ART.
THE FRENCH EXHIBITION.
[SECOND NOTICE.—THE FOREIGN SCHOOLS.] IT is interesting to observe the various degrees of intensity in which the influence of French technical art education makes itself felt on the painters of different nationalities. The Dusseldorf and Antwerp schools have their followers in certain sections ; but they are as a drop in the ocean when compared with the countless numbers who have evidently received the most distinctive part of their training either in the Beaux Arts or one of the many open ateliers.
In no country does the French influence flourish more than in Spain, the cradle of the most individual painter, in the person of Velasquez, whom the world has ever seen. Madrazo, on whom, it may justly be said, the mantle of Fortuny has
fallen, is strongly represented. He succeeds, like his master, by immense dexterity of manipulation and a very bright, sometimes approaching dangerously to a garish, scheme of colour. His ladies' portraits, though giving a very favourable idea of the beauty of the fair " Mitdrikfias," axe, to our insular ideas, wanting in dignity and repose ; the shapely feet and ankles, to which he does such justice, are too obtrusively brought forward, and the result is that his subjects have an air of ladies of the ballet chez elles. A lady in pink, a colour always difficult to deal with in juxtaposition with complexion, is a triumph of skilful management. One painter alone amongst the Spaniards seems to have been influenced in some degree by the dignity of Velasquez, and that is Senor Alvarez, in his historical subject of Philip II., old and broken (he has been carried out in his litter and seated on a terrace of the Escurial, with a grey, stormy, evening sky, while his guards, dressed in red, wait respectfully below). The picture is an impressive one, and the colour is sombre and in harmony with what one would imagine the re- flections of the disappointed and gloomy monarch might be. Italy, as regards art, is rather disappointing in the exhibition. There are some wonderfully elaborate and painstaking pencil drawings of scenes of ancient Roman history by Macari, but they are not highly interesting. An effect of rocks and water, by Fontanti, is a veritable tour de force in execution, and there is the usual quota of statuary, in which misplaced ingenuity, in the shape of fishing-nets, lace, and umbrellas painfully imitated in marble, play such an important part, a branch of sculpture which the Italians specially affect, possibly with an eye to their being bought up for purposes of advertisement. On entering the Austrian rooms, we feel ourselves at once in a some- what bituminous atmosphere. In M. Munkacsy's " Crucfudon," everything swims in that seductive but uncertain pigment ; surely, even for these days, this is one of the most disagreeable renderings of the subject. A less known painter, Charlemont, exhibits some very clever and powerful work; his group of pages in mediaeval dress amusing themselves with some gigantic boarhounds, is a forcible piece of painting, and so is the portrait of a lady in white. Chelmonsszky represents Russia well with his realistic canvases of scenes of peasant and Cossack life. All readers of Tolstoi's and Tourgenieff's novels must be thankful to meet with a painter enabling them to realise many of the descriptions of scenery and customs to be found in their pages. Van Ronen paints some reviews resplendent with gorgeous uniforms, and there is a life-size portrait of that respectable monarch, King Milan, who, like his late Majesty George IV., dresses to perfection the part of a soldier, if he does not act it. Finland has a room to itself quite distinct from Russia, and, thanks to M. Edelfeldt, comes very much to the front. This clever artist, though little known in England, has had for some years great success in French exhibitions. His manner of painting is French in technique, but he possesses a refinement and dis- tinction all his own, and his work is inspired with that mysterious and melancholy poetic feeling so characteristic of the North. His picture here of a knot of Finnish peasant women, dressed in white and red, grouped outside a rude stone church which lies quite solitary among the fir- trees on the shores of a sea-fiord, the scene vividly put before one, and artistically treated in the beet sense of the word, forms an agreeable change from the innumer- able conventional subjects treated from a conventional point of view. M. Edelfeldt's talent is not confined to landscape, as his portraits here testify; he treats his sitters unconventionally, and gives us the poet Topelius, a benevolent- looking old gentleman, seated in his own room against a window, through which we see the snow-laden trees faintly touched with the rosy glow of a winter sunset. This, and his portrait of M. Pasteur (by far the best of the six or seven in the exhibition), are remarkable as being portraits of men in their habits as they live, and not studio likenesses, either in effect of light and shade, or in choice of accessories. Equally successful in grace and prettiness, nothing can be more charming than the daring study he calls "An Piano," a couple of ladies, the blonde singing, with her face strongly illumi- nated, and an accompanist in shadow, equally graceful. This is one of the few effects of lamplight we have seen agreeable in colour, making a picture every one would like to possess.
Germany, who does not exhibit as a nation, but only under the head of a group of artists, has little that makes any serious demand on the attention,—one of the only clever pictures being that by Herr Hoeche, representing a group of German blue- jackets, seated between the great Krupp guns, cleaning their rifles. The men's actions, and the light coming in from.the port- hole and its reflected effects on the fittings of the gun, are admirably given. It may not be high art, but it is a page of modern naval history, and would do more to elucidate the mysteries of life between decks on one of the complicated floating workshops, than pages of descriptive writing. Sweden is the most to the fore of the three Scandinavian countries. Zorn.'s excellent portraits, particularly one of an artist in grey corduroy seated amongst his works, and Bruno Liljeboy's capital sporting subjects, stand out strongly. Two of the latter painter's pictures, one representing duck- shooting amongst the reeds, and the other the cock caper- caihie showing himself off on the grey boulders, amongst the fir-trees, to his seraglio of sombre-coloured hens, with a delicately painted morning effect, would, we fancy, contrary to the generality of sporting pictures, satisfy painterr, ornithologists, and sportsmen, so good is the artistic effect, and so thorough and knowing the detail. The Norwegian Christian Skredsiz's " St. John's Evening," a party of peasants in a boat crossing a quiet fiord, is a picture one would kite to live with, it conveys so completely the feeling of tranquillity and repose. Denmark is more tinged with an antiquated academical, hard style ; but the work of MM. Henningsen and Kroner (especially the latter's " Wedding Feast ") is directly painted, and very strong in both colour and values. Switzerland has a poor portrait of Pasteur, and M. Giron's colossal picture representing the chance meeting of two sisters who have followed different roads in life,—the one is seated in splendour in her victoria, the other, with her children and stalwart ouvrier husband, tramps humbly on foot. The scene takes place oppo- site the Madeleine, and all the traffic and bustle of the crowded boulevards are given with rare skill ; but we doubt whether the gigantic scale on which it is painted helps the effect. The technical merits of the picture are undoubted ; but it would be difficult to say if it is to be regretted that such pictures are not to be seen at Burlington House. Servia sends a clever picture by M. Michelnar, of Charlotte Corday leaving her cell for the scaffold, having just given her sitting for the well- known portrait to be seen at Versailles. Modern Greece is best represented, as far as execution goes, by two very modish and fashionable Greek ladies enjoying a nineteenth-century Greek illustrated paper. Holland and Belgium are both black, especially the former ; they have their own schools, and heavy-handed they seem after seeing so much of the cool, grey French influence at work. MM. Van Beers and Fernand Knopff are not so black, but they are very eccentric, especially the latter, whose picture, which he calls " 17ne Sphinge," is the most incomprehensible thing in the whole of the galleries.
America takes us back to the French manner ; Sargent, Stewart, and Abbey are all well represented ; and, in con- clusion, we come to our own rooms, where we at once notice the prominence of a yellow, rather livery tone in the work shown. Professor Herkomer's " Miss Grant " and Sir John Millais's " Cinderella" come in for a due share of admiration from French spectators, as does Mr. Wyllie's good picture, so well known here as the advertisement of the Union Line. Mr. Solomon's work is quite at home in Paris, and Mr. Gregory's little girl seated on a table, and backgrounded by gold paper, stands, like all of this most individual painter's work, quite alone as one of the cleverest pieces of painting in the whole exhibi- tion. The comments of the French on Mr. Overend's picture of "A Football Scrimmage" are highly entertaining; the shrug of the shoulders with which an elderly décor4 French- man regards it speaks volumes : " Quels sanvages ! sapristi 1" Messrs. Alma-Tadema, Herbert Marshall, and Shannon are well represented, but want of space compels us to bring our account to a close.
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