lint arts.
THE ROYAL ACADEMY.
[SECOND NOTICE.] Ma. F. GOODALL is not one of those who, having won the highest honours of the Academy, take immediate occasion to rest and be thankful. No true artist does, and in his pictures this year he shows as much desire to do his best as in the earlier days when he was winning his way to distinction. His two Eastern subjects are full of character ; but the larger and later (397) is the nobler and more " muscular " work of the two. In this he has made large size subserve grandeur and simplicity, and the expression of the camel-rider, as he reaches his hand for the water given him by the woman on foot, betokening thirsty exhaustion, but no unmauly impatience of suffering, is admirably given. The composition is fine and the colour good, though the light is not so brilliant as in the smaller picture of the "Song of the Nubian Slave" (294).
• „ The background of desert shows that Mr. Goodall could paint landscape if he chose. So do the trees and grassy slopes of his tkird contribution, "Summer Song" (59) ; the pure colour and
cool shadows of which, refreshing the eye with a sense of tempered heat, are a reproach to some of his brother R. A 's, professedlandscape- painters. One may prefer his other pictures for their more interesting subjects, but admiration cannot be withheld from this as a thoroughly workmanlike performance. Let careless painters look at the drawing of the hands and take a lesson. Mr. Hook is another artist who seldom fails to please, touches of true nature being never wanting in his pictures. "From under the Sea" (146), with its truck-load of copper-grimed miners—of the earth, earthy — just emerged into sunshine from the hole (wheal) that stretches far under the ocean, is a new incident added to his previous views of Cornish life. Their candles are still burning in the men's hats, and more to spare are hung round their necks. The strange half-dazzled appearance of the men is relieved by the wife and children of one of them who have come to greet him at the pit's mouth. Mr. Hook has improved in sea-painting, the eye in this, as well as in other pictures of this year, wandering pleasantly over the level plain of water to the sky line. Beyond this there is little to note in his remaining pictures, which greatly resemble their predecessors as well in unsophisticated nature as in ungainliness of composition. It is as if he put his figures on the canvass, and then jumped in amongst them, and elbowed them away to the frame-edge. The admirable colour of the afternoon sunlight pervading his "Miners Leaving Work" (445) must not, however, be overlooked. His peculiar class of subject has been adopted and his success not unworthily emulated by Mr. Naish, who never exhibited anything so good as his "Last Tack Home" (444), a fisherman and his young son making their last reach towards the little western port that glimmers over the gunwale in the midday sun. Mr. Naish has for a long time painted only coast- maps, he has at length painted a picture.
Regarding Mr. Elmore and Mr. Poole there is nothing to add to what has already appeared in these columns. Mr. Cope is more successful in representing the literal likenesses of members of his own family (18), or in imitating the reflected lights and delicate rays on the plastered walls of a garret (335), than in personifying an ideal personage like Contemplation, whom he has clothed in jewels and fine raiment (434). Mr. H. O'Neil has two charming pictures of mother and child, one called " Asleep " (3.72), the other " Awake " (29), the latter especially good. Surely patronage is much to be deprecated when it tempts an artist from such con- genial subjects and puts him to illustrating the Court Circular. (337.)
To return to the ranks of rising talent that has not yet re- ceived the stamp of the Academy mint. In "Waiting for the Train" (508) Mr. E. Nicol fully maintains the old interest, with less of the comical than is his wont in his delineations of Irish character. A stalwart Celt, of a stature and sinews to make a recruiting-serjeant's mouth water, leans against a pillar and gives his friends a parting halloo across the line, while others count their change, read advertisements (those pests of railway-stations), or otherwise kill time till the train arrives. The picture is admirably arranged and the work carefully done, as is the artist's custom, while the colour is even better than usual. There is great and touching force in the gipsy mother's distress for her sick child in Mr. Rankley's picture (347) ; and here, again, colour is a strong point, the moonlight being especially good. Mr. Hodgson's colour has less force, but more delicacy. His picture (512) may not be a favourite with those whose attention is more easily attracted by brilliance than by modesty; but he has the courage to prefer truth to popularity, and there is only a certain stiffness in his figures (which are full of varied character and quiet point) to prevent his picture taking first rank. Mr. Watts is another excellent colourist. He exhibits a charming head of a girl smelling camellias, labelled " Choosing " (395), and the "moral" of it seems to be that she prefers the violets which she holds in her hand to the more showy attractions of the scentless camellia. There is a dreamy charm about Mr. A. Hughes's "Music Party" (62) which grows on acquaintance. Mr. G. Leslie makes an advance in every executive quality in his un- pleasantly named picture, "Say Ta " (36) ; and Mr. V. Prinsep ex- hibits some pictures deficient in refinement, but remarkable for the richness and sobriety of their colour, which is very much in contrast with the more startling palette used by Mr. F. Leighton, whose works, especially the large " Dante " (194), are more than ever dis- appointing in expression, and are, with one exception (293), very deficient in the nicer gradations of light and shade. Mr. Bough- ton turns his thorough training to excellent account in "The interminable Story" (90), where a self-satisfied gossip tires out the patience of her listeners with a long-spun yarn. There is much quiet humour, pleasing colour, and good drawing in this little picture. Lastly, Mr. Calderon makes a masterly addition to
his records of Protestantism in religion and politics in his - "Funeral of John Hampden" (204). No detailed expression of features is attempted in the men that carry and follow the coffin ; but their devout bearing, their open mouths as they chant the funeral hymn, the clear low twilight and sombre leafage of the background, the massive composition and subdued tone of the whole, worthily and impressively convey the spirit of the time and the solemnity of the occasion. The picture is thus nearly allied to landscape. Mr. Calderon has another picture of two young peasant women of Arles, simple, as usual, and large in treatment (264).
In landscape proper Academic dignitaries are as far behind as ever. Mr. F. R. Lee's "Adrift on the Ocean" (451) is a good subject spoiled by bad painting. The sea is quite opaque, and (as there is no wind) you wonder those fishermen do not get out of their boat and walk. Mr. E. Cooke knows by long experience how to draw Dutch fishing craft, but he has no feeling for the swing of a wave ; why else does he destroy the effect of it by sub- dividing every wave into many subsidiary saucers ? Compare this with the wave-drawing in -Mr. Melby's pictures (267 and 291). They are hung so high that they need be looked for to be seen ; but even where they are, the striking truth of form and colour, especially the reflection of the sky on the smooth portions of the surface, are quite visible, and remind one not a little of that other Danish marine painter Sorensen. But grandeur is apparentlybeyond Mr. Cooke's reach ; for the Roman arches (466) which should have looked colossal, as no doubt they axe, look no such thing. On the contrary, the camels that were to have suggested size in the bridge only show themselves like toys. It is the fashion to excuse Mr. Creswick's want of imagination by praising his truthfulness. Well, take an example. In his "On the Clyde" (34) there is a cloud- less sky, but no sunshine, nor the colour of shadow, such as it is when the sun shines. Then we are to believe that the Clyde is never swollen in this narrow and rocky gorge ; for though the stream is painted at its lowest (this is apparent from the calm surface and from the season), yet the rocks are nowhere water-worn; all are sharp-angled to the water's edge. Mr. Stanfield still stands the solitary champion among his titled brethren, and what one man can do he does. "The Mew Stone" (65) is a picture where leaping waves, and wheeling sea-mews, and breakers dashing against the scarped and shelterless rock, smack of the veritable salt of ocean. The clouded sky, abounding with the most delicate gradations of silvery grey, is rent by squalls of wind and rain that seem to fill the air with a hoar mist. It is one of the few instances in the gallery where the artist is master of his materials, instead of the reverse. Of Mr. Stanfield's four this is the best. " Peace " (170) and " War " (155) are indeed scarcely inferior; but they have a slight drawback in the more artificial and somewhat mannered contrivances of foreground ; and in the former the over- strong local green of the calm sea hardly agrees with the keen yellow of the morning sky.
Mr. Linnell has long been the best painter of inland scenery that exhibits at the Academy. What he formerly achieved in the richness of such works as his "Timber Waggon" he has now rivalled with the delicate charm of his "Haymakers" (87), a party of mowers resting at midday in an upland pasture, part mown, part with the long blossoming grass yet standing and fading away into the pearly blue of a true English landscape in the distance— the distance itself veiled in a thick summer haze, and scarcely dis- tinguishable at the horizon from the delicate sky flecked with skeins of dazzling cirrus. Some of the figures are a little black for such an atmosphere, but doubtless the relative value of every touch has been narrowly weighed, and a change in any part might throw the whole out of gear. Mr. Mason, Mr. T. Danby, Mr. W. Field, and other landscape painters of great and growing merit, must be reserved for future notice. V.
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