SITE Irts.
ROYAL ACADEMY EXHIBITION: LANDSCAPES.
The landscape section does not form a very remarkable lot, yet seve- ral features in it are to be remembered. Mr. Anthony's contribution is "Stratford-upon-Avon—the Close of an Autumnal Day." A sense of warm pleased tranquillity is the predominant feeling of this very beauti- ful and elaborate picture; but this is somewhat interfered with by the threatening cheerlessness of the left-hand division of the sky; the whole of which, indeed, though its opposite portion displays some subtile and charming gradations of tint, is the least satisfactory element in the work, looking less as if direct from nature than the rest. The glassy water in the foreground, with its closed lock, the glow of the meadow-grass, deep and tender, yet sunken as in true subjection to the effect of sunset which yields slowly to the early twilight, the abundant character and discrimi- nation in the trees and bushes beyond the stream, the sweet distant donee, sheep browzing, and quaint glimpse of houses, are points treated as Mr. Anthony knows how to treat them at his best; and more we could not say
The man cutting the grass is introduced with that likelihood and vigorous sureness which constantly distinguish the human accessories in this artist's landscapes. Stratford Church rears its pallid steeple in the middle dis- tance. Mr. Denby gives three further examples of his single sunset- purple-shadowed red, broad and calm. It is certainly mannered, and even not free from mechanism, but with a beauty in it notwithstanding. We like best the "Evening," with its homeward hay-carts and dim hot serenity ; the fair tall sentinel-like trees on the rising to the left, with their mysterious colour, form a passage of much loveliness. Another sunset is in the vast "Rome " of Mr. Roberts; which the upper part burns crimson in the light, the lower looms dusky in the contrasted shade. The picture verges on the panoramic class,—painted rapidly and decisively, with less solidity than breadth, to produce its effect upon the eye from some distance,—and realizes the aim endeavoured for. Buildings and spots of interest are marked out in it in crowded profusion. Mr. Stanfield also has a very large picture—" St. Sebastian during the Siege under the Dnke of Wellington "—which may be taken as a no plus ultra exemplification of the trained competence and absence of interest which distinguish the painter. Mr. Cooke's marines maintain the fair fame which he has earned; but his "Winter—a Scene on the Fens of Huntingdonshire"—is mere child's play. " W is Winter," say the A B C books ; and, by a like simple ellipsis, Mr. Cooke says, " White paint is Winter." The zealous fidelity of Mr. Lear is embodied in " The Temple of Bassin, or Thigaleia, in Arcadia, from the Oak-woods of Mount Cotylium ; the Hills of Sparta, Athome, and Navarino, in the distance." It is gratifying to find the facility which has always characterized this talented painter now constantly controlled and elevated by the strictest study of truth : the colour looks rather cold, but we fancy that effect is to some considera- ble extent dependent on the position which the picture occupies. Mr. Creswick we must call indifferent on the present occasion ; he appears to have done his work with indifference, and the result corresponds. With much natural and acquired ability, and some feeling, lie seems now to make hacknied makebelieve and reminiscence serve the turn of the ever-fresh and life-throbbing face of Nature ; dim greens, and greys, and browns, that of her prism-tinged robe. The example whose merits ap- pear to us the least eclipsed by this system is "The Nearest Way in Summer-time,"—for which Mr. Ansdell has supplied the animated agents. Mr. Redgrave's plan is different. Hepaints either direct from nature, or does his best, by the lavishing of minute details, to make one suppose so; but, except in capital instances, he fails to awaken the senti- ment for which he labours. He as it were informs you that the senti- ment resides in such and such objects and combinations ; but he does not prove it to you by self-evidence. The green hill-side seen through the opening of the trees in his " Bird-Keeper " is the passage in which he comes nearest to the achievement of his aim. Mr. Lee is even more slovenly, effaced, and vapid, than usual; nevertheless, there are in him the dregs of a faculty for representing nature in an unsophisticated easy manner—dregs now savourless, indeed, but still wholesome rather than deleterious.
Three of the first-rate appearances in landscape may be called new—
two nearly, and one, we think, entirely so. Mr. Hook pursues the path of which he gave a hint last year. Fresh simple nature—grassy, sunny, shady—seldom finds a more feeling exponent. One gets a sense of homely out-of-doors health in looking at Mr. Hook's pictures. " The Birth-place of the Streamlet " is exquisitely cool and sweet, with a reflex glimpse of the sun too in the bright golden-haired head of the little bay who strays along the slope in childish reverie. In another, bearing the motto, "Colin thou kenst, the Southern shepherd's boy,"
the pure green hill-side is steeped, and with no strain or parade, in that sentiment which Mr. Redgrave tries for ranch harder, and realizes only in snatches. So far from being laboured, these landscapes are even slight, but they are altogether genuine : the accessory figures slight almost to feebleness, yet nice enough in character and tone to further the feeling of the scenes. Of three contributions by Mr. Inebbold, one, "The Moorland," is hung entirely out of sight—a shameful act of tyranny ; another, "At Bolton," tells as flat and chill, yet it is chaste and poetic ; " A Study in March " is a most delicious little piece—pure and perfect in its soft pale colour, and unsurpassably tender as a description of the season of early promise with its blue sky, and scarce budding boughs, and nib-
bling sheep, clustered primroses. All these works are elaborated with the deepest delicacy and minuteness, yet in such wise as to display the artist's grasp and strength quite is much as his searching study. The same season is chosen by Mr. W. Davis in his picture—" Early Spring Evening, Cheshire." This also is scarcely visible ; but we think we cannot be mistaken in saying that it is a most noble production; not truer, but even more intense, than Mr. Inchbold's, selected with a poet's eye and spirit, and full of reverence and originality. Solemn and touching in its general impression, each part of the picture appears to be wrought with entire completeness and sincerity; the enclosure of unclad trees, their manifold stems rising against the twilight air like thin rods, the gathering dusk, the dim grass, the group of children, even the uncertain- tinted brick wall. Mr. Davis seems to us by this first work destined to do things as beautiful, fine, and deep, as any man living.
Neither is the career of Mr. J. M. Carrick a questionable one. His
" Borrowdale " is full of the most unaffected study, skill, and intelli- gence, so quietly presented as almost to withdraw uncommon merit from the casual observer's recognition. " Langstrath, Borrowdale," appears to be equally good, if one could only see it. Mr. Dearle's "Trout Stream in Wales" has the lucid atmosphere and water, and the unmanufactured quality, observable in his best previous works, and fully in as rich mea- sure : the trees have tree-like nature, organic and full-bodied, yet their texture and colour betray a neglect of exact representation in favour of dexterous indication—a kind of pictorial short-hand. Mr. Dearle will not do justice to his acute sense of what is natural and lovely unless he castigate this tendency. " Magpie Island, near Henley on Thames," is a very clever and even delightful portrait, by Mr. Dearmer, of a river- nook with river-side willows, and green intertexture of water-reflections, and pleasure-boat with its ease-enjoying occupants of either sex. The
greens are somewhat crude, but cool and pleasant. Mr. W. Linnell, in his " Country Road," comes, although less warm and free, very near the Linnell—for whose handiwork, indeed, the picture seems to be generally accepted. Mr. Oakes puts his individual talent and expression into " The Devil's Kitchen, Caimarvonshire" ; but it looks rather overdone. "Near Rome—Landscape with Buffaloes," represents, and with credit to its
painter, Zahner, the greater attention of a foreign school of landscape to general and sustained character than to the realization of parts. Mr. F. Watts and Mr. Burt show aptitude in a style related to Constable's; Miss Witcombe develops the same nice observation and clear Prteraphaelite style, with a tone of quiet confidence, which we remarked at the Suffolk Street Exhibition ; and Mr. F. H. Henshaw, in "The Edge of the Wood" evinces, or seems to evince-for he too is under the ban of the hangers- good qualities somewhat analogous.
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