FINE ARTS.
ROYAL ACADEMY EXHIBITION: THIRD NOTICE.
The most conspicuous author of Historical Pictures is Mr. Ward. "The Executioner tying Wishart's book around the neck of Montrose, at his Execution at the Cross of Edinburgh on the 21st May 1650," constitutes "the first of a series of eight pictures for the Commons' Corridor in the Houses of Parliament." What strikes at first sight, even before one sees much of the figures, is the scattered cut-up play of lights : faces, hands, dresses, and background, are crossed and recrossed with colours con- tending in hue and direction, in a not altogether unsuccessful, but an injudiciously-aimed, attempt at rendering an open-air effect. Looking closer, one does not find much in the way of character or incident to compensate for this, and may probably come to the conclusion that the subject—as being akin to the shocking—might as well have been left alone. We do not perceive more than two legitimate effects of which it is capable,—either a harsh painfulness so saisissant as to be powerful, which may have a value in its way; or the production of a no- ble sympathy with the sufferer. Mr. Ward does not elicit the latter feel- ing: his Montrose is too much of a walking-gentleman ; his fanatic Pres- byterian too well-known a stock-figure for painters ; his applausive and unbonneting Seotchman and daughter, and the soldier who makes them "move on," too ordinary in every sense. The former he does not at- tempt. "Josephine signing the act of her Divorce" is more effective and concentrated ; but it is coarse in both conception and method. The most obvious points are brought forward in the most obvious manner. Napo- leon cramps himself in his chair and scowls. We may be certain he knew his position, and had considered his intentions, too well to do any- thing of the kind : the quotation of "Josephine's own words," printed in the catalogue, conveys a quite different notion of his deportment. The lamplight which suffuses the whole scene is managed with considerable force, but without the moderation of a true master of chiaroscuro.
Mr. Cross fails to satisfy the expectations of his admirers. The "Death of Thomas a'Becket" has a fine point in the noble, serene, but stern and unflinching countenance and bearing of the Archbishop,—though the flesh is of a stony whiteness : but the rest has theatrical violence of action without movement. The interposing monk is grimacing, not abjuring ; another shows that be is horrorstruck by a gesture which will evidently last for the next five minutes ; a third points appealingly to the cross, but his appeal is directed to no one. The colour is clingy after the manner of the French school ; from which Mr. Cross will have to free himself entirely before he can do justice to his powers. Mr. Hook selects a passage from Prescott's History, stating that "Queen Isabella of Castile, with her daughters, visited many of the nunneries, taking her needle with her, and endeavouring, by her conversation and example, to withdraw the inmates from the low and frivolous pleasures to which they were addicted." The scene is the lawn before the cloisters; where, seated on a mat, the royal ladies and some of the nuns are engaged in embroidery, while the lounging, droning, and dozing of the others, are quietly but adequately represented in the background groups. For individual character we must not look. Queen Isabella has nothing portraitlike about her; and the only figure having the slightest indication of Castilian blood is the foremost nun; the contrast of whose Spanish face with the un-Spanish Spaniards around her leads us to infer —though it sounds paradoxical to say so—that she is intended for one of the Moorish stock. But for the qualities Mr. Hook does possess—grace and a peculiarly painterlike feeling—this is one of his best works. The princess whose back is turned to the specta- tor, and the whole management of the background, are especially pleas- ing. Mr. Hook's other picture--" The Chevalier Bayard confers the order of Knighthood on the infant Son of the Duke of Bourbon "—is not a first-class specimen. Bayard exerts himself to stoop uncomfortably ; and surely there was no occasion to beard the nurse, as though she were one of the Witches in Macbeth. Unlike the artist's usual practice, this is going out of one's way to be ugly. Mr. Pickersgill follows in the same style. His "Francesco Novelle" has not any point of special interest or success ; but there is a feeling of sunny impulsive joy eager for fruition in the second, "Angelo Partieipazio, having rescued his Bride from the Pirates, returns with her to her Family." The mammoth "First Meet- ing of Alexander the Great and Roxana," above the door of the West Room, is Mr. Cowie's imitation of Mr. Pickersgill's imitation of Mr. Hook's imitation of _Mr. Etty's imitation of the Venetians; and a very sorry one it is.
Mr. Charles Landseer treats a subject—" The Iron Mask," which he does not do anything towards realizing as a picture. Various persons are collected in a chamber, some with eatables, others conversing : one of them has a black mask on ; but there is no meaning, no purpose, in the thing ; it tells no story. The mask, it may be added, leaves so much of
the wearer's face exposed as to be quite useless for preventing his recog- nition. "The Rustle of the Tapestry "—the title under which M Selena represents the sons of Edward the Fourth surprised by th r. murderers—is certainly about his best production : it cannot be questieir ed, however, that the notion is taken from Delaroche's of the same sub- ject. Mr. W. J. Grant exhibits for the first time a picture of some de- gree of promise, and even attainment. He has progressed, from the hope- less style of an Academy student barren of any sort of idea, into that of one who begins to attach a meaning of his own, however much reflected from others, to the words colour, character, and beauty. As parents say of an infant after its first plantlike stage of being, he begins to "take notice." He calls his subject " The Incident which led to the great Reformation "; but whether it be historically true that Katharine dis- covered Henry's love for Anne Boleyn by observing his rapt attention to her harping, we are not aware. The King is not without regality ; nor Anne and the lady kneeling behind her without a coquettish reciprocity of glance ; nor the background heads and the colour, especially of the two principal figures, without prettiness and a mellow richness : and to be not without each and every requisite of his theme is a great advance for Mr. Grant. The last moments of Charles the Fifth, who gazes, lost in thought, on his wife's portrait, are depicted by Mr. Egley with a feeling of reserve and silence in harmony with the incident, and respectable in point of art : there is some perception of his subject also in "The Invention of Artillery," by Mr. Dallas. Mr. Johnston almost surpasses himself in dexterous inanity. We refer to Mr. Jones's "Waterloo," and to the battle-pieces of Mr. Cooper —as a specimen of which we may take that very clean lot of Indians and Englishmen which he denominates "The Battle of Assays "—less for the purpose of individual criticism than to notice the generic want of interest or value in such presentments. Where, as in these cases, there is nothing beyond a common literal marking-down on canvass of the reported facts, the printed description answers better. From Mr. Glass comes "F. M. the Duke of Wellington returning from his daily visit to the Horse Guards" ; a work which will be regarded as historic some few years hence more fully than it is just now, when its familiar literality makes it rank almost as a portrait subject. Historic, however, it is ; and that very literality makes it truly and valuably so. This well-known incident of London streets used to occur very much as it is shown here. A few per- sons, passing by at the time or waiting for the Duke's exit—like the pen- sioners, the children, and the well-dressed party, in the picture—would stand up, and receive in reply to theies the military salute of the Com- mander-in-chief as he rode on with his almost dogged straightforward- ness. Mr. Glass has made a very good picture—quiet, but effective—of an incident rather interesting for its associations than in itself pictorial. In Wellington's face, it strikes us that the chin is rather too wide and full : and we find the same fault, if fault it really is, in No. 473, the artist's "Portraits of H. G. the Duke of Wellington, in his Study at Ape- by House, and of his Private Secretary, A. F. Greville, Esq.," from "sittings given in July 1852."
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