ART.
THE ROYAL ACADEMY. [SECOND NOTICE.] To the short notice already given of Mr. Graham's " On the way to the Cattle Tryst" (76) should be added an observation on the resolute treatment of the picture as a imidscape and hot el a 6att14 piece. The cattle, though they prove on detailed inspection to be painted with great care and knowledge, are yet massed together so as in the general effect to form a base-line for the mountains to stand upon, and so as to enhance, and not detract from, the interest of the picture as pure landscape. The converse treatment, where cattle are the main object of interest and the landscape is only background, is well exemplified in a picture by the Dutch artist De Haas (232). Both treatments are equally laudable ; it is the mean which in such cases is the reverse of golden. To halt between figure-piece and landscape, betrays a want of purpose which is generally destructive of all interest whatever. The picture is then neither one thing nor the other. The proper introduction of figures is a most important part of the landscape painter's art. Many a fair landscape is spoiled by being overstocked with figures. Mr. McWhirter has done well to refrain from introducing more than a solitary bird in his very striking picture of " Loch Coruisk " (23). A low sun has just sunk behind the jagged mountains that close the loch towards the north-west. The "slant rays " shooting upwards fringe the clouds with copper, and spreading into the luminous haze of evening, flush the dark crags that are nearest the sun with just so much crimson as serves to give value to the cold purple of the darker shades. These crags are well reflected in the wrinkled surface of the water. Thus far the picture is admirable ; but though the artist has discreetly avoided some of the greater difficulties of composition by excluding the neighbouring sea from his picture (a neighbourhood which plays so important a part in Mr. A. W. Hunt's picture of the same loch), he has, either from not choosing the best point of view, or from taking a canvas too large for his mountain masses, or it may be from not adhering with sufficient accuracy to the actual contours, failed to impart its proper grandeur to the scene, or to render truly the deep-inclosed aspect of the loch. It is interesting to compare this picture with Robson's drawing (now in the South Kensington Museum) of the same place from the same point of view. Although the younger artist excels his predecessor (whom he has apparently studied) in many points of detail, and generally in the naturalness of his colour, yet to the older work must be conceded the palm of a grander conception and a truer representation of the wild and gloomy solitude of the place. This highest quality of a work of art, that is to say, the power of stirring the imagination with one distinct idea, is possessed in rare degree by M. Daubigny's picture "Sur lea Bords de l'Oise " (158), the sun setting behind trees, with the placid river in front. It is a common enough scene, and in that sense realistic ; but lifted by the artist into the regions of poetry. Sober and self-reliant, it charms with an indescribable repose, and looks so perfectly natural that the thought of its being the result of consummate art is momentarily banished. The art of M. Corot is not inferior, but exercised upon different materials. His landscapes are seldom realistic in the sense above mentioned ; more commonly they are compositions of a semi-classic, semipastoral kind ; but so admirable in proportions, so graceful in forms, and so perfect in tone (which are but so many qualities of nature), that the impression produced is of scenes as real as those painted by the most realistic artists. Of two landscapes exhibited here by M. Corot (152, 422) the latter is the more thoroughly pleasing: the figures in the former and better known picture, and which are indeed its subject, can hardly be considered successful, except the distant one leaning against the stem of a tree ; this last figure and the trees themselves are most graceful. Among foreign artists whose pictures attract notice is Mr. Bierstadt, the American, who exhibits a large picture from the Californian Mountains (309.) But though one may argue from the picture that the scenery is stupendous, the artist fails to make one feel it. We not quite sure whether the object sought is not impossible of attainment, whether every picture of the kind will not have some trace of the surveyor about it.
Refinement is a quality always present in Mr. H. W. B. Davis's work, and notably so in anupland landscape just after sun-down (243). Others of his pictures denote an advance towards increased freedom of execution ; a faculty which his keen and patient study of nature will prevent his abusing. " Dry Sand" (301) is a specimen of this bolder work, yet retaining his accustomed delicacy and truth. The conviction that, however necessary it is to perfect himself in imitative power, this alone will not worthily represent nature, but that, besides this, and partly by means of it, there must be acquired some compendious method of expression, which shall suggest and interpret qualities and appearances which cannot be literally imitated, is sure in the end to reach every faithful student. Mr. H. Moore is one of the boldest of these, but is kept within bounds by constant reference to nature. His " Coast of North Wales " (51), with the sheen of a summer sky reflected from the gently heaving water, is a beautiful picture. If Mr. G. F. Watts should ever again assume to paint a wide expanse of water, he would do well to take a lesson from Mr. H. Moore. " The Return of the Dove " (45) is a subject the capabilities of which were well described by the able writer in the Times, and the picture by Mr. Watts has ever since been supposed to possess those poetical qualities which were suggested by the writer. But this is not so. An indifferently painted dove is flying over what only the most extreme courtesy can call water, towards a point which it requires equal courtesy to call distance. In fact, the picture is wholly deficient in that which is the most needed by the subject — space. Mr. Watts can do better than this, and must laugh to see how the town has gone on a wrong scent. His " Orpheus and Eurydice " (700) is a prettily conceived sketch, but " The Red Cross Knight and Una " (125) is a heavy draft on his previous credit. Mr. Oakes. has roused himself to rival his early painting in his " Early Spring " (33). A staring bit of blue in the sky and bad colour in the large tree on the left give a somewhat disjointed look to an otherwise charming picture. The inquisitive rooks impudently inspecting the new-born lamb is a true incident.
Mr. F. Goodall has no finished picture ; but he sends for exhibition some twoscore of sketches made in Egypt (913 to 962), which will do more to raise his reputation than another finished picture from the same source would probably have done. Unaffected elegance and careful workmanship distinguish all he does ; but these sketches exhibit also a depth and richness of colour, a freshness and vivacity of execution, not hitherto indicated iu public. Rich brown broken with grey or harmonized with golden yellow, solemn black and indigo enlivened by golden armlet or ear-ring, are here dealt with in a really masterly manner ; while the quiet dignity with which Oriental dress no less than Oriental temperament invests an Eastern personage is so happily rendered as to secure the repose which is one of the surest symptoms of an artist's power. Background to these figures there is properly none; only so much colour or shade as will bring them into good relation with the space that surrounds them. These sketches hang together in a recess of the Lecture Hall, where they are not unlikely to escape notice, unless specially sought out.
As if to show that pictures involving what is euphemistically called " the nude" may be perfectly pure, Mr. Armitage has painted such a picture in his " Hero lighting the Beacon for Leander" (108). In fact, he has invested the figure with something of that unapproachable purity which is the distinctive quality of the best Greek sculpture. This may partly be due to the colour of moonlight, but is, no doubt, principally to be ascribed to the intention of the artist. It is needless to say of this artist that his drawing is correct ; it is also very graceful, and the modelling of the figure admirably done, chiefly by reflected lights and without calling in aid any depth of shadow. Directly the reverse in sentiment is Mr. Leighton's " Helios and Rhodos" (864), a picture which is in close relationship with Mr. Swinburne's maddest verses. Rhodos is very well painted, but the picture is confused hi its light and shade. Mr. A. Moore's " Venus" (699) is a fine study of form, and without the blot that stains Mr. Leighton's Rhodos. The colour is of the chalky artificial character which Mr. Moore commonly affects, and is better suited for wall decoration than for a picture proper. The texture, too, is leprous. " A Quartet" (483), by the same artist, is a beautiful study of human form and drapery. Musicians are much exercised by the action of the violoncello-player on the right, who is represented as executing what is technically called a thumb-passage. This, say they, was a method of execution unknown at the period (say 1800 years ago), and argues a reprehensible lack of archaeological knowledge. Let the musicians say what they will, it is a beautiful picture. V.
Previous page
