THE ART-UNION.
The works to be delivered to every Art-Union subscriber for the year ending with this month have reached us : they consist of Mr. 1 more's engraving after Mr. J. J. Chalon's " Water Party," and of arto volume of thirty wood-cut illustrations to Childs Harold.
To the first we had occasion to allude when the last gallery of Union prize-pictures was open. It bears looking into thoroughly; being a brilliant engraving from a vivid and artistic composition, full of style and appropriateness. Mr. J. I. Chalon was for years past a painter ignorantly decried as an instance of wrongful election into the Academy, whereas in fact he had more of the real stuff of an artist about him than many of the acclaimed elect of the day. This print came as a graceful tribute and vindication in the closing year of his life; we were gra- tified to observe in the Art Journal an appreciative bituary notice from the band of Mr. Leslie. Perhaps more justice will be done to the painter dead than living.
The Illustrations to Childs Harold form a volume of simple good taste in the getting-up ; and an edition of the poem is in preparation with which they may be bound together. Their merit fluctuates from vul- garity and downright badness, in such as Mr. Godwin's two and Mr. Feed's Egeria, to remarkable artistic savoir-faire and talent in Mr. Ten- niel's Field of Waterloo after the battle. When Mr. Tenniel designs like this, he has few rivals as an illustrator on wood. The picture is engraved by Messrs. Dalziel, with elaborate completeness and a subdued but excellent effect of moonlight,—an effect also successfully rendered by Mr. J. L. Williams after Mr. Lake Price's Bridge of Sighs. Mr. Hol- land's Lisbon and Rialto are clear and delicate. Mr. Gilbert, though not with one of his best designs, asserts his supremacy as a professional wood-designer over those who are comparatively mere amateurs in the process. Mr. Anadell has an easy Spanish muleteer and an effective battle-field. Mr. Goodall's "Little shepherd in his white capote " dis- plays facility and aptitude for the material, unusual in one so little used to it, contrasting with the meagreness which so good an artist as Mr. Cope, for instance, is unable to overcome. Mr. Leitch shows himself the same intelligent and copious landscapist as ever. In point of engraving, with a few exceptions for which the designers are probably more in fault than the cutters, and reserving a general objection to the vignette-style on wood, the series is highly creditable. Examples by Mr. W. J. Linton, Mr. Measom, Mr. H. D. Linton, and Mr. Green, as well as the Messrs. Dalziel, deserve to be specified.
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