16 JANUARY 1886, Page 13

ART.

THE ROYAL INSTITUTE OF PAINTERS IN OIL. COLOURS.

[LAST NOTICE.]

TuE chief peculiarity of this central gallery is the large number of landscapes, of a more or less important character, which it contains. As a rule, they are pretty, rather feeble, and very much alike; having the same general method, the same sort of ideal, carried out in much the same manner. The thinking runs in an accustomed groove, and works there smoothly and with- out difficulty ; the word " attractive " seems exactly in its right place when applied to the majority of these compositions ; but "beautiful" would be too strong for their merits, and " true " too far-reaching for their treatment. A touch of the tar-brush of picturesqueness is like the trail of the serpent over them all; the artists seem as a rule to have been afraid of their pictures lacking interest, unless they endowed them with some kind of easily comprehended and rather trivial sentiment. The scenes depicted are selected more as a picturesque setting for the artifi- cially pretty figures, than painted for their own sake ; for the modern and popular notion of landscape is scarcely different to that which prevails in the theatre, and it is a strictly accurate com- parison to say that the ordinary figures which are placed therein have the same predominance over their surroundings, as an actor or actress upon the stage has over the back-cloth and the side- scenes which form his or her locale. What shall we take as an example of this ? Almost any one of the landscapes here will serve equally well, from Mr. Waterlow's happy sailor-lad and lassie, to Mr. Caffieri's sunburnt little damsel carrying a pail of water with difficulty homewards. All the pictures of this class are, broadly speaking, alike ; and it is the prevalence of the class which makes our art so feeble at the present time. Mr, Stani- land's "Little Bo-Peep" coming under a garden archway, while her dressed-up nurse—or mother, is it P—attitudinises by the side ; Miss Mary Ann Stokes's "Homeless," two neatly ragged children of the most demurely proper physiognomy, playing at destitution in a pretty country-side; Mr. Hilyard Swinstead's "First Love," a mock-rustic damsel, with a pitcher on one

• The Royal Institute of Painters in Oil.Ooloars: PicadiUy. 1883-85.

arm and a puppy in the other, coming over a rough stone stile, for the express purpose of making a face at the spectators ; Mr. George Morton's "Frightful News," a child who has upset her flower-basket at the sound of a mischievous boy's trumpet ; Mr. Bigland's "Waiting," our old friend the knitting inggnue, in an attitude of expectation ; Mr. J. Clark's Youth and Age," a lot of sham-rustic children playing hide-and-seek in the trunk of an old tree, all of which, and many more of the same kind, are in this central gallery,—all tell us the same story of "Goody Two-Shoes" and parochial sentiment ; all are destitute of any fibre of connection with life as it is, and represent only the life of the studio and the story-books ; and are, consequently, from any but the most superficial point of view, worthless. Even Mr. Hamilton Macallum 'a" Frawning in the Scilly Islands," which is in this gallery,is an improvement upon this class of work, though, as in all his pictures, the water has a sort of pantomime glare, and there is little else to praise in the work than its bright iridescence. For whether it is the Scilly Islands, the Cove at Beer, or the coast of Amalfi, which forms the subject of Mr. Macallum's picture, he always treats it in the same way, and makes it practically the same colour. It is true, however, that something like this in Nature does exist; and even for an artist to have found something like Nature is to be remarked now-a- days. The cleverness of Mr. Melton Fisher's "Three Masquers" deserves a word of recognition, and its sentiment certainly cannot be called parochial, whatever fault be found with it. These three "shameless hussies," as we fancy our grandmothers would have called them—showing an abnormal amount of ankle and bosom—are certainly at the other extreme to the class of work of which we have been speaking. Not, therefore, we think, are they preferable. There is a hard vulgarity about the faces, and the whole arrangement of the figures, which, to our thinking, is abominable. The picture is fitted for the green-room of a burlesque theatre, but hardly for any more decent abiding-place. Mr. Waller has gone back to his deer, and sends a picture of them sniffing at the walls of a haunted house, in which the animals are cleverly composed and well drawn, and which forms a pleasant variety to the two, or three, or four horses which have been the staple of his compositions for the last few years. Mr. Frank Dadd has definitely taken up the rite of comic artist, and divides the honours (in this central gallery) in that line with Mr. Dollrnan. He has a picture of an old huntsman pouring out a glass of ale, which attains its humorous end simply and clearly. A word of praise must be given to Mr. Weguelin's "Blossoms from a Roman Garden," despite the conventionality of the subject (which is the usual pretty model holding a basket of flowers), since the painter is showing considerable improvement in the delicacy of his work. He is still hankering after the gods of Mr. Alma-Tadema, but he is doing so with less of actual imitation than be has shown of late years. This work is not only care- fully painted, but actually pretty, and has none of the crude, unpleasant colour of which Mr. Weguelin is sometimes guilty.

Mr. Steck, as usual, sends a semi-allegorical picture, this year of semi-circular shape, and entitled " Hesperus,"—a maiden with enough locks of flying hair to fit out the whole South-Western district, holding a kind of electric-light in her hand. Not a good specimen of Mr. Stock, this. Perhaps the best picture in this central gallery is Mr. George Clausen's "Little Haymakers," an imitation of the late Bastien-Lepage, but a good imitation, and a well-drawn, pretty picture. In the next gallery, there is one landscape which deserves more than a word of mention ; it is, perhaps, on the whole, the best land- scape in the exhibition, and is, at all events, one of extreme merit, though it is merit of a rough, breezy kind, such as is apt to be overlooked amidst the rather finical sweetness and elaboration of modern work. This is the "Ford in the New Forest," by Mr. Wimperis, a composition of fresh woods and rough ground, and tumbled, cumulus sky, instinct with the very breath of Nature ; almost as good as a David Cox. We have done Mr. Wimperis something less than justice of late years, and gladly take this opportunity to acknowledge how great is the merit of his work, though rarely, we think, as great as it is here. A simple, straightforward rendering of a fine landscape effect, done with thorough knowledge, and without the slightest affectation, and yet not made a picture of, and not simply a bit of a picture. This work of Mr. Wimperis would be a prize to any lover either of Art or Nature. And one quality of it is especially notable, which is that though it is an oil-painting, it possesses an amount of transparency and atmospheric effect, such as we

are accustomed to consider the peculiar property of water-colour drawing. This cannot be said about Mr. Brewtnall's " Outlaws," a picture in which the artist tries to repeat in oil the success he made in imaginative landscape at the Old Water-Colour Society. This picture represents three "Outlaws" awaiting their victim behind the trunk of a big tree, the stem and one of the lower boughs of which occupy the greater part of the

composition. The tree is well drawn, but the figures, are poor and theatrical, and the whole work suffers from their presence. If Mr. Brewtnall intends to paint imaginative landscape, he must beware of trying to repeat himself, even with variations. Mr. Dendy Sadler's "A-hunting we will go !"— three old-fashioned huntsmen roaring a chorus at a tavern table —is clever and humorous, but scarcely of sufficient motive for- so elaborate a work. These funny pictures are very wearisome after the first five minutes, unless the observation of character in them is of a very subtle kind. A joke in colour and line is, after all, very like a joke in words,—one likes it the first, tolerates it the second, and abominates it the third time. Mr. Phil Morris has endeavoured to contrast two "Sisters," a bride and a widow; but the work fails from its extreme vulgarity, it is more like a millinery advertisement than a picture. The "Cairene Bazaar" of Mr. R. Swoboda is better drawn than the majority of works in this gallery, and though its pictorial motive is perhaps as old as the bazaar itself, it is treated with a certain amount of freshness and ability. We cannot say the same of Mr. F. Dicey's very trying composition of "The World For- getting," a young gentleman and lady in elaborate modern cos- tume, who have left off lawn-tennis for the purpose of making love to one another upon a garden-seat. Mr. Fantin's " Roses " are almost, but not quite, as good as usual ; and there is a genuinely funny picture, execrably painted, but so cleverly conceived and clearly expressed, that it achieves its end, called, "A Disgrace to his Family." It represents a puppy, who in poking about outside the stable, has put his nose, face, and fore-paws into a pot of tar, and is sitting ruefully on the door- step, looking at his fond mother and brothers and sisters, who. do not know what to make of him.