ART.
SOCIETY OF PAINTERS IN WATER-COLOURS. ALTHOUGH this year's exhibition does not strike us as a particu- larly strong one, exhibitors are more numerous than usual. Not counting honorary members, only one of whom is a contributor, namely, Mr. Prescott Hewett, who shows a tender drawing of "Cot* Castle shadowed forth in mist beyond calm Poole waters, the number of absentees is only four. They are George Fripp (a most substantial loss), Joseph Nash, A. B. Houghton, and Hol- man Hunt (who seems to have deserted the gallery altogether). 'Three new Associates have been added to the Figure department, all more or less known to frequenters of the Dudley Gallery, and two of whom, Mr. Brewtnall and Mrs. Allingham (formerly Miss Helen Patterson, and now the wife of Mr. Allingham, the poet), have been also trained in that prolific school of modern British art, the illustration of light literature. Mrs. Allingham touches prettily and with true feeling of the ways of little folk a toy-shop
scene 'of a pair "young customers," perched on chairs, and absorbed in the contemplation of new belongings, just bought or 'buying from a kindly old woman who smiles from behind the counter. Mr. Brewtnall essays more imagina- tive work with moderate success. Under the name of 4‘ Treasure- Trove" (39), he paints a young and graceful couple
; standing in a costume of days remote, and a brown boy reclining, in none, with a casket of jewels, all on the sea- sand under chalk cliffs. In other drawings an " Alchemist " (233) and his assistant examine a bottle with appropriate interest ; a "Little Mermaid" (78), has some ado to push ashore a "hand- sonic prince" through a viscid stream ; and a "Bailiff's Daughter of Islington" (107) doffs her " gowne of greene," and dons her "ragged attire." The third recruit is Mr. E. Radford, a most skilful manipulator of brush and pigment, who paints, not always wisely, but almost too well. General cleanliness of finish and really exquisite painting of bed-clothes do not redeem the senti- ment of a hackneyed subject, " Weary " (236), from common- place ; and the title " Blague " (211), which describes the style of talk of a gallant Zouave with a very pretty French fish-girl, is too nearly applicable to the style of smart colour in which the drawing is dressed. To pass to the work of the older men, the President, Sir John Gilbert, holds the place of honour with a showy composition of Francis I. in Cellini's workshop (116). A note upon it states that it took three years to paint. No wonder, therefore, that it has more artifice and less feeling of reality about it than the vigorous sketch (229) of ironclad warriors defiling on stout horses over a rough, picturesque country, "with ruffling banners that do brave the sky." Mr. Alma Tadema has three large drawings in a frame, "The Tragedy of an Honest Wife " (24), to wit, one of King Chilperic's, Galsuintha, said to have been strangled by order of the deserted Fredegonda, who, in the first compartment, watches from a window her rival's wedding under a consecrated oak. In the second, Galsuintha's corpse, with stiffened arm exposed and face half-hidden, lies stretched upon the bed where it was found ; and the third depicts a miracle at the saintly victim's shrine, where an earthen lamp is said to have fallen on the stones without breaking or going out, as it is seen by the astonished priest who comes to trim it. The story, despite its horrors, has been chosen by the artist for a wall de- coration in the anteroom of his studio, for which these designs have been made. Hence the form they take, leaving space for a door. Sober and harmonious in colour, dignified in line, and not encumbered with detail, they yet give scope to the artist's skill in surface-painting, as, for example, in a tiger-skin in the first com- partment. But the chief interest is in the handsome and finely posed figure of Fredegonda, as she sits thereon, with an ominous smile upon her chiselled profile, a well-chosen type of severe half-French, half-classic beauty. A little antique female, in greenish, figured robe, watching a fishing-rod at her feet among Roman porticos (266), displays the painter's suggestive nicety of touch to more perfection ; while in a third drawing we have a fancy portrait of the "Architect of the Colosseum" (252), biting his knuckles in sore perplexity over a ground-plan traced in the sand at his feet. Mr. Carl Haag's desert thanksgiving, "God is most great" (122), and other Eastern figure studies, are as solid and skilful as anything he has painted. Mr. Walker groups the figures more compactly in a small repetition of his "Old Gate" (244) than he did in the large oil painting. Mr. Pinwell paints a singularly plain person under the name of "Sweet Melancholy" (8), and sends other unimportant works ; and Mr. Marks exhibits two pair of capital portraits of cranes, under the facetious titles "Darby and Joan" (5) and "Edwin and Angelina " (49). Mr. Watson's "Gentleman of the Road" (205), glancing round at a gibbet, while his horse drinks ; Mr. Basil Bradley's hounds and huntsmen, "Late for the Meet" (204) ; and Mr. Dobson's head, "Un Capellano" (216), have their several points of merit.
Mr. F. Powell sends no sea-piece, but expends his chief strength upon a drawing, large both in size and feeling, of Loch Corruisk (64), or rather, of one rugged conical peak frowning solidly among the cloud-wreaths that eddy above the black waters. There can be no greater contrast to this than his exquisitely tender and yet sparkling effect of daylight on a golden-green field, over which is "A Glimpse of the Sea" (265). Among the various painters of strong sunlight, there are none who hit more fairly and absolutely the warm golden hue of day than Arthur Glennie. Whether it be that Italian sunshine is more than usually acceptable after the gloomy greys of our late long winter, we do not know, but this year Mr. Glennie's Roman and other views seem to us to glow with unwonted brilliancy. See the light on near trees and distant walls in the "View from the Corsini Garden" (103), and the broad flood of sunshine in that "From the Capo di Sorrento" (163). "View of Galera in the Campagua " (14) is an evening effect, and noteworthy, too, for broad and thoughtful composi- tion. Mr. A. W. Hunt grapples, in yet bolder fashion, with the difficulties of daylight, for he seeks to maintain pictorial repose, not through the colour or the continuous gradation, but
through the dazzling brilliancy of light. In "When Summer Days are Fine" (57), he paints a mass of varied foliage in and
about the bed of a stony stream and a bit of hill-side beyond, all in the glare of brightest day, and in this competition of brightness he somehow begets a temperance that gives it smoothness, and shows that it is the softness and not the glare of sunshine which constitutes its charm to the eye. Similar difficulties are overcome in "Going Nutting" (131). Mr. Hale follows closely in Mr.
Hunt's steps in depicting effeats of glittering light, but there is too often an inequality in different parts of the same work which betrays the want of a complete impression of nature. In "South of the Alps" (96), for example, the hills have no substance ; and in "Early Summer,—Lago Maggiore" (162), while other parts are exquisite, the ripple of the water is set down in rough blots precisely similar to what serve for distant foliage in "The Island of San Giulio" (167). By way of compensation for his flood of sunlight, Mr. Hunt has an effect of mountain gloom in "A Rent in Wetherlam" (97), which looks better here in water-colour than it did in oil at the Academy ; a scene, "Between Tides" (133), on Hastings beach, which, though landing coals is a dirty job, seems to us needlessly dark and indistinct ; and one of his well-known Bamborough subjects (217). Mr.
Danby is in full force, in his usual narrow range of subjects, notably in the warm, still atmosphere of "Dines Lake" (20) ;
also in the clear air over "The Crawnant Mountains" (6); a fresh " Morning " (74), and a quiet " Evening " (239). Mr. Dodgson assimilates with apparent relish the new and excellent material which he has found in the Welsh Gower, in two views (11, 25) of Pennard Castle, one with a pleasant ravine leading down through changing colours to the sea, the other with the castle on the edge of a hill, a skilful treatment of that always difficult position, and also in a fine coast study of rock and spray, and "Fog Clearing off" (258). " Morning " (119), by the same, and "A Pastoral" (137), by Mr. Clarence Whaite, are both dependent for their charm upon a classic beauty of composition ; attractive in the latter in spite of defective detail, particularly in the leafage, which hangs as if dead or artificial. In classic landscape art, the veteran Samuel Palmer shines forth once more in a rich and solemn sunset composition, with " Travellers " (272) crossing a bridge, painted with all his peculiar power and poetic feeling. Mr. E. A. Goodall's large Egyptian landscape (13), in the green period of the year ; Mr. Gastineau's "View of Dover Thirty Years Ago" (89) ; Mr. Naftel's "Lake, Penlergare " (99), and "Stream from the Dochart " (145) ; the fish in Mr. Birket Foster's "Fish-stall at Venice" (109) ; Mr. Jackson's "Winter Scene on the Thames" (140) ; Mr. W. Callow's "Coarse Weather at Gorleston Harbour" (196) ; Mr. Sam Evans's "Via Mala" (200) ; Mr. Davidson's "Gatton Park, Early Spring" (209) ; Mr. Jenkins's "Amongst the Sand Hills, Calais" (248) ; and "A Winter Scene with Cattle" (257) by Mr. Brittan Willis, are in the best manners of the several artists. Mr. E. K. Johnson, generally classed among figure painters, must this year be placed under the head of landscape, in virtue of his "Waiting for the Coach" (68), which, could we expunge the two people saying good-bye in the corner, would be a clever rural composi- tion, with a fine glow of sunshine on the bridge. As it stands, it is a graphic memorandum of days gone by.
The remaining landscape painters, with one exception, content themselves for the most part with retreading ground they have won. The exception is Mr. Albert Goodwin, whose drawings continue to show a refreshing variety, and present that kind of interest that results from the employment of brains. His "Win- chester from St. Giles's Hill" (33) is full of topographic fact, appropriately and cleverly centralised by a group of schoolboys' trailing the tail of a kite. His battalion of soldiers marching with steady swing with "Colours carried to their Rest" (35) was the very incident to give true life to the old street of a garrisoned cathedral town. Note how well he has expressed the united cadence of their step, and how justly their red coats relieve the dull grey of the ancient wall, brightened as they are by the clever contrast of a stall of fresh green vegetables on blue paper in the corner. A street gamin runs by, and helps the colour by waving a yellow handkerchief ; and a poor little fellovi on his crutches adds a touch of pathos to the whole. It is a dramatic scene of human interest, but pure landscape painting, for all that ; and it is, we repeat, refreshing to meet with one artist in the present day who can take so large a view of this branch of the art. "East- ward of Eden" (62), with a figure of Cain, is a gloomy effect of desolate moorland, evidently a reminiscence of the same Dartmoor, with its Druid Tors, which Mr. Goodwin paints, but less impres- sively, in another drawing (40). Bible archreologists who illus-
trate Scripture from the veritable East may be scandalised at such an adaptation, but let them try to put a similar soul into their work. "Before the Restoration" (104) is another good archi- tectural study by the same artist ; and a conservatory interior (47) illustrates his variety, if it does little more.
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