A HISTORY OF THE OLD WATER-COLOUR SOCIETY.*
Mn. ROGET has taken up, and in these two large volumes completed, a work projected by the late Secretary of the Old Water-Colour Society, Mr. Joseph John Jenkins. That gentleman so long ago as 1852 was collecting materials for a History of the English School of Painting in Water-Colours, as an advertisement in the Times shows. From that time till his death he continued to collect information by circular and otherwise. Among other sources, he overhauled the papers of the Society, which had precariously reached the then Secretary 4‘ loose, at the bottom of a cab," and shortly afterwards he became Secretary himself. The result was, that his materials took the shape most naturally, not of a general history of the art, but of the institution with which he was officially connected. The difference between the two things is not very considerable for the greater part of the time covered by this History, but it was wise of Mr. Roget, on taking over the task, to limit the scope of the book as he has done. Mr. Jenkins found himself in 1884 in failing health, with his materials still in the shape of notes only. These were handed over to Mr. Roget to form the foundation of the work, consisting of biographies of the earlier artists, and extracts from the minutes of the Society. Mr. Roget has filled out this framework, giving a continuous narrative of the Society's history, completing some biographies and adding others, and fitting these conveniently in to the general story, according to the dates at which the members made their entran3e and their exit. He has further added a quantity of information about the number, subjects, sale-prices, and special collections of the artists' works, and lists of pub- lished prints after their designs. All this, with the chronological tables of members under successive presidencies, makes the book a most convenient work of reference for the life and pro- duction of the artists it includes, and the author deserves great praise for the painstaking and businesslike execution of his task. He avoids, as he modestly says, the " intrusion of original criticism," though, naturally enough, he is ready to accept those friendly and patriotic estimates of the merits of our water-colourists with which we are familiar.
The history of the Society itself, which follows an account of the rise of the art, is a simple and uneventful one. With certain breaches of continuity, it has been in existence since 1805. A too free distribution of profits brought it low in 1812, and it was then formally dissolved ; but the Oil and
• A History of the Old Water-Colour Society, now the Thyal Society of Painters in Water-Colours; with B °graphical Notices of its Older and of all Deceased Members and Associates. Preceded by an Account of English Water-Colour Art and Artists in the Eighteenth Century. By John Lewis Roget. 2 vols. London : Longman, Green, and Co. 1891.
Water-Colour Society (1813-1820), and the reconstituted Water- Colour Society of 1821, practically continued the corporate life, and fondly overlooked those breaks in its existence. The other events are changes in the rules affecting the status of members, and the disposition of funds, and the changes of habitat which ended in the Society buying their well-known rooms in Pall Mall. From an early date there were rivals in the field, and the result at the present time is the existence of the " Institute " over against the " Society," with the sharp distinction of constitution that the former admits to exhibi- tion the work of outsiders, while the Society exhibits only the drawings of its own members.
The bulk of the book is naturally biographic, and quite apart from questions of painting, on which biography has seldom any light to throw, there is a good deal of entertaining human stuff in these records. The examples of John Varley's drawing-master trade will not, as time goes on, be thought very interesting, but the figure of that cheerful mystic will always remain picturesque, tossed by Taurus, and his pockets crammed with almanacks for drawing horoscopes and predicting events that sometimes very nearly happened It was hard upon him that, with so much faith, he had to sit by and see nothing when Blake evoked Cassivelaunus or Moses, or the Ghost of a Flea, at his tea-table ; but it was something to be so apt in Zodiacal Physiognomy as to recog- nise whether the face of an acquaintance had been framed under the influence of Scorpio or Capricorn us.
Thera are some interesting notices here and there in the book, of inventions and improvements in the materials of the art. These are the most important facts in its early history, for there was little to be done with the paper and the colours that the early practitioners made use of, drawing-paper and Prussian-blue not being hopeful weapons to attack Nature with. Nor were the early practitioners capable of using such materials as they bad to the best advantage. It is customary to treat Sandby and Hearne and the rest with grave attention as pioneers of the art ; but there is little in the development of water-colour up to Turner that an inventive artist might not have struck out in an idle morning. Nor can it be ad- mitted that any large proportion of the names that follow in these pages have a claim to the dignity of history because of the value of their art. A visit to the historical collection of English water-colours at South Kensington, than which few places of the earth are more waste, is enough to prove this. Such painters owe a good deal to the kind of scientific fallacy that brings a collection like that together, and to the esprit de corps that leads to a History like this being written, and gives them a place in its pages ; for in a time of histories, few are quite secure from fame, and in this hey-day of the Evolution Theory, if a man has no other claim to notice, he will always receive punctilious scrutiny as a Link.
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