ART.
Tali WINTER EXHIBITION AT BURLINGTON HOUSE.
[SECOND NOTICE.]
-THERE are not very many pictures of great merit in this Winter Exhibition, if we except those of Holbein and his school, noticed by us a fortnight since. There are only five of the rooms open, and these are practically divided into English, Dutch and Flemish, Holbein, and early Italian. Through these we will stroll leisurely, taking pictures and galleries in the order of the catalogue. (By the way, the Academy, or those in authority therein, have reintroduced that irri- tating and absurd custom of depriving visitors to the Exhi- bition of their sticks and umbrellas, for what reason it would be hard to say.) The Exhibition opens with two or three small pictures by Morland ; two more or less simpering damsels • (" A Lady with a Letter" and "The Pledge of Love "), sitting under trees, in white dresses and Gainsborough hats ; one of "A Coast Scene, with Figures." The damsels have some interest, as being a little out of the painter's usual line of subject, and also for bearing a strong resemblance to the Gainsborough style of treatment; but they are not to be compared to the pigs, horses, and dark farmyards that we are accustomed to think of when Morland's name is mentioned. A portrait by James Ward, R.A., of his mother at the age of eighty, is a bit of faithful, if not beautiful work ; the white mob-cap is painted heavily, with that yellowish-white that we find in all Ward's pictures. 4' Wood Nymphs and Satyr," by Etty, is, like most Ettys, a combination of pleasant untruths and disagreeable facts. Notice the neck and shoulders of the nymph on the right, for a specimen of the latter.
" Somer Hill, near Pembridge, Kent,' by Turner, is one of the most beautiful Turners of the " Crossing-the-Brook " period, though the subject and its treatment are both simple in the extreme, being only a lake, on the other side of which a park- like meadow slopes up to a plain, comfortable kind of English country-house. It would, we think, be impossible to over-rate the beauty of atmosphere in this picture, or of the mellow sunlight -which suffuses it; but it may be worth while to draw our readers' attention to the perfect placing and drawing of the cattle in the middle-distance, if drawing be not a wrong word to use of what has evidently been done with little more than one touch of the brush. A picture, by Joseph Severn, of Roman peasants in the Campagna should be noticed, for the evident results in it of long
study of the Italian school of painting. The drawing in it is poor, and the composition laboured and uninteresting, but there is a. nearer approach in it to real beauty of colour than can be found in most other work of this room, if we except Reynolds and Turner. The next figure, a portrait of Colonel Barre, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, is fine, but not one of his best; but further on in this room there is one of Viscountess Bayham, which could hardly be more beautiful, in the silvery key of colour chosen. John Crome, commonly called "Old Creme," has a good landscape here, named "The Village Glade," a little forced, perhaps, in its depth of shadow, and suffering from the mechanically snaky fashion of drawing boughs and stems, pre- valent before Turner, but cool and refreshing to the eye, and like all Crome's work, singularly uutricky and thorough. A small "Italian Landscape," by Richard Wilson, A., is of the class of imitation-Claude landscapes which have now fortunately ceased to be produced by English artists, and of which it is difficult to discover what the attraction could ever have been. The "Grand Canal, Venice," by Turner, is an example of his latest period, very beautiful in places, with suggestions of delicate architecture and misty light, but needing study and time to thoroughly appreciate it. At first, there is no doubt that this work, like most of Turner's latest period, rather repels than attracts. The view of Venice, by Bonington, is a great contrast to the above ; not that it lacks colour or figure interest, but that the colour is so hard and stainy, the figures so perfectly un- important, and yet so defined. Perhaps this is the least attractive of this artist's works, though it is an unusually large and very elaborate one.
In the Dutch Gallery, the first picture is one by Adrian Ostade, of three men playing tric-trac, very clever, in the painter's usual manner, but showing no desire for beauty, or regret for its absence. This applies to nearly all the pictures of this school, excepting, of course, Rembrandt's, and forms their greatest condemnation. It is not that the subjects of alehouse or kitchen are necessarily unlovely, but that they become so if there is not sought in them some amount of beauty, other than the mere glitter of the firelight on the pewter drinking. mugs or the copper saucepans. Every now and then, in these Dutch pictures, we get a glimpse of the contented home-life led by sober housewives a century or two ago, or follow with quiet interest the progress of some old-fashioned flirtation in high. wainscoted parlours or long corridors ; but, for the most part, the artists do not seem to have cared much more for the life of the home than for the life of history and legend, but simply to have sought, in dull preference, such subjects as most easily afforded them fit themes to exercise their skill. It is hard to connect with such a picture as, for instance, this "Man, Smoking" of Terburg, any intention whatever, or to see why a painter should have chosen it. When all is said and done, the fact will still remain true, that from a painter something more is to be looked for than contented delight in phenomena of light and shade ; nor even if there be added to them perfect delineation of the texture of common household objects, can we conceive him to have adequately fulfilled his office.
"The Prodigal Son," by Rubens, is an example of a style of subject very alien to the painter's usual method ; it is, perhaps, doubtful what the subject was intended to be, as nine-tenths of the picture is occupied with the interior of a cow-shed and a distant landscape, seen through the open timbers which sup- port the roof of the cattle-shed. The prodigal son is one of three small figures on the extreme right of the picture. A refreshing contrast to the Terburgs, Jan Steens, Ste., of this room may be found in a portrait by Sir Antonio More of a "Lady of the Court of Queen Mary," a pale, thin face, with small eyes and sallow complexion, but full of individuality, and beautifully painted.
There is in this room also a portrait of Lucius Cary, second Viscount Falkland, by Cornelius Janssens ; and a portrait of a lady, by Aguolo Bronyiuo, is also worthy of attention. There is a very pretty little composition of five figures by Watteau, suitable for the top of a lady's dressing-case or a place on a boudoir-table ; and there is a Dutch town scene, with canal and buildings, by Jan van der Heyden, very much in the style of a, sunny Hobbema. The best of the small genre pictures here is probably the "Glass of Lemonade," by Gerard Terburg, which with all that master's fidelity of execution, is richer in colour than his usual work. The large gallery of English and Italian paintings, as well as those of the earlier Italian masters, we must leave to be mentioned in our next issue.
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