ART.
THE ACADEMY.—I.
THE good pictures at the Academy produce about as much effect as would the playing of M. Paderewski supposing his piano to have been placed inside a hollow square of brass bands all playing different music-hall songs in different keys. This is always more or less the case, but in the present exhi- bition the Academicians have outdone themselves in the pro- duction of cacophony. The official defence, of course, is that to cope with the vast mass of pictures sent in is beyond mortal power, and that the attempt to do so reduces the hanging committee to the verge of physical and mental collapse. This is no doubt true, but at the same time it is impossible to feel the slightest sympathy with these self-constituted martyrs. If the labour of selecting and hanging is so crushing, it can be lightened by a stroke of the pen. If instead of eight pictures, only one were allowed to be sent in, a vast reduction in. the twelve or' fourteen thousand pictures now submitted would be automatically effected. It is notorious among artists without friends at court that the bulk of the works are hung more by chance than by merit,—as, indeed, must be the case when the numbers are so great. Accordingly the fact that eight chances are better than one is a reco3nised factor in preparing pictures for the Academy. It is quite evident that this year is artistically a lean one. Why, then, fill out the usual eleven rooms with oil paintings of inferior artistic value ?
'But is there nothing worth looking at ?' the weary reader will ask, sick of the yearly torrent of too well merited abuse. To begin with, Mr. Sargent has, as usual, some splendid portraits. Three of these may be taken as in- stances of the different application of bravura. In Mrs. C. Hunter (No. 18) we are attracted merely by the bravura for its own sake. Here the painter has interested us in his magnificent handicraft and power of seeing his sitter in an individual way, but we are left quite cold. In Lady Faudell- Phillips (No. 444) bravura is used with the power of a satire of Pope. Hard, merciless wit, without carica- ture, is the general impression produced by this picture. The power wielded by the painter of this portrait has something terrible about it. In Miss Octavia Hill (No. 122) bravura is employed for quite another purpose ; here the painter's magic reveals a face illuminated by an expression of graciousness which only the painter's art can arrest and fix. One cannot but pity the numbers of people who in their search for what they call "honest work" will overlook this picture to fix on some tiresome accumu- lation of petty details miscalled " finish." How many people, too, who pass by this picture during the summer will realise the greatness of the intellectual concentration required to paint the sleeve on the right of the canvas Compared with this concentration, how small and mindless is the labour of proclaiming, or rather bellowing forth, the small facts which endear so many pictures to the average man. This beautiful portrait of a woman by Mr. Sargent, so full of dignity, makes one regret very deeply that no portrait of the Queen has come from his brush. So great an historical figure should have been painted by Millais and Watts. It is too late for the former. Is it too late to tell the dreary and conventional Angeli to remain in Vienna, and instead summon Mr. Watts and Mr. Sargent to Windsor ? Then we should have worthy portraits, alike true interpreta- tions of character and great works of art.
Perhaps the most poetical landscape to be found this year is Mr. Lionel Smythe's The Farmer's Last Harvest (No. 976). This work has the right to be called a picture. It is not an assemblage of objects, but one definite impression. Even after a hasty look a distinct sensation is received, showing that the artist knew when he set out to paint what he meant to say, and was not led hither and thither by passing thoughts as he went along. The whole drama of the picture is in the sky ; cloud piled on cloud tower over the sea with that mysterious gleaming white that only cumulous clouds can show. Between this sky and the stubble-field passes a funeral procession. This incident was not needed, and adds nothing to the work. One of the qualities which charm the eye in this pale, solemn picture is the sense of space, perhaps felt more here than in any other landscape in the exhibition.
Mr. Tuke returns to his favourite theme of bathers, and as long as he gives us such pure and beautiful colour as in The Diver (No. 385) there is no ground for wishing for a change. In speaking of the work of this artist at the New Gal'ery objection was taken to Cupid for being a real, and not an ideal, figure. As to The Diver there is no such objection. In this work the refined naturalism is entirely in place. The whole group of bathers is full of spirit and life, and the flashing sunlight and gleaming water accord perfectly with the youthful energy enjoying the freedom of two elements. The beauty that comes of movement of the body has been admirably interpreted by Mr. Clausen in Going to Work (No. 39), which is one of the most charming of field idylls that this painter has given us of late. In perfect harmony with the beauty of movement of the figure is the fleeting light and colour over the background of mowing grass. The perfect naturalness of the picture is such that, till a careful examination is made, one does not realise how skilfully all the parts of the composition are united. Much of the feeling of action in the young mower, as lie walks along, depends on the line of his shouldered scythe running parallel to the high horizon.
Another picture, though of a totally different kind, pro- ducing the impression of definiteness is A Coombe in the Cotswolds (No. 296), by Mr. Alfred East. Here one i3 glad to find that the impression is individual, and calls up no memory of Corot, as does this artist's picture in the New Gallery. The subject is a simple one and the light a sunny summer's day, but the artist has painted an idyll. The elms are finely grouped across the canvas, and the sunlit hillside seen through them has a bold sweep as it slopes down to the stream and the cottage. There is a fine masculine vigour throughout the picture which is well suited to the subject,—great trees and massed light and shade. The right balance has been kept between naturalism and style; neither dominate. To realise how much of this latter quality is present one has only to imagine the material out of which this picture is made used by one of the photographic landscape painters. How insignificant and tiresome would be the result. In the first room one is glad to welcome M. Fritz Thaulow, whose picture, Smoke (No. 9), shows a wonderfully decorative aspect of manufacturing chimneys. It is characteristic that this most brilliant artist should have achieved a great reputation before these walls allowed them- selves to be honoured with his work.
The accusation has often been made that the Academy welcomes equally pictures which are real art and those which have no claim at all to be considered seriously. In this latter class are included the mere naturalistic transcripts of facts, the illustration of trivial incidents, and the appeal to sentiments wholly unconnected with, and outside, the figura- tive arts. The following names are taken from a list made by the present writer of a few of the bad pictures hung in pro- minent places. To say that some of them, since they are by Academicians and Associates, were inevitable does not affect the matter, but perhaps explains how the lump has been leavened. Let any unprejudiced and competent person look at the pictures in this list, and the present writer feels sure that he will acknowledge that the Academy is not a classical concert, but a variety entertainment arranged to suit the largest and least artistic audience :—Lessons of Love (No. 128), Guy, Son of A. Prioleau, Esq. (No. 45), The Way to the Farm (No. 72), Reverie (No. 176), Miss Shee (No. 311), .1Cunc Dimittis (No. 402), A Real Good Story (No. 630), G. Marshall, Esq. (No. 170), Trailing Tracks of Glory (No. 67), and Why Hesitate ? *(No. 672). H. S.
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