and was now doling out parcels of it annually till it was all exhausted.

It is a relief to turn from this misdirected labour to such a work as Sir E. Landseer's great picture, "Man proposes—God disposes" (163). The readers of the Spectator have already had their atten- tion called to it, and it is now familiar to all the world. Immeasur- able is the distance that separates a caput naortuum of paint from a canvass like this, instinct with the living fire of imagina- tion. Incompleteness of " finish " is scarcely observed amid the masterly touches which so thoroughly express the dreary waste of man-conquering ice and the insensate savage nature of the brutes with low brows and steaming nostrils. Never, probably, was consummate ability in animal-painting turned to so noble account as this ; nor did any other animal-painter (living or dead, so far as I know) ever paint i4 history " with such materials. His "Pipes and Pair of Nut-crackers" (82) is another proof of his marvellous insight into animal nature—into the nature of a squirrel or a bird, as well as that of a Polar bear. And if his two remaining contributions fail to excite equal interest, it must still be confessed that none else than Landseer could have painted them. In everything he has done the thought is before the handywork—and yet what handywork it is !—and the impres- sion is all in all with the spectator. Compare with this the work of the new Academician Mr. Millais. Thought is the thing of all others which it most lacks, and you have little to admire except the techni- trait of a fair-haired boy, with green frock and red background (135), is, however, an exception. It is a capital child's head, natural and not caricatured, infinitely preferable to the supercilious children in "Leisure Hours (289), who look as if the Court milliner had had carte blanche to disguise them in her costliest lace and. velvets.

Mr. J. Phillip's "Spanish Wake" (51) is a picture of marvellous power and brilliance, painted with all his accustomed vigour, and with more than usual delicacy of colour. The darker half of the picture is a perfect study of reflected light and colour, and there is admirable skill in connecting it with the lighter portion by means of the sanlight on the arm of the man who leans over the poor mother mourning for her dead little one, and tries in vain to interest her in the boisterous revelry of the wake. But are not the two portions of bright and dark too equally balanced, and would not the picture have been better, not only in point of colour, and light, and shade, but also in point of sentiment, if greater space had been given either to the grave or the gay, and the other had been more briefly hinted ? Mr. Feed delights to represent the deep human feeling that underlies the cottager's rough exterior. He fully maintains his reputation with this year's picture, having for legend "He was faither and mither, and a' things to me" (315), in which with a woman's tenderness the father lays aside his work and compels his clumsy hands to the duty of completing his motherless girl's attire, her school companions waiting the while till she is ready to join them. The legend is unfortunate ; for, so nearly representing the scene as it does, it yet misleads to the conclusion that the child is consciously and precociously moralizing on her father's tender care ; whereas, in fact, the verse is a narrative of what in after years she had grown to know. Mr. Faed has been warned, with reason, of a tendency to blackness which is much to be regretted in his flesh-shadows. It used not to be so, and may possibly have grown out of the common desire to gain force for exhibition. Mr. Orchardson has not yet been tempted to court attention by such questionable means, the colour of his "Flowers of the Forest" (414) being remarkably tender and silvery. There is much rustic grace and unaffected beauty in his "Lassies lilting" as they cross the hills carry- ing their milkpails, and the sober gray and large treatment of the landscape background are such as no landscape-painter need be ashamed of. Mr. Pettie is 'another successful Scotch artist, and already known in London galleries. His "George Fox refusing the Oath" (471) is admirable for colour and composition, but a little feeble in expression. The picture gives an impression of too much clothes and drapery, and the principal figure scarcely comes up to the rigid and enthusiastic founder of the Quakers. Among younger artists no one has made a greater advance this year than Mr. H. S. Marks. He exhibits three pictures, all remarkable for careful thought and expression, and for the reality of the persons represented and of their action. Perhaps the best of the three is the old woman and her grandchild in church (584). It is impossible not to respect that old woman, with her firm, contented, and trustful face, or to doubt her ability and inclination to be guardian to the little girl who sits beside her, a thorough child untormented with cares. There is no finer drawing of drapery in the gallery than the old woman's cloak, and the composition of the whole is massive as befits the subject, and much aided by the background of Gothic pillar and screen and bishop's time-worn tomb. "Doctors Differ 's (326) is in the artist's more familiar vein of humour. Two doctors, one fat, pompous, and obstinate, the other lean and disputatious (a very Dogberry and Verges of medicine), would leave little hope of the patient's re- covery were it not that the careful wife is at the sick man's door, and will help more by nursing than they by drugs. This picture is one of the best in colour that Mr. Marks has painted. Of the third and largest (464), a little girl leading her blind grandfather, and begging alms of a sturdy baker who stands guard over his loaves, the background of old market place filled with gossiping monks and women at the town fountain, it must suffice to say that it shares with the others the merit of purpose-like and unobtrusive action, which is so difficult to win, and the lack of which goes far to mar an otherwise promising work by Mr. E. Crowe. With much good drawing, sober colour, and local truth, his picture of "Luther Posting his Theses on the Church Door of Wittenberg" (360) does not produce a favourable impression, chiefly from the constrained and unnatural attitudes of many of the principal figures. Luther stands nailing his placards to the door in a posture in which no mattwould :lave stood for the purpose unless he had been asked to show his face; and similar objections maybe made to others. These, however, are faults of composition which may be overcome.

That Mr. Crowe is an artist of considerable power is clear from another picture, "Dean Swift looking at a lock of Stella's Hair" (594), in which the artist has realized for us the withered and acrid physiognomy of the literary savage who wrote on the envelope that contained the lock "Only a woman's hair." Mr. Yeames is another of our rapidly rising artists and his picture of "La Reine Malheureuse" (477), notwithstanding an awkwardness of composi- tion and the finished toilette of the ladies and gentlemen in attend- ance — more finished than under the circumstances can be supposed to have been possible, yet bears evidence of careful study of expression, with rich propriety of colour. There is good dis- crimination of character in the Queen's attendants, and you see that it is not the first surprise endured by the cavalier in the left corner, who (Dalgetty-like), seizes the first opportunity of shelter