ROYAL ACADEMY: LANDSCAPES.
Collectors of verta set great store by tables of variegated marble, where the mottlings and the veins fall into a semblance of order and seem to re- present some kind of picture. The shadows of forms—trees and buildings, or rocks and torrents—invite your scrutiny only to baffle and mock it: the picture looks to be full; it dazzles the sight, and its confusion seems to ex- ist in your own sense; you shift your view, and think that you have caught a glimpse of the true aspect, only to find that there is nothing in it. Much like this is Mr. Turner's strange picture purporting to represent the casting of the Wellington Statue. There is no method in it but that which re- mains to insanity. Whatever way you take it—whether as a pictorial study, the record of an event, the simple representation of an" effect," or as a vision—it equally fails and comes to nothing. Considered as a pictorial study in the use of pigments, it fails, because it makes out no forms, and attains no success in the concocting of the pigments. The raw paints stare you in the face: you retreat until the picture becomes dim to the view., and yet the brighter pigments stand out in all the crudity of the colour- maker's sample. As an effect, the painting fails, for a like cause: viewed from a great distance, it exhibits some depth and ague in the shadow; but the cardinal point of the picture, the glowing light of the furoace, is like in burning, simply because it is, at any point of view, too glaringly raw paint. Mr. Turner has wasted his later life in the mistake that brilliant pigments, used " pure " constitute brilliant colouring; which would place in the oolbur-dealt:4 hands a large share of the power to create Titiatts and
Clandes.. Mr. Turner loads his palette with the most vivid colours, dashes his brush into them, and runs amuck at the. canvass. As the record of an event, the picture is a miserable joke. As a "vision," it is a burlesque on poetic licence. What can you make of it? We have been assured by in- dustrious scrutinizers, that in the portion meant to represent the glow of the furnace, you can descry "a hundred fights "-shadows of battles, as you may in the fire of a winter's evening: but he would be a hardy swearer who should make affidavit of the same. The objects that stand forth with something like distinctness, but form have none, are-the beadle on a gi- raffe; a mass of Ihune-coloured paint representing fire, not by any pictorial right, but, as it were, by power of attorney; a number of large wheels, pre- sumed to represent the mannfacturieg system of Great Britain; a thick-set woman, of avocation unknown, but approximating to the cook-maid; and a heap of articles in front, which may be cooking-utensils, cabbages, carrots, and other esculents-prestuned, by hardy conjecturers, to be fit types of "civilization." But although we say that these forms have something like distinctness, absolute distinctness they have not: equally with the carnage, the carrots are merely adumbrated. Now, what do you make of this vision-that beadle-bestridden giraffe, those verdigris cabbages, those wheels, those cooking-pots, that squat woman, and those huge carrots? What is to be understood by it? What thought is bodied forth?-It would pose even a Disraeli to tell. Such a work would not be worth criticism, but that it is hung up by the chief corporation of British painters as if it were a work of art.
Right opposite to this strange outrage, is Stanfield's principal picture-the French troops fording the Margra, with Sarzana and the Carrara mountains in the distance. Stanfield is a matter-of-fact painter; but truth is poetry, especially when it is the truth of wild mountain scenery. The scene is beautifully transferred to the canvass. The action of the figures in front- effecting a difficult operation in dragging artillery over the shallow and broken bed of the river-helps to explain the character of the spot. In the distance, where the water is deeper, it is stirred by the winds. The moun- tains, broken into the wildest forms, stretch away into the dreary breezy space; the snow-capped summits companioning with the clouds. The matter-of-fact painter recalls for you the life of the last century, and its eventful history; and carries you away among the poetry of the mountains.
In the little scene "On the Zuyder Zee," with the lugger passing a rude quay, you can hear the sharp hissing ferment of the salt waves as they part with long-sweeping subsidence.
Other painters deal with facts nearer home. Creswick, in his "England," and other pictures-Lee, in his Lincolnshire fiat and his road-side water- ing-places-Witherington, in his shady lanes, with sunlight glancing through the trees and paths plunging into the thick foliage-Havell, with his vivid tints and robust verdure-all set themselves in divers manners, to fetch out characteristics of nature; and all succeed, as real painters should, in raising such emotions as the actual scene would excite. Roberts
has an interesting view of Edinburgh from the Castle topographi- cal study, scarcely correct in the over-green tinge imparted to "Auld Reale,' but full of useful information. We prefer the artist's other pictures -the view in Antwerp, and the church interior in Spain. Nor must Lin- ton's classic view of Athens be overlooked; though the shadow which falls upon the columns of the ruined temple is too artificially devised.
Sidney Cooper's picture of" Drovers Halting on their way over the Mountains" is a beautiful and legitimate specimen of " effect ": a fine mountain scene is portrayed with minute finish and vivid force, so that the eye runs with a wild delight over the broken ground-pleased at the ever- varying herbage, and fancying the leaps that would ;surprise the runner and provoke him to exercise. The cattle and sheep are resting in every variety of repose-not a dead lethargy, but the repose of vigorous life: a dappled calf that nestles down upon the ground is fall of animation in every fibre, The horizontal rays of a setting sun play over the whole, bathing it in a warm light of mild and honeyed sweetness: and here is the " effect " -the crowning point of skill: over every variety, of local colour you see spread the same soft even yellow light, broken only by the cool shadows that glance, sharp and direct, but bodiless and fitful as shade itself, from every projecting point of form. It is an "effect" of setting sun; but care- fully and industriously elaborated.
A very striking " effect " is contributed by a gentleman whom we pre- sume to be a Fleming, M. P. Von Schendel: his picture deserves to rank with some of the happiest classics of the Dutch schooL It is the " Dutch Market-place, with effects of Candlelight and Moonlight." In the fore- ground is a poulterer's stall, with a woman leaning over to commend her provisions; on the stall is a light, in a paper lantern: a woman with a large brass pot on her arm approaches as a purchaser, leading a child by the hand: on these two women falls the full light of the candle-red, heavy, with strongly-marked shadows, but still transparent, and not black; the glow falls also upon the poultry, glances on the wet pavement, glistens in. the brazen pot; it faintly illumines the form of a man behind; a shadow cast by the form of the woman falls upon a large dog by her; but the shadow is illumined by the candlelight, which warms the dog's had, while the farther part of his hack is whitened by the cold moonlight: behind the poniterer's stall rises a boat-sail; and behind that the moon is just hidden, gleaming with sharp brilliancy on the parting clouds: in the market-place beyond, figures are seen moving about in the faint but diffused light of the moon; while here and there the red glow of artificial light bursts upon the misty air, and fades again into the white moonlight. The effect of two lights-crossing and recrossing, mutually conquering and mutually yielding, playing with each other's shadows, and contrasting so that each by turns looks more luminous, while each has the true aspect of luminousness-is painted with exquisite cunning. The figures in the moonlight look some- what leaden in texture of surface; but perhaps the artist has not ex- aggerated the influence of moonlight in generalizing forms and imparting a sort of sculptured aspect to real life. We are more confident that the pic- ture would have been improved by concealing the principal lantern-by turning a dark side to the spectator, or by interposing some small opaque object: it is. aslike actual light as any painting we ever saw; but to equal the direct rays of a luminous body is not within the power of pigments. The picture, however, is a very fine one. There is one landscape to which technical exceptions may be taken but which is much to be admired for its feeling-a "Scene on the East Coast of Scotland," by E. Gudin, a French artist. It is a large canvass: there is nothing but a rock with "three sea-gulls and a noddy "-a few gulls and a penguin, a waste of waters and lowering clouds; the faint form of a distant ship traced like a shadow on a gleam of light in the horizon. But
here again we find the emotions proper to the real scene. There is a watery lustre over everything. The green water is dripping from a. broken tree- trunk, which has drifted to the rock, and is covered and left by every suc- cessive wave. The first sense on looking at the picture is one of desolate- ness: but it is not really desolate. The sea-fowl possess their rock with serene repose; a gull is careering in the gusty air with the enjoyment of power; another lies upon the dancing buoyant bed of the waves. The next souse is one of undisturbed peace-of life and motion, trash and vigorous, its the whole scene-of the universal goodness: to the alien wanderer man the region is one of storm and fear; but to its native denizens it is an abode of peace, life, and enjoyment; and for all living nature there are at work the ever-renovating elemental powers.
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