AMATEUR POTTERY PAINTING AT MESSRS. HOWELL AND JAMES'S GALLERIES.* Two
occupations which have become fashionable for young ladies during the past three or four years, certainly deserve to be set a little above the usual level of elegant trifling, which is generally attained by fashionable pursuits. These—" Lawn Tennis " and " Pottery Painting"--seem to be each, in its own way, as if some real good might be got out of them. It was full time some fairly strong exercise was found for the bodies of young women, and certainly little but good can come out of an art employment which can hardly be carried on without acquiring some knowledge of the first principles of design and the relative effects of colour. It is easy to laugh at the first blundering attempts of amateurs at high art, but surely it is something that there should be a general desire to produce high art at all, and many a one who paints execrably badly upon china and pottery, to her own despair and her friends' annoyance, may be gaining unsus- pected and unsought power of appreciation of good pictures or good designs. It is, we think, a great thing that an exhibition like this at Messrs. Howell and James's can be held at all—a very great thing that it can be supported by so numerous a body of contributors. Over sixteen hundred works on pottery
• 57 and 59 Regent Street, London.
and porcelain, nearly all by ladies and amateurs, must mean an enormously increased desire on the part of the nation to produce art of some kind, and it must be remembered that probably this exhibition does not represent more than half the works produced in this way. On the whole, the exhibition seems to be well managed, and the prizes fairly bestowed, though it is, of course, much against the pleasure of visitors that they are cramped up in a shop in little rooms, while they are seeing it.
That most of the works are very bad art must be frankly confessed. The principles of design, even the very first ele- mentary principles, have very evidently not been studied by the- artists. Indeed, the one attempt at flower design seems to be to put a round flower in the middle of the plaque, and four sprays of leaves radiating from it at equal distances to the edge of the plate. This arrangement, which may be called design of the elementary South Kensington kind, is very nice once or twice, but gets monotonous with frequent repetition.
It must be confessed, too, that there is little originality of subject or treatment shown, the few exceptions to which are as follows :—The best, on the whole, taking colour and design together, is No. 1,470, " Study in Green," by Miss Green' Some white flowers on a leafless branch, arranged in Japanesque fashion on a blue-green background. This is really a fine piece of colour, and fairly good, though rather common-place, design.. This work took the badge presented by the Crown Princess. of Germany for the best work by a lady amateur, and took it deservedly.
On the whole, the best leaf-drawing is the " Horse-Chestnut Branch," done in autumn-time, by Miss Emily Loch. This—which gained a prize—is best, from its carefully accurate reproduction of each leaf, and its accidents of form and colour; and is good, too, in its free, natural arrangement. If a bit of branch is to be put on a plaque naturally, it could hardly be better done. The work, how- ever, is not strong in colour, and the shade in the background is unpleasantly poor. On the whole, the work, perhaps, errs on the side of over-refinement and care. A little boldness to go wrong would have probably made the result more attractive, if less correct. The plaque of " Atalanta, after the Race," by Percy Anderson, is strong original work, a little too uniformly yellow, perhaps, in tone ;—this took a silver medal. "My Great-grandmother," by Miss E. M. Saul, is a fresh, clever- sketch on China, bright and thoroughly pleasing, quite one of the most attractive plaques here,—this also received a prize. Miss Judd's " Sunflowers" (1,495), an Indian colour,
and as professional design, inferior. Mr. Albert Hill's two gold and silver relief plaques, of Japanese designs (1,507 and 1,467) are the best professional designs here shown, and very skilful in the relief laying-on of the metals- These also took a prize. The other prize works are good in technique, but little noticeable in other respects. On the whole,. the exhibition shows a struggle towards the light, though at present, in the great majority of cases, the " dawn is distant„ and the day is far."
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