FINE ARTS.
THIRD NOTICE OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY EXHIBITION.
LANDSCAPH AND SEA PIECES.
IN going through this exhibition one hears people exclaim, "That's Turner! "—" That's Stanfield! "—and so with other popular landscape- painters as their well-known styles meet the eye: but how rarely is heard the more pertinent remark "That's nature!" Such an exclamation, how- ever, was called forth by a picture of homely character, hung close to the floor in the Middle Room—Scene on the Banks of Me Medway on a Stormy Day, (337) by W. E. Dighton. The artist's name is new to us in con- nexion with landscape-painting, and a certain crudity of style proclaims him to be a young practitioner; but there is an air of truth and freshness about the work that proves it to be a faithful representation of an actual scene viewed under this particular effect. There is nothing extraordinary in the subject itself: a rising ground at a bend of the river, with a waggon on the road and a village-church and hedge-row elms relieved against a sky veiled by a falling shower; a little vessel in the river, and a woman seated on the projecting corner of the batik; the distance lowering with black stormy clouds that rise with the wind, leaving a lurid fringe across the horizon. The vapoury masses of cloud dissolving in showers, the peculiar cold gleam of light that precedes a storm of rain, and the agitation of the water by sudden gusts of wind, are so vividly depicted that one almost feels the raw moist atmosphere. The rural simplicity of the scene, too, is well expressed; and a human interest is given to it by the poor unsheltered woman watching the distant vessel; while the rushes and other details in the foreground give local character to the view. The artist, it is to be hoped, may paint better; but he can hardly be truer. It seemsas if a transient aspect of nature had been stamped on the canvass in a moment. We instance this picture to exemplify the kind (not the degree) of ex- cellence that is desiderated in landscape,—nansely, local characteristics combined with natural atmospheric effects, so as to produce a result that places an actual scene before the mind. But instead of art representing nature, we cannot see nature for art. Turner's colour, Stanfield's details —this artist's touch, or that one's manner—stand in the way. One would be very well content to see with their eyes what they have looked on; but they are not willing to show us: they must needs dress out the scene in the livery which each one claps on to evei:y, subject. Painters go about and jot down the outlines of a number of different scenes, and come home and manufacture them into pictures: if they do catch an "effect," it lasts them a lifetime; and is repeated till the freshness and truth of the original im- pression are completely merged in a pictorial convention. It sometimes happens that the local colouring of a landscape under some peculiar aspect strikes the artist so forcibly that he makes a study of it in colours on the spot; from which he paints a picture, faithfully preserving the character of the sketch: such pictures are rare, and always the most successful and de- lightful of the painter's works. It has repeatedly occurred to us when re- marking the originality and beauty of some particular work, that we have had such a reply as this—" Ah! that was painted out of doors; or "from a very careful study in colours done on the spot." When a' land- scape-painter composes an ideal scene, he may give to it what character he pleases provided only it be consistent with the subject; but in re- presenting a view of any particular place' it is not unreasonable to expect that the characteristics of the locality should be preserved. In the Great Room are two pair of sea-pieces by Turner: two views of Venice seen under the brightest effects of morning and eve- ning min that can be conceived of an Italian sky ; and two scenes of Whalers, in which the hues of light are of such prismatic bril- liancy, that the sailors are painted of the same bright orange colour that the palaces and gondolas of Venice are decked in. As light is light all the world over, there may be times when the Northern was welter in a flood of radiance as dazzling as that which pours down from a Southern sky; but such is not their most characteristic effect. And so with the effects of morning and evening, noon and sun-set, depicted in I'urner's four Venetian scenes: there may have been times when these different periods assimilated in nature as closely as they do in these pictures; only such must be exceptional cases. Turner, however, is a "chartered libertine" in respect of halal truth: he paints the elements; and the forms and hues of objects are nought in his estimation het vehicles for representing dazzling effects of light, apace, and colour. But Stanfield depicts all the details of a scene with model-like distinctness; and in his way he is almost as far from local truth as Turner. In the East Room are three of his calm, clear sea- pieces—scenes in Holland, Spain and Italy: yet the same bright, cold, still-life aspect, pervades them all; and each is deficient in the atmospheric medium.
Creswick is admirable for the truth and elaboration with which he depicts the local forms and colours of the rocky sedusions he delights in; but he excludes both sun-light and atmosphere by the minuteness with which he imitates surface. His rocks are solid; and every fissure in them and all the pebbles in the bed of a stream, are made out with the most careful study. But the middle and extreme distances are brought as close to the eye as the foreground, for want of due gradation in the tints and shadows: those strong contrasts of light and dark that give vivacity and relief to near objects are deficient both in quality and quantity, and the monotonous heaviness thus produced is increased by the making-out of remoter passes. The water, as well as the illuminated surfaces of rocks lacks transparency; and the clouds in a mountain-scene, Rain on the Hills, are positively solid. "The wate7 depth in The Windings of a River, (301,) ansl the rushing waterfall m The River in the Glen, are beautifully pictured; and. the light is well managed in both these pictures; though the distant trees appear too small and feathery. Nor is "21. Pk:PA to Remember" (318) to be forgotten; yet the sun-beam is dead and opaque, and the rocky fore- ground has an edge like that of a stage-scene. Creswick has such a fine sense of the repose of Nature, and depicts her beauties with such devoted fondness and fidelity, that one always regrets they should fall short of the truth he aims at. He makes studies in colour on the spot, we believe; but his method of painting and skill in picture-making are not adequate to represent the grandeur of mountainous scenes: his tints are muddy and opaque, and his local colouring is not duly influenced by arial perspective. Lee is less cold and hard than formerly; but we have now to object to a flimsiness in his foregrounds and solid masses, that makes his three wood- land landscapes with trees and water, in the Great Room, appear weak and unfinished. His foliage appears to be studied from nature; though the old tree overhanging the stream, in The Water-cart, (233,) is thatchy, and the sun-light on it is solid; and the birch and elms in the Market- cart, (24,) as well as the firs in the View from P.sbury, (345) are thin and meagre. Collins's style is become feeble and heavy to what it was; yet there is truth in the distant corn-fields and the sea dappled by shadows of passing clouds, in his view of The Under Cliff near Ventnor, (126); but the foreground wants force of relief, and the sands below are too near the eye. Harding's last essay in oils-an Alpine scene, with chapel and bridge in the foreground and snowy peaks towering in the distance, Mountain Pau, (529)-is spoiled by an affectation of vigorous and free handling, and the attempt to crowd too much into the picture: the re- sult is a mass of confusion, destructive of repose and proportion; like two distinct pictures piled one on the other. There is a meritorious attempt at local truth united with a natural effect of light in a view of Harrow, (521,) by 3. Rider: the -mass of cloud with the sun bursting through is well represented, though the painting is hard and the tone cold.
There are two very clever artists whose pictures never come up to their sketches: these are Roberts and Miller. Roberts's views of Karnac and Jemsalem are admirably drawn; but in his paintings the grandeur and beauty of the sketches are lost, through the want of local colouring and atmosphere to give the effect of distance. The painting is so heavy that the dome of,the mosque at Jerusalem, which is covered with glazed tiles, looks as if it were of moss; and the setting sun tinges the columns of the temple of Karnac a dull lurid red. Denby has a sun-rise stil more fiery and opaque than this sun-set: the beauties of the landscape com- position in his Wood-Nymph's Hymn to the Rising Sun, (272,) are not visible for the brown hue that covers up three-fourths of the picture with a glossy film of varnish. It is almost as unnatural as Martin's monstrous compounds of dark brown foregrounds, light blue distances, and pale pink Alec Miller's sketches are brilliant in colour; but his large picture of the Valley of the Xanthus, (482) is dark, coarse, and wanting in light, atmosphere, and local character. The extent to which painting can go in destroying all natural characteristics is shown in a view of Baias, (497,) by Linton; where trees, rocks, figures, ground, sea, and sky, are reduced to flat rigidity by the painter's brush: his pallette vies with the Gorgon's head in petrifying power-though it turns objects to brick or stucco, not to stone. Some painters, however, systematically disre- gard nature; measuring their approximation to epic grandeur and ideal beauty by their deviation from actual truth, and risking the ideal and unreal convertible terms. Mr. Martin, as the great unnatural, claims pre- cedence; but Mr. Linton follows his steps, and Denby (alas!) is not far tertied.
Previous page
