ART.
THE ACADEMY.
Iv is inevitable that people who regard Art seriously, and to whom it is a very important part of their inner life, should in these days strain their eyes to see if there is any sign of an awakening, any manifestation of a deeper and nobler spirit than has been discernible for some time past. The national quickening has been manifest in many ways. The larger outlook, .the nobler aspiration, the cheerful giving up of the unessential—all these have been seen in the country's life. Is this larger spirit going to make itself manifest in Art ? The technical abilities of the artists are high, their lamps are ready ; has the fire descended from above to light them ? The answer given to this question by the present ExhibitiOn at the Academy is most undoubtedly" No." The same worn-out motives, the same striving after prettiness, the old dull realisms, are to be seen on every side. The fashionable ladies are not ashamed to be painted in all their finery by painters who strive to make their works look as artificial and expensive as possible. The sentimental
still wallow and revel in their feelings, and when these have to dq with the sacrifices and losses of war the results are well-nigh intoler- able. But perhaps it is unreasonable to expect any sign of improve- ment yet. Those who return to us from the fiery furnace may inaugurate the new world in Art as in other things ; but this will be in years to come. Let us put our trust in them, for otherwise our state is miserable.
A small group of landscapes may be taken as showing a true spirit in their painters, who have not copied Nature, but used her material to create something which is of value. They have not merely recorded facts, however beautiful in themselves, but have raised emotions by purely artistic means. Mr. Clausen does this in his The Vale of Clwyd (No. 156), which, even if it is open to the criticism of being monotonous in texture, is full of lovely colour, and raises delight by its painting of the wide-stretching view of hills and fields seen from a height. The interest of the picture is all in the distance, and there is an example of the fact that painters are finding relief sometimes from the tyranny of foregrounds, which so often encumber and obscure the real motive of the picture, which is the distance. This is notably so in Mr. Sims's exquisite little landscape, April Snow (No. 533). Mr. Adrian Stokes's two pictures of the mountains are both gcod, An Alpine Tarn (No. 221) in its simplicity, and the Autumn Landscape (No. 400) for its stimulating blues and yellows. In the latter picture the great distant blue mountains, the nearer hills, and the trees are all wrought into a design which is beautiful, and carried out with a power which is delightful on account of its absence of assertion. Mr. Arnesby Brown's landscapes are different from those just described, and in some ways different from the work he has shown of late years. This artist so often seems obsessed by the idea that he must make the execution of a large canvas look as if it were that of a small one-sitting sketch enlarged. His ideal has seemed to be the kind of work which Puvis de Chavannes contemptuously described as a pochade d'atelier, a magnified small sketch. This year the artist has reduced the size of his canvases, and, notably in one of them, The Little Village (No. 38), quieted his methods so as to produce a work of great charm. Mr. Arnesby Brown understands the sky, but often spoils his representation of it by virtuosity of statement. In the present picture no such unsympathetic treatment intervenes, and a work beautiful and harmonious is the result. The Church Farm (No. 281) by the same painter is not quite so successful, for the very reason that the white cloud not only floats in the blue, but shouts to attract attention. Very strong and vigorous is Mr. Hughes-Stanton's large Ceder Idris (No. 87). There is an austerity about it which demands that it should be seen by itself and not be jostled by neighbours.
About war pictures, either realistic, sentimental, or allegorical, it is useless to speak. They all fail. The first are merely dull. There is no reason whatever for a splendid deed to be pictorial, and the momentary visual impression of an heroic action is most likefy to be unimpressive. The second produces nothing but disgust, and the painters of the last type have mostly to learn that the noblest thought in the world will not make a great work of art unless it is embodied in a designwhich is in itself artisticallygreat, quite apart from its subject.
Among the figure pictures few can be called memorable, but Mr. Clausen's The Sleeper (No. 78) leaves a lasting impression on account of its austere style. Nothing here depends on unessentials. The seated undraped woman sleeping is not an individual but a type df eternal repose. The figure has about it the feeling of a great primitive fresco with its reticent colour, absence of accessories, and largeness of design. Another work which has dignity and beauty is Mr. Arming Bell's Mary in the House of Elizabeth (No. 79). Very beautiful is the blue of Mary's dress amid the blacks and whites, and the two seated figures are finely planned so as to form part of the design with the architecture. Mr. Glyn Philpot has painted The Adoration of the Three Kings (No. 122), but has forgotten the adoration in his desire to produce a piece of late Venetian technique. In this he has succeeded in a remarkable way, both in the drapery and in the flesh. Indeed, the superiority of the painting of the accessories to that of the hands and faces is exactly what is found in the later and lesser masters of Venice.
The portraits are many but undistinguished. Two, howevee. stand out fcr different ree sons—Mr. D. Frecer Lit,chfield's Madame S. (No. 1i2) for subtlety, and Captain Lee-Hankey's Captain Howard Paget (No. 399) for dignified simplicity.
The Water-Colour Room is as usual a depressing place. There we see all that water-colour should not be. This lovely medium is at its worst when it tries to compete in solidity with oils, for this it can only do at the sacrifice of its greatest beauties. Why do not the Academicians try to make people see how splendid true water-colour is ? It would not be an impossible thing to do. To begin with, they would only have to ask such a painter as Mr. A. W. Rich to contribute some of his beautiful work, and then a standard would be set. Instead they encourage a false ideal of work. There is ono slight picture here which deserves notice, not from its intrinsic importance, but because it is true to the great English water-colour tradition. It is Mr. Lintott's The Rookery, Winchelsea (No. 743). Mr. Gilbert Bayes has erected in the courtyard a War Equestrian Statue (No. 1,622). It is exactly described by its title, and makes a bid for official patronage. Much more promising a: a Sir W. Goscombe John's colossal figures of Air and Water (Nos. 1,457 and 1,458) These are models for granite figures for the Engine-Room Heroes Memorial at Liverpool. It is of course impossible to criticize such a work seen in fragments, but it appears large in design and treatment, and unconventional. Two excellent bronze statuettes, A Canadian Infantryman and A Tired Soldier (Nos. 1,470 and 1,475), by Mr. W. McMillan, show real force and power, and also deep sym- pathy with the subjects. The large treatment suggests that the sculptor might succeed on a more extended scale, for he has the
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