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THE BRITISH INSTITUTION.
WORsE and worse appears to be the motto of the British Institution. A sure and steady decrease of merit is apparent each year the exhi- bition opens. Fond enthusiasts imagined that some improvement in the hanging arrangements would be visible on this occasion, owing to the complaints made by Mr. Frith in the Times last year ; such is not the ease, however. Tree it is that fewer painters of acknow- ledged reputation have entrusted their works to the tender mercies of the hanging committee, but instances as numerous as ever are to be found of good pictures being pushed aside to make room for bad, and the conviction still remains either that the noble directors are utterly ignorant of the matter they take in hand, or that a spirit of favouritism is at work unworthy of its possessors and injurious to the interests of art. In characterizing the present display the usual formula must be repeated. There is a large mass of that kind of paintings which Art-Unions have succeeded in popularizing—number- less instances of technical skill, but few with any loftiness of aim, imaginative power, or poetical feeling. There is the usual quantity of delicately-painted cabinet pictures by men who having no origi- nality of their own, complacently devote theroselved to the more or less successful imitation of some popular favourite, and who find their reward in the " sold " tickets which invariably decorate their productions at the private view. To these may be added the in- evitable number of vulgar and untruthful representations of modern life—specimens of the corduroy and pinafore school"—and heart- less landscapes, which appear to be manufactured with the celerity and uniformity of pattern employed in turning out a roll of paper- hangings. An examination of these six hundred works is anything but cause for gratulation, while the feeling of depression is some- what enhanced by the knowledge that nearly an equal number of pictures sent for exhibition have been refused—let us lope rather for want of space than of merit, for if the rejected afford no better spe- cimens than some upon the walls, it is impossible to resist the melancholy conclusion that very many of our fellow-creatures have mistaken their vocation in life.
But all is not barren even at the British Institution; the dead waste of mediocrity is relieved here and there by a work of promise, and at rarer intervals by pictures which would do honour to any exhibition. At the head of all stands Mr. J. Clark's "Return of the Runaway," which, whether viewed as a picture or a poem, must be pronounced a work of rare genius. In felicity of execution it is sur- passed by many examples in the rooms, but in the power which it has of ppealing to the tenderest sympathies it is approached by none. The story, as usual with Mr. Clark, is simple, and told with a naivete', an absence of effort, that is very charming. The Run- away is a sailor, grown since he left home into a bronzed and stal- wart man. His first thought on landing has been of his old parents, and, with a heart alternating between hope and fear, he trudges along to the well-remembered abode. The cottage-door is open— he steps gently in, and lays his hand tenderly on -his father's shoul- der. The old man—interrupted in the reading of his paper—looks up wonderingly at the tall stranger. The mother, who has been sewing by the fireside, rises from her seat, and, craning out her neck, peers into the face of the half-forgotten son. It is evident she will be the first to recognise him. A little child, primer in hand, completes the group. The painter has well chosen the mo- ment before recognition—in another the old people will have fallen upon the wanderer's neck, and sobbed out their joy—" For this my son was dead and is alive again—was lost and is found." Yes, it is that old, old story, the prodigal's return, which, in. whatever form it has been repeated since it was first told by hallowed lips, has never failed to reach the hearts of men. Seldom has it been more touch- ingly put forward than in this instance. The expressions are all ex- tremely true to nature, and numerous little suggestive touches will be found, as the hazel-twig plucked by the sailor in his homeward journey, and which he carries together with his bundle—the Christ- church Times the father is reading, and the little model of a ship and rude-coloured plan of a naval engagement which adorn the mantel- shelf. It seems almost invidious to point out defects of manner in a work that imparts so much genuine pleasure to the beholder, but it is to be regretted that Mr. Clark does not paint with the same force he exhibited in the "Sick Child" and the "Draught Players," and strive after a less immature system of handling. In some places the paint lies in awkward ridges, as in the hand of the old woman and the sailor's trousers. The colour though pale in. key is perfectly harmonious, while it may, and doubtless does, suffer by being in juxtaposition with canvases that attempt to out- rival the hues of nature. The poles are not more opposite than are Mr. Clark and Mr. Gilbert. The latter's "Wolsey and Buckingham," when compared with the work just noticed, is an extremely clever, dashing, and spirited sketch, with less of nature than of the theatre in its conception. It is the jaunty and picturesque-looking Cavalier, tricked out in all his finery, as opposed to the more earnest Puritan, clothed in sad-coloured doublet and hose. Wolsey, preceded by his train of chaplains, guards, purse-bearers, and secretaries, meets in the seite-chamber of the palace with the Dukes of I3uckingham and Norfolk,and Lord Abergavenny. Cardinal and nobles glare haughtily at each other, and Buckingham refuses to do homage to the prelate by removing his bonnet. Perhaps no work in the Gallery is so thoroughly painter-l.ke as this; but it is also full of short-comings. Wolsey bears 's stronger resemblance to Mr. Edwin James than to the Flelbein portraits; his arms, moreover, are too lengthy. The hands of every figure are carelessly drawn, and slight in execution;
nor are the heads realised to the extent to which less important objects have been wrought. Still it is impossible to resist the cap- tivation of Mr. Gilbert's style ; his breadth of effect, perfect command over material, vigorous handling and inventive skill (shown par- ticularly in the arrangement of the background, and the 'play of light among the figures), almost atone for his deficiencies. If Mr. Gilbert would strive after greater accuracy Of drawing and refinement of colour, and if he would bend to wholesome study of nature instead of trusting so largely_to his own fertile resources, what a painter might he not become ! Humour and ability to deal with facial expression i are shown to a considerable extent n Mr. J. Morgan's " Jury." Varied is the character in the heads of these twelve jurors—the acute, the stupid, the funny, and the melancholy man are there. Some are interested in the case which bores their companions, who have " served" too often to experience any other feeling than anno ance ; one is gaping, and another applies a pinch of " Scotch seen
to his nostrils to prevent falling asleep. The disposition of the figures, or half-figures rather, is somewhat formal, owing to the adoption of parallel instead of angular perspective : a contrary
treatment would have been more pictoriaL. The heads look like a collection of portraits grouped hap-hazard, and, from a want of due subordination, each conflicts with its fellow. "A Burgher Watch" is a well-painted single figure of a sentinel, arquebnse on shoulder, pacing the ramparts of a mediteval castle, by Mr. Houston. The i figure s illuminated by an unseen light from below, which glances on the corslet, and brings into strong relief the rugged features of the soldier—a relief made more apparent by the contrast of a sombre sky. Brilliant in colour and forcible in effect, the figure is not altogether free from a stagey look, and the idea of "footlights" comes into the mind. Another instance of tricky effect is supplied by Mr. Wyburd's "Convent Shrine," in which the warm rays of a lamp falling on a nun at her devotions, and two other females standing near, are contrasted with a moonlight background of an intense and vivid green. So violent is the opposition of colour, that it is apt to inflict headache on those who look at it long, and the painting of three such pictures would in all probability affl in- curable the artist with ophthalmia. Equally artificial is Mr. Wyburd's "Titania Sleeping;" the bank on which the fairy queen reposes is seen through an aperture of minute rocks that appear to have been collected from an aquarium. The painter is more at home in delineating the houris of the East than imagining fairies : "Nadirs" is one of the best heads yet exhibited by him. It shows feeling for beauty, is full of carefully-drawn detail, and has a voluptuous air untainted by coarse- ness. This remark will not apply to "The Golden Age,' a joint work of Messrs. Niemann and Craig, in which the former has painted a very black and monotonous landscape as a background to a number of scantily attired nymphs by the latter. The important place assigned to it by the hangers would warrant the belief that they had no apprehension of its infringing on Lord Campbell's Act, though a doubt might be raised by not over-squeamish people that it barely "keeps o' the windy side of the law." A name new to me is appended to a pair of little pictures, unpretending in subject, but evincing great pictorial aptitude. The first, with the ill-chosen title of "Jotted Down," is the better of the two : a little girl is seated in a meadow and crying over a basket of sticks overturned by two boys, who scamper of in the distance. There is a quaint pathos in the action of the child, and the landscape is unaffectedly realistic. "La
Voisine" is an old woman knocking at a door. Both pictures are Some- what French in style, and promise well for the future success of Mr.
G. H. Boughton. Mr. G. D. Leslie's pictures are somewhat crude and harsh in colour, but are marked by a-refined feeling for beauty and character not by any means common at the present day. The foliage in "A Summer Song" detracts by its want of generalisation from
the pretty figure, a defect not experienced in "Danish Fish Girls," which is interesting also from its local truth, showing as it does the the pretty figure, a defect not experienced in "Danish Fish Girls," which is interesting also from its local truth, showing as it does the
way the fishers' huts are built, and the picturesque costume of the inhabitants. The deep blue Sound stretches far away in the distance, where we catch a faint glimpse of the rocky coast of Sweden. But Mr. Leslie has much to learn in the way of colour, and if not above taking a hint from the old masters, he would find much deserving of study in the works of one Paolo Veronese. Mr. E. Hopley is an inscrutable painter. He produces but one picture a year apparently, protects its surface with plate-glass, and sends it to the British In- stitution. His subjects are always mysterious or inexplicable. His pictures charm by no quality of art, but they exercise a species of fascination over the beholder akin to that of those torturing conun- drums which one tries to guess, though well aware that the task is impossible. A year or two back Mr. Hopley gave us that memo- rable "Birth of a Pyramid." On. the present occasion he has re- sorted to Scripture for inspiration. "At Nazareth," is the title appended to a representation of the Saviour at the age of thirty, working at a wooden cross on a carpenter's bench. His attention has been diverted by the entrance of a child, who offers to his notice what appears to be a small barrel-organ: through an opening in the roof two doves are visible. What it all means it is impossible to say, and it is to be regretted that Mr. Hopley does not furnish some key for the guidance of those whose unassisted intellect is not suffi- ciently subtle to divine his pictorial profundities. I must pause here for the present ; a second notice will be devoted to the remaining figure pictures, the landscapes, and animals. In the last department this exhibition is more than usually strong.
The Water-Colour Societies held their annual meetings for the election of new members, this week. There were some twenty can- didates for the "Old," three of whom were elected. Mr. Whittaker, a landscape painter of celebrity at Manchester; Mr. A. W. Hunt, of
Liverpool, also a landscape painter, whose works are well known and esteemed in London, and Mr. Britten Willis, the cattle painter. The New Society elected Mr. Leitch, another landscapist. Figure painters are much needed by both societies, landscape being already m great preponderance at their exhibitions, and it is a pity out of so large a number of applicants no painter of the human form worthy the honour of admission could be found.
The members of the Royal Academy, on whom will devolve the onerous duty of hanging the pictures for the ensuing exhibition, are Messrs. H. W. Pickersgill, Hook, and Poole. Outsiders, therefore, may hope for fair treatment, as at least two of the academicians named are known to regard in a generous spirit those works of their un-R.A.'d brethren in which there is the least sign of promise or
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