THE landscapes at the Academy show to better advantage than
the subject pictures. The latter are for the most part singularly wanting in originality and force. False sentiment and deadening conventionality make success impossible in so many of the pictures. Stage management will never take
the place of inspiration, as is abundantly clear in Mr. Dicksee's aggressive picture in the first room, The Ideal (No. 15). The painter seems to have tried to wrap himself in the mantle of Watts, and the garment fits him very badly. Something more is wanted to make a poetical picture than a dim female figure in the sky and a red-skinned man in the foreground. Nor does heavy and clogged paint, which is a mere caricature of the technique of the master, serve, except to emphasise the difference between a borrowed and a spontaneous style.
A picture, Good Night ! (No. 289), by W. Elsley, hung in a prominent place on the line in the fifth room, raises many questions. The subject is of the kind familiar in Christmas numbers of illustrated papers, and upon almanacs given away with a pound of tea. The picture consists of a small child and a number of puppies,—innocuous material made un- pleasant by vulgarity of treatment. Works of this kind in the trade pass by the name of "puppy pictures," and as such are advertised. They are reproduced either expensively in photogravure, or more cheaply by the three-colour process. With the hall-mark of "Hung at the Royal Academy," they flood the provincial and Colonial markets. But why, we wonder, are works of this nature treated with such respect by the Hanging Committee ? What interest can such an august body as the Academy have in helping to advertise a picture produced, not for its own sake, but for commercial repro- duction P Why, considering that the work in question this time does not come from a member, has it been accepted at all ? Finally, there is the momentous question,.—Did the Hanging Committee consider it to be an example of serious art ? If so, why is there no protest from those Academicians who, like Mr. Sargent for instance, are true artists P They certainly do not paint, and, we cannot believe, dnte in secret on, "puppy pictures." It must not be supposed that the picture which has been singled out is an exception. There are numbers of others the inclusion of which in the Exhibition is equally to be regretted. No one has a right to complain that there are not enough good pictures at the Academy, for good pictures are not to be had at will. What every lover of art is bound to point out and to protest against is the fact that the Academy accept and hang pictures which make no pretence of being serious art. How can popular taste ever be improved when the most prominent artistic body in the country treat good and bad as of equal importance ?
Mr. Clausen has got very close indeed to certain aspects of Nature in A Morning in June (No. 54). Here we have the painting of light. Between trees and over the green of young corn is a sky of the kind which belongs to an early summer morning when the sun is shining and the wind is in the west. In this work there is no attempt at stylistic reconstruction, and no desire to recall masterpieces of the past. The artist seems entirely absorbed by what he saw, and by his desire to render it with sincerity. At the same time, the picture is as far removed from the mere reporter's work of the ordinary realistic landscape as it is from the mechanical imitations of classical style. In Mr. Clausen's picture there is a bold simplicity of composition. All merely ornamental details are swept away, and what we are shown is not so much the fields and trees themselves as the light which pours over and envelops them. The picture is one which compromises nothing. It is entirely sincere throughout, and for this reason will find enemies as well as friends. People who go to galleries for the purpose of satisfying a desire already in them may, unless their taste happens to lie in the direction of this work, find it un- sympathetic in its unswerving adherence to one aspect of Nature. Another picture which is founded upon close observation of natural effect is Mr. Allan's Home and Shelter (No. 144). The workmanship is most competent, but the design and colour of the picture are alike cold and uninspiring. The wintry sea, grey harbour, and sombre ships, though powerfully painted, are cold and irresponsive in their realism.
A picture which loses from want of realism is Mr. Swan's Adrift (No. 10). This artist, of course, is unrivalled in his knowledge of the structure of wild beasts. Here, however, the Polar bear seems to partake of the unreality of the ice- floe on which be drifts. A realistic picture must be all of a piece to be convincing. The idealist by the magic of poetry casts spells over us, and we are forced to believe in all that he shows us. With the student of natural fact it is different,— bear and ice must both come .from Polar regions, and not one from the "Zoo "and the other from the imagination. Nothing but satisfaction arises from the contemplation of another work by Mr. Swan. This is a statuette in bronze of a Lioness in Repose (No. 1,821). Here we feel the artist is seen at his best, for the knowledge is translated into beauty, and there are no disturbing elements. Mr. La Thangue still paints Liguria, and gives us more of his solidly executed and com- pletely realised pictures. It cannot be said that his works differ in any respect from those he has given us before. The sameness of impulse of so many of his pictures makes them hard to remember apart. Selling Oranges in Liguria (No. 226) is perhaps Mr. La Thangue's most successful work this year. It is a pity that so good an artist as M. Fritz Thaulow should spoil his nocturne, Night in Flanders (No. 322), by introducing forced effects of colour into the moonlight. The painting of the shadowed houses and water is beautiful, but the picture is cheapened by the impossible red of the moonlight on the roofs. Mr. Alfred East's Dance and Provençal Song (No. 148) is purely scenic. It is a most skilful assemblage of high-class stage properties. No trouble has been spared in collecting the best materials ; but there is nothing inevitable in their relation to each other. The same objects might be arranged in many different ways, so slight is the connection between them.
Mr. L. Campbell Taylor has painted a picture of great charm called The Canal : Sunset after Rain (No. 120). The luminous air is rendered with great sympathy, and the colour of the picture is harmonious and the execution accomplished. The same artist shows his versatility by a picture of Una and the Red Cross Knight (No. 157), a pleasant if slightly prosaic rendering of the subject.
In conclusion must be mentioned a charming picture by Mr. J. A. Park, The Bay : Cloudy Day (No. 765), a sea-piece full of subtle colour and light; also Mr. Owen Bowen's silvery landscape, Sunshine and Shadow (No. 374), the broadly painted In the Thames Valley (No. 108) by Mr. Emsley, and the sunny Devon Cottages of Miss Luck (No. 154), should not be passed over, nor Mr. Jacomb Hood's Chelsea Pensioners at Home (No. 153). This last is an excellent interior, the dark empty space above the windows of the ball being finely realised.
H. SO
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