ART.
THE ROYAL INSTITUTE.
THE Royal Institute of Painters in Water-Colours hangs this year seven hundred and ninety-one works. Of this number there are several that reach the level of mediocrity. Even these one is apt to overlook at first, amid so lavish a display of incompetence. Sadly one greets once more the Corner in Venice, the other Corner in the Abbey (a little greener than ever), the Puss in the Corner, the landscape whose sky, the lady whose nose, have been " in " and " out " so many times (the artist can tell you exactly how often), the tragedy in still-life, the stippled joke. Many things, most things short of stippling, may be borne for the sake of a joke ; but a joke must have a great deal of " breadth," to begin with, to keep its grimace steadily through that toilsome process. And the sad case of the joke is only one case of the wider problem why the art of water-colour, which of all arts depends for its successes on swift decision and dexterity of hand, on the amount of work that can be put in between the spreading and the drying of a wash,—why this art infallibly attracts all the feeble and fumbling people who cannot for the life of them either put in a thing directly, or leave it alone once it is put in. Why is water-colour the chosen art of the amateur and the lady-artist ? But it is so, and with a niggling method they dauntlessly attack subjects whose expression would tax the quickness of a detective camera. In No. 187, for instance, Mr. E. H. Corbould, R.I., attempts to render the leer of a military visitor whose hostess is giving the direction " Not at home " to her servant ; in No. 530 (" Mischief "), by Mr. G. G. Kilburn, R.I., a young person listens behind a curtain to the conversation of lovers. Either subject, if it must be painted, requires extreme technical skill, whatever be the medium, and most of all in the quick, delicate art we are discussing. But it is seldom indeed that we find on the walls of the Institute examples of that directness without which water-colour must lose a great deal of the freshness that makes it a distinct and a first-rate art. We do not mean, of course, that there are no other qualities to be gained when this first and greatest demand made by the material conditions of the art is passed by. We need not go further than the work of the President of the Society, Sir James Linton, for illustration of what may be done by thoroughgoing stippling. He sends three portrait- studies of small scale,—" Miss Ashbee " (16), " Chloris " (373), and " Waiting" (441). They have all the fine draughtsman- ship of this artist, and his feeling for depth and richness of colour (the fan and dress in No. 373 and the fan and dress in No. 441 are good,—the crimson seat in the latter not so good); and if water-colour were an art, like tapestry, necessarily done in little stitches, the technique would be admirable. As it is, the labour is appalling. Another artist, Mr. E. J. Gregory, from whose extraordinary powers better things might be hoped, throws them away on the two microscopical exercises, Nos. 302 and 322. The only other portrait-study we need notice is the pretty head by Miss Alice Grant, " Hyacinth" (258).
In pure landscape there is a fair example from Mr. Alfred Parsons, " Bad Baxley " (456),—patches of purple thistles and green among the foreground barley, black elms in the back- ground. Very delicate in colour and pleasing in composition is Mr. Nelson Dawson's " Port of Padstow" (80). Mr. Cyrus Johnson's No. 384 deserves notice. Mr. Arthur Severn's work at Brantwood (83 and 375) has a certain scientific conscientious- ness in attempting truth of colour, but is not a complete artistic success. His " Breaking Waves " (174) is the best sea- study here, the action of the waves being well caught. With it may be mentioned Mr. Goff's " Gale at Brighton" (43), a clever sketch, and Mr. Ayerst Ingram's " High Noon near Sidmouth, Devon" (558), a rendering of the sea in dazzling sunlight.
In architecture, Mr. Phene Spiers's sketches are, as usual, bright and workmanlike (49, 59). Mr. John Evans's work in St. Mark's, Venice (357, 698), gets something of the gleam of
conflicting lights that make it so puzzling and fascinating a study, but nothing of the depth of shadow and local colour. Less familiar, and interesting as giving the interior of what was once a Pagan temple, is the sketch in the Cathedral of Syracuse, by Mr. A. M. Paterson (489). An admirably pic- turesque subject is fairly well treated in the "Farmhouse Interior in Touraine," by Mr. C. Maundrell (358); and there is a good sketch of the church at Perguet, Finistere, by Mr. Leonard Lewis (162). A pleasing sketch by Mr. C. J. Watson, " Egmond aan Zee" (310), is, without excuse, badly hung.
The figure-subjects divide roughly into the humoristic ands the sentimental. The leaders of the former group are Mr. Charles Green (" The Pickwick Club," No. 435); Mr. J. C. Dollman (" Hawks dinna pike out hawks' een," No. 527); Mr. F. Dadd (" Hawks Abroad," No. 303) ; and Mr. T. W. Couldery (" Sent Out for Punishment," No. 707). All of these have a considerable feeling for the staging of their comedy and for the character of their actors, but there is no reason why they should be at the trouble of painting in water-colour. Their work would be much more effective in black and white. Or if it pleases them to have their drawings not "plain," but " coloured," it would be simpler to adopt the old Rowlandson plan of making out the light and shade in pencil or ink, and then passing flat tints over the black and white.
The same criticism applies to the sentimental group, and their drama is not quite so good. Mr. Grierson's " Poacher (718) is the best work of this class, and he breaks away in his "Dancing Lesson" (678), with its successful child's figure. He ought to do better yet. Mr. F. Evans makes a deserving attempt at a sailor dancing a hornpipe (625), a thing which, if- difficult to do, is trebly difficult to paint. Mr. Langley's crockeries, as well as his models, look as if they had taken to- sitting for their livelihood (397, 741). And for a specimen of the thorough-paced marine sentimentalist, for whom the harbour-bar is always moaning, commend us to Mr. Weather- head. Bad painting ought not to be encouraged to attempt to make lifeboat scenes ridiculous (126, 599).
The picture of a foreign painter, V. Cabianca, ought to be named by itself. The title is " Poor Pussy " (493), and the scene is at night in the fountain court of a convent. The figures of the two nuns stooping over the cat they have found, and the light and shade of the picture, are the most forcible work in the exhibition. Another work is a curious intruder among the homely imaginations of the Institute. We mean Mr. Reginald Savage's " Legend of Warwick and the Dun Cow" (281). It is a quaint little extravagance, with the refreshing qualities of invention and clever drawing. When the Institute painter lets his fancy get the better of him, we expect things like Mr. H. J. Stock's "Sea-Born Venus" (420), or Mr. Collingwood's " Dorothy's Dream" (152).
Is there any chance for the Institute ? Something might be done, no doubt, by cutting down the number of exhibits. The Society is overwhelmed by its own galleries. Again, some of its strongest members have sent the bulk of their work else- where, like Messrs. East, Bromley, Yeend King, and Cotman.. Others, no doubt, are reserving themselves for other exhi- bitions. But while its members can produce and hang such a constellation of bad work as groups round Miss Emily- Farmer R.I.'s deplorable " Dance on the Shore" (629), things are rather hopeless. We refuse to accept the excuse urged in the title of one of these works, " The whispering waves were half-asleep " (630). That is no reason why the painter should be quite asleep.
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