ART.
THE SOCIETY OF PAINTERS IN WATER-COLOURS.
THIS is a more than usually satisfactory Exhibition, and we notice with pleasure that some of the very oldest members of the Society, contribute works which will bear favourable comparison with any which they have previously produced, and which show little if any falling-off in vigour or delicacy. Of such members, the most conspicuous are Sir John Gilbert, Samuel Palmer, and George Fripp, the two latter being especially well represented. Indeed, this year every one seems to send his best, and whether it be the lonely mountains of Mr. Newton, or the muslin-clad young ladies of E. K. Johnson that are represented, whether we saunter through the pine-woods with Lamont, or wander, rod in hand, amidst the wild scenery of the Hebrides with George Fripp, or charge discreetly in the rear of Gilbert's Puritans at Marston Moor, in each and every case, the spirit of the scene has been caught sufficiently to sender the reproduction interesting.
Here is something for every taste and every age. Do you like pretty faces and light laughter, and rosy cheeks beaming with health and good-humour? Go and sit under the trees with Mr. Johnson, and watch the hiving of the "Golden Swarm." Are you sentimental ? Turn your eye towards that young lady strolling along the sand, whom Mr. Brewtnall has painted so delicately, and watch her colour come and go as she reads that too interesting letter. And for those who have outgrown romance and love-letters and young ladies on the beach, there are plenty of scenes to afford matter for contempla- tion. Are you a poet or a dreamer,—look at Albert Goodwin's "Arabian Night," and watch how the glow of busy life in the bazaar below fades gradually into gloom, as the eye follows upwards the delicate traceries of the mosque, rising story upon story far up into the still blue night, till at last the slender minarets stand out softly white against the starry sky. Are you a philosopher, perhaps even a bit of a cynic ? Well, even so, you may find here something to your liking. What is this long procession of men, women, and children which hangs imme- diately beneath Mr. Johnson's sunny garden, contrasting almost painfully in its dark colour and grim suggestiveness with the bright flowers and faces in the picture above ? This is "The Business of Pleasure," as it is seen in modern life, and represents a collection of acrobats, singers, &c., on their way to some village fair or suburban race-course,—the faces of the wayfarers, weary and somewhat sullen, sharply pointing the antithesis between work and amusement. But though every one may find interesting matter here, the great strength of the Exhibition is, as usual, its landscapes. We shall not attempt to notice many of the pictures, merely trying to give our readers some idea of the Exhibition as a whole. Where there are so many beautiful examples of one kind of work, it is always a difficult and invidious task to select any one as being pre-eminently superior ; except it be one which shows an equal amount of successful skill, with a dis- tinctly higher aim than the rest. In one picture here there is, we think, such an aim shown, and such an amount of success obtained, as may fairly place it at the head of the list ; and it is the more pleasing to us that this should be the case in the painting of an artist who has persevered steadily in attempting to paint the higher poetical landscape. This, which Turner attempted so con- stantly and succeeded in so well, has fallen very much out of re- pute in the present-day, and very many of our most skilful artists, some of them carrying imitative skill much further than Turner ever did, nevertheless content themselves with literal transcripts from Nature. Samuel Palmer, however, of whose picture we are going to speak, has always infused a large amount of poetical feeling into his works ; and though this has often been obscured by strange affectations and tricks of colour, it has been the ruling spirit of his painting. And one other remark should be made about him, and that is that, like Turner, he has seen the sun, and firmly grasped the fact that to reproduce that, is the greatest triumph of the painter's art. His present picture in this year's Exhibition is entitled, " Tityrus restored to his Patrimony," and represents the shepherd reclining under a spreading tree, while all round him,—
" Meadow, grove, and stream do seem Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream."
The moment chosen is when M.elibceus is congratulating 'Etyma upon the restoration of his lands, and Mr. Palmer, with the in-
stinct of a true poet, has painted the landscape as Tityrus might- have been supposed to see it, radiant no less with bright memo- ries, than with the glowing sunlight. The whole tone of the picture is a wonderful example of the harmony gained by combinations of pure colour when used with experience and perfect knowledge, but the sky, with the sun bursting forth the
time through the long lines of crimson cloud, is the master- piece of the picture, and is certainly one of the finest pieces of painting in water-colour which we have ever seen. We have spoken thus at length on the subject of this picture, feeling that when an artist towards the close of a long life does do work as, fine as this, he deserves some honourable recognition, and that, as one of our foremost critics said of Palmer five years ago, "we who are younger should assure him, before the days draw near when neglect and praise are alike indifferent, that,- he has not worked in vain."* We must next mention George Fripp, who is very strongly represented this year, sending no less than twelve examples, mostly small, of English and Highland scenery. All of these are- fine, but perhaps the most noteworthy, as being delineations of country not usually painted by this artist, are the sketches on the western coast of Scotland and in the Hebrides. Of these, No. 150, " Corrie on Loch Kishorn, coast of Ross-shire," is a very beautiful specimen. The loch occupies the foreground of the picture, in the middle-distance is seen the shore, composed of sterile rock, and sloping up to a barren mountain in the distance. It is difficult to imagine any one painting the strata and lines of cleavage of rock better than Mr. Fripp does; the drawing seems, to have all the accuracy of a geological chart, and yet is never in the least hard or diagrammatic. The prevailing tone of all these Scotch pictures of Mr. Fripp's is a warm brown, and the skies- are, if we remember right, universally grey. Judging from our own experience in the Hebrides, the skies always are grey, except when they are black. Another very fine example of Mr. Fripp's work is No. 113, "Bray Loch and Weir, from Amerden Bank " ; a summer scene, with calm water, and leafy willows swaying softly before the breeze. These sketches, however, always seem to us to be lower in tone than we have ever found English scenery to be, and Mr. Fripp rarely gives us a genuinely green field or blue sky. Sir John Gilbert has two large pictures this year, Nos. 8 and 112. Of these, the latter is very poor, and calls for little notice ; the former is a fine battle-piece, with much of the old power in grouping and delineating the hurry and turmoil of a battle. At one time, Mr. Gilbert was never so happy as when amongst the standards and trumpets, painting flashing armour, sweeping plumes, and eager faces. The scene before us is a somewhat confused mass of rearing horses and charging horse- men, fallen men, swords, and all the pomp and circumstance of war, and we can only commend it generally, without going into. details. Indeed, it is one of those pictures which are only interest- ing as a whole from the mass of colour and power of composition shown. To turn to a more quiet and yet a somewhat cognate subject, "The Old Men's Gardens, Chelsea Hospital," by Mrs. Allingham (No. 139),--this drawing more nearly resembles Fred Walker's work than any which we have seen since his death, and is in some respects but little inferior to it. Many artists will have to look to their laurels when the ladies begin to paint as well as this. The subject is a simple one enough,—two young girls buying a bunch of flowers from two old pensioners in the gardens of the Hospital. It appears from the quotation that each pensioner has a small plot of ground assigned to him, where he "follows his own fancies in the matter of garden- ing." The colour is very pleasant throughout the picture, and the weather-beaten appearance of the old pensioners' coats and faces contrasts very prettily with the fresh muslin and bright looks of the girl-visitors. The most thoroughly satis- factory part of the picture, however, is the old-fashioned garden, with its innumerable bright flowers, without order and arrangement. When, we wonder, will people go back to the old style of flower-beds, and no longer stick round and oval blotches of pink, or blue, or yellow in the middle of a green lawn, and call it landscape-gardening? There is another well-known member of this Society who has this year sent a very striking landscape of a totally opposite kind to that of Mrs. Allingham,—this Alfred Newton, whose "Unveiling of the Mountain" (42) may challenge comparison with anything in the Exhibition as a faithful transcript of a natural effect. There has been a storm, the gloom of which still lingers on the grass and foliage of the foreground ; on the right of the picture a heavy cloud-wreath
a P.O. Ibunerton, Portfolio, November, 1872. is still hanging, almost touching the wet earth ; but on the left the clouds have rolled away, and the blue sky shines out, and in the midst, a little shadowy with mist, the unveiled mountain rises. This is a very fine drawing, not only because of the faith- ful rendering of the scene, but because the artist has succeeded in catching the true spirit of all mountain scenery, we mean the spirit of mingled isolation and permanence. If a picture can ever express any feeling, this picture seems to speak of the way in which the clouds and the sunshine and the shadows come and go, and how through it all, through every change of circumstance around it, the mountain " endureth for ever." The only technical fault which strikes us is a certain spottiness in the foreground foliage, which seems somewhat to mar the harmony of the colour. If Mr. Newton's mountain be a somewhat solemn picture, there are no lack of those which will counterbalance this impression ; and amongst these, No. 64, Mr. Johnson's "Golden Swarm," alluded to above, claims pre-eminence, from the delicacy of its execution, and, to a certain extent, its successful treatment of a very difficult subject. It represents an old gardener and his wife and child superintending the hiving of a swarm of bees which have settled upon one of the trees in the garden. To say that there are several graceful young ladies in white muslin, and that there is a general atmosphere of bright colours and sunshine, is to say little more than that the picture is by E. K. Johnson ; and unfortunately, if we add to this that there is a prevailing feeling of unreality, a lack of shade and concentration, and a somewhat sugar-plummy kind of prettiness, the remark would equally apply to all this artist's pictures. Nevertheless, there is a large amount of careful work, and the picture is one which will have many admirers. Just below this hangs "The Business of Pleasure," by Edwin Buckman, a painter who has been doing thoroughly good decorative work of late. There is little to say of this subject be- sides what we have remarked above, save that all the figures are carefully studied, and that the half-sulky, half-defiant look of the genuine tramp has been caught to perfection in the man who is sitting on the shafts of the donkey-cart, smoking a short clay pipe. Mr Buckman has another drawing here, a single figure, selling bouquets of primroses and wallflowers in the street. Ilbre, again, the careless, drunken, happy-go-lucky expression of the young man gives interest and life to a very simple subject. There are several landscapes and seascapes here by H. Moore, the best a which, we think, is (No. 94) "A Grey Day, Yarmouth Jetty ;" a piece of rough sea breaking upon the jetty, with sky and waves of tender grey. Mr. Francis Powell also sends several seascapes, remarkable for the beautiful drawing of the individual waves, but wanting, we think, in that sense of breadth and freedom which the ocean seems to express even in the smoothest weather. Nos. 21 and 126 both show this, the latter being, we think, the finest It represents sea alone, without ship or shore, in stormy weather.
Amongst the younger painters, Albert Goodwin sends several drawings of great excellence, of which Nos. 80 and 122 are the finest. Both of these are Eastern subjects, entitled "An Arabian Night" and the "Carpet Bazaar, Cairo." We can speak from personal knowledge of the places depicted, and the latter is especially faithful to all the characteristics of the Cairo bazaar, and is, moreover, a beautiful piece of colouring. Walter Duncan, whose picture of the man in the stocks attracted some attention last year, sends another figure-subject (No. 180), called, "Love, Scandal, and Polities," a picture which shows great ambition and some ability ; but Mr. Duncan will, we hope, excuse us for saying that a certain air of vulgarity, which went far to spoil his last year's picture, is still more noticeable here, and renders the painting thoroughly unpleasant. We have only space to notice, in conclusion, Mr. Brewtnall's single-figure study, entitled, "I sent a letter to my love, I hope she hasn't lost it." This is well worthy of attention, being one of the most delicate studies, in dark brown and blue, that we have ever seen ; and as showing, besides, that it is possible to paint a lady dressed in the height of the present fashion, without making her look either vulgar or uninteresting. We must content ourselves with mentioning, as worthy of attention, Mr. H. S. Marks's two tiny landscapes, Mr. Boyce's careful studies of foliage ; Mr. W. Briefly's picture of the sinking of the Revenge,' a subject which should be dear to every Englishman's heart ; and M. Alma Tadema's figure of an ancient Roman reading some "interesting scroll" in a shady alcove. Taking it altogether, this is the best water-colour exhibition which we have had for many years.
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