THE ARTS.
First in order, of size at least, is the exhibition of the Society of British Aetists, at their spacious and handsome rooms in Suffolk Street. We have already mentioned the improved aspect of the exhibition : the improvement is, we think, caused less by any striking advance in the leading men, than in a more rigorous expurgation of the inferior classes. Certainly the eye is not shocked by the monstrosities that once guarded the same walls. For the rest, the great moral still remains practically illustrated--our artists do not work enough. The best productions in the present collection suggest what the artist might do, if art were treated as a Tong and difficult study, combining science and handicraft. Our artists are really too much of 'amateurs. Look at Mr. Pidding's works— his picture of the young couple ' at an inn, alarmingly disap- pointed by the receipt of. " No -remittance " : it has many traits of character excellently caught and elaborated ; but how unlike nature is the general snuff-brown tint, how inartificial the composition ! And look at the same artist's study of flowers—heavy, harsh, and dull ; and see how much he has to learn in that excellent school before he can be a master of his craft. Herring has got much more mastery : the character of his horses- is excellent ; his still life and stray scraps of vegetation rival Wil- liam Hunt his work should be, to gather ideas ; that he may vary his subjects; and avoid the incessant resort to horses feeding with drooping heads. One longs to apply a bearing-rein to his pictures, if only for va- riety. Mr. Anthony carries realism to a rednetio ad absurdum ; he in- sists so upon particular parts of his picture, that ho forgets the whole : he forces you to acknowledge each particular stone, on pain of its flying out and striking you in the eye ; a country view is a matter of undeniable hedges and boundaries, like a surveyor's map the green, too, save the mark I is a three-piled hypeihole of viridity, making itself black in the face to assert its verdure. Hazl3tt, who culled Holbein:s pictures state papers, would pronounce Mr. Anthony's nature to be evidence in a criminal case on a sharp cross-examination. It goes far to convict some one °finial:ler. . Yet here is a village-church by him which indicates what he might, doifle would brood less upon his own idiosyncracy, and take up his worklii femore modest workmanlike spirit. The same promise we discern in Gill, Alfred Clint, Shaycr, and others : work done so well de- Mends more work to consummate mastery. The name of Clint reminds us of a capital likeness of George Clint, by C. Baxter.
The Society of Arts has an exhibition of "Ancient and Medimval Art," —a-collection of objects of vertO, comprising ornamental works in metals, precious, plastic, and useful, glass, embroidery, armour, statuettes, &e. Some of the specimens, such as the crosier of an ancient Irish Bishop, ' are of great antiquity ; but upon the whole, the middle ages, properly so called, are not very fully illustrated. The collection wants method in two respects,—it seems to have been gathered rather according to the offer of contributions than on any predetermined plan; and the number- ing is such as to defy any ready reference to the catalogue—it is an in- cessant dodging, as if the Society of Arts were haunted by a Puck, who had deranged all the things in the night, to vex the visitor, or had pos- sessed the committee with the same perverse desire. This, we observe, is a standingmistake in Adelphi exhibitions. The present collection is gathered from all quarters : President Prince Albert has induced his wife to send several beautiful and magnificent specimens from Windsor Castle ; and Mr. Committeeman Ferrer has induced his wife to send several specimens from his castle—for is not every Englishman's house, and eke his shop, his castle ? The collection partakes somewhat of the heterogeneous character of a curiosity-shop but still it is full of interesting matter. The shield by Benvenuto Cellini is worth the visit.
The Diorama of the Queen's Visit to Ireland, at the Free Exhibition. Rooms near Hyde Park Corner, is among the most interesting exhibitions, of the season. It is a moving diorama, and is ingeniously managed. As a work of art it might be surpassed ; but it is respectably, in some parts ably executed. The accessories of the getting-up are excellent : the room is perhaps the handsomest of the kind that we have seen; the oral • explanation, tinged with a not ungenial brogue and a not ungenial hyper- bole of loyal sentimentalism, is on the whole clear, unobtrusively plain, succinct, and sufficiently animated. The music of a pianoforte relieves the monotony of even motion with a succession of Irish airs and a few English airs appropriate to the royal and naval incidents of the scene. Not inappropriately too, in an Irish picture, the route represented is not that of the Queen, but of Mr. Phillips, the artist : by which practical bull the visitor is a gainer ; since the blinks of the Royal voyage by sea, at night, are filled up with Mr. Phillips's overland experiences by day, comprising some very beautiful and some characteristically dismal scenes, —Killarney, and unroofed villages ; hierarchical Armagh, and those 3filesian mag,alia the " scalp " and " scalpeen " ; the ruined castle of O'Donoghue, and the native quaintnesses of an Irish wedding. The ex- hibition is a valuable contribution to pictorial geography.
The Panorama of the Nile, greatly improved since we first noticed it, is among the exhibitions most interesting and informing. It is not a transparency, but an opaque _picture. It is infinitely more effective and forcible, except that the effects depending upon the imitation of lumi- naries—moonlight and starlight scenes—arc less striking. Tableaux il- lustrating. Egyptian life have been added.
A stupendous dioramic tour is in preparation to open on Easter Monday —the Overland Route to India. A portion of it has been exhibited, but in the busy part of our week, and we could not sae it The portion comprised the route as far as Suez, with Gibraltar, Malta, Cairo, and the Desert; and it is spoken of as the best work of its class yet exhibited.
At his residence in Portugal Street, Grosvenor Square, Mr. Alfred Hervieu is showing to private visitors a ceiling adorned with a suitable design, di sotto in ad. The picture represents a circular opening to the sky, surmounted by a circular balustrade—as if the room were a hall opening to the air. On the balustrade are flower-pots ; Cupids disport in air, or lean over the edge ; curtains and garlands of flowers complete the adornment. Itsis a very pleasing design. We are glad to see an artist of Mr. Hervien's standing devote himself to that class of "home-paint- ing," which might make so much work for pictorial industry, and so greatly extend the influence of art. Any amateur who visits the work will at once see the charthing effects of space and of graceful objects in converting a confined room to an open breathing-place. With a proper and instructive pride, Mr. Hervieu has placed among the decorations within the vault medallions of Raphael and Michelangelo, those great builders and house-painters—ay, builders and house-painters to Privets order. Mr. Hcrvieu, rising above the pride of modern craft, may be "proud to be less but of their godlike race "—for is not the true house- painter one of the Lares and Penates that people home with immortal spirits ?
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