,MILE 3tto.
THE ROYAL ACADEMY SEHIIIITION.
We noticed last week, though without attaching much importance to the. fact, that the general iinpression of the present Academy exhibition was not striking on a. first view.; and we now repeat the opinion more decidedly : the exhibition is a rather commonplace one. Unless there be a remarkable up-springing of young talent—which assuredly there is not this year—the best terms of comparison may be held to lie between the whole dozen or score best pictures of two seasons; and that comparison will not yield a brilliant result for 1855. So much for generalities. Of Sacred Pictures the tale is truly exiguous. Mr. Hook, alight as is his.vocation in that line, sends about the best—" The Gratitude of the Mother of Moses for the Safety of her Child." The little foundling has just been delivered to his mother as a hired nurse, and she, raising large brimming eyes in thankfulness to God, clasps him to her bosom, and kisses his hands hard. The figure has expression, however little may be its originality ; the colour is effective and the accessory portions are in character. Neither is Mr. F. R. Pickersgill below the mark he might have been expected to attain in treating such a subject as that misnamed in the catalogue "John sendeth his Disciples to Christ" ; which is in reality. Christ sending, back the disciples to John, with the admonition " Go and show John again those things which ye do hear and see; the blind receive their sight." The Saviour's countenance shows only a par- tial adherence to the accepted type; the hair and beard, for instance, being almost of a straw colour. The fact of the miracle on the blind than is simply and sufficiently indicated in his action ; and the woman who kisses the hem of Christ's garment is rationally introduced to mark His superhuman authority. Of the two disciples, one wears a sceptical and obdurate expression, which the narrative scarcely justifies. The Alms deeds of Dorcas," by Mr. Dobson, is a composition entirely distinct from the same subject of last year—aiming somewhat more at dramatic variety and lees at recueillement. The young girl happy in her new clothes, and the kneeling African girding his bright scarf about him and showing the Pliancy of his spine-bone, mark this tendency : Dorcas attitudinizes over her charity, and then he principal female recipient of it is a poor conventional creature enough. The picture, without achieving anything great in sen- timent or method, is nicely done. There is more individuality in Mr. Earlea's production—" Then said He to the disciple, Behold thy mo- ther.' " The artist has had the sense to discard the preconceived con- ventions of the subject, and to get out of some actual person or persona all he could master in the way of feature and expression. Unfortunately, that all is not much the-whole-ftrur or tire faces are closely similar, se far as to seem to have been painted from a single model, and their an- guish develops itself in a kind of spasmodic stereotyped grin,. which leaves a good deal to be desired. Moreover, the subject explains itself only by our coming prepared to understand it ; for, Christ and all other explanatory personages being wholly out of the picture, we only see a woman swooning at nothing, amid her attendant group. Still, Mr. Ferries has done his best, and in the best wayit occurred to him to do it Itn. mediately above this well-intended work hangs one of a very different character—" The Last Supper," by Mr. J. Archer ; of which a design had been before exhibited at the Academy. The painter has knocked up a clever composition with plenty of ease and dexterity ; the hallowed subject is "given in," and an would the religious feeling be, only that it is left out. It is high time that the public should cease to tolerate such audacious self-sufficiency, and teach facile painters that the balancing of lines, the flow of limbs, and the knack at obvious expression, are not only not the whole requisite for such attempts, but, when single, won* than nothing. How many a demi-deified "old master" would be eon* signed to the dust-hole on this salutary principle ! " Prayer for the Vic- tory," by Mr. Brigstocke—representing Moses supported by Aaron and Hur while Joshua is overthrowing the Amalekites—is too huge to be passed without notice, and too commonplace to be criticized. The Historic section would hardly fare better than the sacred, were it not fur Mr. Leighton's large picture—" Cimabue's celebrated Madonna is carried in procession through the streets of Florence. In front of the Madonna, and crowned with laurels, walks Cimabue himself, with his pupil Giotto ; behind it, Arnolfo di Lapo, Gaddo Gaddi, Andrea Taft, Nicola Pisan, Buffalmaceo, and Simone Riemmi ; in the corner, Dante." Mr. Leighton is a man with a dietinctfaculty for painting—for drawing, designing, and colouring. He has manifestly studied in a ripe school for developing these qualities—the French ; and there is an amenity in his style which overlays and harmonizes many defects. Coming before the public for the first time with so conspicuous a work, he deserves to be es* timated exactly, with an ungrudging recognition of what he does display, which must not be accepted as including what he does not. His picture has largeness, but not greatness ; style, but not intensity ; design, but not thought; arrangement, but not conception ; it is individual, but not original. The power of drawing is there, but with great deficiency in parts; Giotto's stockings, for inataneerhave no legs inside them, and mabue's thighs could not avail to propel him in the procession. The power of designing is evidenced ice the man who pauses a moment to string his guitar, and the woman next to him with an instrument of music; the two figures possessing the most of positive beauty in the composition. The painting is broad, clear, and sweet ; it is not strong, but able and consistent. The whole, ge,neral effect may be appealed to,—which is open and free, without displaying any striking qualities of natural aspect ; or, as a pare ticularRassage, the boy in blue succeeded by one in deep carmine, then by a drapery of indigo, then by vermilion and other shades of red. The flesh-tints are soft, but without power or character ; the spots of colour on cheeks and elsewhere like patches of- rouge. There is little or no dis- crimination of character in the personages ; Cimabue is a peaked French, man, Giotto tardy and unobservant,, Dante smirking and &chatterer. Of beauty there is equally little : high noses and nostrils, lanky hatehet faces, are the order of the day. Thus-the countenances are conventional; but it is Mr. Leighton's own-conventionality, and thatpeculiar enough to give a coherence to the entire work counteracting in some degree the want of individual distinction. We may say, in fine, that there is atone about the picture—an unisonal, methodic, not mechanic quality; a something like measured rhythmic utterance in words; and we antiei pate from the painter not great works but superior works, honourable, concordant, and inspiriting. Mr. Cope's " Royal Prisoners at Carisbrooke Castle, 1660," repre- sents the death of the young daughter of Charles I, from wasting grief, while in the custody of the Republicans. As in the artist's other elaborate works, it contains a great deal of concentrative detail and incident. The girl lies dead, with her cheek resting, as the story goes, on her Bible, which is shown open at the twentieth chapter of St. John, where the re- surrection of Christ is narrated. Her brother has entered, with.one of the guards, at whom he clutches with sudden terror and foreboding, and who has thrown down his lighted pipe as he quickens his steps towards the fair corpse. A. King Charles's spaniel gazes and whines, and a cage with its bird flown hangs in the window. The allusive value of the last incident seems to be interfered with by the cobweb which clings from the wall to the open door of the cage, as this implies that the opening has not been recent. The feeling is true and quiet ; and, from being at the first moment somewhat obvious and unimpressive, grows upon one gradually. The effect of light and shade is strong rather than true; the colour, as frequently heretofore, not pleasing, being what Dante defines as "perm' "—compounded of blank and purple, but the black prevailing. Mr. Cope's other two contributions are of a miscella- neous order. "Consolation" exhibits a wife who has just found that Sebastopol has made her a widow, and whom her child caresses with sympathy unknowing the cause of her tears : but the sentiment fails of reaching a point of intensity. " Penserosa " is a mediaeval damsel con- ning her missal as she walks. Mr. Hart spoils a grim but fine subject by feeble embodiment in "The Captivity of Eccelino, the Tyrant of Padua "where the atrocious denizen of Dante's Heli of the sanguinary chiefs, taken prisoner, has "refused to speak, rejected all medical and spiritual aid, torn off all the bandages from his wounds, and refuses food." Here the monster of crime is at worst an ill-tempered old gentleman, who dislikes pomegranates. The group of knights to the left is not ill-con. ceived as types of a class, so far as it goes. "Othello and Ingo," where the poisonous ancient first whispers his wicked hints, is less feebly car- ried out, but still stops far short of any real value to be got out of the theme. "The Abdication of Mary Queen of Scots," by Mr. Johnston, is a debilitated tableau of the thing as it would be acted at the Surrey or Victoria ; and it is the last "historic" treatment that will bear-mention.
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