ART.
THE NEW GALLERY.
Phis pa change, plus c'cst la mdme chose. These words might have been taken as the motto of the New Gallery under its fresh conditions. The organisation of the Exhibition has been changed, and the hospitality of the walls is now extended only to subscribing members. Nevertheless the character of the collection of pictures remains the same. There is, how- ever, a reform in one direction, for we are no longer troubled by the painful efforts of the socially distinguished amateurs, As in former times. Taking the Exhibition as a whole, it is difficult to regard it as .anything else than an attenuation of the Academy. The New Gallery is far plea Ranter to visit than its huge rival in Piccadilly, for the walls are decently spaced, the pictures are not hung at altitudes trying to the neck, and the rooms are few in • number. The physical conditions are better, but the art is the same. The difference now between the two Exhibitions can be said to be only one of degree and not of kind. Old effects are repeated, and well- worn paths are trodden. There is unhappily too little sign of that spirit of discovery which is the salt of art, though mere change for the sake of novelty is, of course, as objection- able as the complacent abiding in thoroughly explored surroundings.
This danger to a certain extent exists for Mr. Hughes. Stanton, although it is no exaggeration to say that his land- scape, The Mountain Road, Provence (No. 96), is the most accomplished thing in the Gallery. Year by year this artist has steadily gained in power, not only of representation, but of dignity of style. Let us hope that he will beware of repetition, however much it may tend to the perfecting of his Manner, and remember that there is no greater stimulus to creation than the taking up from time to time the attitude of the explorer. Mr. Hughes-Stanton shows his great qualities as a designer in the picture referred to, for although the material out of which it is composed is good, it is not exceptional. In spite of this, it is so handled that the result achieves a nobility and largeness of style, we may even say grandeur, to which no other picture in the Gallery attains.
Mr. Hopwood's picture, A Picardy Farm (No. 71), shows us landscape of quite a different kind. Here we have a view of Nature intimate and refined without the graces of elaborate style, though with the charms of delicate colour and beautiful appreciation of sunlight. Another good quality of the picture ia that, although painted with no small mastery, there is not the least obtrusion of cleverness,—a thing for which we may be devoutly thankful in these days of showy execution. Mr, Bertram Priestman , gives us two landscapes, both of which reveal his capacity, and are unmarred by the rather wilful vagueness of execution which he sometimes affects. The smaller of these, Sunshine and Mist (No. 57), is full of delicate appreciation of light and colour in the painting of the trees and water, The othcr picture, The Church on the Hill (No. 76), is remarkable for the fine realisation and use of the ehadows of passing clouds by means of which the composition is built up. The middle distance with its hill-crowned church is the principal part of the picture, and in it the artist has succeeded in giving a fine effect of luminous shadow full of Colour; nor must we forget the very beautiful sky. Mr. Adrian Stokes commands attention by his sincere and unaffected style, whether in his small A Well on the Hungarian Pkana (No. 117), with its beautiful drawing and feeling for space, or in his larger October on the Great. Hungarian Punta (No. 19). In this work the painter has made use of the unusual artistic material of a fata lifergana.
The landscapes :which have been under consideration reach' a higher level than the figure pictures in the Gallery. In these there is ,unfortunately too often a lack of taste, a straining after effect, and a would-be masterlinesa of execution Which make be turn from them in sorrow, if not. indeed in disgust. This is the case with Mr. J. J. Shannon, A.R.A. His In the Dunes (No. 80) seems to aim at a superficial prettiness of whieli the millinery was the inspiration, nor does his portrait (No. 135) rise to a higher artistic level: It is with regret that we find Mr. George Henry painting so flimsily as he-does in Butterflies (No. 142). These three ladies are entirely unsubstantial, and have no independent artistic existence, and the posing of the models is painfully obvious. From such feebly realised work it is a pleasure to turn to the finely Modelled and constructed heads and hands of Mr. Homers children in The Bladebird's . Song (No. -153), even if here there is a feeliug that we are looking at something that the artist has accustomed us to already. A delightfully fresh and vital piece of work is Mrs. Adrian Stokes's lifilachner KinU (No. 146), a fair-haired child's head wrapped in a brown head. There is no question of independent existence here. The same artist shows delightfully her • power of interpreting in paint the spirit of Germania folk-lore as applied to children in her little picture, The • Ohristmas Dream (No. 9). Here the infant Christ brings a golden heart to a child. Apart from the sentiment of the picture, .which • is most delicately expressed, the artistic qualities are delightful, including the happily planned Ohristmas decoration which frames the work.
It has fortunately been possible to discover some pictures in the rather uneventful collection at the New- Gallery which are a delight to look at, and it is a satisfaction to know that of these a large proportion are landscapes. It is to be hoped that the new venture may flourish, but the Directors must remember the importance in a close Society of the admission of fresh blood from outside. H. S.
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