ART.

THE SOCIETY OF PAINTERS IN WATER-COLOURS.

[FIRST NOTICE.]

Tax main features of this exhibition, which is a good one, are such as usually distinguish the collections of the" Old Society," and need not be dwelt upon at any length, as they are doubt-

less familiar to most of our readers. They comprise an undue proportion of landscape work, an obstinate adherence on the part of most of the older members of the Society to the faults

as well as the excellencies of previous years, a devotion to the common-place, both in sentiment, treatment, and natural effect, and a tendency to exalt technical skill above all other artistic qualifications.

One might write oneself blind and talk oneself hoarse, with- out altering these characteristics, as long as Water-colour Societies are constituted and managed in the petty manner which is at present universal; and indeed the only result of

trying to induce the ruling members to be a little less (.0iiserva.-

tive, is to produce a blind irritation far more likely to do harm than good. Therefore, it seems to us best, in this article, to enter into no protest, such as we have often foolishly made, against the low ideals and instructed dullness of the majority of the work, but to notice only, as briefly as may be, the chief pictures of interest in the exhibition, saying a lv words here and there upon the more notorious failings of t members whose skill, or whose age, has gained them sullieient reputation to render their works likely to be taken tt,; examples of merit; and upon the excellencies of the productions of younger mem- bers, upon whose names (lie seal of public approval has not yet

been firmly set. The average work of the better known men, and the utterly bad work of the unknown men, we shall in this article omit from notice.

Making our observations then, for convenience-sake, in the same order in which the pictures are hung, we find the first work which comes within our definition is the " Half-way Home " of Mr. Thorne Waite, a landscape, with figures both in the foreground and distance, the title being taken frcrn two

peasant girls, who are resting by the side of the road on the way home. This is a landscape such as may be seen in almost

any of our Counties, of a meadow or two, a corn-field in the distance, two or three straggling fences, a farm-house, and a sky, half cloudy and half bright. The figures are conventional

peasants, with pretty-coloured handkerchiefs and smooth faces ; the foreground is rich in colour, with wild-flowers and tangled grass, softly shadowed by a passing cloud ; the corn-field catches a gleam of sunlight, and the little figures in the distance are as pretty with gleams of bright colour as the artist's fancy could make them. The chief question which the picture suggests to us, is one which we suppose we should be blamed for asking, namely,—What is the use of it ? For it is not exactly nature, and yet its merit, such as it is, is the merit of a sketch,—fresh- ness of effect ; and there is practically no beauty of drawing or truth of detail to care for. The figures are graceful enough, but are the merest dummies, as far as expression or character goes ; the landscape is pretty in general effect, but the more it is looked at, the less one finds in it of any truth which the artist felt the beauty of, or wished to explain. In a word, the work is a made-up article, a " lump of delight," rather sickly in its over-sweetness. l'ass by this, and by Mr. Thomas Danby's misty scene of the " Passing of Arthur," to Mr. H. M. Marshall's `• Greenwich." Mr. H. M. Marshall is, we believe, a young artist, certainly a laborious and as certainly a clever one, though at present he is falling into the same mistake as so many young artists make now-a-days, and repeating himself in various shades of grey and dusty yellow, because he finds it easier to do what he has already done, than to advance in a new direction. This picture of Greenwich does not show him at his best, for the composition is a little awkward, and the whole effect of barges, river, and Hospital a little tame ; but look at his work a little further on (44), called, "A Frosty Morning in St. James's Park," and you see the difference at once between a man painting a true effect, and a composition such as the first we have mentioned by Mr. Waite. This picture of St. James's Park is beautiful, because it is true ; the "Half-way Home" was pretty, though it was false. But by far the finest work of :Mr. Marshall's in this gallery, perhaps the finest work he has ever exhibited, is to be found a little further on than his "Misty Morning," and is called simply, " Oxford Street." This picture is worthy of careful attention by all visitors to this gallery, as it shows with pleasant plainness that the elements of pictorial beauty are to be found in the scenes which sur- round UZI on every side, and which are passed by with unnoting or disdainful eyes by too many of our painters. To show Oxford Street, with its ordinary traffic and atmosphere, as a beautiful thing, is no mean achieve- ment, especially when it is gained by no exaggeration of any truth, and no addition for the sake of picturesqueness. Here the secret lies, as George Eliot says, in no beauty of pro- portion, but in that of deep human sympathy. No one who had not felt the life of the streets, with its thousand dramas, to be a worthy subject for an artist's power, would have painted as Mr. Marshall has done the pictures of "Grey London," of which "Oxford Street" is the best specimen. Another example of an effect in which truth has been sacrificed to prettiness is to be found in the "Worcester Cathedral" of Mr. Collingwood Smith (19), where the trees have been painted in one light and the cathe- dral in another, so that the effect is much as if some demented pyrotechnist were burning red lights in front of the sacred edifice on a bright summer morning. One of the most ambitious works in this gallery is Mr. Birket Foster's "Venice from the Giudesca " (24), though perhaps it is as untrue to the general colour and facts of the scene, as a good draw- ing by a skilful artist well could be. It is a bright pic- ture, dotted about in every direction with spots of pure c.)lour and white. Multitudes of small figures, fishing-boats, fruit-sellers, buildings, gondolas, and clouds are all piled together in the most artistic fashion. But you look at the buildings, and you see that they are all much the same colour ; the dark red campanile of San Giorgio is, for instance, the same as the lighter-coloured brick one in the Piazza of St. Mark ; and you look at the gondolas, and you see they are purple above and brown below, instead of black ; and you look at the clouds, and you see they are a mass of nasty little conventional niggles ; and lastly, you look at the water, and you find it to be that peculiar, deep, misty blue which is very pretty, but which is wholly unlike the character of the Venetian lagoons. The whole thing is "falsely true," like Lancelot's honour ; its details are all carefully and cleverly drawn, it is elaborately composed, but there is neither truth to the character of the city, nor the atmosphere, nor the general colouring. All beautiful things are there,—towering domes,

slender campaniles, transparent sea, fruit, flowers, bright-hued sails, and busy picturesque sailors, but the one truth which the commonest faithful sketch from nature has, is wanting. The work is like a bonnet " confectioned ;" it has not, as Emerson puts it, "grown, as grows the grass." Let us go on. Mr. Alfred Newton's "Mountain Pass" is un- doubtedly a very beautiful picture, though the elements of its loveliness are only such a rocky glen as one may see con- stantly in our own Lake Country, the hills half-covered with mist, but here and there catching glimpses of the sunlight ; a rough, grand effect of light and shadow, such as throws most water-colour landscape-painting into the shade. We can only thank Mr. Newton for it, and hope that he will give us plenty more of the same kind. "The Month of Roses," by Mr.. J. Parker, a servant with her pashing-pail under her arm, looking at a tree of white roses, which stands at

the kitchen-door. This is a poor picture in colouring; and little attractive at first sight, but not without a touch of kindly feeling that makes it worth mentioning. Mr. F. Brewtuall's "Honeymoon "—another libel upon Venetian colouring—represents the happy couple in a gondola, being punted along one of the small canals in Venice. If there is one thing in Venice which is more noticeable than another, it is the peculiar beauty of the broken tints of yellow, orange, crimson, purple, and all shades of red which are found in the brickwork of the houses immediately above the marble or stone founda- tions, all of which tints have been reduced by Mr. Brewtnall into a dull, dirty red ; nor is there anything in the figures either of the gondolier or the happy pair to atone for the rest of the picture. Mr. Brewtnall seems to have painted his Venice in the atmosphere of London, not Italy. Fortunately, this is not the artist's only example; he sends (No. 67) another, called "Dreams," which is good enough to redeem its hackneyed subject,—a young lady in crimson gazing into the fire, in front of which she sits, with her feet on the fender. This is a very pleasant picture, full of imaginative feeling and very carefully painted, the fire-light on the dress being excessively good, as is the girl's face. Mr. Walter Duncan's "Legend of the Mountain" is noticeable, as one of the few figure pictures in this gallery which attempt to tell a story. It is a monk, in white robe, standing in front of a knight and man-at-arms, telling them the legend of the mountain, which is seen mist-covered in the background. The knight's armour is very care- fully painted, and the faces of all the actors in the scene characteristic. Mr. Duncan's second contribution, "Dear Lady Disdain," we were so unfortunate as to overlook. Miss Clara Montalba has once more, metaphorically speaking, her "foot upon her native heather," which means in plain words that she has returned to Venetian subjects, and perhaps on the whole has returned the stronger for the time she spent in London. Cer- tainly her work has never been so delicate, if it has ever been as strong, as we find it in this exhibition, and her Academy picture this year shows a marked advance in the same direc- tion. Mr. Lamont's "Bell-ringers," the finished study for his picture at Burlington House, is, as has been usual of late with this artist, more clever than beautiful. It is full of a certain hard picturesqueness, but the figures are ungraceful, and we fear we must say uninteresting, and the tavern back- ground is quite unnecessarily ugly. The whole picture seems to suffer from want of gradation of colour and a certain arti- ficiality of effect. Mr. S. P. Jackson sends crowds of lands capes, about twenty, remarkable only for a certain uniformity of evening effect and carefully-finished smoothness of painting. It is difficult to understand how any small exhibition sa crowded for space as is this Society, can afford room to bang in prominent positions large quantities of work of such very inferior merit as this of Mr. Jackson's. Not to dwell upon its deficiencies of colour, its lack of subject and interest, and its uniform dullness, it should be noticed that the very little drawing there is in the pictures is of singularly. poor quality. Look, for instance, at this "Summer Evening, on the Thames," and the drawing of the boughs and trees. A better name for the composition would have been "The Paradise of Snakes," for the place looks snaky, and the boughs rows of serpents striking their heads out of the trees. A little consideration for the interests of the ex- hibition, if not for the claims of good work over bad, should prevent the Committee from placing such pictures as these upon the line, and hanging Albert Goodwin's delicately beauti- ful drawings either as high as the ceiling or as low as the floor. Mr. Thomas J. -Watson is, we believe, a new exhibitor in this Society, and will prove a decided gain to it. His works have none of the washy prettiness of such artists as Callow, Collingwood Smith, and Richardson, none either of the smooth pasty appearance caused by the wanton use of unneces- sary body-colour. The subject—landscape—is treated in abroad, and if we may use the word, dignified manner, a little sombre, perhaps, in general effect, and the artist seems a little dull to the more vivid colours of nature, but as far as it goes the work is true, not something that "never was on land or sea," the dull abortion of an artist's brain. It is curious to notice that in Mr. Watson's first picture in this exhibition, called "Autumn Leaves," the one concession he has made to con- ventional artistic practice goes far to spoil his picture. This concession is the introduction of a brilliant crimson handker- chief, tied round the head of the servant who is sweeping up the "autumn leaves."

We now come to the work of Mr. J. W. North, an artist of artists, whose very faults are refreshing, in such company as surrounds him at this Society, for the faults are chiefly an over- prodigality of detail, a somewhat unrestrained luxuriance of colour, and a fancy, perhaps too little accustomed to set any limits upon its wanderings, or submit to any restraint in its exercise. The three works by Mr. North sent to this gallery are, we confess, a revelation of the artist's power such as we had never expected. It may be that as one lives with an old side- board, or other piece of accustomed furniture, never thinking of its beauty, but only of its use, and one day a friend comes and admires it for the latter, not the former, merit, and opens our eyes to the fact that we have been possessed of a beautiful thing for a long time without knowing it, —it may be, we say, in a somewhat similar manner that we had grown blind, from custom to the peculiar originality and beauty of Mr. North's work, and that accident has opened our eyes. For whatever reason, blind we have been ; and we confess it with some shame, but with a little mean pleasure that we have discovered our mistake before the public have found it out. In our next article, we propose to describe the characteristics of this artist's work more or less in detail, and to conclude our notice of this exhibition, which we may here say generally is, upon the whole, one of unusual interest.