PICTURES AND ARTISTS. RIPPINGILLE'S ptcrultES. Ma. RIPPINGILLE has been for
a long time resident in France; and on his return was so struck with the drunkenness prevalent in this country, that he determined upon doing ablio.lis power to abate this disgusting Vice, by painting a series of pictures illustrative of its effects. These form the principal, though not the only attractions, of the exhibition at the Cosmorama Rooms, 209, Regent Street. They were to have ap- peared ut Somerset House, but room could not be made for them all RIPPINGILLE has been so long absent from this country, that he has almost been forgotten. Ile is the English Witxte—the CHARLIE of painters. In delineating individual character and the expression of or- dinary feeling, he is unrivalled by any artist of the present day. Ile has the truth of IIOGAILTII too, but not his depth, force, variety, nor his fine moral keeping. Ile brings all things to the em face, and gives equal value to the minutest accessorial circumstances in his design, and in a degree in his execution. We read his pictures as we do Hoemcries ; but Hoe/times produce coup and are effective as a whole also ; Rieriacatiaas can only, with one in- cidental exception, be seen in detail. But it is perhaps unfair, though it implies an unintentional compliment to him, to compare his works with those of Hoemerit—they are more properly comparable with IVILKIE'S pictures. Itieriaertte does not display the consum- mate skill in his art that WILKIE does, but the expression of his faces is more truly natural and congenial : WILKIE'S always seem like his version of Ole look, not the expression itself. Rireixensse hits off the peculiar feel rig of the moment with the nicest truth ; and some- times, but rot often, he gives you a deeper insight into the character. In general, 1 owever, he is superficial : his faces contain no more than belongs to tl e present occasion ; he does not give the whole history of the moral a an in the face, but only portrays the last phase of cha- racter, and the momentary emotion. This is the difference between epic and dere riptive painting, between literal and ideal or historic por- traiture. FO.:;ARTII represented the class in the man ; RIPPINGILLE only gives us the individual, and that ut one point of time. TITIAN'S portraits, it l as been finely said, contain the history of the man's life— that is, the result of his previous existence is summed up in the face. In the portrait of a monk of La Trappe, of which there is a duplicate picture in tl e present exhibition, Rieetteeitte, in approaching nearer to the style t nd subject of the great portrait-painters, shows the distance between him ant 'Irma : it is the difference between Caenx and Sllaaaaaana. But to conic to the pictures. The "Dia nk ,rd's Progress" is illustrated in the history of a rustic ; who, coming to town, is invited to drink by some profligate scoundrels, and thencef rward passes from vice to poverty and crime. The physi- cal character of the victim, however, entirely changes after lie be- comes a confirmed drunkard ; he is not the same individual. In the first scene, ' e is a simple, good-natured fellow ; but not the man to be metamorpl ose I into the hardened ferocious villain, even by drink. The subordinate characters are more truly pictured than the hero. In the first scene, the London swell, the operative burglar, the rustic rogue, half-poacher half-thief, the little shallow-pitted, sleek-faced, cunning rascal—a pettifogging lawyer, perhaps, who would escort his compa- nions to the gallows to get the last fee from them—and the girl of easy virtue, not t Carly abandoned—all are true to the life. The second scene, where the rustic is atoning for his over-night's debauch with is headache, introduces us to his state of domestic comfort and prosperity. Ile is seated in I i. wicker arm-chair, in his neat, well-furnished cottage, with his rosy-checked children around him, one of them brushing the mud off his ha'. Ilia wife's look of concern tells of its being a first offence. In the third, lie is seated in the gin-shop, surrounded by his former companic r s, one of whom is robbing him of his watch, while lie is chucking time girl, now thoroughly depraved, under time chin. The London s veil in the background looks on like the Mephistopheles of the fanner Faust. The ragged, wretched visitants of the gin-shop, with their squalid misery and ferocity, and the sleek, indifferent look of the gin-shop-keeper, with his geld chain and diamond ring, point the moral of the scene. The effect of the gas-light is here well imitated. In the next scene, the wretched wife, care-worn and poverty-stricken, is sit- ting up, with an infant in her arms, for her now profligate husband. The children, t r maim up pale and thin, are stretched asleep, one on a miserable bed, : n1 two others on the floor. The wan and wasted form of the poor woman, and her look of misery, fatigue, and hunger, are painfully true. Time effect of this picture, which is the exception we alluded to, is la rf impressive. The sleeping children, in the shadowed part of the room, are admirably represented. The sense of lateness and slumbering silence in the apartment, and the privation and suffering of the inmates, are vividly conveyed. In the fifth scene, the family are on their way to London ; the husband going doggedly on his way, the wife covering her face from grief and shame, while the fat and pussy 1 indlord is hes o ving charity on her. This scene, we think, should have preceded the co aner. The sixth and last represents the drunkard turned midnight robber, and with the swell and his companion waylay- ing his former landlord. The grasp with which he clutches the pistol, the other hand being also clenched, and his strained look, show that he is new to crime, and conn est with the ease and cool villany of his fel- low robbers.
This descrii fon will have sufficed to show that profound thought or wide invention h is not gone to the composition of these pictures ; but it will not have conveyed the numberless little points which give to the obvious scenes that character of probability which they especially re- quire. They are adapted to the meanest capacity; and in rural neigh- bourhoods of great towns, would be acceptable, and perhaps beneficial. There is not: i ig so good as a picture for conveying a moral lesson, ex- cept the reality. As the public-houses would hardly purchase a set of prints from tl ese pictures, the Temperance Society should have them engraved and distributed in rural districts.
There are several other pictures in this exhibition, which display, even more than these, the artist's skill—such as the " Recruiting Party," the a Stage-roach Breakfast," and other early works of the painter, which arc more elaborately finished. The expression of the young re- cruit, who eady repents his folly—the grave, searching look of the old co intr) mat at the sergeant—and the eager credulity of the lout who is swallowing his honied words, fascinated by the golden bait that the f edier holds in his hand—are among the best in this picture. The artist's studies of French life and character are very interesting, and speak for their truth. The group of children listening to the old fiddler, is alive. The urchin soldier, not only unconscious of his gro- tesque figure, but evidently wearing his uniform as a matter of course, and with a sense of pride, is capital, and all over French. One or two
other pictures were to be added to the display, but they had not arrived from abroad when we saw it. The series of the " Drunkard's Pro. gress" were intended for the Royal Academy exhibition, but there was not room fir them. Perhaps they are bCst seen apart from the wotks of other artists. They form a little exhibition of themselves, which the multitude of sight-seers will appreciate fully as much as the ad- mirers of art. The style in which they are painted would appear to disadvantage in contrast with the powerful effect and high colouring of pictures wrought up to exhibition pitch. In their present situation, indeed, they are seen under rather too strung a light.
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