HUMOROUS ART
HUMOUR in art is a wide subject, and one day it would be a goocli idea to collect together some of the many oil paintings with a humorous content, from the fat Sebastian del Borro that used to be attributed to Velasquez to George Belcher's red-faced musician, and from Chardin and Boilly to Carl Spitzweg, Sickert, and Forain. What the Royal Society of Arts offers in its Exhibition of Humorous Art, opened by Princess Elizabeth at its house in John Adam Street, Adelphi, on Monday, is something quite different—a collectio of English drawings confined almost entirely to the last hundr years. It is true that a few earlier drawings by Rowlandson and Gillray are included, as a rather perfunctory gesture to tradition, but the vast majority of the 162 exhibits were drawn during the psi century for publication in English journals or newspapers, and especially in Punch.
Within its limits the collection is impressive—a stimulating' reminder of how much genuine talent and invention our artisti have dedicated to the public entertainment. The downright artistic masterpieces in the exhibition are perhaps few in comparison to the number of exhibits. By the time the visitor has admired the eight Rowlandsons and Gillrays, Keene's Ploughing the Main (21), C,aldecott's sepia hay-making scene (32), Phil May's Rickety Rackety Crew (49), Max Beerbohm's Rothschilds a: Play (74), Belcher's The Apologist (85), Low's brilliant impression of Lloyd George (124), and Giles's Three Nice Cups of Tea, Please (160), he will have more or less skimmed the cream. But it is a pleasure, also, to see recognition given to such artists as Haselden and Hassan and (in a younger generation) W. A. Si!lince and Pont. On the other hand it must be admitted that certain successful artists, some of whom are still with us, are dwarfed by their greater neighbours and shown to be either weak imitative draughtsmen or to be relying unduly on their own eccentricities. We could have done with less from X, Y and Z (not to mcntion names) if this would have made room for more Keenes, Caldecotts, Phil Mays and Lows. This brings one to wonder whether the organisers could not have cast their net a little wider and at the same time been rather more strict in their selection. All the same they have got together an excellent show. It was a right effort worth making and should give a lot of
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