FINE ARTS.
EXHIBITION OP SEETCTIES AND DRAWINOS, IN PALL MALL EMIT. This is the second year of an experiment which promises to prove a successful one. The sketches exhibited number about an equal pro- portion of oil and water-oolour, and include contributions from mem.;
bers of all our artistic bodies. Among those from Suffolk Street, however, we are sorry to miss Mr. Anthony; who, we trust, does not intend to withdraw his cooperation from this annual gathering. In productions like sketches, where success in the general result de- pends almost entirely on dexterous handling of the material, the real su- periority is, of course, more than ever to be argued chiefly from the pre- sence of something like intellectual purpose in choice of subject and ar- rangement. We shall therefore endeavour, in the first place, to deter- mine where, in the present collection, this quality is to be found.
This brings 1113 at once to Mr. Cope, Mr. Madox Brown, Mr. Cave Thomas, Mr. Cross, and Mr. Armitage ; in whose contributions may be summed up the amount of thought or meaning contained in the gallery. We do not recollect to have seen any work in which all the essentials of a subject were more nobly discerned and concentrated than they are in Mr. Cope's " Griselda separated from her Child," of which a sketch (287) is exhibited here. Mr. Madox Brown's "Composition illustrative of Eng- lish Poetry" (164) shows that his large picture of "Chaucer at the Court of Edward III.," seen this year at the Royal Academy Exhibition, was in fact only the central compartment of a very extensive work, em- bodying, in its side-pieces, personations of our greatest succeeding poets, and other symbolical adjuncts. As regards pictorial effect, it is to be re- gretted that these were not added to the exhibited picture, since, in the sketch, their chaste and sober tone completely does away with that some- what confused appearance, resulting from a redundancy of draperies and conflicting colours, which was noticed in the "Chaucer." The design is admirable, both in conception and carrying out. The symbolical sub- ject by Mr. Cave Thomas (11), where the last watchers of the earth are gathered together in a chamber, while outside the Son of Man is seen, habited as a pilgrim, coming noiselessly through the moonlight, may without exaggeration be said to rank, as regards its aim, among the loftiest embodiments which art has yet attempted from Scripture. The mere selection of the glorious words of the text (Mark, ch. xiii. v. 34) is in itself a proof of a fine and penetrative mind. Mr. Thomas ex- hibited a drawing for this work last year at the Royal Academy, and he now gives us a sketch in oils. We are fully aware of the importance of consideration to an artist who really has an idea to work upon ; but we hope the picture is to come at some time or other. At present it seems to WI that much of the costume and accessories would be susceptible of improvement ; being too decidedly Teutonic for so abstract a theme. Mr. Thomas exhibits here also "The Fruit-bearer" (16), and "Sketch for the Compartment of Justice, House of Lords" (142). The two other artists we have named above, Mr. Cross and Mr. Armitage, have sent, the former, two studies for "The Burial of the Princes in the Tower" (114, 202)-of which we prefer the less finished one, which, though per haps almost too slight for exhibition, shows the greater share of dramatic faculty' and the latter, a sketch for "Samson Grinding Corn for the Philistines" (93)-not very well executed, nor by any means representing the merits of the fine picture for which it was a preparation. In the second order of figure-pieces, the best are the contributions of Messrs. Hook, Egg, and Lewis. Mr. Hook's study for the "Dream of Venice" (240) is among the most charming things of the kind we know, and certainly superior in various respects to the picture. The finest among the drawings sent by Mr. Lewis, (the painter of that talisman of art "The Harem,") is the "Lord Viscount Castlereagh" (140), repre- sented in Eastern costume. In Mr. Egg's "Anticipation" (35)-a young lady glancing over an opera-bill-the features are perhaps slightly out of drawing, but the colour is most gorgeous ; in this respect, indeed, it ex- hibits more unmistakeable power than anything here. Mr. Frith, an artist whose name is generally associated with that of Mr. Egg, (while in fact there are no two painters whose chief characteristics are much more different,) sends a half-length figure of a lady in an opera-box (22)-very loose as to arrangement, wherein the principal value of such things should consist. He has also here the "Original Sketch for the Picture of the Bourgeois Gentilhomme " (222)-which is a fair specimen of his usual style of painting, the picture having been among his happiest efforts ; and the "Squire Relating his Adventures" (286)-which is not a fair specimen of him, nor would be indeed of most other artists. Of Mr. E. M. Ward's couple-one, a study for a figure in his last picture (87), and the other, a sketch for "La Fleur's Departure from Montreuil " (266)- the latter is the more interesting. Perhaps nothing can well be more re- pulsive than the prurient physiognomy of Mr. O'NeiPs "Novel-Reader" (40) : there is no name on the cover of the book, so that the fancy is free to choose between " Sofie," "Justine," and " Faublas." Several studies ef flowers here, by the same artist, are so good as to leave us a hope that he deserves to be ashamed of himself for his notion of female beauty. Regarding Mr. F. R. Pickersgill's large sketch for "Rinaldo Destroying the Enchanted Forest" (84), the only point admitting of argument is as to whether the sketch or the picture be the more meretricious in style ; unless indeed we were disposed to discuss which of the female figures is the most unlike a woman. Much better, however, and in their way displaying a high sense of colour, are Mr. Pickersgill's slighter sketches (69 and 119) ; in which the beauties of his present system of painting are more apparent than in his pictures. Indeed, the one of the " Contest for the Girdle of Florimel" is exceedingly brilliant and delightful. Mr. Kenny Meadows's drawing entitled "Which is the taller ?" (54) has much grace and spirit ; but we had far rather meet him in the more intellectual class of subjects, where, when he chooses, no one can show to greater advantage. Mr. fine's "Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries" (111) might belong also to the "Odd Fellows" as re- gards his appearance, which is -very quaint and humoristic. Mr. Gil- bert's " Sancho Panza" (126) is a clever pen-and-ink drawing ; but it has, in common with the artist's other productions here, a disagree- able air of "book-keeping" dexterity with the pen. Mr. Webster's con- tributions (184, 270) are of that utterly uninteresting class which can only be redeemed by the highest artistic finish. Mr. Cattermole has several very effective drawings in his well-known and peculiar style. Every- thing about Mr. 1Jwins's sketches here is of a very obvious description ; espially the intimation that the picture of "Sir Guyon at the Boure of B e" is "in the artist's own possession" ;-we should think so. The mild-drawn domesticities of Mr. Marshall, the frozen "Frosts" of Mr. Bolt, and that omnipresent " Gleaner " (64) by the relentless Mr. Brooks, are only not worse than it was possible for them to be : a boundary which has almost been triumphantly annihilated by Mr. Eddis, in the puny and puling production entitled "The Sisters" (83). We were amused with Mr. Templeton's "Study of a Head " ; the "idea" of which is pompously said to have been "suggested by a passage in the life of Galileo"; ; whereas it is very evident that the only "suggestion" consisted in the good looks of a model well enough known among artists, and whose portrait has been exhibited scores of times. Of the landscapes, &c., we shall have but little to say ; since, notwith- standing the excellence of many among them, they scarcely require com- ment, the styles of their respective authors being so universally known. Mr. Lucy's "Windermere" (171) calls, however, for particular mention, as showing how serviceable in landscape-painting is the severer study of historical art : this sketch is of great excellence in colour, and replete with poetic beauty. There is a sketch here, unprovided with any name (194), by Mr. Turner ; and specimens, all very good and some unusually fine, by Messrs. Roberts, Stanfield, Linnell, Prout, A. W. Williams, Cooke, Clint, Holland, Linton, Lake Price, Davidson, Pidgeon, Vacher, and Hardy. The "Sketch, North Wales" (92), by Mr. Branwhite- chiefly known hitherto for his frost-scenes-is really astonishing in depth and gorgeousness of colour : the same qualities are perhaps rather exces- sive in his other two contributions (139, 144). In Mr. Hunt's "Win- ter " (78), we cannot but think that the crude and spotty execution de- tracts from the reality of aspect ; but the same artist's Bird's Nest and Primroses" (271) is absolutely enchanting in truth and freshness.
In the class of animal-painting, we should not omit to notice Mr. Newton Fielding's " Woodcocks " (188)-very delicately and conscien- tiously painted, and reminding us in some degree of Mr. Wolf's "Woodcocks taking Shelter," exhibited two years ago at the Royal Academy.
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