ART.
• Caina was an abyss in Hell, to which Cain had been consigned.
WE have had frequent occasion to remark on the unsatisfactory manner of the management of the Royal Academy, and it is equally evident that Water-colours are even still more cramped by the present modes of exhibition. For instance, we go to the Old Water-Colour Society, and we see the work of one group of artists the same year after year. We go to the " Institute of Painters in Water-Colours," and we see the same thing repeated by another group. We go to the Dudley Gallery, and we have a third group, as before, doing work of the same kind, and generally of the same subject, yearly. These three exhibitions practically represent the Water-Colour Art of .England. The average attendance during the season, at the fullest time of the day, is about fifteen at the Dudley and Old Water-Colour, and seven or eight at the "Institute."
The private-view day is generally crowded with dealers,. buyers, artists, and their wives ; and after that, as a rule, nobody goes, except where a solitary, being really fond of pictures, and having a vacant hour, strolls round the nearly empty galleries, and reflects curiously upon the feelings of the courteous Secretary, who sits at a table in the middle of the room to answer inquiries, and if it may be so, receive deposits, and affix the little blue label of " sold" to some favoured work of art. Here, too, may frequently be heard such colloquies as the following, carried on openly enough :—Buyer "That's rather a good thing of Blank's."—Secretary : " Yes, it has been much admired; only yesterday," &c.—Buyer : "You said sixty guineas, I think, was what he wanted; rather a stiff price, isn't it ?"—Secretary : " Well, it is marked sixty in the list."—Buyer : " I suppose a fifty-pound note would buy it ?"- Secretary : " I know he's rather anxious to sell it," &c., and so on for some minutes, buyer and secretary flitting meanwhile between the desk and the picture. So ultimately the picture is sold, the Gallery takes its ten per cent, and the judicious buyer walks off triumphant, having succeeded in getting a fine work of art—or so, at least, he thinks—fifteen per cent. below its
market value, and feeling all the glow of a generous patron of Art into the bargain. We confess that we never look at the pictures which have been " collected " by wealthy amateurs, without a thought of the amount of petty higgling which has probably been gone through by the collector for each work. Of course, there are exceptions. There are wealthy men who are fond of Art, who know a good thing when they see one, and -will pay a good price for it; but the great, by far the greater, number are simply hucksters in pictures. They have a notion that they can earn the reputation of beneficent patrons of Art, on the oue hand, and fill their own pockets on the other. The artist is to them no more than the machine that ploughs the land the crop of which they hope to reap, and the beauty of pictures is no more to them, than the beauty of a rich corn-field is to a Suffolk farmer, and is looked at in the same way. "How much is it worth per acre ?" That is the question. What is the conse- quence ? The artists not unnaturally despise their patrons, and paint them big, bad pictures, for which they ask four times what they are worth, and twice what they intend to take ; or they sell their pictures, before they are even painted, to a dealer at so much per size, or per year, and so avoid the higgling and brow-beating altogether. But we must not dwell upon this subject, we only mentioned it to emphasise the fact that these small, semi-private galleries are bad for the artists, as well as the art, for they tend to throw the artists entirely into the hands of the dealers, and a small clique of buyers, the general public never seeing their work at all. What is wanted is an exhibition which will do for Water-colour Art, what the Grosvenor and the Academy do for oils,— a place where every artist may send with a reasonable chance of almittance, and where the works of all schools can be seen together. The perfectly extraordinary lack of decent figure- painting, which is now noticeable in these three exhibitions, would probably be remedied to a great extent by the adoption of this plan, as in a large exhibition the main interest always depends on the figure-work ; whereas, in small galleries, a figure-subject of any size seems quite out of place,—as witness the works of Lockhart in this exhibition. Besides, the great object of getting the work seen would be accomplished, the public would go eagerly to a water-colour exhibition which represented the best work in that medium of all the artists, but they can always find better artistic remuneration for their shillings, than going to these small Societies, and in truth we do not blame them for leaving them unvisited. There is another point very important, which is that all the people who do go at present to these exhibitions, are either friends of or admirers of the artists ; and to such an extent is this the case, that generally those who go to the Institute do not go to the Old Water-Colour, and rice versa, and those who go to the Dudley do not go to either of the others. The consequence is that the artists never hear any opinion except that of their admirers, and they only paint what suits them,—they never hear what George Eliot calls "the frank opinions of our Free People travelling by excursion train."
And lastly, besides its gain to the artist, the public, and the art, this exhibition would be a gain to the nation, and one of which we might well be proud, for it must be remembered that water-colour art is an indigenous plant to our English soil, and in its. highest developments can only at present be seen here. You may look through the Continent from Boulogne to Moscow, and not find anything approaching to the water-colours of Walker, Pinwell, Hunt, Boyce, and half-a-dozen others. But this will not long be the case, if we let our exhibitions continue in the state of contented apathy into which they hive sunk, and fritter away in half-a-dozen small galleries the works which should hang side by side. Already a water-colour exhibition has been opened in Paris, others will quickly follow, and, before we know it, we shall have lost our supremacy, if we cannot make some determined effort at general pro- gress. The fact is that the immense improvement in tech- nical skill, and the foolish imitation without clear under- standing of the Pre-Raphaelite principles of work, has resulted in many instances in a style of petty, minute, uninteresting painting; and in the cases where the artists have chosen rather to follow what is called the "transparent" methods of water-colour painting, they have been almost invariably the weaker brethren, and have retained their fondness for the chrorao-lithographic colour and composition : the sort of picture that was inaugu- rated by Richardson and Rowbotham, and which, as its effect depended chiefly upon bright colours sharply contrasted, was especially suitable for reproduction by the above method. Much of the worst water-colour art of the day is due either to the imitation of Richardson on the one hand, or Walker on the other, and we see little hope for this art, unless it can get into a freer atmosphere, and emancipate itself from the thraldom in which it •is at present languishing. We must apologise to our readers for this long preface to our notice of the Water- Colour Society, but all who wish well to this branch of Art will, we are sure, readily excuse us.
The first work we shall notice is No. 14, by Henry Wallis, a scene from the Merchant of Venice,—Antonio receiving the con- gratulations of his friend after the trial. In dramatic interest this picture is a total failure ; one neither knows nor cares which is Antonio, or what the friends are saying to him ; in arrange- ment it is clever, and in colour interesting. It is remarkable in the present exhibition, as being almost the only attempt, and it is more or less successful in its endeavour, to make a piece of paper valuable by the mere beauty of its colouring. The colour is sometimes a little sharp (this word really expresses it, it seems to set your teeth slightly on edge), as, for instance, in the gold capitals and the green, serpentine, marble pillars ; but, on the whole, it is rich and glowing, though Mr. Wallis has not quite seized the beauties of crimson and scarlet, yet he has gone very near to doing so. No. 12, " Bury Village," by Mr. Thorne Waite, is one of this artist's skilful renderings of nature, not in the least like her in detail, but giving a pleasant colour-effect, with a notable impression of ease and brilliancy. Of all our young painters, Mr. Thorne Waite alone combines the effect of the old and the new schools of water-colour. His earlier works were little else than imitations of Cox, then De Wint obtained a great influence over his mind, and now he is like Cox in his skies and De Wint in his hills, though very much brighter and less heavy in his colouring than the latter. He is essentially a " sketcher," and his finished pictures are very seldom more than sketches, elaborated in workmanship, but not added to in detail. All that you get in his finished work you get in his sketches, and get it fresher and more vividly. No. 20, " Study of Moonlight Effect at Berne, overlooking the River Nydech, to the Oberland Alps," by Holman Hunt, is one of those essentially faithful and elaborate studies of almost un.- paintable effects of light which Mr. Holman Hunt alone has the strength of mind to attempt to paint and exhibit. No one but a painter can properly appreciate the intensity of the dif- ficulty and the resolute adherence to truth of such work. Notice the manner in which the lights along the river-shore are kept in their relative subordination to the moonlight, while yet giving distinct light to the lower portion of the picture, and the mingled effect of gas and moonlight on the terrace in the immediate foreground. Rightly understood, there is in this picture a very great amount of power and beauty, though we doubt if any one who has not studied the appearance of Nature at such a time would imagine it to be correct. The truth is, that most people carry about with them a more or less con- ventional representation of what Nature is like in various moods, and when they see a" picture, they straightway lug out this conventional idea of theirs and compare it with the picture, and if the two differ, then they say the picture is wrong. Thus, in this picture, the moon is surrounded by iridescent clouds, which give great offence (from the brightness of their iridescence) to most of those whose opinions we have heard. Well, this iridescence is simply,—true ; there's no more to be said about it, but it would be impossible to cause people who have not seen and noticed it in Nature to believe in its truth.
In connection with this subject, notice No. 25, by H. P. Riviere, " Coliseum by Moonlight." This is a splendid example of conventional moonlight, which is unlike the real thing. We will say nothing more of the picture than that the artist has nearly succeeded in reducing the ruin to the aspect of an old marten() tower. Nos. 31 and 43, by Mr. G. P. Boyce, are two views of the " Porte Neuve," at Vezelay, Burgundy, the first from inside the town, the second from outside. Inside, we see nothing but a roughly paved street, terminated by a white house with an arched doorway, and on the right hand a very charming little bit of steep by-street. On the outside, however, we get the city wall, and a fine old round tower by the side of the arched gateway, the long roof of the white house just showing above the old wall. Both these are elaborate examples of Mr. Boyce's work, but his most perfect picture here is a little one on the screen, a deep, narrow valley, seen from above, the sides of the hills are covered with yellow birches, through which we get a broken view of the winding road, and the landscape be- yond. We think Mr. Boyce's " finish " is almost passing the stage where it adds to the truth of the scene. It seems now almost as if the artist had grown to love it for its own sake,
and his pictures are beginning to have the appearance of labour, as well as the reality. We say this with the greatest diffidence, as Mr. Boyce's works have always given us the greatest personal plea- sure of any landscape-painter since Walker. No. 49, by Walter Duncan, is a melancholy instance of what a peril a young painter may find it to have a sense of colour, or, perhaps, rather to be told that he has such a sense. In this picture of " Music," three people sitting upon the ground playing and singing, there is neither in- terest nor drawing, nothing but a lot of reds and orangey-yellows and greens, put on in more or less effective blots. Notice especially the insolent drawing of the hands,—more like vultures' claws. No. 55, " Cottage Gardens, Fir Hill, Shere, Surrey," by Mrs. Allingham, a little bit of nature, very evidently touched by a woman's hand, full of delicate beauty, and that softly modified truth a woman delights in, not the coarse, blunt, unadulterated truth of man. A little small, perhaps, and somewhat trivial, but fresh and green as spring-time itself. No. 53, "Hues of Evening," by Alfred Newton. A fine studio-drawing of the gray side of snow-mountains, evidently painted without direct recurrence to nature. A poem rather than a picture, quiet, beautiful, and sad. No. 54, by Clara Montalba, " Crab Pots, Venice," is a drawing of those interesting objects, overhung by a couple of shapeless red and yellow sails and an old wall, above which some confused and very ill-drawn branches of trees appear ; in the distance is " Santa Maria." Miss Montalba has many draw- ings here, but all are alike in two respects ; in all there is a total contempt for drawing, and for decently careful painting; the only thing sought for is some subject which will give occasion to introduce an effect of light, or of that peculiar colour which this lady affects. Look, for instance, at 264, by this lady, on the fourth screen. It is a little drawing, about six inches long, and even when you are sitting down on the sofa, you can see the way in which the body-colour has been smeared over the sky, apparently with the finger, in irregular patches. This coarseness of drawing and colouring is the more to be regretted, as this lady is certainly clever in many ways.
Nos. 88 and 96, by Matthew Hale, a scene on Como, and a scene by the quay in Bristol, are two poetical drawings of con- siderable interest. The atmosphere in each is well rendered, and there is in the latter just that touch of unforced poetry which is necessary in the treatment of such a subject to bring it properly within the sphere of Art. The idle ships moored to the wharf, the busy crowds of people, the steeple rising out of the mist and cutting sharply the clearer air above, and the moon beaming yellow and still in the quiet twilight above the busy city, are all just tinged with the poetry we speak of,—
" Rest after toil, port after stormy sea, Peace after war, death after life,
Both greatly please."
We hope none of our readers will be hard upon us for misquo- tation, for we have quite forgotten where the above comes from, and cannot verify it. But such seems to be the sentiment of the picture, and the execution is thoroughly simple and good, the drawing of the ships especially.
Nos. 157 and 209 are two decorative or semi-decorative draw- ings of scenes on a railway, by Edwin Buckman, a clever young artist. The first a rot of navvies making a cutting, the second some stone-trucks standing idle on the rails, and some rabbits popping about beneath and round them. Both are indisputably clever, but are hardly to be criticised from the point of view of serious works of art. The drawing in each appeared to us be especially good of its kind, though, why a decorative artist should select such an unpromising subject as the first named we do not know. The second is decidedly comic, and rivals Marks on his own ground. There are many small landscapes by Albert Goodwin here, which are all good in their way, —and a very delicately lovely way it is. No. 294, " The Old Manor House, Maidstone," is the one which gives us most pleasure. Toni Lloyd has a great many works here, most of them careful, and some, as, for instance, the little sketch of two girls reading under a red wall, very nice in colour. Mrs. Angell has her deli- cate flowers and fruit, as usual ; Tadema, a Roman scene ; and there are many other small landscapes of merit, and considerable technical skill. A new Associate, Mr. H. Marshall, has a thoughtful drawing of " Westminster Abbey at Daybreak on a Winter's Morning," -which deserves eareful notice.
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