3rtg.
ROYAL ACADEMY.
THE lady painters occupy a very different rank in British Art now to that which they enjoyed in the days of Angelica Kauffman. For- saking simpering mediocrity, they devote themselves to downright . study with a success commensurate to their zeal. Mrs. H. T. Wells sends three pictures of great ability. "La Veneziana" (94) is an imaginative and grandly drawn study of a Lu.crezia Borgia looking head, painted with much of the feeling of the early Italian masters. In " Bo-peep" (463) a young mother hides herself in the window curtains to the delight of her child held in the arms of a laughing large-handed nursemaid. The expressions are good, the painting admirable in style, though marred here and there by crude inhar- monious colour. "Heather Gatherer" (489) is another large-handed woman, with a stern wildness of face and action—relieved against a light-coloured sky. The masculine nerve and power of Mrs. Wells's work should read a lesson to those painters who acknowledge as their ideals Effeminacy and Inanity. Miss J. E. B. Hay's " Tobias re- storing the eyesight of Tobit" (308) is drawn with scholarly know- ledge, composed with skill, and is expressive in action. The draperies are well arranged, and the heads show perception of character. Praise can scarcely be awarded to Miss Osborne's "Escape of Lord Nithisdale from the Tower (258), which though in a more prominent position than Miss Hay's Tobias, has far less art-power. It is coarse rather than strong, and is not wholly free from vulgarity. Miss E. Hunt, the sister, I believe, of the celebrated Pre-Raphaelite, in a careful study called "The Shy Damsel" (186), displays good manipu- lation and feeling for colour. if she possess imagination as well as imitative skill, excellent results may follow. Miss Solomon has chosen a subject of greater difficulty, and requiring more enlarged knowledge than the " Peg Woffington" of last year. It is therefore not to be wondered at if " The Arrest of a Deserter" (581) is less successful. Still it exhibits, in a praiseworthy manner, great care and painstaking, and a fair knowledge of pictorial effect. Mrs. F. Bridell's "Departing to join Garibaldi" (588), a young volunteer taking leave of his friends as he steps into the boat to join his com- rades in arms, is bright and sunny in effect, and the figures are drawn with spirit and naturalness. There may be other qualities deserving of commendation, but the height at which the picture is placed pre- cludes more thorough inspection. The Misses Mutrie each contri- bute two flower pieces, brilliant in effect, and powerful in colour. " Wild Rose" (92), and "Hollyhocks" (447), are by Miss Mutrie. "Orchids" (83), and " York and Lancaster (430), by her sister.
Mr. E. R . Cooke retains his high position as a marine painter of consummate truthfulness. "A Dutch Galliot running into the Port of Aberdeen during a heavy Gale" (175) is as good as it can well be. The driving clouds, the "yeasty waves," the wet, slimy pier, and the quaintly-built labouring bark, are all equally perfect. No higher
compliment can be paid to the truth of Mr. Cooke's delineation of shipping than the fact that all nautical men declare " you might rig a vessel with the help of his pictures." Mr. Sydney Cooper's "Afternoon in the Meadows" (221) is a Cuyp-like cattle-piece, about which it would be impossible to say anything new, so often has the same kind of thing been seen before. "Drovers collecting their Flocks" (441) is more original, though resembling somewhat the snow-piece Mr. Cooper exhibited last year, The mountain range is true in form and well composed, while the effect of coldness is so well conveyed as to make this an agreeable picture to stand by in the hot and dusty rooms. Mr. Inchbold must have been afflicted. with "a green and yellow melancholy" when he painted his "Furze Blossom" (535). Its sickly colour and thin painting betray a sad falling off. Some years agoMr. Ruskin recommended us to take mag- nifying and opera-glasses to the Academy, for the purpose of examin- ing minutely Mr. Inchbold's pictures. In the present case, I should think such a proceeding scarcely necessary. Mr. Brett, too, scarcely holds his own in "Warwick Castle" (451), where a medimval knight crosses the river in a ferry-boat propelled by his squire. His la ye love awaits him on the opposite bank. The evening sky is admirably painted. The effect is one very difficult to catch, but the painter has succeeded well. Generally speaking the picture would have borne greater solidity of treatment. How comes it, moreover, that the owner of the castle does not keep it in better repair? The knight, by the fashion of his armour, must have lived in the fifteenth century, while the building. is represented as it now stands in the nineteenth. Mr. Linnell has never displayed his peculiar powers better than in "Collecting the Flocks" (400). The broken heather-covered moorlands, up which the sheep are straggling, the figures, and the distance are bathed in a twilight glow, deep yet luminous in tone, rich and harmonious in colour. Mr. J. T. Linnell imitates his father at a respectful distance in "A May Morning" (475) and "Summer Evening" (580). Mr. F. Dillon's "Fletschorn from the Valley of Sass" (591), is very impressive in its solemn evening effect. The setting sun sheds his golden light on the snowy mountain peaks, the valley and the lake below being in purplish gloom. "Hagar and Ishmael" (327), by the same, combines the scriptural incident very happily with a landscape thoroughly Eastern in character—well studied and poetic in feeling. Mr. W. W. Fenn's "Clovelly" (78) derives its chief interest from the picturesqueness of the subject. In point of colour, it leaves much to be desired. Mr. Leader's "Still Evening" (539) is fresh and true. A landscape painted with so much ability and close study of nature deserved a better place. Mr. 'Whaite's " Leaf from the Book of Nature" (226), one of the truest foreground landscapes in the rooms, is painted with marvellous delicacy and refinement. Mr. Oakes maintains his reputation by his able " Water Meadows, Sand- wich" (35), and "A CarnarVonshire Glen" (517). Mr. Gale sends four little pictures remarkable for the,finesse and delicacy of their workmanship. "Land-leben" (443) is, perhaps, the completest and best—two pretty German girls chatting together under an ivy- covered doorway. "Eyes to the Blind" is a little girl standing at her blind grand&ther's knee, and reading the Bible to him. "The Father's Blessing" (476) is faulty in drawing, and has the faintest suspicion of namby-pamby. "Naples, 1859" (491), shows an Italian patriot immured in a Neapolitan dungeon, painted with honest sobriety of feeling. Mr. J. M. Lawless looks at nature through the spectacles of M. Meissonier. As he provokes such comparisons, he cannot complain of being told that he has a very great deal to learn before he can arrive at the excellence of that master. " Waiting for an Audience" (314) represents a brutal-visaged, stuffy-legged bravo in Louis Quatorze costume, standing, hat in hand, in an ante- chamber, the floor of which is so littered and untidy as to imply that the royal housemaids are singularly negligent of their duty. It will evidently be some time ere this ungainly ruffian obtains an audience, and when he does it is to be hoped that the king's guards will be on the alert, for he looks like a man who would plant a dagger in his sovereign's breast with but little compunction. "A Man about Town, A.D. 1730" (610), is the inappropriate title given to a short- faced little gentleman in a pink suit, who stands with his thumbs in the arm-holes of his waistcoat. The picture has little meaning, and no story. A fictitious excitement may, indeed, be induced by sup- posing the little man to be suffering from indigestion, caused by eating fruit only partially ripe. A vividly green apple lying near his feet suggests this idea, or suggests nothing. Mr. lawless must de termine to be original if he would make any claim on public notice,; and work with more equal care. His execution is far too slight, many parts of these pictures being expressed by mere washes of colour. Mr. Erwood continues in the conscientious path he has marked out for himself. His subjects do not admit of much variety of colour, but in " Writing to Mother" (315), he has attempted, not unsuccessfully, to make an interesting little picture Out of the unpro- mising materials of a London kitchen. Mr. G. H. Thomas has two clever works : " Want of Confidence" (466) and " Happy. Days" (545). In the former a girl is trying to induce her little sister to pat the nose of an old horse that leans his bead over a gate. The child's timidity is well conceived and expressed. In the latter a little white-haired boy, very joyous in expression, is seated astride a gigantic cart-horse. The old carter, with a grim smile on his face, strides along playfully holding his whip towards the child. MY. G. Leslie has much feeling for grace, but little for concentration. His present pictures will scarcely advance his reputation. "The An- cestral Helmet" (79) is a pretty idea of a young girl twining a myrtle wreath round a visored burgonet. In the "Antiquary's Story" (423), another young lady is trying hard not to appear bored by the prolixity of an old gentleman who is reading some dreary old- world legend to her. The conception of these works is far in ad- vance of the execution. Mr. Leslie can paint much better if he likes. Mr. J. D. Watson, whose illustrations to the " Pilgrim's Progress" are well known, handles the brush and the black-lead pencil with equal felicity. " Baby's Awake" (312) and " Resting" (414) are wrought with great delicacy of detail and nice perception of gradated colour. The baby's face looks a little old, but babies must be very difficult to paint, and this appears to me one of the best iu the exhibition. Mr. W. I. Grant's "First Steps in Life" pn, a lady holding up a baby who plants its tottering feet on her bosom, is a pleasing and carefully wrought picture, though a little too ivory- like in surface. The mother's face is beautiful. Mr. J. Faed, the brother of the Associate, deserves praise for not imitating the style of his popular relative—a vice so common with many painters that this exception to the rule calls for special remark. Moreover, Mr. J. Faed has great technical power of his own, as his " Pastimes in Times Past" (177) and "Queen Margaret's Defiance of the Scottish Parliament" (341) incontestably show. Both works evince capital draughtsmanship, especially in heads and hands, and good notions of colour and texture, though sometimes a little hard. A tendency to the melo dramatic occasionally peeps out, and some of the heads have a decidedly modern air. A little ragged boy to the right of the latter picture must have been taken from the nearest crossing. He is not m the least medieval. Mr. W. B. Scott's "Border Widow" (446) is one of those painful subjects in which the present exhibition is so prolific. Yet, though painful in subject, the treatment is such that it is scarcely possible to regard the picture without a smile. The widow is carefUlly depositing her husband's head in the grave, while his feet stretch far away over the green sward beyond! The "seven-league boots" of childhood are irresistibly recalled to mind, or one thinks of those stereoscopic .portraits which, rounder than nature herself, exaggerate the dimensions of humanity and represent a foreshortened arm as being several yards in length and a nose pro- jecting many inches from the face. If Mr. Scott would cultivate a sense of the ludicrous, he might be prevented from falling into similar errors. That he has a strong perception of, and feeling for, colour, is obvious from this clever but unfortunate work. Mr. J. Archer's " Playing at Queen with a Painter's Wardrobe" (347) is strongly and forcibly painted. "La Most d'Arthur" (615), is one of the best illustrations of the subject I have seen, and though its position on the floor entails stooping, it will amply repay careful inspection. " What d'ye lack, Madam ?" (537), by Mr. Pettie, a young 'prentice standing at the door of a shop of gaily-coloured wares, is clever, but not so clever as the " Armourers" of last Tear. The gaudy colour to the right detracts from the figure. "Imprison- ment at Lochleven Castle" (565), by Mr. A. B. Clay, is the only picture of the year which owes its inspiration to the pages of the Waverley Novels. The touch is broad and bold and the treatment effective. The painter shows considerable feeling for female beauty. Mr. J. E. Hodgson, whose " Village Philharmonic" in last year's exhibition will be remembered, sends "A Visit to Holbein's Studio" (608), which gives evidence of versatile powers. Holbein, bluff and burly, is showing the portrait of Sir Thomas More to hint and his daughter. Their expressions are easy and natural, though the daughter might have been more beautiful and the father more dig- nified. Sobriety of treatment and sound painting are very commend- able features in this work. Mr. Storey's " Bribe" (590), is a dra- matic incident, told with great point and absence of exaggeration. There is just the right amount of expression just the proper number of actors and accessories. Mr. H. J. Stanley's "Nitug Business" (601), has much humour, though not of a pleasant kind. A fat priest is haggling with a Jew for a crucifix at a fair. Amidst the toys and frippery of the booth a mask of a grinning devil is conspicuous. It is a pity the painter has not exerted his unmistak- able talent on a worthier theme. Polemics as well as politics should be banished from pictures. "Rouge et Noir" (600), by Mr. P. Levin, should not be passed unnoticed. The interior of a German Kursaal is represented All varieties of character are to be found, all delineated with truth and discrimination. The beggared peasant, the bloated millionnaire, the smug attache, the soft young English- man, the professional and the amateur gamblers, are well contrasted in this scene of folly and knavery. The artificial light casts a mellow radiance over the whole. Mr. A. Hughes is the 'only representative of pure unadulterated Pre-Raphaelitism. While other members of the clique have modified their manner or sunk into nothingness, he alone remains true to his early creed. Very beautiful is " Home from Work" (624). The manner of its painting might be objected to, the stippled execution and the resolute desire to see purple in everything; but I respect that sunburnt, horny-handed labourer who throws down his axe and fagot by his cottage door, and with rude but fond embrace presses the tender lips of his young child against his weatherbeaten careworn face. This is the soundest picture Mr. Hughes has painted, and in point of interest is far, far beyond the mawkish sentiment of "April Love." Other pictures deserviug of mention are Mr. Burgess's "Knights Home" (190); Mr. G. C. Stanfield's "Kirkstall Abbey" (229); Mr. E. ;Nicol's laughable and characteristic "Toothache" (251); Mr. Whistler's "La Mere Gerard ;" Mr. Smallfield's "Cinderella" (365) ; "A Dead Swan" (533), by Mr. Duffield ; "Petrarch's first Bight of Laura (553), by Mr. W. C. Thomas, ably drawn and firmly painted; Mr. Cropsey's " Corfe Castle" (619); "Here i' the Sands" (629), by Mr. A. B. Houghton ; Mr. H. Moore's landscapes (191, 263, 620); and an interesting, unaffected view of "St. Mary River" (570), by
Previous page
