30 APRIL 1870, Page 14

ART.

THE FRENcH AND FLEMISH PICTURES.

THE Exhibition of foreign pictures at 120 Pall Mall, is quite an established part of the Londoner's Spring amusements. Besides the French and Flemish works that form the majority of the col- lection, Mr. Wallis has this year added a few by Italian artists, and if on a future occasion he can secure a few Spaniards they will not be less welcome. To be sure, Ruiperez is Spanish by birth, but by residence and artistic education he is French ; and such purely Spanish artists as Palmaroli and Rosales are nearly unknown in England. Lack of enterprise, however, is not for a moment to be attributed to Mr. Wallis, who caters so well for the pubiic enter- tainment, not only by gathering together pictures that are for sale, but by procuring loans from private galleries of masterpieces by foreign artists.

The present Exhibition fully maintains the credit of its predeces- sors. There is a very attractive picture by L. Gallait of a mother and children, lent by the Queen (86). The composition is too formally pyramidal, and the colour is of the kind generally known as foxy. But there is a charming grace in the forms, especially of the mother and infant ; nor would the foxiness of colour have been disagreeably conspicuous, but for the cold green of the mother's mantle, so sharply in contrast with the prevailing hue of the picture. The fault would seem to admit of easy remedy, but it not less surely denotes an imperfect faculty for colour. A true colourist, like Reynolds or Hogarth, would have tempered his hot colours by letting the cool ones steal into them imperceptibly. It is possible that in the scales of a chemist or man of science, M. Gallait may have balanced his colours, but he has set the artist's teeth on edge. Not far off, but nearer the floor, hangs a little picture by C. Schran- dolph, called " The Virtuoso" (93), which exemplifies the same fault. This, though far below M. Gallait s picture in aim, is much better in colour; yet it fails of what one is tempted to think its due effect by reason of a bit of cold rank green, interpolated, as it would seem, by way of balance to the general warmth of the colour. Both artists seem to have been led rather by argumentation than by feeling, and that is a line upon which good colour was never yet struck out.

It is difficult to imagine the technical skill of a painter carried further than it has been by the Belgian artist Alfred Stevens. The colour, surface, and texture of whatever is used for the furni- ture of a house or the dress of a woman are imitated with unerring accuracy ; while all are so treated as to produce a most pleasing general effect. Things are not made to grin at the spectator with pre-Raphaelitish ostentation, but take their places in the picture with as much modesty as truth. True mastery disdains to make a parade of cleverness. Nonchalance" and " La Visite " (75 and 76) exhibit the artist's high qualities iu great perfection ; nor will it escape atteatiou what excellent service is done by the black of the Japanese screens in harmonizing and binding together the different parts of each painting. What, then, is the purport of these pictures ? What is the sentiment which is clothed with all this beauty ? There is, it must be confessed, but slender evidence of either. Well bred vacuity distinguishes these fashionably dressed women, and dullness reigns in these tastefully furnished drawing-rooms. Not the slightest interest is created in the former, and admiration flags at last for these pretty decorations which form M. Stevens' entire stock in trade. Turn to M. Gerome's work, and a more bracing atmosphere is entered at once. They are not so immediately attractive to the sense, but the admiration they arouse is much deeper and more sustained. In " The Game of Chess—Cairo" (69), there is no mistake about the earnestness of the turbaned antagonists. Attitude and gesture manifest the absorbing nature of their amusement, and one feels at last like one of the bystanders and lookers-on who in the picture mutely watch the fortunes of the game. This intensity of dramatic interest is produced without the least approach to grimace or exaggeration. These, indeed, would have had no such effect, and M. Gerome is far too serious and even stern in the practice of his art to indulge in tricks. It is the province, as it is the privilege, of genius to see and to render nature as it is, and by depth of insight to draw out that highest art which is wholly free from artifice. The result is sure always to make itself felt, but the higher the art the more difficult it is by criticism to explain its method of working. It is the inferior spirits, by whom nature " refuses to be deep-searched," that resort to the artifices which a critic may read off ; but if Gerome's chess-players want any further interpre- tation than their own intent figures, the want is hardly to be removed by words. As usual with the artist, the painting is rather hard, but the general arrangement and the management of details are good.

Meissonier is represented by two single figures only (47 and 55), of which it is sufficient to say that no one else could have painted them. They are not unworthy of him, though they are not of a kind that would of themselves have built up his high reputation. His imitators, Ruiperez and Escosura, have adopted his subjects and his scale of canvas, and more than his coppery colour. They do not at present show any symptom of being able to reach a higher rank than that proverbially held by imitators. E. Frere would scarcely have become the favourite lie deservedly is if he had never painted better than " The Family Scrap-Book" (24). Those of his admirers were fortunate who at a conversazione lately given by the Fine Arts' Club had an opportunity of seeing two pictures in his very best manner ; one, a girl writing at a desk ; the other, a lonely orphan kneeling at a rush-bottomed chair in a garret—beautiful in sentiment and fine in colour. fermis, like Frere, finds his subjects in the cottage, and seldom fails to impress one with respect for the peasant and sympathy for his hard life.

" The Remedy" (184) shows the housewife ill in bed, tended by an old woman, and anxiously watched by her husband, whose compressed lips betray his emotion. There is always nice feeling in M. Bisschop's work ; but he seems in danger of forgetting that there exist such things for a picture as half-tones (59, 212). M. Alma Tadema has studied more than the costume of the old Romans. It would not be difficult to fit his party of wine-tasters (2) with a passage or two from Horace. M. de Jonghe chooses much the same class of subject as M. Stevens ; but, while inferior in every technical merit, his " flaying from Memory " (42) carries an interest which the latter seldom inspires. The young girl sitting at the piano is a charming figure, though her back is turned. So is the child sprawling on the floor. But unfortunately the lady in black, who is most affected by the music, is a comparative failure.

It would not be easy to criticize the " Christ Weeping over Jerusalem" of Ary Scheffer (17) with the respect due to the name of so eminent an artist. " The Orphans" (202), by M.

Perrault, is a picture of great ability, and displays that power of drawing which is cultivated so highly by French artists, and so little by English ; but it is painted with excessive smoothness throughout, a fault not peculiar to M. Perrault among French artists. The " Virginia Drowned," by M. Bertrand (143), is a failure on a large scale.

Landscape is but poorly supported, even including sea views. Clays is always manly and vigorous, and there is something very striking in the heavy sails that hang to the masts in his "Making Signals—Calm" (207). It was a good thought of M. Wahlberg to paint moonlight without letting the moon herself be seen (16), and there are good points about this dappled sky ; but the colour of the water does not harmonize with it, and pier, boats, and other objects are all too black. There is a bright little "Summer Morn- ing" (88), by Lambinet, and a careful study of leafless trees by Lamoriniere (191), which, however, looks too much like a mere aggregate of sticks. A picture cannot be made by taking each object by itself, and painting it with utmost care without reference to the rest.

Mr. Schreyer's horses are always welcome. They are invariably animated and characteristic, and it may well be supposed that he sometimes paints other horses than these Wallachian weeds (61,139), but they are not sent to London. As to sheep, it is a subject of congratulation that here at last is an exhibition without a single specimen by M. Verboeckhoven. Madame Peyrol Bouheur (106) and M. Braith (133, 154) have both far better right to be popular. And in noticing the sheep (154), let us in nowise overlook the dog that watches them. Lastly, there is a little picture by Mdlle. Rosa Bouheur that in sweetness of feeling equals any of her former work (48). A couple of roe-deer occupy this " quiet spot in the forest of Fontainebleau," and even the melancholy and somewhat misanthropic Jaques might have been satisfied with the complete seclusion that they enjoy in the chequered light and shadow that