SOCIETY OF PAINTERS IN WATER-COLOURS.
TUE smallest and choicest of the annual collections. The veterans of the Society so strongly retain their old characteristics, that they have almost outlived any criticism on their specific pictures. Rather, as usual with those who are beyond pupillage, their characteristics strengthen with the lapse of time. David Cox, who catches the roughness and freshness of na- ture, is rougher in his execution, and leaves scraps of white paper floating across his skies in a manner as unprincipled as ever; while Copley Field- ing tends unceasingly towards the opposite extreme, finishing off with s smoothness and blended softness that emulate the style of the best tea- trays. Yet it would be hard to match the smiling grace of Fielding's " Valley in the Sussex Downs," (38,) or of many other scenes. " Windsor from the Great Park," a sketch, shows that he still retains a sense of na- ture less artificial than the manner which he cultivates. In like manner, De Wint retains his lucid prose style,—plain, neat, and truthful. Other landscape-painters who aim at the simple portrayal of nature are—E. Dun- can, who has a beautiful transcript of "Gellingharn, on the Medway"; T. M. Richardson; George Fripp; and H. Gastineau—the last rather cultivates a small ideal, but his " Salzburg" is excellent. Evans of Eton has several animated.and blowing scenes from the Highlands, enlivened by figures and sporting incidents. Bentley, several of his fresh and moving sea pieces, notably " Edinburgh from the Sea." Nesfield strives to catch unusual effects—this year, an aurora borealis, and a rainbow—with considerable power and success; though he falls short of completely satisfactory results. Among those who depict buildings Prout is still preeminent; and, if we do not deceive ourselves, his peculiar manner, with its sharp dotted treatment of the shadows near the lights, is mitigated rather than strengthened. Re exhibits many beautiful views—the " Bridge of Sighs at Venice," " Part of the Ducal Palace at Venice," the " Palais du' Prince at Liege," " Part of the Castle of Heidelberg," and others. William Callow aims at less start- ling projection of objects and less richness of effect, content with a soberer copy of what he sees.: and his success is complete; as in several German and Swiss views this year. Frederick Nash has some excellent views of edifices, including a good one from Westminster Abbey. Cattermole is the historical painter of the society. He has a group of monks hearing grace; a knight setting forth to the combat as champion to a lady, who is waving her adieus; a party of travellers at an inn, to whom a pretty attendant is giving a " silent warning" of traitors in the same hall; and a scene from Siatram and his Companions, where Biord is sitting at table feasting with the bodiless suits of armour belonging to his ancestors,— hollow iron guests, of whom one has toppled from his chair as if overcome by the wine: it is a subject that exactly suits Cattermole's style. .Frederick Tayler has a great number of scams jut, which .man.sad. sat! , teals are introduced, all in his forcible, gay, and 'happy style. The most conspicuous is the Interior of a Highland Larder "; but the most beauti- ful are divers sporting scenes among the small pictures on the screens. Alfred Fripp brings many scenes from Ireland and Scotland, of which the best are on the screens: the rude, tumble-down intericrs, and such swage figures as the " Connemara Girl," possess more than a pictorial in- terest just now. Among the early numbers in the Catalogue is a capital Study of Willows " by the same artist. Topham also is Irish, and sup- plies, inter alia, a scene of courtship between Rory 0.More and Kathleen. Oakley is.English-including the Anglo-Italian of the street organ; is as happy as ever, and still advances in execution. William Hunt produces an innumerable variety of works, of which the best specimens are on the screens-well-furnished interiors, with daylight and candlelight effects; stable interiors; rustic boys, blowing at hot bread and milk or at bubbles dancing in the air; girls, rustic and civic; fruit, flowers, birds-nests, eggs. One picture represents the kitchen of a comfort- able country cottage, with a girl rehearsing her lesson to a young woman before departing for school: the whole scene-the kitchen furniture, the cross light, the window and the open light beyond it, the listener, the girl, her expression as she searches for the evanescent idea in the air, her gauze bonnet, her checkered frock, her attitude, her shoes, the tiles of the floor, this workbox and that basket-catch the eye by turns, and make you laugh at the truthfulness and the admirable concealment of art by itself- the force, and the wonderful skill by which the distinctness and projection of Nature are copied with Nature's harmony and beauty. No other painter could have painted a young lady, like one in another picture, in a staring stiff clean dress of muslin with a pink pattern, peeping out of a window between the white curtain: nc other painter could have made both form and colour stand out with all the direct force of reality, the hard uncompromising lines and unflinchingly-asserted pattern, and have made it as pretty, as harmonious, and as agreeable as if the comely girl herself were before you; which it is. You might say that there is no attempt to modify the effect by pictorial chiaroscuro; but there is-of the very highest kind-that of Nature herself: it is the wonderfully acute sense of colour, with its endless variety and gradations of tone, that enables Hunt thus to transfer unadulterated Nature to paper: it is wonderful skill of hand that enables him to give the distinctness of sunlight to the delicate and fragile forms of the primrose-to catch in all their threadlike delicacy the stamina of the May blossoms. It is to be observed of this artist, that the colours, however vivid, do not look as if they were laid on from the palette, but as if they glowed from the ob- ject itself that he.clepiets-it is not the red or green or blue from the colourman's that you recognize, but the red of the flower or green of the egg-real primrose colour or plum colour.
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