A RT.
SKETCHES AND STUDIES OF THE WATER-COLOUR SOCIETY.
kr the very commencement of these Winter Exhibitions there were critics who made haste to prove their sagacity by prophesying the iuevitable and speedy degeneracy of the kind of work to be exhibited. Under the temptation of selling to an indiscriminating public, it was said that instead of sketches and studies honestly made by the artist with a view to his own more complete works, he would soon contract the vicious habit of manufacturing a species of article that, properly speaking, was no more a sketch or study than it was a picture ; but a hybrid animal containing little work of the hand and less of the brain, a mere husk of paint, with no single element to recommend it except what was the recommendation to the manufacturer, "plenty to get and nothing to do." The danger to a certain class of exhibitors was a very obvious one ; and what was first uttered as prediction has been
since frequently repeated as statement of accomplished facts. The inference drawn is that the exhibitions should be at once discontinued, as tending to unmixed evil both to artist and layman. The conclusion sounds trenchant, and has at least the merit of being sweeping. But probably the better course would be that which the practice of many of th best artists in the Society suggests. They frequently intermit a winter's exhibition. Not having in their portfolios true sketches or studies good for the general eye, they refrain from sending what (if they could bring themselves to make them) might with many pass for such, and bring in much pecuniary profit to the artist. Such men are this year F. Burton, George Fripp, Alfred Fripp, and S. Palmer. It cannot be said of them that they have fewer ideas than the majority of their brethren, who as regularly as the winter comes round have their works ready for exhibition. Among the latter are, no doubt, some who are made of as sterling stuff as those named above. The practice of artists varies with their idiosyncracies, and again with their ages. There is a familiar story of two artists going out to sketch, and returning after the lapse of some hours. One had painted a very complete landscape, while the other had not so much as opened his sketch-book, having been wholly occupied in watching the changeful variety of light and colour and the movement of running water. But though the portfolios of Holland and Hunt may be inexhaustible in quality as well as quantity, they must be held to furnish rather an exception than a ride, and, on the whole, it would seem a wise modification of the present system that the society should exhibit their sketches and studies every other year only. The gallery need not be idle in the alternate years. The readiness with which owners of pictures lend them for exhibition at the private meetings of the Graphic and kindred societies suggests that the Water-Colour Society might without difficulty secure an occasional assemblage of works by former members, such as D. Cox and De Wint, which would be as great a treat to lovers of good art as it would be instructive to the world in general. One other way there is of checking the manufacture of flimsy, but saleable works, miscalled sketches, viz., to pass a rule that none of them should be sold at the gallery. But though some members (of whom Mr. Boyce is one) appear to impose some such restriction on themselves, a general law to that effect is not to be recommended. A good sketch oft en conveys as lively an impression as a finished picture ; sometimes the impression is all the livelier for not being overlaid by sedulous attempts at realization ; and if an artist has no need of these sketches for the future, why should he be debarred from selling them? In any case, a total discontinuance of these exhibitions would be a real loss ; and one need look no further than the show of this winter, wanting though it does the support of some main pillars of the society, to see reason for deprecating so sweeping a measure. The sketches of Ilolland, Hunt, F. Taylor, and Whittaker, and the studies of Dodgson, Berne Jones, F. Walker, Shields, Watson, and Newton, go far to redeem the exhibition from the reproach which too many of the other works are calculated to bring upon it.
Mr. F. Tayler is par excellence a sketcher, and stands alone with his sketches of dogs, which are so happily executed and so abound with true canine character, unalloyed by semi-human caricature, that every dog is an individual whose disposition one may infer from his portrait (178). Mr. Tayler's horses are less satisfactory, being all of one type. Mr. Holland is supreme as a colourist. Take the two that hang on one screen, "Rouen" (350), a street view, including the old clock gate ; and "From Nature" (345), flowers in a blue and white jar. The perfect harmony and balance of colour, the union of tenderness with strength, the freedom of execution, and therewith the suggestiveness of every part of these studies, are a lesson and a delight. A pair of views in Venice (197, 198) are scarcely, if at all behind ; while such sketches as those at Eastbourne and Margate (187, 385, 395) show how a trained artist seizes on the essentials that serve for suggesting light, air, wind, and movement. Mr. D.xlgson renews his studies of leafy dells aud glades. Repetition does not stale these very artistlike works, full and rich yet modest in colour and charming in sentiment. "A Yorkshire Beck" (99) and " Ferns" (173) may be mentioned as specimens. Mr. Whittaker has an unusually powerful sketch from the Welsh hills " Evening" (249), with a fine gloomy sky, and Mr. Newton exhibits a very careful and beautiful study of "moonlight on a Scottish loch " (266). Mr. Arthur Severn has much to answer for in having once painted a wave breaking on the shore, and in having thus set an example since followed by a diverse crew, who find a point of agreement only in this, that the practice is a profitable one, intelligible as it is to all (according to their light) who have spent their month's holiday at the sea-side. There is hardly one among the many trite subjects that occupy the cursory pencils of our picturemakers (though the Thames certainly runs it close) which more clearly illustrates the old Spanish proverb, that he who would bring home the wealth of the Indies must carry the wealth of the Indies with him. A man cannot by painting make more of a subject than he sees in it ; and if to hint there is no might or grandeur in the great breakers dashing on the shore, it is no wonder if he gives you nothing but a sort of toy-shop sea, clever, it may be, in many respects, and showing some accuracy of observation in matters of detail, but wholly missing the greater impressions which should be conveyed by the subject. Such, in sober truth, is Mr. B. Foster's "Study of Sea" (191),—a sea on which the Hyde Park fleet of toy-boats might venture without much risk. It is a misnomer to call it a study, being, in fact, only a slight and apparently hasty sketch, in which the only thing to admire is a certain dexterity in the application of Mr. Foster's favourite paper-hider, Chinese white. Mr. Foster's talent lies in the region of the pretty and the graceful, which, when he forsakes, he courts failure. He is skilled of old in deft arrangement of objects, which derives little help from colour or light and shade, and is sometimes overpowered by the often-noted inkiness of his palette. "A Lock, Stratford-on-Avon" (384), has the complexion of one who is saturated with steel medicine. His "Beech Stem" (414), with holly-bush, is pretty, although here his accustomed dexterity in laying on body-colour has deserted him.
Thanks are due from the sketching community to Mr. Duncan for exposing the real character of the Western Highlands of Scotland, and at the cost of much trouble (as it must needs have been) to himself, clearly showing to others that there is nothing in that inhospitable region that is worth an artist's search. In his masterly and obviously accurate sketch of "Loch Torridon" (34), the traveller will recognize all that is to be got, in an artistic sense, out of the principal mountain of the district, called Liugach ; with its crags like ill-built limekilns, and its low spit of rocks in the foreground that remind one of nothing so much as a long stack of bricks in a suburban clay-field. Let no one, then, leave his easy chair for a country so entirely unsuited to the artist's pencil ; but rather mistrust the topographical accuracy of Mr. A. Hunt's "Kyle Rhea" (406), and attribute to some fancy spun out of the inner consciousness of that artist the potent charm which his little picture exercises on the beholder, the more strongly the longer he looks. Mr. Hunt's work is of that order that frequently renders it a matter of indifference what are the places he professes to represent. Not that in general the places are not recognizable, for though in the comparison between Mr. Duncan's "Loch Torridon" and Mr. Hunt's "Kyle Rhea" there is no choice but to dismiss the latter as a poetic dream, yet, in other instances, Mr. Hunt's whereabouts may generally be recognized. His Thames views, for instance, and those from the neighbourhood of Loch Maree, are as true to local truth as they are beautiful as works of art. And one great pleasure they give is by showing well-remembered scenes in a new manner and, as it were, with a new meaning. Artists as good may have previously exhibited some of their qualities, but this one has seen others ; he has looked at nature with observation mainly original, and consequently paints original pictures. Nor does he neglect the too commonly ignored study, of light and shade. In fact, his studies in sepia are among the most notable things in this exhibition ; "Loch Maree," with the beams of the setting sun streaming up the loch under a heavy curtain of cloud, and striking on scarped rock and rugged shore 379); "The Wreck of a Steamboat at Tynemouth " (358), a noble composition of sea and sky ; and " Cobern, on the Moselle" (341), where there is a veritable glitter of sunshine. Among his coloured sketches the little " Pangbourne Lock" (409) is specially noteworthy. The Thames has furnished other artists besides Mr. Hunt with occasion for exhibiting their capacities. The greater size of the river views painted by Mr. Jackson and Mr. Jenkins is not the only or the most salient point of difference between them and Mr. Hunt's sketches. The difference hardly needs to be enlarged upon. Those that run may read. And this leads to a matter of some importance bearing upon the effect those exhibitions are to have in influencing public opinion on art, by showing the estimation in which the several works exhibited are held by those who ought to know. More than once of late those who have had the arrangement of the pictures have discovered a remarkable talent for putting some of the best drawings in the worst places, and vice versa. Some sacrifice may be always expected to the difficulty of fitting frames with each other, and to
other exigencies of upholstery ; and some excuse may generally be allowed for carelessness and oversight. But it is hard to invent a plea in defence of the peculiar perversity which has hung so many sketches by that thorough artist, Mr. Denby, in places where they almost inevitably escape the notice of all except those who have previously learned that he is worth seeking out. And as these are distinguished by his best qualities of tone, gradation, and tenderness (27, 271, 279, 373), so one of his drawings which contains the least of them (14), has been hung in a prominent position.
Mr. Burne Jones's studies are a sore puzzle to those with whom there linger some old-fashioned notions regarding the duty of an artist to learn how to draw. It is clearly not that he is insensible to beauty of form. If he were, he could never make those Raphaelesque studies of drapery which, in flowing beauty of line, are nearly unrivalled at the present day. This drapery is disposed over what affects to be human forms, but those forms are so ridiculously ill drawn that it is impossible not to resent the careless ignorance which interferes with the full enjoyment of the rare merits which the artist really displays. Some of the correct drawing which in his two chalk studies (102, 110) Mr. Shields has contbined with good modelling and much grace would surely be no detriment to Mr. Jones. Good drawing is not weakness, nor is eccentricity, any more than academic correctness, strength. Mr. J. D. Watson's "Gathering Bait" (40), though not very pleasing as a whole, is remarkable for the bold yet graceful action of the girl on the right. That a work is not very pleasing as a whole, though a fatal flaw in a picture, is hardly to be so considered in a bond fide study, and as studies Mr. Walker's contributions, like the rest, must be judged. So judged, his " Lilies "(367), a somewhat affected young lady watering flowers in a garden, abounds with talent. The flowering shrubs (except the lilies themselves) are given with rare beauty as well as correctness of imitation, and true daylight plays about the taller trees in the background. The artist's ability to combine beauty with accuracy is again seen in his "Mushrooms and Fungi" (407), and yet more strongly in "A Gondola" (398). Here the curves of the cabin roof, no less than the action of the gondolier, have been carefully studied. But what chiefly excites admiration is the consummate grace, reconciled with perfe4 naturalness, of the peasant girl who sits with her back to the spectator outside the cabin. Certainly there is an air of distinction about all Mr. Walker's work. V.
Previous page
