ART.
THE ROYAL ACADEMY.—[ritino NOTICE.] IT is time something were said of the landscapes at this Exhibition ; the difficulty is to find any that deserve special commendation. Many familiar and justly favourite names are absent from the catalogue ; and after Mr. Linnell's "English Woodlands" (17), Mr. Cooke's "Dutch Coast" (7), and Mr. Mawley's "Deserted Sandpit" (675), there is little or nothing to remind us that there are such persons in the world as English landscape-painters. Mr. Linnell's subject is one that under various modes of treatment has often before occupied his brush, but which no one will feel inclined to complain of his repeating. Standing on the low, well wooded hills of Surrey, he overlooks a wide and rich champaigu, retiring in successive waves to the extreme distance. A flurry of grey cloud that blows up from the horizon tells of a fresh and showery morn- ing. The art of a practised landscape-painter is displayed in the arrangement of the foreground figures, so ordered as to play up to and enhance the effect of the landscape, and not to draw off at- tention from the landscape to themselves. The picture will repay attentive study, especially by its manner of dealing with great wealth of detail. The great flat-bottomed fishing smack, beached on the level sand, over which the tide is rapidly making in, is in Mr. Cooke's best manner. He has never even in the sleepy hollow of the Academy lost that vigour and purpose-like earnestness which originally distinguished him ; and, though deficient perhaps in passion, he is never negligent or slovenly. No English artist paints these " Dutchmen " with so much knowledge, or invests them with so much interest. There is, how- ever, a spice of mannerism in the coppery hue so constantly repeated in Mr. Cooke's skies ; and it is not easy to unaerstand how on that shore the turbulent breakers preserve their cold-green colour uutinged with sand. Mr. Mawley's picture is the edge of a sombre pine-wood growing round a deserted sandpit, with a lowering sky and (one may fancy) a moaning wind. It is broadly and naturally treated, and looks well even in the obscure corner where it is hung. There is a capital sketch by Mr. G. Mason, " Netley Moor" (580), with driving rain ; two Dutch river scenes, by Mr. Hetny (41 and 503), characterized by a quaintness which curiously distinguishes them from his earlier and more natural manner ; and several by Mr. II. Moore, indicating much original observation and courageous workmanship, e.g., "After Sunset " (568). But Mr. Moore's best picture is "Summer Showers" (188), at the gallery in Suffolk Street ; and it makes a visit to that gallery, otherwise rather depressing, very advisable. It is large in size (and, therefore, discreetly withheld from the Academy, where that quality in a landscape is too eagerly seized as a reason for exclusion), and simple in subject, being, in fact, a very ordinary bit of flat country ; the charm of it consists in the beauty and truthfulness of its atmospheric effects, its freedom from affectation, and the apparent ease with which it has been executed. To return to the Academy, Mr. J. Brett exhibits a gale at sea (624), which would, probably, be very useful as an illus- tration to a scientific book ; but, lacking that primary ingredient of a picture—space, it fails to impress or interest. There is a suggestion of latent strength in Mr. Leader's pictures which con- tinually leads to the expectation of more than he has thus far achieved. He is very fond of painting leafless trees on the point of bursting into leaf : very beautiful objects in nature, but never yet satisfactorily rendered by mere industrious aggregation of twigs, however useful such a process may be as a method of study. Many will remember the time when Mr. Leader used to give more of the spirit of a landscape with less detail. Of the two Royal Academicians Messrs. Lee and Creswick it is impossible to speak with any degree of respect. Mr. Lee's pictures have long been and still are too bad for criticism, and Mr. Creswick has subsided into an indolent process of manufacture. Mr. G. F. Watts exhibits a " Landscape ; Evening " (30), which has had the benefit of a considerable claque ; it is, however, remarkable for little beyond awkwardness in its forms. Mr. Watts' talent
is for graceful form, and the harmony of quiet colours. But his strength is hardly equal to hitting hard with accuracy ; in
trying to be forcible he somethnes misses his aim. So it is in his picture of "The Meeting of Esau and Jacob" (290), which in delineation of character does not mount above a common standard, and in drawing, modelling, and painting inclines to coarseness. Ile artist has affected the exhibition of a strength which is not natural to him, and naturally therefore has failed. In portraiture, however, a branch of art still very open to competition, he is very ready in apprehending character, and rarely if ever commits the too common fault of representing his sitters as ogling the spectator, instead of unconsciously attracting his attention. The portrait of Mr. Panizzi (685) is said to be very like. It is at all events a head of much fire, earnestness, and determination ; but it is to be regretted that Mr. Watts has such an inveterate propensity for unnaturally dirty colour. While Ile has been going backwards iu this respect, Mr. Richmond has been improving. The portrait of Sir Thomas Watson (66), by the latter, is perhaps the best in every respect that he has painted. It has the unconscious aspect already alluded to ; amid expresses admirably the acute, sagacious, and benevolent physician. how is it that the companion portrait of the Bishop of Oxford by the same artist (39) comes so far behind ? One reads written plainly hero an effort to be noticed, an ostenta- tious astuteness. Is it the bishop or the artist that is to blame? In this and sonic others of his portraits Mr. Richmond has adopted an artificial but inartistic granulation of texture, which, once noticed, is simply offensive, and should be discontinued. Under the head of portraits, though of that rare kind where the artist has chosen his sitter, and not the sitter his artist, conies a remark- ably well painted head of a Spanish priest, by Mr. J. B. Burgess (168), " with one auspicious an .1 one drooping eye," The honest gaze of the right eye is here neutralized by the narrow lips and by the crafty hanging of the left eyelid. In breadth and largeness of treatment this picture excels its author's previous works. These indeed are qualities far more easily infused into pictures consisting of a single figure than where a multiplicity of objects has to be dealt with. But let an artist once apprehend and feel their immense value, and they will probably pervade all his future per- formances, whatever the nature of his subject. The names of two other artists, not exclusively or very frequently painters of portraits, appear on this occasion in that category, namely, Mr. Orchardson and Mr. F. Leighton. The first has painted the portrait of a lady reclining in a summer- house (223), charmingly free from affectation, yet somewhat distressing as indicating ill-health. Mr. Leighton's is of a more conventional kind, though agreeable in colour (234). This artist's " Jonathan " (227) partakes of the character stamped on all the men he p:tints, a mixture of degeneracy and disdain that, in spite of the wooden development of their muscles, recalls the decadent Romans of Piloty's great picture of Nero, and is especially odious when lie paints such creatures into the presence of women. There is a far healthier feeling in Mr. Armitage's "Ilerod's Birthday Feast" (520), although the entertainment is not one that calls forth the healthiest of human feelings. It is the suggestion, clearly enough conveyed, that those who are here represented as gloating over the postur- ings of a dancer are capable of sterner things, and may be roused on occasion to vigorous action, that lifts them above the level of sensuality. One is inclined to forgive Mr. Armitage for his dryness of manner and want of space, in consideration of the evident heartiness with which he works.
There is a picture by Mr. G. M. Brennan which deserves more than a passing word (671), more especially since being ill placed it may probably escape notice. It is a street scene, and represents some brown-froeked friars waiting with a bier till the corpse they arc to carry to the grave is brought to them out of the neighbour- ing house. A little party of mourners just appear at the door and enhance the contrast, visible even when friars aro undertaker's men, between the real grief that attends the ceremony and the indifference that long use has bred in its ministers. In weak hands the subject would have degenerated to vulgarity, but Mr. Brennan has had the good sense to paint his friars no worse than they really are, and raises no ill feeling against the poor men, various in character, though like in costume down to the great cotton umbrella. The picture, which is carefully and well executed, is by an artist hitherto unknown, though his name is also borne by one whose work has heretofore attracted attention, Mr. M. G. Brennan. Among older and well established public favourites Mr. T. Flied is at his best in " Worn Out" (172), a poor man who has watched at the side of his sick child's bed till sleep has fairly overcome him. In feeling he has steered clear of the shoals of sentimentalism, and in painting has avoided the inkiness which too often mars his colour, whether of flesh or other things. Mr. Wynfield still pursues the fortunes of Oliver Cromwell with a seriousness worthy of his theme (410), and Mr. J. E. Hodg- son displays a quiet humour, that might have become a Leslie, in his "Chinese Ladies" (453) goodnaturedly, yet withal con- temptuously, smiling at the bare idea of any lady possessing a foot big enough to fill the European slipper held up for their inspec- tion. This artist also exhibits a Roman war galley victori- ously weathering a squall off the British coast. The fortunes of Caesar are obviously in the ascendant (615). Mr. E. Nicol's humour is of a different kind from Mr. Hodgson's. It is of the broadest, and no pains are taken to check its overflowings. His "China Merchant" (251) is a hawker of earthenware goods employing all the arts of a Cheap Jack to vend his stock. There is a little too much of the grin that looks unchangeable; and as to the colour, one is tempted to ask when Mr. Nicol last painted in the open air. But the picture is sure to be popular. So, too, are Mr. Fettle's " l'ax vobiscum" (31), a fat monk, "with good capon lined," encouraging a hungry mouse to feed on the crumbs that have fallen from his table ; and his "Tussle with a Highland Smuggler" (331), a subject which to this day has charms for the Highlander. Both, however, are spiced with a vulgarity which materially impairs the admiration due to directness of aim, and great power of rendering action ; and though serenity cannot be the characteristic of every picture, it is unquestionably a relief to turn to the quiet atmosphere of "The Refectory" (260), by A. Legros, a picture in which abstemiousness and self-denial are made to appear as nothing in comparison with the charms of
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