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THE BRITISH INSTITUTION: EXHIBITION OF OLD MASTERS.
On the yrhole, the present exhibition is, among those of a few years past, the one which has least succeeded in raising our interest to any very high pitch. Its most distinctive feature is the influx of works by Velas- quez, called forth doubtless by the appearance of Mr. Stirling's Life of the painter ; after which, we would place one of the Raffaelles, the Bor- done, and a small Vandyck. Of Velasquez, the first we come to is "The Duke of Olivarez " ; a life- sized full-length, standing firm as a column, with riding-whip in hand. Perhaps the face is less striking than the treatment of the figure gene- rally. "The Infant Cardinal, Brother of Philip IV," shown in sporting trim,, and known by engravings, is a grand example of the master's un- surpassable truth and force. There is realization to the very life, with all the reserve as well as the energy of conscious power. The dog, vital with a few massive strokes of the brush,. is a pleasure to look at. The "Portrait of Himself," a fine grave head, looks so unlike other portraits one sees, that we hesitate to accept the verdict of the catalogue. " The Infante, Son of Philip. IV, et the Manage," from Mr. Rogers's collection, .is one of the numerous figures of this boy riding—a sketch full of charac- ter and dark colour. The dwarf behind the little cavalier, and the inex- act perspective of the minor figures, may be remarked. " Don Bal- -thazar," admirable for fleshy ease and, the brilliancy obtained withlittle variety of colour, is a head and shoulders only. The " Landscape," done after a " classical" pattern with little thought or regard for nature, looks worthless enough from such a hand, broadly as it is painted. It may, in fact, be considered as merely an experiment in style—a sort of trifling which Velasquez early rejected, abiding thenceforth by Nature as his sole mistress, The Raffaelle is a quite small " Adam and Eve" tempted by the serpent. It belongs to his earlier period, is painted in. a rich grand -tone of precisely discriminated colour, and is severely abstract in its whole impression. The.serpent seems to combine snake and dragon ; but he is not ingeniously invented. A companion to this, "Abraham and Isaac," partakes of the same excellence of colour, but is otherwise sufficiently -barren. Paris Burdone's " Venus Reclining" is a queenly- splendid -creature, such as it was given to the men of the great Venetian school to paint. The head, while every whit a Venus, has a character even intel- lectual in its majestic beauty : the form is as opposite in its fulness to our modern stay-compressed ideal as that of the Venus of Milo. The Vandyck to which we referred at starting is a sketch of two infants, "The Princess Rtizabeth and 'Henry Duke of Gloucester,"—wonderful for its masterly facility, life, and grace. From the. same hand are two fine full- lengths of the famous Earl of Strafford ; both at about the age of forty, though one may be a.year or two younger than the other. The com- pressed mouth and brow, and whole imposing presence of the man, real- ize the idea of the dire-champion of divine right. The glorious Venetian colour finds a representative in Titian's " St. Se- ' bastian," not specially remarkable for other qualities—a life-sized figure, with dark landscape-background, and an accessory angel and old woman. The "Venus and Adonis" are the same figures as intheNational Gal- lery picture; the colour greyer, with a grimy tinge. Other represent- atives are Schiavone's "Nursing of Jupiter," noticeable for its heavy outlines and red tone ; Tintoretto's." Portrait of Himself on black mar- ble," fine, but neither very subtile nor very effective, and his "-Entomb- ment," which, wanting higher qualities, exhibits an ease of motion- that almost passes into slovenliness; Del Piombo's hard-lined face of " Mi- chael Angelo" ; and three by " Bataan," who should have been distin- guished in the catalogue by his Christian name from the- squad of his pictorial family. The curiously vulgar view which, redeemed by a native .eye and energy for colour,. this-painter took.of his subjects, displays itself by his making the butchered carcass of the fatted calf the chief thing in " The Prodigal Son's Return," and a floating miscellany of warming- pans and other household- gear that of " The Flood " ; in which, how- ever, the strong point of the-colour is more than commonly strong, and -even some grasp of the theme may be discerned on investigation. "The Angel appearing to the Shepherds " is a very pleasant pioture, though there is hardly an attempt in it to tell the story. Carlo Doles's " Mar- .tyrdom of St. Andrew," thoroughly feeble as it is, owns a trifle more variety in character and arrangement than we expect from its exceedingly small author. The " Sonno-di Venere" of A. [Agostino.?] Canted, every large composition, full of cupids, and apparently of his earlier practice, has. a brick tone of colour ; but its style possesses a certain abstract largeness which serves as a substitute or suggestion of poetry- of feel- ing—finer,, at any rate, than, that of the fully-matured eclecticism. Near this hangs a " Portrait of an Italian Gentleman," bearing no euthor's,name, but ranking among the loftiest works of the collection for the art with which the pale handsome face, thoughtful and gentle, yet manly, is presented in sombre simplicity. The Pinturicchio, a "Depart- ure of Hagar," the Fra Bartolommeo, a "Virgin and Child," and the Ga- rofalo, a "'Woman taken in Adultery," are all disappointments; the last quaint, yet not characteristic, in its flabby small-featured faces, but par- tially dignified by its hard dark glow of colour. Portraiture reappears in Bronzino's "Portrait of a Man," good, with,an Italian picturesqueness ; Zuochero's "Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex," odd for the babyish inca- pacity in the position of the stiff-costumed arms of this fiery soldier ; and Spagnoletto's rough and ready "Portrait of Himself" in the character
seemingly of a beggar. Salvator Rosa's " Job and his Friends " are a party of squalid brawling brigands. A "Head of St. Francis" by Guido belongs to one of his better styles; wanting indeed in depth of expression, but successfully got up and presented according to its aim. The small Angelico of " A Saint attended by Angels," one of whom appears to be loosening the monastic cord from the saint's loins, in sign perhaps of his release from earthly travail, has something though comparatively little, of the beatific painter's beauties. The Royal Academy sends, among other contributions, a cartoon by Da Vinci of " The Virgin and Child, St. Elizabeth and St. John" ; whose faces tremble with the almost cloying spirituality and evanescence of that smile which the great master so fre- quently reproduced.
Like Velasquez, Murilio appears in some force,—only, however, as regards the portraits, for two of the religious subjects are poor draggle-tailed affairs, and the third, an "Assumption of the Virgin," may pair off with others of his- empty and bepraised Assumptions and Conceptions. The "Portrait of Himself" at a mature age ex- hibits his clever, quick, but not very powerful head, with breadth and softness. It bears the motto, "Bartholomeus Murillus seipsum depingens pro filiorum votis ac precibus explendis." The companion half- lengths of a " A Spanish Gentleman " and " A Spanish Lady " are mani- festly works of a much earlier date ; painted with a nicety and exactness even approaching hardness, though with spirit and character as well. The backgrounds, in themselves commonplace, are servilely reverses the one of the other. Of Rubens the most individual example is perhaps " An Old Woman and Boy, by Candle-light" ; the effect of which is very salient at a little distance. The " Children of Rubens " is higher in character, but not particularly distinctive of the painter:; the one named, in the catalogue, " A Mother and Child,' is in- deed nothing beyond that, although self-evidently intended for a Madonna and Infant Christ. The Tenierses are extremely, flimsy, washed-out, and wooden : in the " Corps de Garde" and " The Back- gammon Players," the "silvery tone" whereof connoisseurs rave and far which they gratefully pay down their hundreds is in reality nothing but the want of every truthful and every vigorous quality of representation. Not a single thing in either picture is faithfully studied, from the pew- terish armour, duller even than pewter, up (or down) to the faces and figures: Neither is the Isaac Ostade better. Vastly superior for cha- racter, expression, and painting, is the "Courtship" of Jan Steen,— although courtship is the last thing- which this ill-favoured colloquy would suggest to the ordinary eye. Still finer, with a tone of depth and almost grandeur in their homeliness, are the " Card-Players " and " Merrymaking " of Tilborgh which display as much power; anima- tion, picturesqueness, and feeling for what is agreeable, as seem to be well compatible with the genius of Dutch art. The " Council-Chamber, Amsterdam," is also an excellent thing of its kind—a kind where every- thing is prosaic, positive, and well-copied. " Joseph's Garment brought to Jacob," by Rembrandt, is a curious mixture of plebeian energy in some parts and neglect in others : the poodle-dog clipped in mimicry of a lion, as one used to see them about the streets, and sniffing at the prostrate Jacob, is a ludicrous eccentricity. A Schooreel, a Craned], and two Holbeins, will tempt the student of the earlier art with the promise of their names:; but the first two present little satisfaction. Of the Holbeins, the larger one is the better, and will be remembered, apart from' the fine qualitaes common to all its author's handiwork, by the peculiarly deep line of red light marking the contour.. As for Wouvermanses Botha, and so on, of which the " Going to the Chase," by the first-named, may be taken as a specially degraded specimen, it is really nauseous to see these tawdry, slighted, and monotonous ilnbecilities, held up to the English public year after year as the golden calves it is to grovel before. The British pictures form a particularly indifferent lot. The Law- rences, Wilsons, Gainsboroughs, and Calcott, may, on the whole, be fairly called wretched ; the Stothard poor. The court-portraits by Zoffany have a certain attraction in their oldfashioned primness, rather than in any de- cided qualities of their art. Two of the Reynoldses are among his good things—not bis best ; the " Miss Horneck," with its creamy clotted co- lour, and " Sir Robert Hildyard " in Vandyck costume. The " Kra. Turner, nee Wombwell," painted.in imitation of Yandyck, shares the con- stant fate of imitations—worthlessness. Romney's ' Lady Coots " is a reasonable example of the fashionable painter. Wilkie appears' in the familiar " Rabbit on the Wall," and a. small portrait of " Lady Mary Fitzgerald," finished with great nicety and fidelity, but carrying its sim- plicity well nigh to the point of smallness. There is a well-done Turner, in one of his earlier' styles, " Conway Castle "; water, boats, beach, sky, and accessories, all successful, yet scarcely in a. very high sense. The most individual of the British pictures is probably the Hogarth, " A Committee of the House of Commons examining the Warden of the Fleet Prison on a charge of' Cruelty towards the Prison- ers," where the portrait-like respectability of the committee, and the truculence of the gaoler confronted with his ugly torture-mac.hines, make up a scene of quaint interest into which, as into anything of Hogarth's, one is sure to be repaid for looking closely.
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