ART.
CONTINUING our notice of the Academy in order of the galleries, we come to the third room, the largest of the exhibition, and passing by with the respect that is due to the " veteran
battalion" "The Anne Page and Slender" of Mr. Cope, RA.,
and "The Golden Age" of Mr. Dobson, R.A., pause, for the first time, with pleasure, at Mr. Yeames's picture of " Hubert and Prince Arthur" (204), a large canvas with a good deal of unpretending merit. This is history of the Mrs. Markham kind, it is tree, but, like that estimable book, tells its story plainly and unmistakably, and asks nothing from the spectator but a tacit acquiescence in the interest of its story. Its appeal to our sympathies is as secure of effect as a plea for the " Children's Hospital," and the picture has a sober consciousness of the fact. For the rest, it is quietly and well painted, with a good deal of power ; and if the canvas be unnecessarily large, it must be put down to the claims of historical art, which, according to English tradition, must be reckoned by the foot, rather than the inch. What shall we say to the picture that hangs next to it," A Summer Afternoon," by Mr. Sidney Cooper P Not even the performances of previous years, will suffice to make us endure this flat, monotonous, tea-boardy representation of Nature, or prevent our feeling and saying, that Mr. Cooper stretches the public patience past its breaking point. The cattle are well drawn, and all the rest is unutterably bad,—that is the simple truth, and need not be supplemented. Nor can we say anything in favour of these red-jerseyed, red-faced, red-stockinged chil- dren whom Mr. Sant has placed before us, but must pass to the " Memphis " of Mr. E. Goodall, R.A., which hangs next door. This is a fine, large landscape, of a fall, pleasant colour, concerned with ruined temples, con- templative Arabs, palm-trees, pools of water, and strange birds. Its sentiment is quiet and dignified, its interest is of a Sunday- afternoon kind, its size is great, and its merit is average. It is not a spontaneous picture, and gives us the notion of studio- manufacture by an accomplished artist ; but as nine hundred and ninety-nine of our countrymen, do not know a picture from a pancake, when they see the two apart, this may be safely expected to be a popular work of art. At all events, it will deserve as much recognition as the equally large work which surmounts it of the "Mayor of Newcastle," by Mr. H. T. Wells, R.A., which represents a comfortable-looking gentleman in elabo- rately-carved chair and civic robes, beaming placidly upon the Academic world. This is not one of those pictures which can be
called bad, any more than it can be called good. It is so hopelessly and utterly inartistic, that one can only feel before it a helpless wonder, as to why its author should have selected painting as a profession. Mr. Poynter has only a little, nude figure in this exhibition, called " In the Tepidarium," a girl sitting in a (presumedly) Roman bath. The subject is not altogether a pleasing one, but the execution is level and careful, and has, perhaps, more attractiveness than Mr. Poynter's larger works. Certainly his greatest shortcomings do not show in the present picture. The same artist has a design for the decoration of St. Paul's in the portion of this exhibition devoted to Architecture, which deserves attention. It is not, we hope, at all likely to be adopted, but it would be well for all who are interested"in art to examine it carefully. Mr. Watts's portrait of Alfred de Stein hangs next to Mr. Poynter's "Tepidarium," but it is not a favour- able specimen of his work. Far better, in a lower style of art, is Mr. Ouless's Sir Frederick Roberts, G.C.B., &c. (223), a manly, unaffected, prosaic, but life-like portrait of our great General, showing Mr. Onless's work at its best. Of Mr. Feed's " There's a Little Lady ! On with her Cloak" (241), we need say no more than that it is well painted, in Mr. Feed's harder and later manner, and that it is a capital example of what may be called the " Band of Hope " style of art, a style which is in great force in the present exhibition. Indeed, the Academy presents this year a most amusing combination of goody-goody pictures, and pictures which can only be called bady-bady. If we contrast the work of Mr. Feed, Mr. Horsley, Mr. Thorburn, Mr. Herbert, and Mr. Armitage, all of them Academicians, with that of Messrs. Van Haanen, Van Beers, Vinea, and Munkacsy, we shall feel inclined to think that all English Art is mildly futile, and all foreign art essentially objectionable; but this is not the case, and only comes from accidental selec- tion. It should be noticed that several of the foreign pictures have not been executed within the last year, but are already familiar to many of us, and it is to be regretted that the admis- sion of such to the Academy has been sanctioned, especially as it has necessitated the rejection, or the placing in inferior posi- tions, of good and new English pictures.
To go on with our notice, Mr. Pettie and Mr. Marks have both large pictures in this third gallery, and both are of com- paratively slight interest, Mr. Marks' " Lord Say Brought before Jack Cade " (242), has many figures, in well-painted costumes, but little dramatic power, and misses its point of interest. It tells no story that any one cares "tuppence" about, and the actors in its drama are thoroughly common- place. To beauty of any kind it does not pretend. Scarcely less futile, is the much larger work by Mr. Pettie, RA., entitled, "The Pilgrim," in which a pilgrim is relating his adventures to a knight and his family, in a dwelling which half resembles a cave, and half a castle. Perhaps, taking it altogether, this is the feeblest and the most pretentious work in the exhibition,—huge in size, unpleasant in colour, coarse in execution, and fruitless in meaning. Close to it is one of the best portraits here, representing the Rev. W. H. Thompson, D.D., Master of Trinity, Cambridge. We have mentioned this picture before, but must again draw attention to the power with which it has been conceived and executed. The large foreign work above it, called the " Maize Harvest, Lombardy," by Achille Glisenti, is a good example of a pecu- liar style of foreign art, intensely vivid and powerful in its delineation of rather prosaic fact, and executed with a thorough- ness, which few, if any, English painters could rival. Mr. Roll's portrait of Captain Sim, which hangs as a companion to that of the Master of Trinity, is also an excessively fine work, show- ing, it is true, all the painter's peculiarities of manner, but full of life and energy and meaning, and a sort of crude, unwritten poetry. Good, too, is Mr. Scott's picture of " The Wild Swazis," which hangs above Captain Sim, as if in sarcasm to the old mariner's matter-of-fact and weather-beaten physiognomy, and shows Ella being borne through the air by her enchanted brothers. Ella is not quite so fair as we should like her, and her position is one which seems to us a little strained ; but the work shows undeniable talent and great daring, is full of swift motion, and attains its object of telling a pretty story clearly and prettily. This cannot be said of Mr. Collier's " Clytem- nestra" (272), who stands at the door of her palace, with a great battle-axe in one hand, scowling hideously, and look- ing as if she had knocked down a bullock, rather than slain a hero. Mr. Collier should stick to his portrait- painting, which he does well, in a prosaic manner, and
not meddle with Greek poetry. We have plenty of humor- ous gentlemen who can burlesque .]schylus for us, if we want it done. There is a good deal more poetry in Mr. Leslie's little half-lengths of " Molly " (281) and " Bally " (282), though these pretend to nothing but prose ; but we are sorry to find Mr. Leslie giving us no important picture this year ; we can ill• spare him. Mr. Vicat Cole's " Abingdon" (189) will please• admirers of this artist; it is faithful in its way, thoroughly pretty and pleasant, and if it is a little over-sweet for Nature,—well„ most people will think that a fault on the right side. Mr. George. Cook's little work of "A Land of Flowers" (293) pleases us very much, though it is a singularly unpretentious village scene.- • There is nothing fresher or prettier in the exhibition, than the way in which the gardens in front of the cottages are painted, and the general effect of the whole is thoroughly natural. We' have no means of knowing whether it was painted on the spot, but it certainly gives that impression. Mr. Horsley's "A Merry Chase" (295) represents a lot of people in ruff and quilted petticoat, tumbling about in an old-fashioned country house,. and may be recommended as a thoroughly wholesome and well- intentioned picture, which has absolutely no quality of art in it, to render it objectionable to the Philistine mind. It is to art what Tupper's " Proverbial Philosophy " is to poetry. Mr. Long's picture, " Why Tarry the Wheels of his Chariot P" smaller and less pretentious than is his wont. It is also a little better, though still belonging to the manufactured-senti- mental type of art. The incident, is the fruitless expecta- tion of the mother of Sisera, for her son's return, though, to tell the truth, the picture might almost as well have been called anything else. The chief figure is a dark, pretty girl, twining a wreath of what appear to be like artificial' leaves, and behind her are two or three slaves, in various atti- tudes expressive of indifference and weariness. The mother looks up and out of the narrow window, and her face is the beat part of the work. It sounds like heresy to say anything against Mr. Long's work just now, when his pic- tures fetch such gigantic prices as those we heard of a week or two ago at Christie's ; but he is undoubtedly an immensely over-rated artist. His pictures are absolutely devoid of all spontaneity of conception, he is a very indifferent draughtsman (look, for instance, at his drawing of the extremities, and the nude figure generally), and he has no great qualities of colour, to atone for other deficiencies. His true merits are that he is. painstaking in discovering the right accessories and data, for his pictures of ancient life, and that he has a power of painting a sort of liquid, dark-eyed beauty, such as many people find irresistible. But his work is entirely super- ficial. His pictures have no life in them, beyond their outside prettiness ; his emotions, or rather the emotions of his charac- ters, show an incapacity for penetrating any way beneath the surface of thought or feeling. Close to Mr. Long's work there are a couple of fairly good pictures by Mr. J. C. Hook, RA., pleasant, fresh, and natural as ever. They are not of his- very finest quality, but good, average specimens, done with apparent ease, and giving the spectator a bright, thoughtless, pleasure, like that of the days of Spring.
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