lint Arts.
THE NATIONAL INSTITUTION.
It would be incorrect to call the eleventh exhibition of this our youngest art-body a striking or a decidedly superior one, but we can vouch for its being a pleasant one. This year shows the exhibition settled down into a new phase of distinctive character, in which landscape is extremely prominent. The Williams family, of itself, would suffice to set a peculiar stamp upon this section, did it receive none better from other quarters ; and a knot of young men on whom the influences of Prreraphaelitism, of Hunt the water-colour painter, and of Mr. Hook's rural and coast-scenes, are equally apparent, make the domestic art here their own.
Messrs. Rossiter, (who has made an immense stride forward,) Small- field, and Henry Moore, are the three most thoroughly generic of this band. They distinguish themselves by bright pure colour, in out-of- doors effects of sunlight or daylight with very little shadow, and a pro- portionately flat look ; careful clean manipulation, progressing year by year in accomplishment and choiceness ; more seriousness and fewer points of would-be fun than most of their competitors in domestic art ; and a tendency towards treating the period of adolescence rather than that of mere childhood. All of them, it is very evident, go straight to nature, and that is the secret of their welldoing. We must par- ticularize Mr. Itossiter's "Young Monkey "—on some scapegrace tree- climbing expedition, with the yellowed chestnut-leaves bright against the sky—as a really charming little bit of colour and handling. " Village Coquettes "—the most artless young creatures in the world, looking un- utterable things to the shy, high-spirited, sun-burnt lad with whom they gossip at the well—is Mr. Rossiter's most considerable work, and on the whole of decided merit ; though one of the fair ones is hard and plain, the other of a type of " good looks " even needlessly commonplace, and her staring scarlet apron a blotch upon the canvass in the overstrained effort at vividness. " A Devonshire Maid " is Mr. Smallfield's challenge (No. 1) to Mr. William Hunt. Mr. Hunt is one of those exceptional men whom it is of no use to challenge, as the not-to-be-appraised something separates their works for ever from all others of the same intent. still, Mr. Smallfield has insured himself an excellent position in his wake ; expressing a certain grand natural comeliness with firmakill and brilliant well-conceived colour. The girl's bare throat is unfortunately formless and coarse-grained, so much so as to be a serious drawback to the pic- ture's success. "Afternoon Service in Summer-time " is challenge No. 2, and a very vigorous and well-sustained one. The light and warmth penetrating every nook of the little bare church, the fidgety drowsiness of the audience of small girls and boys under a murmurous hum that we can imagine of prayer-reading or sermon, hit the mark without either slackness or empty display. Among Mr. Small-- field's oil-pictures—the above-mentioned two being water-colours- " The Fisherman's Children," with their sea-green hoods, is a quaint clever bit of colour and in good style. We are surprised, however, that a man of safe acquirements like Mr. Smallfield should be unconscious when he fails, or so indulgent to his failures : "The End of the Quay," for instance, is quite childish and toylike. Of Mr. Moore's figure-pieces we shall only sal that " Preparing for the Herring Season" is extremely natural, and "Young Mariners," spite of its agreeable qualities, a hash- up of Mr. Hook more barefaced than we should have supposed any self- respecting painter would condescend to exhibit. The large landscape, "A Coast Woodland, North Devon," is a downright uncompromising attempt at the brilliancy and shifting play of colour in sunlight,--an attempt most creditable and arduous, and with a promising mead of suc- cess where even to be foiled were worthy of respect.
We have yet to name the brightest spirit among these meritorious young painters—Mr. Morten ; whom we have little fear in at once pro- nouncing a genius, on the evidence here before us. He has leas clearness of artistic method and punctilio, but his is the seeing eye for character and expression. "Painting from Nature Out-of-doors," where a young artist is beset by every form of distraction in the population of a fishing- village, is quite admirable in this respect. One squalling child has over- turned the bottle of turpentine, another blunders forward in tottering in- fancy : a boy whistles one ever-recommencing tune in the victim's ear; a youth stands stock-still grinning at the fun ; a burly fisherman hulloes on his comrades to stare and interrupt the view. The manner is exceed- ingly simple and unforced, the colour sparkling, and every detail easy and to the purpose. In "Please she knows her lesson perfectly now, ma'am," the unhopeful school-girl, red-nosed in her despondency, who comes forward with tattered spelling-book to maul the Queen's English, is a very happy hit. "Don't cry—have a bite at my apple," again, has mneh childish prettiness of expression : but Mr. Morten must take more pains to paint correctly than he has cared to do in some very slovenly parts of the drapery here. If he only chooses to execute instead of sketching, his future is in his own hands. Mr. Marks has true humour of the right quiet kind in " Egyptian Hieroglyphics ; a Fish out of Water,"—where a green-smocked country- man strolls and stares through the Egyptian Room of the British Mu- seum, and wonders why it is all there, and what it can possibly be for. " Waiting for a Job" is an equally modest and truthful little bit. This is better than Mr. Marks's wonted apotheosis of red noses under the title of Christopher Sly or Bottom. Mr. Watson sends two naive studies of a chubby little country-girl ; and "The Lesson in Embroidery" by Mr. Lawless is a nice simple scene in a French or Belgian pension,—with little as yet learned in the way of art, but nothing to unlearn.
All these certainly are small matters in point of subject ; but we are fain to be content with them, for, when we go higher, we find nothing but conventional pretence and ambitious floundering in such pictures as Mr. Robert Lauder's " Christ Betrayed," (with some inkling of fine faculty in the rocky background,) or Mr. Eckford Lauder's " Song of Praise," or " Gethsemane." In the last, contrary to the usual result, the agonized Christ is less deficient than the ministering angel, and might singly be accepted with tolerance in virtue of the unequalled difficulty of the theme, if not with praise. Men like the Landers, who suppose that a great subject is a recipe for great art, which they are at liberty to attack with the mere painter's stock in trade, while the mind remains unearnest and the hand unstrung, are past hoping for.
Mr. H. C. Whaite is far ahead of his brother landscape-painters in poetry and insight. A solemn tone of mind, which seeks the grand and secluded in nature for its own sake, and finds its majesty all steeped in tenderness and beauty, speaks in his works; executed as they are with a vapoury lightness, and chastened sweetness of bright colour, in which he evidently makes Turner his model. "The Valley of the Ogwin," "The Vale of ICIelwyddelan," and " Llyn Idwal," are not, indeed, masterpieces of accomplishment, but are of the highest order of truth-seeking, and replete with all best promise. Next to these may be named the " Grolden Sunset in North Wales" of Mr. Arthur Gilbert, (one of the many-aliased Williams family,) a very powerful, luminous, and salient work of the Denby order, with level lines of sunlight striking a glory from the perennial rock-peaks. Mr. H. B. Gray's "English Landscape" is quite what it professes to be—the sheaved harvest-field lying in fair warm light as the sky deepens towards dusk. Not the least of the me- rits of this picture is its perfect freedom from any set manner or peculiar view of nature. " The Receded Tide, Port du Moulin, Island of Sark," is a vigorous exact study of rock form and colour by Mr. Naish ; broad in its massed light and trenchant shadow, though its effect upon the eye is rather that of a thin screen of stone than of a solid bulk. "Catching a Dog-fish " is an animated and truthful sketch ; and "Portsmouth Oys- ter-boats Returning," under a crimson sky, has a touch of power, not enough tempered by delicacy. Many other landscapes remain, well worthy of criticism ; but we must dismiss them in general terms. Among the more familiar names, we find the broad clearness of Mr. Peel; the atmospheric scenery of Mr. Harry Williams ; a sparkling playful stream by Mr. Edward Hargitt , and Mr. Hulme's nice rendering of nature under conditions out of his usual track. Among the younger men, Mr. Watkins and Mr. Tindall are observant and very agreeably unforced; Mr. Ascroft, various, genial, and promising in a high degree; Mr. Leader, unequal, but charming in his " Mountain Stream" ; Mr. J. F. Hardy bold and natural in his attempt of an extensive valley view veiled in domestic smoke. Mr. Boyce's Swiss water-colours are done patiently and lovingly, and pro- claim their entire trustworthiness to the most unpractised eye ; Mr. Green is sober and homely ; Mr. Sleep vivid in his London sketch. The most noticeable of the miscellaneous subjects are the picturesque Breton interiors of Mr. Hixon, with a touch of Mr. Deane's effective lighting, and Mr. Provis's fullness, in similar work ; Mr. Finlayson's highly competent rendering of still-life ; and Mr. Bolton's water-colours of fruit and flower, to whose excellent study of form practice will pro- bably enable him to add greater purity and richness of colour.
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