ART.
MR. F. BARNARD'S DESIGNS.*
THERE are some artists for whose non-success, or, at all events, for whose non-popularity, it is especially hard to account. For frequently it is neither due to lack of artistic skill, peculiarity of subject, specially involved meaning, or unusual method. Their subjects are, on the whole, perhaps rather more interesting than usual ; their execution considerably beyond the average, the motive and character of their pictures both interesting and original, and yet somehow the world passes them by as painters, and declines, so to speak, to have anything to do with them in this respect; and we find them year after year still holding the same subordinate position, making drawings for the wood-engravers, for this, that, or the other illustrated maga- zine. No doubt in many cases the reason for this can be easily assigned to some special drawback of the artist's personality, some twist in his mind which throws a shadow over every one of his compositions. But occasionally there comes a painter like Mr. Charles Green, who really seems to lack no element of success, and yet never to receive its reward. Probably no living painter has done so many excellent drawings, full of so • Character Sketches from Diakens. London : Cassell and Co.
many varied qualities, as this artist of whom we are speaking. His illustrations to Dickens alone, we should think, must be numbered by the hundred, and in each one of these there is to be found, besides artistic excellence, an amount of character study, ingenuity of composition, and understanding of his author, as rare as admirable.
But it is not of Mr. Charles Green we desire to speak in this article, but rather of a brother artist, who divides with him at the present day the honour of illustrating Dickens, and who also shares with him something of the same popular neglect whenever he attempts to leave his work in black and white for serious oil-painting. This is Mr. Frederick Barnard, who has just published another series of his characters from Dickens, a series which, in our opinion, is greatly superior to the first. He is.—if he did but know it,—a tragic rather than a comic artist ; one who might give us satires almost as powerful in their way as the paintings of Hogarth, but whose comedy has always about it a hint of the Rosherville Gardens, and whose characters seem more at home in the attic and the kitchen than in the drawing-room. In the present series, the only drawing in which he has to depict a lady, is also the only drawing in which he conspicuously fails. The design for the composition of Miss Betsy Trotwood rising from her chair at the sight of the donkeys coming across the green in front of her house is, as the artist himself would frankly acknowledge, considerably the worst of the series ; and of the other five draw- ings, much the best is the single figure composition of Uriah Heep, sitting with curled-up legs on a tall office-stool, rubbing his hands and writhing with the humility of his speech. Perhaps this is the only one of the series in which Mr. Barnard has wholly succeeded in catching the spirit of Dickens, though in another, of which we shall speak presently, a portion of the picture is at least equally admirable. And it is noticeable that this drawing, besides being entirely successful as an illustration, is also, as a work of art, both in composition and light and shade, the most satisfactory of the whole number. We mean it for the very highest praise when we say that as an illus- tration of Charles Dickens, it is almost equal to the drawing of Fagin in the condemned cell, by the late Mr. Cruikshank. It has the same tragic qualities, and the same entire fitness to the character which the author described. After this, the composi- tion which we consider to be the most interesting is the one of "Dick Swiveller and the Marchioness," the moment selected being when the Marchioness comes in to ask Dick if he will show the lodgings. Dick is leaning forward, with both elbows on the office table ; while the Marchioness stands in the doorway, looking at him, half in fright and half in entreaty. Here, again, Mr. Barnard has succeeded and failed in the tragic and comic portions of the composition respectively. His Marchioness is one of those savagely comic conceptions, if we may use such an expression, which is far more terrible than laughable; but the Dick Swiveller seems to us coarse and vulgar, without being even comic, and beyond a certain amount of good-natured expression, there is nothing in common with Dickens's character.
The other three pictures in this series are the" Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim," a pretty but somewhat weak picture, full of kindly feeling; the" Captain Cattle," standing near his lodging, touching the brim of his hat with his hook, which is a clever drawing, but not at all convincing as to the Captain's identity ; and, lastly, the "Mr. Micawber." in which also the clothes and the attitude seem to have been carefully studied, somewhat to the neglect of his individual character. If we say that these two latter illustra- tions would be quite excellent as guides to an actor, for the make- up and dresses for the two individuals, our readers will perhaps understand the limitations shown in these drawings, regarded as illustrations. The truth is, that Mr. Barnard's designs cannot help being clever, well drawn, and vigorous ; but they can help, ad in many cases they do help, being more than this,—they fre- quently fail to convince us that the artist has had much compre- hension of the characters whose outside he reproduces so acutely. As we said before, what is vital to this artist, is his command of the satirical and tragic aspects of life ; when he has to depict these, his work becomes simple and strong. His picture, for instece, published in the 172ustrated London News six months ago, of East-End roughs singing, "We've got no work to do !" left nothing to be desired in its expression of the vagabond side of the working man's character,—for these men who were singing were, as Mr. Barnard thoroughly understood, just those who would not have worked in any case. Still, with every defect—and we have not scrupled to hint at several—here is a capable artist who means something when he does a drawing, and who draws what he means, in a workmanlike and capable manner. Here is an artist who finds many more things in the World than big-hatted ladies or Greek dancing-girls (who hail, for the moat part, from the Hampstead Road) and be-ribboned babies, and who has his reward for travelling over far wider fields of thought and emotion than are common to his comrades, in being practically neglected by picture-buyers and picture-dealers. Hence he is forced into the minor position of producing more or less ephemeral work for illustrated periodicals. This, at all events, is not one of the signs of that magnificent progression in art matters on which our critics are always congratulating us, and which forms the theme for so many laudatory addresses by the Academicians who distribute prizes to favourite Schools of Art, and the Princes who lay the foundation-stones of Royal Colleges of Music, or who open temples erected by a successful pill-maker, for the higher education of our young women.
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