FINE ARTS.
OLD SOCIETY OF WATER- COLOUR PAINTERS.
OF all the annual exhibitions this is the most agreeable and satisfactory. Possessing perhaps less of mere novelty and variety than any other, and affording very little excitement of an intense kind, the gallery of the Old Water-Colour Society yields to the visiter quiet gratification almost unalloyed. Its charm resides in the sober truth and excellence of its representations of nature, animate and inanimate, portrayed in a medium peculiarly well adapted to depict atmospheric effects ; and employed mostly by veterans who may be said to have formed the school — unrivalled in its way —of which they are at the head. Even the designers of figures partake of the simple, homely, free,. English style of the landscape-painters ; their subjects being mostly of rustic or old-world character, or out-door scenes with sportsmen, gipsies, cottagers, &c. In the display this year, landscape and sea- pieces predominate, as usual ; but we must give precedence to the de- signs.
CATTERMOLE is equally great in his treatment of scenery and figures ; investing both with an imaginative grandeur. His large land- scape with figures, Contest for the Bridge, (81,) has an historical cha- racter; though the fighting groups in the foreground are subordinate to the huge trees that dominate the scene, almost screening from view the old castle whose turrets peer above them, and though the combatants lack the fury and movement of men engaged in a deadly struggle. The Refectory—Grace, (135,) monks at their noontide meal, is impressive from its general characteristics, not from any interest created by individual beads: vagueness, indeed, is one of the sources of CAT.. TERMOLE'S power, which is suggestive rather than demonstrative. FRE- DERICK TAYLER contributes no large drawing this year, but his smaller ones are full of life and interest. Hot/Mess Wanderers, (276,)—a mother with an infant seated by the roadside, and a barefooted urchin beside her--is a touching picture of destitution : the expression of patient misery in the poor woman's countenance, and the wolfish look of the boy who has crammed his, fingers into his mouth, tell of famishing through hunger as well as cold. The Fair Maid of Perth (291) is a contrast to this painful incident : the ruddy cheeks and laughing e7es of this "fair maid of Perth," (not WALTER Scorr's,) who is returning from the harvest-field laden with the produce of the day's gleaning, gladden like a burst of sunshine. JOHN WILLIAM WRIGHT has one of his graceful and well-studied domestic incidents—The Reconciliation, (284,)—a father receiving his son's wife : the story is simply told, though not with sufficient force and animation to awaken a lively interest. Miss E. SHARPE, like most lady painters, is fond of gay colours and pretty faces : Little Nell Showing the Old Church, (86,) is too ornate for the representation of a probable circumstance. OCTAVIUS OAKLEY'S groups of Gipsies also, with an air of gentility and the posture of people sitting for their portraits, lose their true character. ALFRED FRIPP, another new member, gives a wild ragged look to his rustics ; and in The Poacher's Hut, (179,) he shows dramatic power of telling a story : but his drawing is defective, and he evinces a tendency to mannerism, which is generally resorted to as a cover for deficiencies. HUNT'S rustics are unmistakeably true, though this year less numerous than usual ; and his round-faced snub-nosed ploughboy is no longer extant. But he has two of his inimitable and irresistible drolleries, that shake the sides of the gravest visiters. The Toilet, (92,)—a woman pinching the papillottes of a little girl with a pair of fire-tongs—is Ilogarthian in intensity of ludicrous expression : the half-crying face and flinching movement of the child, and her upraised hands with bent fingers, pro- claiming the agony of her apprehensions, are contrasted with the piti- less insensibility of the operator, whose compressed lips and vigorous grasp of the tongs attest the tightness of their gripe. Aspirant—Done Up, (237,) is another pair of comical contrasts which HUNT so divert- ingly depicts: one figure represents the "aspirant," an ambitious boy in a blouse, puffing with prodigious complacency his first cigar, and affect- ing the gusto of an habitual smoker ; the other shows him "done up," leaning his head on the table beside the half-consumed cigar, with s face in which nausea is laughably depicted. HUNT'S pots and pans, nests and eggs, fruit and flowers, are alike truthful ; but his Yew Tree, (84,) is a failure.
JOSEPH NASH'S interiors of old English mansions, of which there are but two—Lyme Hall, (15,) and Crewe Hall, (43,)—have an atmosphere of life as well as light, so well are they peopled. His designs of figures are better calculated to give animation to his architectural scenes than to make separate subjects : the persons represent classes but not indivi- dual characters, and therefore should be accessories instead of princi- pa's. LAKE PRICE'S views and interiors of Italian palaces are vivid and characteristic sketches, though too crude and garish for pictures. DOUGLAS MORISON, a new member, exhibits several most elaborately- wrought interiors of Buckingham Palace, displaying precision of form, and minute exactness of detail combined with an artistic feeling for colour : we hope to see this clever draughtsman employed next year upon a less barren and ungrateful theme. The Eton Montem has fur- nished W. EVANS with subjects for two drawings, fit only for copyin; coloured prints from. LESLIE could scarcely make such a vanity-fair into a pleasing picture : it is only fit for the caricaturist to deal with.
In landscape, COPLEY FIELDING is the most numerous contributor; though be does but repeat his favourite effects with a heightening of mannerism that detracts from their truth and freshness: his brown moors with misty distances—green downs with descending showers- gray seas with black clouds and boats with ochrey sails-and woody glades with golden sun-lights-exhibit more of artifice and less of nature than usual. DEWINT has several sweet little bits of nature- old buildings nestling in bosky dells, with spongy clouds overhead and yellow harvests or em purpled meads under foot-of which Kenilworth, (91,) Shap Abbey, (117,) and Dunster, (104,) are most admirable for the sober freshness of the russet tints and the rural repose of the scene. His larger drawings have an objectionable mannerism: form, sub- stance, and space are sacrificed to a coarse, loose handling, that has the slightness of scene-painting without its effect. DAVID Cox is in great force this year ; and in his vigour and variety he never loses sight of truth : his largest drawing, A Moor Scene, with gray masses of rock overgrown with purple heather, is one of his finest works ; and Bala Lake, (103,) under a warns evening effect, shows that he is equally happy in depicting the glow of sunset as the dewy coolness of a gray morning. HARDING has only one drawing, Chateau on the Moselle, (51,) in which he emulates the expanse of TURNER'S landscapes, show- ing the windings of the river in the distance.
BENTLEY'S sea-pieces are admirable : he has discarded all his early mannerism, and acquired a style of solid excellence which represents the appearances of clouds and sea to perfection ; the waves have fluidity and motion, on which the vessels are tossed about buoyantly, the clouds also indicating the effects of the wind that fills their sales. To enume- rate all that are worthy of attention would be to give a list of his draw- ings this year ; but we were particularly struck with the natural effect of a storm clearing off, in Port Madoc, North Wales, (151.) CALLOW has likewise improved in the use of local colours; though he still paints thin and crude: his view of Edinburgh (173) is the most striking of his productions. G. FRIPP has an eye for the freshness and daylight aspect of nature, and sketches with taste and facility ; but he is in great danger of falling into the drawingmasters' mannerism, the be- setting fault of ready superficial sketchers : he should study his drawings more, and produce fewer. SAMUEL PALMER is ambitious, and has an eye for colour : his sunsets are radiantly bright ; but the sky is the only good part of the picture. To achieve the poetical subjects he aims at in The Guardian of the Shores, (89,) and Jacob Wrestling with the Angel, requires a more intimate knowledge of nature and higher skill in paint- ing than he yet possesses. COLLINGWOOD Seim! and T. M. RICHARD- SON junior are making progress. BARTHOLOMEW'S flowers bloom freshly here and there.
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