GOSSIP ON ART.
Tur days named for receiving works of art at the ensuing Exhibition of the Royal Academy, were Monday and Tuesday next ; but there has since been a postponement for a week. The Academicians can't get their large pictures ready in time : the delay will be welcome to many others out of the Academy. There is great talk of the number of large pictures; and it is more than probable that the Academy half of the Gallery in Trafalgar Square will not bold all the works sent in.
There is little if any more space on the walls than at Somerset House : JO that the Academy gains nothing by the move, though the exhibi- tors will have better light for their pictures. Either a great many will he refused, or the Academy must encroach on the other half of the building for the time. The display of sculpture is likely to be limited ; for the sculptors are hesitating to send in large groups, lest they should be broken in removal. The ponderous masses of marble will have to be dragged up an inclined plane to a considerable height in order to get them into the Gallery ! When Mr. WILKINS'S design was first made public, some wag caricatured his useless porticoes by a sketch in which the entrance was up a ladder placed at one of the windows : this turns out to be no exsggeration. What a disgraceful job ! The best thing that can be done with this puny architectural toy, is to let the aitists have it for a general exhibition-room, to be open to the public gratuitously, as is the case in Paris. By the -by, there is a picture of Cecilia, by DELAROCIIE, in the
present French exhibition, that we have beard spoken of as alone worth taking a trip to Paris to see. The same painter, who is at the bead of the Roe/antique school, also exhibits a fine picture of Straf-
ford going to execution. His style is very English in point of colouring and effect, with the power and correctness of design and drawing that characterize the French school. The German artists of Berlin and Dusseldorf likewise contribute some fine pictures. HORACE VERNET, being at St. Petersburg, has none.
We should have an exhibition of the works of foreign artists in this couritry, and send them our pictures to exhibit in return. The inter- change would benefit all parties. Nothing is known here of the fine works of the German and Flemish schools, and little of the French. The gallery in Trafalgar Square would be a good place for such an ex. hibition ; but Government or amateurs must manage it, for we fear the artists would be jealous of foreign rivalry.
Ilaynots's grand picture, " the Raising of Lazarus," is at the Pantheon, where it fills the head of the staircase. It is in a beautiful light, and draws numbers of visiters. Pictures7of this size and class abound in the Paris exhibition but there they are bought by the Government for the national collection, or by the priests for the churches.
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