ROBERTS'S SPANISH SKETCH'S.
SPAIN, so rich in the picturesque and romantic, is a fertile soil for the painters, who having well nigh exhausted the beauties of Italy and Switzerland, are now leaving the Alps for the Pyrenees. The field is wide. and as yet the pictorial harvest is but partially reaped ; JOHN LEWIS has given us representations ot the costumes, people, and man- ners; DAVID ROBERTS has delineated the buildings; and it now re- mains for some master of landscape to picture the wild mountain sce- nery. In these Picturesque Sketches in Spain, Roamers has principally devoted his attention to time cities and the buildings. ROBERTS'S forte is architecture, of which he is a masterly draughtsman, especially when his view is near and his range limited : then the structure towers in all its grandeur and loftiness, impressing the sense with the vastness and magnificence of the reality. 't he representation of the High Altar of the Cathedral at Seville, with its pomp and splendour, encircled by a colonnade of colossal candlesticks, among which rises one candle of the proportions of a Corinthian column—and another view showing the lofty clustered pillars of the aisle—are beautiful examples of his power of representing height in interiors ; while the views of the stately Giralda Tower at Seville, of the Tower of Comares in the Alhambra, and the beautiful Gothic Cathedral of Burgos, are equally striking instances of this power in exteriors. The effect of size and apace too is admirable in the interior of the Chapel of Ferdinand and Isabelle at Granada, showing the noble tombs ; in the view of the Bull. ring at Seville—an elegant architectural composition ; and in that of theMarket- place of Carmona--one of the most picturesque and success- ful of the out-door scenes. The view of the Eseuzial disappoints us the edifice itself is too distant to give scope for ROBERTS'S peculiar talent • and consequently it appears an unimpressive object in a bleak and le:rien landscape. Even the architectural views, where the ob- jects are numerous or distant, are less pleasing, for want of that charm of pictorial effect which ROBERTS has not the art of producing. The interior of a Nunnery at Cremona, with the nulls at vigils—the novices chewing on their knees, the lady abbess enthroned in crosieted State, and one of the sisters rehearsing the part of St. Cecilia at the organ—is a scene full of character and interest, and unique in the effortless simplicity of its treatment. Perhaps the attitudes of the nuns are a little varied to increase the picturesqueness,—a point, by the way, wh:ch ROBERTS often misses by his over endeavours to attain it. In the scenes of the mass, for instance, the officiating priests look as if they were studying attitudes instead of being engaged in the per. formance of solemn rites of which ceremonial formality is the grand characteristic. So, in the disposal of his groupes of figures, the niasses are too heavy to be either natural or picturesque ; and we cannot admire the scratchy blackness of their execution, contrasting as it does so strongly with the purity and delicacy of the architectural par% ROBERTS, in common with many other painters, seems to mistake the assumption of a manner for the acquisition of style. Manner is I mere trick of handling, es arbitrary as it is immeening: style consists in the mode in which the artist views and treats his subject, and de. petals upon his knowledge of it, and his intellectual perception of ite characteristics. Routers's delineations of architectural forms and proportions evince his style ; which thus far is admirable : in drawing figures tund producing effects of light and shade, lie only displays a conventional mannerism ; and the sootier he substitutes for it undet. standing and feeling, the better for his reputation. The origime,I sketches are imitated by the mune process of lithography which has been so successfully employed by HARDING and Lewis; but ROBERTS'S arc not the work of the nrtist himself, as was the ease with their fee-similes. The lithographic draughtsmen employed, how. ever, are men of original talent ; ALLOM, BOYS, SIDNEY COOPER, and Hamm, as well as Gavel, being ROBERTS'S coadjutors. Their knowledge of the lithogrephic process, combined with a painter's appreciation of the original, and the advantage of ROBERTS'S superin. tendence, has produced a wolk which for beauty and spitit of omen. tion leaves little to be desired. The effects produced by means of the raised lights on the tint are not comparable with HARDING'S sketches, but they are very striking nevertheless.
The same
tadtightsuten arc DOW commencing a volume of Fat. similes of Sketches by STANFIELD. JOHN LEWIS is also engaged in litlagraphiug a series of views in Constantinople, in this style. Turkey is almost untrodden ground by the painters.
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