ART.
MISS MARIANNE NORTH'S INDIAN SKETCHES.* WHAT is it in a landscape or a country that makes the one or the other suitable for pictorial representation P Why is it that many common-place scenes look beautiful on paper or canvas, and many beautiful and strange ones hardly make pictures even when the greatest amount of skill and labour has been bestowed upon them P Think for a minute of the innu- merable beauties and points of interest which the East presents to the artistic traveller, and then try and remember even a single instance where a painter has been inspired by such beauty to produce a great picture. The life of Cairo and Damas- cus has been painted for us by our artists, but where are the pictures of Benezes and Canton ? and yet Benaree and Canton have a richer artistic field than is to be found even in Egypt, and are incomparably more strange, to those who have not visited them. Speaking in all sobriety, we doubt whether there is to be found in the world a more utterly novel sight than is presented to the traveller who winds his way for the first time through the lanes (they cannot be called streets) of Canton, or stands with a mixture of curiosity and disgust in the monkey- temple of Benares. But neither China nor India has been painted in other than the most perfunctory manner, perhaps M. Vereschagin's works forming the nearest approach to serious art which has had for its subject the representation of such countries. And if we have not hitherto had any great imaginative work from our Indian Empire, still less have we had any simple, straightforward attempts to bring worthily before us the glow of colour and the intricacy of ornament, which are the main characteristics of Indian life and architecture. To do this has been reserved for an amateur lady painter, and we may at once say that in many respects Miss North has succeeded in the difficult task which she has attempted, with a pluck and industry which would alone compel our admiration, but which are accompanied by artistic gifts of a high order. We may be mistaken in our notion of what has been this lady's aim throughout the 500 oil-sketches which she has executed, chiefly of the scenery, flowers, fruits, and architecture of India ; but if we are right, she has hardly aimed at picture-making in one case, but simply at recording, for the benefit of those who have to stay at home, sufficient • 9 Conduit street, Bond Street, W.
facts of form and colour to enable us to picture vividly what sort of a land it is where our Queen is an Em- press. We speak from personal experience of India, when we say that in the main the artist has been successful. She has not perceived, we think, some of the finer effects of light. and shade ; and her work does not, and could hardly be expected to, deal with the intricacies of architectural details as fully and. with as much artistic ability as that of M. Vereschagin, now exhibiting at South Kensington ; but she has caught far more vividly than the Russian artist the clearness of light which is . general throughout the country, and the somewhat thin, bright colour, which that intensity of light produces. It is almost invidious to select examples from a series like this, as all the works are evidently intended to form links in a series ; but in regard to this painting of brilliant atmosphere, the two pic- tures of the "Pearl Mosque" and the "Interior of the Palace at Delhi" might be very fairly contrasted with H. Vero- schagiu's treatment of the same subject, under the same or similar conditions of light. It is true that the foreign painter has, in his small picture of the "Pearl Mosque," produced a composition which is instinct with a poetry lacking in Miss North's work ; but nevertheless, the effect of Indian sun- shine is, we think, as far as it goes, truer in the work of the English amateur, than in that of the Russien artist.
Undoubtedly, from first to last, Miss North's great strength lies in her truthfulness; everything else in her pictures occasion- ally goes to pieces. In many of her drawings the vertical lines— or rather, what should be the vertical lines of her buildings—are tumbling about in various directions, and her management of light and shade is also apt to be rather crude and unsatisfactory, But still, in every work without exception, one thing is quite evident, and that is,—that a person has sat down and painted, heart and soul, what was seen; and as a consequence, all the pictures. have considerable interest, and as almost necessary a . consequence, the best works are those in which the subject is one which admits of perfectly accurate repreduction,—such as for instance, the various species of fruit and flowers and flower- ing shrubs, which the artist met with in her travels. These are ren- dered with surprising accuracy, and some of them are very fine in colour. Perhaps the flower of the poinsettia may be mentioned. as being, on the whole, the best of this series, which is one which would be well worth reproducing in colour-printing. With regard to Miss North's pictures of Indian architec- ture, we feel somewhat doubtful how to speak. In truth, regarded as impressions done in haste upon the spot, they have much merit ; but we must confess that there is a certain coarseness in her rendering of the more intricate forms and ornaments, which seems to us scarcely consistent with the general style of the painting, and in consequence of which much of the peculiar attractiveness of these monuments and temples is missed. . Speaking very roughly of Indian monuments, they may be called barbaric in general form, and highly civilised in detailed form, and unless the delicacy of the detail is clung fast to in any picture of this architec- ture, the barbarism of the mass tells quite unduly. Miss North gives an impression with bold truth, but she fails. to realise the delicacy of ornamentation which almost invariably softens the rough effect which would other- wise be produced. Thus nothing can well be uglier in shape than the Kootub Minar, near Delhi. It is like a series of sugar-loaves, decreasing in size as they ascend, the points of the larger ones being cut off to form a base for the next in size. This, monument is, as we say, hideous in general form ; but when we get near enough to see that these sugar-loaves are composed of rows of delicately-fluted columns, and that round the base of each successive storey there is a bewildering confusion of delicately chased and involved ornament, the subtlety and the labour of the design, strike us as forcibly as did at first the unpleasiug form of the whole, and. we feel that it is no longer possible to call the work ugly.. To say that a lady, amateur has not quite succeeded in realising the peculiar, and, in some respects, contra- dictory elements of such architecture is, after all, hardly neces- sary, for up to the present time it has never been quite success- fully painted. In conclusion, we can only say of Miss North's work, that it is exactly the sort of work which an amateur should do. It is earnest and painstaking and industrious, and it has a, clear, indisputable worth, in making known facts about a foreign country, in a most pleasant and intelligible manner.
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