art.
THE ROYAL ACADEMY. [THIRD NOTICE.] HOMELY subjects are plentiful enough ; as if our artists had taken to heart an old observation, that perpetual seeking after ideal forms and ideal beauty is in danger of producing disgust for
common persons and things,. The observation is probably a just . . one; but, allowing for difference of taste and talent in the artist,
it must be concluded that it is no less difficult to treat homely subjects successfully than it is to give outward shape to the crea- tures of imagination. Among all the pictures taking every-day life for their subject that are annually exhibited, it is seldom that any one, approaches the measure of success which Mr. F. D. Hardy his achieved in his "Leaky Roof" (265). It has more directness in the action, sobriety and simplicity in the treatment, and know- ledge of the technical part of Art, than generally characterises English pictures of the same class. There is no attitudinizing, nor gaudiness of colour, none of that florid picturesqueness or " look- at-me if you please" immodesty which are the bane of half the works in the gallery, and which may be summed up in the one word vulgarity. An undesirable excess of these bad qualities in many of the pictures which surround Mr. A. Legros's " Le Lutrin " (435) makes the severity of the latter a positive relief. It is not that severity is a necessary quality. Titian was not severe. Bat refinement, native or acquired, can ill be spared. Mr. V. Prinsep is not a model in this respect. His claim to notice has depended on a certain richness of colour which, in spite of much heaviness, has generally been attractive. But the heaviness increases to muddiness ; and it is vain to look for the tenderness and delicacy which, no less than trenchant vigour, are inseparable from genius. " The Flight of Jane Shore " (405) aims at some- thing higher in point of expression than is usual with the artist, and is undoubtedly his best picture. Whether the " flight " is a historical fact or not is comparatively unimportant; the catas- trophe is a proper motive for the painter. For delicacy of colour nothing surpasses Mr. Whistler's " Little White Girl " (530), the large-boned young woman in white muslin who scarcely corresponds to the beauty imagined by the poet whom it professes to illustrate —" the flower is fair." Any other good qualities possessed by this picture are more remarkable for having been produced by such hasty sketching than for their absolute rarity. When will Mr. Whistler give up sensation-hunting and betake himself honestly to his work ? Glimpses of power appear in some of his sketches, as in " Old Battersea Bridge " (343), which one would fain believe more natural to him than his ludicrous imitation of Japanese art. He is by no means the first to assert the excellence of Asiatic colourists. Let him now be satisfied with having delivered his testimony to the same effect. Genuine Japanese art reveals a humour which is more difficult to imitate, and of which there is no trace in the European counterfeit.
Mr. J. Archer paints children well. He gives them their proper characters and expressions ; yet always with a sly allusion to more advanced age. His last year's picture, How the little lady stood to Velasquez," will be remembered. This year he paints two little girls playing cards (452), one with serious brow utter- ing the accusation " You're cheating" to the other, whose depre- catory look is very amusing. These children are only a little overdone with their fine dresses. " The Anxious Mother" (199), by Mr. G. B. O'Neil, is a less elaborate work, but scarcely inferior in exhibition of character. The numerous family of dolls whom she has put to bed are no joke to this little body ; she verily believes in the necessity for the silence which, in spite of their staring eyes, she bespeaks for them with appropriate gesture. Here, too, should be mentioned with praise Mr. Dever's picture, " Please have you seen Mother ?" (375) ; a strayed child just awakening to a sense of her very uncomfortable position.
"Arming the Young Knight" (367), by Mr. Yeames, will be remarked as one more of the few pictures in which the persons 1-e- presented are unaffectedly engaged in the action without any apparent consciousness of being looked at. The expression of the mother and sister are singularly good ; nor perhaps is that of the young knight himself eager to do his devoir, though much more difficult to paint, less successfully given. Composition and colour are both in advance of Mr. Yeames's previous works. Mr. Crowe and Mr. Storey have each given good promise in former years. But no man can always equal his best efforts, and on this occasion their pictures, though carefully grouped and painted, have but little originality in thought or effect. Mr. Boswell has never painted anything so good in colour as the landscape in " Diverging Paths " (417). The composition is not good ; the old man is not made sufficiently interesting to occupy • so much space, and the moral- is written in needlessly large capitals. But the sunlit distance is beautiful ; far better than Mr. W. Linnell's "Shepherd's Mount" (397), which is leaden and mannered. There are two pictures in the North room little likely to catch general approbation, yet both &Serving some attention. One is Mr. A. Moore's" Elijah's Sacrifice" (615), in which not- withstanding unnecessary affectation (as it seems) of austerity and quaintness, there is a aubstratum of intense feeling, which lade good guidance might lead to great results., The other and less questionable picture is one of tinkers at their work (547). As single glance shows that no English artist of the present day could possibly have painted it—so black and, in the English sense, so unnatural is the colour. But there is the equally valuable quality technically known as "keeping," the drawing and modelling are vigorous, and the expression true. We are too much afraid of the so-called artificial.
Some of the best landscapes have already been mentioned, and they grow in interest on closer acquaintance —Antony's, Mawle,y'S,. Leader's, and, Mason's. Mr. Bottomley'a " Under the ClOud " (453) is quite worthy of hanging with any of them. The material is in a sense nil,—a broken bank of sand and heather, and a pond at which a few sheep are coming to drink, under a lowering sky. All depends on the treatment, which is that of a true artist, easy, well-balanced, and simple. Some will desire closer attention to finish. This they will find in Mr. H. W. B. Davia's " Strayed Herd" (560). Nor will those for whom breadth is a greater charm have any reason here to complain. There is no reason indeed why both should not go hand in hand if in painting his details the artist resolutely keeps before his mind's eye the general effect. Without this Mr. Davis could not have painted so good a picture as he has. After Landseer we have no artist who paints cattle so well. No one will have missed noticing the frayed, wild look of the herd, which is quite conscious of having broken bounds, nor the pure daylight that pervades the landscape. all who are painstaking in detail took an equally comprehensive view of nature there need be no fault found with minute finish. For indeed it is a relative question. It is not how much finish may be Put into a picture generally, but how much will a given picture Carry without being overburdened. The quantity varies with the Intensity of the general impreasion, and it is only when the detail attracts more attention than the general effect or subject that it becomes offensive. If it does that it is offensive, because it is untrue. It is a well-known story of W. Runt (the most pains- taking of artists) exclaiming once, while painting from nature, " How d—d bread it [nature] ia!" No artist appears to feel this More strongly than Mr. J. C. Moore, who sends here two water- colour drawings (632, 652), very similar in feeling to those exhibited by him at the General ,Water-Colour Exhibition. No artist appears to feel it less than Mr. J. M. Carrick in his Alps near Nice" (480), from which every charm of space, grandeur, and solemnity have utterly evaporated. And a similar observa- tion is applicable to his study of " Sea-coast and Waves " (21). He is no careless observer, but deficient in comprehensiveness of view. Mr. Brett belongs to the same school. " Morant's Court in May" (137) is beautifully painted in parts, and the sky-colour Deflected from the polished grass-blades has seldom been imitated with so much truth and delicacy. It is to be feared however that: he considers any conscious arrangement of his materials as a sur-
render to the evil one. . .
Of other landscapes the following should be particularly noticed : —Mr. Inchbold's "Public Gardens—Venice, from the sea" (50Q), notwithstanding its unintelligibly high horizon; Mr. F. TalfoUrd's "well-intended sketches in North Wales, especially (203) ; Mr. G. Stanfield's "Palazzo Contarini "(351), well put on the canvass, but betraying insufficient out-door study of colour ; Mr. Robb's ivell-eoloUred little " Corner of a Wood " (546) ; and a little study that hangs next it, by Mr. C. P. Knight (545) ; Mr. J. Dearle's "Surrey Lane " (413) ; Mr. Darvall's "Lych-gate " (597) ; and Mr. Raven's " Windmill " (324). " The lone sea-shore " (345), by Mr. Hemy, iinoticeable also for the size given to the cliff ; Mr. Lier's otherwise oyer7blick landscape for a passage in the distance (3$9),; and Mr. Harrison's "All in the Downs" (423), for its admir- able study of clouds. Miss Mutrie and her sister exhibit more of their gorgeous flower pieces (384, 399). After their glittering Splendour one finds repose in the more chastened beauty of M.
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