25 JUNE 1864, Page 14

tate arts.

THE ROYAL ACADEMY.

[FOURTH NOTICE.]

PORTRAIT painters labour under one serious disadvantage more than their brethren. They do not choose their own subjects.

The only choice is one exercised with often but little judgment by the subject on the artist. The artist has his task set, and " for a consideration " does the work. The natural result follows :

portraits are, for the most part, exceedingly bad pictures. Painted without -zest by the artist, they are flavourless and unin-

teresting to the spectator. A " likeness" is probably produced (for which a photographer might have done as well), but no char- acter is expressed, and the painter subsides into the manufacturer

of complacent nonentities and fashionable millinery, a flatterer of features and an annihilator of individuality. Mr. Boson's portrait of his friend Gibson, the sculptor (54), is in every way an exception to these remarks. But it may be said that with such a subject suc- cess to a true artist was in some sort secure. True artists, however, are scarce, and probably none living but Mr. Boxall could have so modelled the fine brow and rendered the full import of that keen re- flective eye and sensitive hand,—the hand that with delicate percep- tion of character is exhibited nervously alive to the quick thought. Still it need not be denied that the artist was fortunate in his subject. But put him on an equality in this respect with others, and he still asserts a clear superiority. His portrait of Mr. Sadler (113) in gown of aldermanic scarlet and fur has no help from special refinement or elevated nobility of feature ; but the air of sober and serious sense and complete freedom from affectation give a dignity to the civic magistrate more likely to breed respect for municipal magnates than the more elaborately painted portrait of the Mayor of Newcastle (38), who is exhibited by Mr. Wells also in red robes, and with other insignia of office. There is much careful work in the picture, but the expression is better suited to the tavern than to the council-chamber ; and the colouring of the robes, from which so much might have been gained, is crude and positively disagreeable. Compare Mr. Boson's treatment of simi- lar materials. Mr. J. P. Knight sends some spirited heads, par- ticularly that of General Cabrera (46), but they are generally too startling and caricatured. There is greater sobriety in the heads of Sir W. Gordon. These, however monotonous and matter-of- fact, are generally at least manly ; witness, for example, the por- trait of Sir A. Morrison (311), and in the present condition of portrait painting Sir W. Gordon's place will not easily be filled. Mr. Sandys is the most promising and original of younger English portrait painters. It is a point in his favour that he does not con- fine himself to portrait painting alone, he is all the more likely to escape the common faults and mannerisms of his brethren. His portrait of an old lady (546) is really astonishing for the extreme minuteness of detail set down without sacrifice of character or individuality in the head. Mr. H. Weigall, another of our younger men, is in danger of being absorbed into the slough of fashionable slip-slop. His slighter sketches (348 and 381) are too much in the "Book-of-Beauty" style ; and in his portrait of the Princess of Wales (50) the more carefully studied head is almost lost in the uninteresting expanse of canvass that is required to contain the meaningless breadths of H.R.H.'s skirts. If these skirts deserved the name of drapery, room might well have been given them ; but unfortunately nothing like the natural folds of drapery proper can be expected in a dress that rides upon a bell- shaped edifice built up of a system of regularly diminishing hoops. This question of costume is certainly a puzzle for portrait painters ; but there is no need, one would think, to draw attention so pointedly to the worst errors of modern millinery. Moreover, the millinery is in truth not well painted. The muslin frock in Mr. Rankley's little picture (168) is better than anything of the kind that Messrs. Grant, Weigall, and Buckner have done. In the pleasing portrait of Lady Mary Fox, by M. Baccani, monstrosity of costume is skilfully subdued. But how such a production as (188) came to be admitted at all passes the wit of man to imagine. And remembering how often size is given as an excuse for rejecting pictures, one is astonished to see Mr. Grant's immense canvass (162) finding room to exhibit its impudent face ; or rather one would be astonished, but for the recollection that works by R.A.'s. are privileged, and escape the scrutiny to which all others are

subjected. No matter how bad their pictures, it is their right to have them admitted, and to occupy the best places. How bad they can be this exhibition furnishes very full evidence. Let any one turn to the catalogue and take for examples Nos. 41, 140, 150, 271, 394, 451, and the lot of which No. 28 stands first in numerical order.

But the Academy system has a worse fault than this. In the course of their last year's inquiries the Royal Commissioners pressed upon the Royal Academy witnesses a statement made by their former President, Sir M. A. Shee, with reference to this very subject of rejecting or arranging the pictures. " It is among those," he said*, " on whom the privilege of office confers the power of choice that this evil effect is sometimes most strikingly apparent. To have the interests of our rivals in our hands, and hold the means to injure or serve, affords an opportunity which generosity will accept for its honour, selfishness for its advantage, and malevolence will seize for its gratification." Sir Martin, of course, knew that artists were not angels any more than other men, and might perhaps, if he had chosen, have supported his position by specific evidence. The evidence which the Com- missioners shrewdly suspected to exist, but which they failed to extract by cross-examination of their unwilling witnesses, has since been supplied by Mr. Partridget, who curiously enough was ignorant of the existence of the Commission till after its report was published, and has now written a pamphlet detailing the per- secution of which the "malevolence" of a R.A. made him the object. Mr. Partridge is a painter of considerable merit, and the good qualities of his pictures were for some time fairly recog- nized by councils and hanging committees. Suddenly the wind shifted, his pictures were rejected, or hung out of sight, and his prospect of election to the degree of associate, before promising, be- came suddenly overcast. The change was palpably unjust, and some of his friends within the pale asked him (and mark the admission thus made regarding the motives that actuate the class), " If he had any enemy in the Academy to account for the injustice" (p. 11). That he had such an enemy soon appeared. The name is not given, but it comes out that Mr. — was a painter of animals and of " equestrian portraits " (p. 20), but (need it be added?) not Landseer (p. 8). Mr. — had painted for Mr. S. Majori- banks the portrait of a friend on horseback. The portrait did not please Mr. M., and at his " earnest solicitation " (p. 20) Partridge consented to retouch it. Now this was undoubtedly a grave error. That one artist should alter the picture of another without his leave is not justifiable. And Mr. Majoribanks's idea of his position towards artists is quite indefensible. " I know not," he writes to Mr. P., p. 20, " what the forms of your profession are, but I should think it hard indeed if, having paid for a picture, I was obliged to put up with an indifferent likeness of a friend be- cause, in the first instance, I had employed an artist who could not paint a man so well as he could a horse, a dog, or a cow." No wonder that with such rude notions among " employers " it is hard to procure for artists a just measure of copyright from Par- liament. )3ut to proceed. Mr. — was quite entitled to feel hurt, and to have an apology ; but he was not entitled to spread the groundless report that (p. 13), "with the deliberate intention of injuring his reputation in the eyes of his employers, Mr. Partridge found fault to them with a likeness which previously they had considered perfect, and which he himself held to be the best he had ever painted," and that Mr. Partridge had " volunteered his services to paint upon the picture." These imputations were made again and again, and even after a full explanation of the real facts from Mr. rilajoribanks (13), repeated by Mr. -- in the Academy, expressly in order to procure the rejection of Mr. P.'s picture from the walls of the exhibition, and his name from the list of Associates (12, 24). In this object he was but too successful (24), and Mr. Partridge was driven at length to seek protection from the President. The courtly Sir Martin, more anxious to make things comfortable in the Trafalgar Square Club than to get justicedone to an outsider, recommended an apology,—an apology by Mr. P. to Mr. —, who had already taken his revenge so mercilessly into his own hands. This, however, (represented as a necessary preliminary to redress,) was done by Mr. Partridge, and Mr. was pleased to write word that" he was perfectly satis- fied." And Mr. — being satisfied, so was Sir Martin ; for there he left Mr. Partridge in the lurch. " Malevolence " had its way, and the man who had been rebuked by Sir D. Wilkie (p. 12) for " allowing his private enmities and vindictive feel- ings to interfere with his duties as a hanger," eventually

• In the "Elements of Art."

+ "On the Constitution and Management of the Royal Academy." Moll and Dally. pp. 31.

drove Mr. Partridge out of the exhibition-room. It is unfor- tunate that the Commissioners were not in possession of these facts before they made their report. Their suggestions for neutra- lizing the effects of professional narrowness and jealousy would have been greatly fortified. Even now it may be hoped the evidence is not too late to meet the contemptuous rejection by the Academy of the proposition to admit lay members to the manage- ment. Clear it is that a system which allows the possibility of an irresponsible individual barring an artist from his just professional claims in order to gratify private malevolence ought not to be tolerated. Some change is needed, and the only reasonable proposal that has been made besides that suggested by the Com- missioners is to give to the general body of exhibitors the right to elect a large number of associates who shall share in the general deliberations and decisions of the Academy. Nepotism and par- tiality would thus, in all probability, be rendered more difficult, and meanness like Mr. 's be made powerless.

A few words about the sculpture. That it does not draw is clear, and that there is very good reason for it is hardly less so. The things exhibited are for the most part bad, and the arrange- ment worse. This among other bad qualities is sensational, bringing into prominent place and into the best light objects that are likely to catch the popular eye and hit the taste of the British snob,—statues and busts, that is, of " high mighti- nesses;" and putting away in the background what has only its real artistic merits to recommend it. The best statue here is M. Portevin's "Boy Playing Marbles" (878): but being only a poor little gamin, with no clothes to speak of, he stands in a twilight of shadow cast by a pyramid of aristocratic but very indifferent busts, and narrowly escapes being entirely overlooked. Yet he is worth looking at, very like a boy in expression, natural in attitude, and admirably modelled ; and the decision and delicacy of the execu- tion (in marble) are quite masterly. Mr. MacDowell's bust of a youth (898) is a very capital head of a studious schoolboy, recalling not a little the expression of Sir J. Reynold's well-known school- boy with book under his arm. There is a striking bust in plaster by Mr. Woolner of Mr. Combo (1024), the best of all the portrait busts. It is surprising that he should still be alone in putting any work into the hair. Baron Marochetti's "Dr. Blackwood" (914) has individuality, and Mr. Weekes's "Mr. Whitbread" (900) largeness of line and treatment.

Let an accidental omission be here supplied, namely, a word of warm praise for Mr. Huggins's admirably drawn lioness and cubs