ART.
THE ROYAL ACADEMY.—LANDSCAPES.
[FOURTH NOTICE.] IN our last notice of this exhibition we spoke very shortly of some of the principal kinds of portraiture. In the present article we propose to mention in the same way the chief Land- scape-painters who exhibit at the Royal Academy. It is signi- ficant of the estimation in which this branch of Art is held by the Royal Academicians that not one of their number is a pure landscape-painter, though as several are to be found amongst the Associates, there is reason to suppose that the art of Turner and Cox is gradually ceasing to be looked down upon by artists many of whom find their chief claim to distinction in the de- lineation of costume, more or less inaccurate, and furniture, more or less ugly. It does seem at last to have dawned upon the Academic consciousness that a sunlit sea is not, on the whole, an easier thing to paint than a " Tenby Fishwife," and that, perhaps, it is also as beautiful a subject; and if the move- ment in this direction continues, we may hope in a few years that even Mr. Alfred Hunt's pictures may be found to have some claim to recognition from those who hold in their keeping the patronage of English Art, though they only represent the beauty and the pathos of dancing sunshine, wooded glens, and quiet country fishing-towns.
Think for a moment what prejudice, favouritism, or utter ignorance of Art, is involved in the simple fact that second or third-rate figure-painters are at every election made Associates, or raised from Associateship to the rank of Academicians, when the two sea-painters who are admittedly the finest in England, John Brett and Henry Moore, are passed over from year to year; when a painter like Mr. Macwhirter is elected as a representa- tive of landscape, and Mr. Alfred Hunt not only passed over, but is thought lucky if he has his pictures placed where their delicate beauty can be fully seen ! Try and realise what an utter condemnation of the present system on which the Academy is conducted, is the mere fact that the three finest landscape pictures in the Academy, are by men whom that Academy has consistently rejected, and that there is not one pure landscape of first-class merit, produced by the whole Academic body put together.
The best picture, in our opinion, of the year in this branch of Art is Mr. Henry Moore'a large sea-scape, entitled "The Beached Margent of the Shore." We assign this place to it for two reasons, because it is a beautiful scene, beautifully and adequately rendered ; and because it represents a flitting effect of great difficulty to reproduce, which has, nevertheless, been given with almost perfect truth. The scene is a beach, from which a rough sea has just ebbed, the sea beyond, and above all a sky of heavy, cumulus clouds, lurid with a flash of stormy sun- light. In the middle-distance, close to the margin of the water, are a cart and horse, and a man presumably gathering seaweed or wreckage ; and, perhaps, the subtlest piece of observation shown in the picture, is the manner in which Mr. Moore has painted these objects quite firmly and distinctly, and yet has managed to give them that air of being swallowed up in the vast expanse of sea and sky by which they are surrounded. That inexplicable sense of majesty and immensity which most of us have at some time or another felt in the presence of one of the wilder moods of Nature, has been caught fast hold of by Mr. Moore in this work, where Nature seems big and Man small,—yet not, some- how, quite insignificant, if only because he can stand there with his horse and cart carrying out his daily work, in face of all that blind power of sea and sky. In every sense of the word this is a big picture, and one of which English painters should be proud.
After this work we should feel inclined to place Mr. Alfred Hunt's picture of Whitby Churchyard, called "Unto this Last." This represents the summit of a sandstone cliff, to the very edge of which come the scattered tombstones ; in the midst of them rises the heavy tower of the old church ; by the side of and beneath the cliff are the roofs of the fishermen's dwellings, and on the other side of the harbour glimmer here and there the lights of the new town ; above, a sky of purple
and gold; and over the whole picture a soft shadow of twilight settling slowly. In all ways this is a beautiful picture, in composition and in colour, in tender and true feeling, impressive without being morbid, and sad without being dreary. It would be difficult • to explain to any one who does not know Whitby how essentially true the work is to the character of the scene: the magnificent painting of the sky and the subtlety of colouring in the twilit town and churchyard, every one can see for himself, but the truth of such points as the character of the church and scattered gravestones, of the manner in which the old houses lift themselves at evening against the side of the cliff, and of the aspect at that time of day of the new town, all these little things (which we who have painted on the spot have vainly tried to catch) can hardly be appreciated save by one who knows Whitby. Perhaps the hardest thing to explain in this picture is its difference from that of a simple sketch of Whitby at evening, for it is more than that ; it is penetrated through and through with the feeling hinted at in the title, a complex feeling, which seems to us best explained by the lines of two poets of different ages and nationalities, the one being from Gray's "Elegy "
"Each in his narrow cell for ever laid, The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep ;" and the other, the concluding couplet of Longfellow's " Day- break,"—
"It passed the churchyard with a sigh, And said, 'Not yet, in quiet lie.'" Let us go to the very extreme of Art, and look at Mr. John Brett's "Britannia's Realm." From this high-sounding and
somewhat Jingo title, who would expect anything of sadness, or of aught save triumphant patriotism, just a little blatant? And what people would expect, here they have, plus an amount of cleverness so great that it is almost genius. A great picture, almost as long as a small room, of a very calm blue sea, with—almost literally—a million little wavelets dancing in the sunlight, and in the distance and middle-distance merchantmen and fishing-boats, with every sail set, dotted about in every direction ; a sky getting dusky with heat above, and on the horizon heavy cumulus clouds rising thunderously ; a soulless picture, magnificently painted ; heathenish and photographic to an almost unparalleled extent, and yet com- pelling admiration almost against the spectator's will. It is the thing itself, more than a picture of it; the thing itself as seen by a somewhat blunt-minded but very clear-sighted individual, by the light of pure reason, without any nonsense of emotion, or sentiment, or meaning. Such as we see it here is the sea we have often sailed upon, and the sky which has overspread it; but such is not the sea as the Greeks fancied, or even as our own poets feign it. This bright water is not The great, glad mother, Mother and lover of men,—the Sea."
We should like to take this picture to every advocate of pure realism, and say, "Look there ! That's the very highest out- come of what realism can do for you! Is it enough ? "
If a contrast be desired between realism at its best and realism at its worst, turn from this picture of Mr. Brett's to Mr. Macwhirter's "Lord of the Glen" (No. 177), an enormous (con- sidering its subject) picture of a single Scotch fir on a ledge of rock, or to the same painter's picture of two beehives and a hay-rake. This contrast is advisable and instructive, as Mr. Macwhirter is the only pure landscape-painter whom the Academy have elected of late years, and it is a very curious question for what qualities of painting or feeling he was chosen. As far as we are aware, this artist's chief qualification for election was his capacity for painting a birch-tree, a subject in which he has several times displayed his ability at the Academy. In any case, an attentive study of the actual brush-work on the picture we have above alluded to will be very inspiriting to students, as showing them how low is the standard:of painting required for Associateship. A landscape painter who has been little known before has made a mark this year, both in the Grosvenor and Royal Academy exhibitions. This is Mr. Keely Halswelle, who has a large picture in the Academy of "The Flood on the Thames, 1879" (No. 74) ; and another river scene (No. 522). He has in the Grosvenor Gallery a large picture of a tug and barge under a very stormy sky. His skies, indeed, are always stormy, not to say black, and his water dark and gloomy,—the whole picture is painted in similar colours, laid on with a mixture of recklessness and care which is at first-sight very attractive. For instance, in the Academy picture last men- tioned there are a number of reeds bowed by the wind, that are painted with considerable and individual minuteness, while the sky above them is slashed and sloshed about, much in the same way as a careless housemaid washes down the oil-cloth. Recog- nising as we do the force of these paintings and the strength of their attempt at a stronger form of landscape than the ordinary one, we cannot rate them very highly, for the simple reason that they appear to us to ruin all the beauty of Nature. They are French in their abnegation of colour, without the beauty of tone and atmospheric truth which the French almost invariably gain in their work, and to which they sacrifice everything else. After this, we come to the consideration of the usual landscape- painters of the Academy, none of which can be considered to be quite in the front rank. The best of these is Mr. Vicat Cole, A., who sends four works, of the usual merit. Of the characteristics of this artist's work we have spoken so frequently, that it is un- necessary to dwell upon them ; it is a painter's idea of Nature such as used to be very prevalent some fifty or sixty years ago. All the old landscapes of that time are worked much on the same lines as those of this artist, —all treated and composed after a sort of recipe for picturesqueness, such as an eloquent writer lately suggested we had lost the secret of. Not a bit of it. Mr. Cole has the secret and makes use of it, and does it marvellously- well. His pictures are alvirays pretty and well composed and smoothly painted, and what more would the most fastidious: person want ?
The most fastidious person would probably want something- more in the style of "The Thistle-down Gatherer," by Mr.. Rooke (132), a delicately-painted and very laborious picture-, which the inquiring visitor will find stuck up in a corner in the second room. Or, perhaps, of another little picture called "Where the Oranges Ripen" (1,455), by Mr. Edgar Hanley. For in both these little paintings (which are put where they- cannot be properly seen), there is that touch of pleasure in the thing painted which is always absent from the arranged pic- turesqueness of the old school.
After these special works of Messrs. Moore, Hunt, and Brett,. there is nothing of very remarkable merit amongst the land- scapes. The following are the most notable, and are taken in the catalogue order :—" On the Coast of Cornwall," by Henry Gibbs (17). Good, painstaking, and carefully-painted sea-coast picture, a little dull, perhaps, when looked at otherwise than as- a study of sea and cliff. "On the River Grez, Fontainebleau," by W. H. Bartlett (81). Large and cleverly composed landscape of a fishing-boat lying stranded in the foreground of a wooded_ landscape, the sun setting behind the trees in the background.. Cleverand original, with the foreign substitute for feeling that is so very nearly the real thing ; better painted than most English landscape pictures. "The Waning of the Year," by W. S. Jay, and "Glowing Autumn," by the same painter- (152 and 153), deserve notice for careful work. "God's. Shrine," by Hubert Herkomer (468), a very large landscape. of mountain and pine-wood, apparently, from the charac- ter of the scenery, in the Bavarian Alps, with a very small, wooden shrine in the foreground. This would be impressive as a scene at a theatre, and pleasant in colours as a little oil-sketch,. but it is too sketchy in treatment and too pretentious in size. and name. "Le Moulin de Mouny-Robin," by C. H. H- AEacartney, is a picture of a mill, apparently supposed to be- haunted ; a thoroughly well-painted picture, showing some traces of imaginative power, and very carefully worked throughout- Look, for instance, at the drawing and painting of the reeds in, the foreground. On the whole, a landscape of decided merit,. if anything, a little overdone in the solid masses of trees under- which the old mill stands. "Woodland and Stream," by C. E. Johnson (472), a large and important picture, some- what in the style of Linnell ; quite one of the old-fashioned landscapes, seeking to attain by dignity and richness of composition a specially picturesque effect, somewhat similarin its way to that of an historical composition. Better work in one- sense than Mr. V. Cole's, because not so " painty ;" but lack- ing in composition the great skill of the last-mentioned artist.. "The Ebb Tide on the Bar," by W. J. Shaw (613). A most masterly study of waves, evidently representing the opposition of wind and tide, perfectly true, as far as our knowledge can speak, to the wave-forms under such circumstances,—trying hard to get the transparency of the water, and only just not succeeding. A beautiful picture of a very difficult subject. "A Cornish Gull Rock," by Bryan Hook (622). Bright sea and rock in very strong sunlight, noticeable for the very solid, good painting of the rock and the luminosity of the atmosphere. "King Arthur's Castle, Tintagel," by Gilbert Munger (535)- A bold, fine landscape, hardly true in the colour of the water.. but exactly like the place, and painted with great strength and plenty of care. Probably the finest foreign landscape in the Academy. "Iona Shore," by Colin Hunter (572). Mr. Hunter at his worst ; " coarse " is not the word for such furrows of paint as we have here ; they seem to have been laid on with the largest of palette-knives in layers, and then ploughed up in different directions and to different depths. Nor is there anything in the subject or the effect gained to justify the picture. It is simply a slovenly piece of work by a clever • man.
The last picture we shall mention in this notice is Mr. G. Parton's, "The Last of October," a finely-painted, true picture, very similar in arrangement and subject to the one called! "The Waning of the Year," purchased by the Academy. The painting of the tree-trunk in this is, perhaps, even better than to the former work, but does this clever young American intend in paint nothing but this one subject all his life ?.
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