ART.
THE OLD MASTERS AT BURLINGTON HOUSE.
[SECOND NOTICE.]
Is our first notice of this exhibition we spoke only of the paint- ings by the late Mr. Falconer Poole, the Royal Academician ; in this, we shall only be able to give a general survey of the rest of the gallery. Before doing this, it is as well to mention that the exhibition is .a fairly interesting one, and of good average quality ; though there are fewer examples of specially striking works than there used to be a few years ago, when these loan collections were comparatively new. As usual, the arrange- ment of the rooms is as follows :—The first devoted to the English school, the second to the Dutch and Flemish, the third to the Florentine and Venetian and the larger examples of the English and Flemish schools, and the fourth to the early Italian or pre-Raphaelite painters. This arrangement is not entirely adhered to, but it represents the general plan of the Gallery, roughly speaking.
Of each of these we will say a few words, taking the pictures mainly in the order in which they are hung, but not troubling our readers with the numbers. There are two examples in this first room of James Ward, a Royal Academician of the early part of the century, chiefly known by his large animal pictures. One of these is simply a study of Dalmatian dogs, painted with great force and truth ; the other is a valiant attempt to depict a subject which is probably an nnpaintable one, the fall of Phaethon from the chariot of the San-god. In this work the charioteer is seen falling headlong through the clouds, and his horses tumbling round him in all directions. In some ways the picture seems almost a burlesque ; but it is full of power, though it is power employed upon an uncongenial subject, and as in almost all of Mr. Ward's work, there is a certain grandeur of intention about the picture which makes itself keenly felt. This artist was one of those men whose paintings remind us somewhat of the painters of earlier days ; there is a frankness and boldness of spirit within them, an absence of all timidity and hesitation, an aim unrestricted by small doubts or fancied limitations of ability ; they are sincere to themselves, if not to nature, and they gain in fervour what they lack in accuracy. Of a very different kind are the Italian landscapes of Richard Wilson, with lakes and classical buildings, and mountain dis- tances. No quieter or more lovely piece of painting is to be found in the whole gallery than one of these, called, " The Fall of Tivoli," no picture in which the personal charm of the artist is more strongly felt. Qua Italian landscape, indeed, there is little truth in it, and the scene is evidently a composition of such pleasant matters as the artist had most sympathy with ;
but the combination of truth and fancy has been so delicately and so neatly done, the unity of purpose and harmony of execution are so complete, the whole atmosphere of the picture is so peaceful and refined (if we may use a word which has been somewhat overworked of late), that we almost wonder
whether untruths such as these are not better than the sternest facts. If ever an English picture realised the charm of Claude, with scarcely a touch of Clande's insin- cerity, this picture does so.. There are many other Wilsons in the gallery, all worthy of attention, but this is the best. We may pass over the sketch of Constable for a picture of Salis- bury Cathedral, and Stothard's terribly affected group of George III. and his family, and look at the lovely little Landseer, "The Highland Cradle," a coney dog watching.a sleeping child. It is curious to notice a hint of the great picture of " The Shep- herd's Last Mourner " in this work. The position of the dog, the drapery against which his dark coat is relieved, the colour- ing of the cottage interior, and the general impression given by the composition, are all similar, though the motives of the works are, of course, almost wholly opposed. A beautiful little paint- ing this, showing Sir Edwin Landseer quite at his best, with strong, simple intention, and delicate, thorough workmanship ;. painting like an artist, and feeling like a man.
There is another picture by the side of this which should be noticed, a landscape by Old Crome, with some unfinished cattle standing in a stream beneath a rustic bridge,—a picture which seems to have the very atmosphere of English rural life about it,. and to have been painted in the intervals of farm labour. There are two or three magnificent examples of Sir Joshua in this room, bat our readers have heard a good deal about him lately, and we shall do little more than mention the "Ino and Bacchus" and the " Hope nursing Love," another version of the beautiful picture by Miss Morris which was in the Old Masters' Exhibi- tion in 1877. It may be that a lapse of seven years has cast a halo round this last-mentioned work, but to the best of our belief it was finer than the one in the present exhibition, which seems to have lost a good deal of its colour. There are, according to the Academy catalogue, other repeti- tions of the same work. The " Ino and Bacchus" is one of the- very finest of Reynolds's classical compositions. There is a good: and interesting Gainsborough landscape, and a large Bonington, which, with all its brightness and delicacy, seems to us to be somewhat inferior to his best painting. It makes, however, a wonderful contrast to the work of Crome, and it has that quality of elegance which, probably more than any other, endeared this painter to the French. No man could have had less of this last-named quality than George Morland, artist and good for-nothing, who took his pleasure in a pothouse, and did his work in a pigstye. But after all, the work is- good. There is one of his pictures here, of a girl with calves,. which holds its own with Gainsborough on one side and Reynold& on the other,—for the good-for-nothing, pothonse Morland, was a genuine painter, and in his intervals of sobriety produced first-rate work. Compare this girl with her thick-headed calves with the sentimental young lady who sits twiddling a flower in Mr. Newton's " Forsaken,"—a young lady o the "Keepsake" type, who might have stepped out of one of Mrs. Radcliffe's novels. The one is genuine art, debased and drunken, if you will; the other is flummery and sentiment, leading nowhither, representing nothing that has any true meaning or value.
And so we come to the second room, and the " various Van Somethings and Back Somethings, more especially and malig- nantly those who have libelled the sea," and here they are in full force. If any one cares to know what it was that Turner did in the way of advance in the drawing of waves and ex- pressing the majesty and power of the sea, let him compare his picture of " The Nore," in the third room, with these, Back- huysens and Van de Weldes, and with the large Ruysdael, in the third room. The difference is not one of degree, but one of kind. The Dutchman's waves are like ditch-water beaten up with a hay-rake, the Englishman's express all the power, the depth, and the transparency of the sea.
There is a magnificent Rubens landscape in this second room, lent by the Queen, comparatively calm and peaceful ; and there is another almost equally fine in colour, but as stormy and rest- less as the first is the reverse, lent by Mr. Beaumont. It is worth noticing how the strength of the last-mentioned of these is lessened by the mechanical rendering of the heavy masses of foliage. "A Calm," by William Van de Welde, shows the painter quite at his best ; there is no motion of the waves to represent, and the drawing of the large vessels in the foreground, and the sunny peace of the whole picture, are unsurpassable. But, perhaps, one of the most delicious pictures in the gallery for quaintness and originality is " The Twins," by Cornelis de Vos, two pink-faced, stolid babies, evidently of Dutch extraction, lying side by side in a gorgeous cradle. It is one of those pictures which are at once homely and true, and yet prettily quaint in their rendering of the truth, and the amount of character which the painter has been able to express in the two little faces and the subtle difference of their features is very marvellous. It is, of course, not ideal art ; but it is the beat of realistic,—realism, that is to say, applied to the right portion of the work, that of expressing the heart of the subject, not realising the outside only. For this latter kind, we may turn with confidence to the .splendid example of Terburg which the Queen has sent from Buckingham Palace, called " The Letter." It would be difficult to imagine anything more perfect in its limited aim ; and for those to whom Art is simply the perfection of technical skill, this picture is of the greatest Art. But though the tables, the flagons, the spaniels, the pages, and the white-silk dresses, are all painted to perfection, one cannot help wondering whether this is what Art was intended for, and all of which it is capable. To dream impossible dreams may be futile, but surely not so futile as to realise ugliness, and endeavour to extract beauty from the product. It is interesting, no doubt, to notice how the light falls from a casement on the folds of a gown, or the Tim of a tankard ; but even so, we would rather watch it shining on the crest of a wave, or dying away in the depths of the wood- land. And as with the light, so with the subject. Why should we care in a picture for what would not interest us in life ? If we met two ladies, one of whom went on writing a letter, and the other reading one, we should probably go away, and try at least to gain a less monotonous kind of weariness.
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