ART.
THE WINTER EXHIBITION AT THE ACADEMY. THE exhibition now open at the Academy consists of works by English painters who have died since the year 1850. It may be said at once that the collection is one of great interest, for besides many well-known and popular pictures, there are to be found here works by men who did not gain popular favour and Academic honours in their lifetime. To most people the Portrait of Mr. Morris Moore (No. 3), by Alfred Stevens, will come as a surprise. The little recognition gained by this artist was for his work as a sculptor, as it is by the Duke of Wellington's monument in St. Paul's that Stevens is chiefly known. What is so striking about this portrait is the splendid management of the material. Here oil paint is handled with a sympathy and a mastery which are quite unusual, and one wonders how many Academicians there were at that time who could have equalled the splendid painting of this sculptor. But Stevens was not appreciated, and was forced to gain a livelihood by designing fire- grates for Sheffield manufacturers. The present collection is strong in works by Frederick Walker. His Bathers (No. 7) has not been seen so often of late as some of his other pictures which are here, and it is therefore specially acceptable. It is no doubt quite easy to point out the faults of the picture, its scattered details and piecemeal treatment. The efforts made by the painter are plainly visible in the worried surface in plarcs, which betrays the laborious striving which tended to isolate details at the expense of the general effect. But if these drawbacks are disregarded there remains a precious residue. The true spirit of life is in the picture, life in its morning brightness. Walker has here shown an extraordinary sympathy with youth and movement and coloured light, and it is this that makes the picture ever delightful. It would be easy to go over the whole work pointing out particular beauties, —for instance, the iridescent colour of the river, the cumulus cloud low down on the horizon. How beautiful, too, is the colour of the butcher boy's blue smock, and what grace of movement there is in the two figures on the extreme right as they move quickly to the river; nor must the central figure be forgotten, with its reposeful attitude, which forms the fixed point in the middle of the swirling life. The Old Gate (No. 30) shows signs of technical advance, though the same piecemeal treatment is visible. But the real charm of this picture is its undefined drama. There is no story illustrated fortunately, but the figures are all real characters and have lives of their own, though accident has brought them together. It is this quality that gives the picture its haunting charm, and excites a feeling of wonder, —not of course that curiosity that comes from trying to unravel a story which is destructive to all true enjoyment of a picture, but that wonder that is excited by watching the stream of life flow by. In the water-colour room are to be found some lovely little pictures in which Walker's gem-like colour and work can be fully appreciated. The most beautiful of these is The Orchard (No. 117). One naturally turns from Walker to Mason, and there is to be found plenty of characteristic work by this painter. The Harvest Moon (No. 19) is the best known and the most ambitious of his works here, but this picture at, once raises the question as to how far the re-al and the ideal can be combined with success. If we look at the general colour, at the evening
light, and the soft luminous air which envelops everything, we are satisfied, and desire nothing further than this vision of beauty. But visions, however beautiful, have to be made of something, and when we look beyond mere atmosphere there comes the difficulty. Is it from a harvest field in Arcadia or England that the people who compose this beautiful procession are returning ? This same question in different forms arises in many of Mason's pictures. When, as in the case of the picture just spoken of, or in A Pastoral Symphony (No. 60). the beauty of the work and the poetic charm completely take possession of us, we are not seriously troubled ; but when the beautiful qualities are not so dominating, as in The Evening Hymn (No. 54), we feel that there is a certain element of sentimentality in the work which weakens it. Walker, too, had this sentimental side to his art, as may be seen in The Wayfarers (No. 65), where grace degenerates into pose ; but he had a firmer grip of Nature, and kept closer to natural effect than did Mason, and was often saved thereby. One of the most beautiful things by Mason here is the Landscape in Derbyshire (No. 48). The light of the evening sky, the tones of the group of houses, and the distant mountains are all treated with a depth of poetic feeling and harmony of colour and effect which make a picture of quite exceptional loveliness. This painter delighted in the mysterious colours of late sunset, and has woven out of them another poem in The Gander (No. 45). Here the figures are unaffected and natural, as they are in the Young Anglers (No. 52), a beautiful little picture of har- moniously cool greys and greens.
The early death of Cecil Lawson may be called a tragedy of modern landscape painting,—he died in the year 1882 at the age of thirty-one. How great his loss was may be seen in the four works of his now shown. This artist had a style which was eminently noble and dignified, and a keen sense of the beauty of natural effect, which he could render with force. His was not the landscape art so dreadfully common now, the art of small picturesque bits of Nature carefully observed and conscientiously painted. Lawson's assimilative power enabled him to deal with Nature in a large way. Marshlands (No. 59) is an instance of this. The subject is one which always fasci- nates landscape painters, though it is one which probably is better in Nature than when it is painted. The marshland is visible through a screen of near trees, and the effect of the jump from the large objects near the eye to the distance is one never wholly pleasing. Nevertheless, the picture is so com- plete in its impression, so restrained and beautiful in colour, and so large in its treatment that it is a delightful and impressive work. In the first room are to be found two small pictures by this artist, Strayed (Ng. 11) and 'Twist Sun and Moon (No. 13), the latter perhaps the better of the two, with its beautiful realisation of a subtle effect of light.
Albert Hunt was one of those painters who suffered undue neglect in high places. When looking at his fine Loch Mares (No. 17) and the really imaginative Naples (No. 139) one can- not help wondering why he never attained the popular distinction accorded to lesser men. A large part of the best work in this exhibition is a satire on academic honours. Stevens, Cecil Lawson, Alfred Hunt, William Hunt, Rossetti, Madox Brown, David Cox, Charles Keene,—these are all represented here, and are the authors of much of the best work, but they were all neglected in their lives by the Academy, which now enriches its exhibition with their works after they are dead. We are moved to quote Pope and say, " But die and they'll adore you." It is difficult not to feel indignation when one sees the little black and white room adorned by numbers of works by Charles Keene, and thinks how long the Academy had it in their power to recognise a great artist, and failed to do so. Among the comparatively little known water-colour painters was G. P. Boyce, and though the works representing him here do not give a complete view of his art, a characteristic example is to be found in Near Abinger (No. 165). It is interesting to see again two portraits by Frank Holl, and although they are solid and dignified, they appear restrained and sober when one thinks of the amazing performances of Mr. Sargent. Although Turner actually comes within the limit of the present exhibition, his work is of an entirely different character from the general run of the pictures here. The great Wreck of the ' Minotaur' (No. 66) is an early work of the master, and the later Venetian picture is so entirely individual that it does not join on to the other pictures at all. Turner stands by himself. The wreck is a 2.ne work, and the wonder excited by the power of it is great. Who else could have drawn the sea as it is here drawn, and have given the vast sweeping movement of the waves P Quite different is his Splagen Pass (No. 119). This is one of those astonishing water-colours where all space is imprisoned on a sheet of paper. Within the limits of this article it is impossible even to call attention to all the pictures worth looking at in this remarkable exhibition, which contains so much of the cream skimmed from the painting of the last fifty years. Visitors should not fail to look at the fine examples of Lewis's work (Nos. 26, 33, 51,150), at the splendid Henry Moore (No. 75), at Calderon's Aphrodite (No. 23), and at Mrs. Wells's remarkable little pictures. Nor should the face of the perfectly delightful urchin by William Hunt (No. 122) be passed by.
H. S.
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