FINE ARTS.
THE WESTMINSTER HALL EXHIBITION.
ALTHOUGH the collection in Westminster Hall does not comprise mom than a hundred and twenty pictures, it would be impoesible to specify one half without far exceeding our space: nor is it necessary to specify them; most of the pictures speak for themselves, as attaining to a mediocrity which is above contempt but not deserving of special notice.
The comparatively few which arrest attention do so rather as conveying a promise than as displaying any completeness of art, or even any adequate fulfilment of the artist's own intention. The picture of " Echo," for in- stance, by Mr. G. F. Watts, whose other picture obtained one of the firsts class prizes, impresses you with a sense of graceful thought and feeling in the artist, and of utter failure in the attempt to set forth the idea. It is the plan for a picture, rather than a real picture. Even as a plan MS faulty. Apart from the flatness of the execution, the figure of Echo is SO stiff and so studiously obtruded as to depart altogether from any concep- tion of the latent goddess. Yet with all the stiffness there is grace and a pleasing gentleness. A bird perched upon a spray over the stream, as though the presence of the nymph did not break the solitude, is a pretty fancy; but the colouring is so dry and dull that it gives the lie to life or reality. So it is throughout the work. It looks like a painting for a window-blind, executed by some poor hand after the design of a true painter. In many others of the pictures, though the execution is not so faulty, the defects are more essential. The King John giving up the Children of his Barons whom he had seized as hostages, painted by Messrs. Foggo, challenges notice as a work of considerable pretension, which it does not support ; the sentiment being superficial, and the composition, though not unsymmetrical, artificially pieced together. There is some power of draw- ing in Mr. Richard Evans's " Pompey the Great on his Funeral-pile "; but there is nothing in the design, and the colouring is miserable. If Mr. Eyre Crowe is an extremely young man, there is so much painstaking, invention, and animation, in his "Battle of' Agincourt," as to give hope for better things when the artist shall have disciplined his hand and eye. Mr. Crow- ley's "Oliver Cromwell refusing the Crown" is clever. Mr. O'Neil's scene from Paradise Lost—Eve humiliating herself to Adam in penitence for her fault—is touching in the expression of grief; but the Adam is tame and artificial. Mr. Robert Lauder's Christ teaching Humility is so like the better of Mr. James Lauder's prize pictures, that it seems a breach of jus- tice between the brothers not to have split the prize between them. Mr. W. Riviere's "Acts of Mercy "—clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, and visiting the sick with consolation—is historical painting after the style suitable for district visiting societies; but not devoid of a feeling for the subject.
There are some sea-battle-pieces; whereof the best as a painting is Mg. Charles Bentley's "First Attack on the Spanish Armada." The landscapes are not many. Mr. Linton contributes a couple of hia classical compositions; Mr. Havel], a landscape design on the subject of the Assassination of Banque; Mr. Jacob Thompson; Recollections of the Queen's visit to Scotland; and Mr. John Wilson Carmichael, a pair of pictures re- presenting Captain Cook in the Tropics and Captain Parry in the Aretin circle—illustrating the extent of British naval enterprise; a happy idea, which serves to contrast the icy and the melting beauties of the two regions; but not very powerfully executed. Among the pictures which stop the spectator, is a design for a window- painting after the mediseval fashion, cleverly executed by students of the Edinburgh School of Design.
Some works, however, in seersin respects, we think, excel the prizes. Mr. S. Crambardella's allegory of Queen Victoria's reign for instance, displays more command over the drawing and the materials than. many of the works which have received the award of the judges. Mostly, subjects of allegory are detestable, because in fact the subject, as we have before said, is out of the picture, and is only represented vicariously; but of all allegories those representing contemporary affairs are the most hazardous. To see Queen Victoria dressed in classic costume, and walking about in the open air among half naked ladies and quite naked children, close by a sleeping lion, raises ideas of incongruity and absurdity which inevitably stand before the ideas that the artist means to suggest by his device. Nor has Mr. Gambar- della any adequate power to impart an epical elevation to his figures which might extricate them from the untoward closeness with familiar objects. His goddess of Peace, for example, is so pleasing a young lady, that it is impossible not to sympathize with her in having to appear before the public in costume so scanty. Nevertheless, there is a good deal of power in the painting. The colouring, especially of the blonde young lady in question, is bright and harmonious; and some of the children are worthy of the mi- nor Italites schools; especially a beautiful boy caressing a lamb.
" Lamentation " by Mr. W. E. T. Dodson—parents lamenting over chil- dren who have been slain, a group to illustrate horror of war or the mas- sacre of the innocents—has much truth of feeling. A child lies dead upon the ground; by it reclines a mother, supported by a men who is consoling her; another woman is weeping over another dead child; a third child ds running to his parents with what purpose does not appear. The principal figure is designed with much feeling. That she is a matron, not a girl, is conveyed with delicacy in the character of the forms; and there is a grace- ful mixture of familiarity and respect in the action of the man who sup- ports her. She has not fainted; her eyes are but half closed, her features are not convulsed; but her whole being is dissolved in the weakness of hopeless grief
One of the most striking pictures in the collection is Mr. Edward Cor- bould's "William of Eynesham reciting the Valour of the Rose of Rouen and the Victory of Towlon Field"; the said " rose " being the Earl of March. The design suffers from the fact that the subject of it is not in the picture: the deeds of the Earl are told in words; the words cannot be painted, nor can the voice of the minstrel be heard; so that the interest of the scene is to be taken, as it were, at second-hand. No prominent action is before you, no master passion sways the figures. Partly from the same reason, the picture lacks unity, and partly also because the parts are ela- borated with too equal minuteness and force. But those are executed with
a power perhaps exceeding that of any other work in the hall. The min- strel and the crowd around him—is girlleaning near him, the warriors, two
children in front, a gallant iz. gumptuous clothing who has dismounted_ from his horse—are well designed; they are finely farmed, natural, free- said spontaneous in action; and the themes am painted with a truth sal
force bordering on illusion. The head and neck of the horse could scarcely be better executed even by the chief of living animal painters. In this work we recognize an unusual capacity for the technical and material parts of art; which is the more noticeable since, we believe, it is the first paint- ing in oils which Mr. Corbould has performed.
Another remarkable work is the picture of "Rizpah"; not only because it is painted by a lord, but also from its intrinsic qualities. The painter is Earl Compton, son of the Marquis of Northampton. Rizpah is watching to keep the birds of prey from the bodies of the two youths: the landscape is desolate and dreary; the youths lie, partially covered, one leaning over the other, in the sleep of death; a bird of prey sails above them, and seems to menace the watcher who keeps it from its rights; Rizpah gazes at it with patient resolution. The design is very fine-simple, sober, earnest, vigorous, and well concentrated: the expression of Rizpah's countenance is intensely living, in spite of its repose. The execution is very unequal. The painter has not mastered the art of drawing, and consents to make a shift with a sort of modelling quite unworthy of his conception. His colouring is formed on the finest Italian types-we will not do him the in- justice of mentioning any great name in juxtaposition with his own-but parts of it act as foils to others. Some portions are beautiful, especially the bosom of the woman and the dress close to it; the whole design of the colouring is good; but in parts there are stray browns and patches of what painters call "hot," which a colourist of so much feeling ought to have kept away. Lord Compton has perhaps been trying too much to paint like the great italinea, instead of trying to discover how it was that they painted like nature; so that he sometimes succeeds in a happy bit of imitation, and sometimes brushes away at random, seeking without clue for the true effect. We suspect that the artist is hurt by being a lord; and that some neglect or desultory kind of study has spoiled one who might have been a truly fine painter. We think that he would be so if he could only develop what is in him.
Two pictures are excluded from prizes which might fairly have ex- pected a favourable award under the terms of the public notice. One is Sir William .Allan's "Battle of Waterloo "-at the time of the decisive stroke, about eight o'clock on the evening of June the 18th. This is a work by an artist of old repute executed with the utmost painstaking, and with the closest fidelity to historical accuracy: the ground studied with the minutest attention, the position of every regiment distinctly understood, the proper characteristics of every body of soldiers precisely marked. Probably this picture conveys a better idea of the great battle, and of the way in which the troops were disposed about the field at the crisis, than any previous painting. The other is also a scene from Waterloo-" The Defeat of' Kellerman's Cuirassiers and Carabineers by Somerset's Cavalry Brigade at Waterloo, June 18, 1815," by Sidney Cooper. The defeated brigade maintain a kind of running fight across a corn-field; a scattered, helter-skelter skirmishing, in which the pursuers and pursued are mingled; death falling upon many on both sides. The effect of the whole, real and animated-the varied ac- tion of the horsemen, some fiercely contending, some riding back amid the pursuers, some dismounted, or falling heavily to the ground horse and all, or riding away dizzy with their wounds-the endless variety in the ction of the horses-the happily-conveyed effect of the distance, with its remoter incidents and moving bodies of troops-all contribute to render this one of the most original and interesting battle-pieces that we ever saw. Some day-when the same hand has ceased to paint-it may obtain such prices as are now given for Dutch pictures which belong to the same class, but can vie with it in nothing except the single quality of high finish.
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