FINE ARTS.
SUFFOLK STREET EXHIBITION.
THE few works of merit in the Exhibition just opened at the Suffolk Street Gallery scarcely compensate for the trouble of looking through such a heterogeneous assemblage of paintings of every kind and degree of badness: out of eight hundred items in the catalogue, there are not above a score that will repay a second glance. Were this simply an indication of the present state of art in this country, we should be con- tent to pass by in silence a fact it would be equally useless and painful to dwell upon ' • but it is notorious to all who are acquainted with the powers and the feelings of artists, that the lamentable predominance of crude and vulgar efforts is attributable solely to the misconduct of the parties who have the control of this Gallery. It therefore becomes our duty to guard the public against supposing that the exhibition got up by persons calling themselves the "Society of British Artists " repre- sents the average amount or quality of talent engaged in the practice of
painting ; and to denounce the abuse of an institution, founded by pub- lic subscription and intended for the benefit of the body of artists, by a
few individuals, who, having got possession of the Gallery, convert it to their own private purposes. If any proof be required of the truth of this accusation, it will be found in the statement made by the " Society" themselves in the advertisement prefixed to the Catalogue of their pre- sent Exhibition ; wherein they have the audacity to acknowledge, that they have rejected "many works of talent, worthy of better situations than could have been assigned them without prejudice to the interests of the members of the Society" : we quote their own words. The plain Eng- lish of this is, that the Society monopolize all the best places for their own performances, in humble imitation of the Royal Academicians, and cannot therefore find room for " works of talent " by other artists. So urgent are the demands of the " interests of the members," that no better place can be found for a small picture of one of the most ex- pressive heads ever painted by an English artist—Prayer, (509,) by IL O'NEIL—that it is stuck close to the ground in a corner of one of the small rooms ; and the only poetical design that tells its story truly— Effie Deans with Sharpitlaw in the Tolbooth, (517,) by T. SMART—is thrust into the same obscure corner. These two beautiful pictures are not merely the best of their kind in the Gallery, they are the only suc- cessful designs of ideal character and touching expression. When such flagrant violations of propriety are committed, it is culpable to leave them unnoticed : we could mention other instances where works of excellence are similarly treated ; but these will suffice to exemplify the system pursued at the Suffolk Street Gallery, and to account for the extreme badness of the exhibition. But this course of proceeding, while it drives away numbers of artists in disgust, has the desired effect, con- jointly with the monopoly and unfairness of other exhibitions, of in- ducing an occasional addition to the number of members—a striking proof of the want of a properly-managed gallery. This year the Society of Bad Artists have been joined by a portrait-painter who shows indications of talent that promises to raise him to eminence as a limner of feminine grace and beauty, if be can steer clear of a tendency to mannerism, and by improved execution do justice to his taste : we allude to Mr. J. J. HELL ; whose portraits of ladies are remarkable for an elegant style of drawing, though crude in colour and flimsily painted— vide The Roses of York and Lancaster, (77 and 432,) and others : such associates as his fellow-members are not calculated to stimulate a young painter to the attainment of high excellence by rivalry, whatever effect the contrast may have. HURLSTONE, since he became " Triton of the minnows" in this standing pool of mediocrity, has gradually sunk into a seemingly hopeless and irretrievable inferiority. PRENTISS, too, be- comes more vulgar and literal every year; as is plainly evidenced by his Passages in the Life of Man, (259 and 271)—a tavern-diner setting out to get drunk, and returning home after fulfilling his intention. Mr. LATILLA has progressed from a flashy to a coarse manner ; and G. STEVENS from dead game and deal boards has advanced to marble vases and porcelain figures, in which he has attained a preeminent degree of badness : his portrait of a girl throwing flowers out of a basket, intended to represent the paintress Rachel Ruisch forming a Group of Flowers, (55,) is a masterpiece of vulgar art—the force of tea- board can no further go : the figure has neither joints nor muscles ; the lips and eyes eclipse the newest doll's in intensity of colour and hard- ness ; and flowers, flesh, and drapery, vie in rigidity and smooth surface with the marble vase beside them, though they have less rotundity. In a word, it is a curiosity of its kind; and some enlightened patron of art seems to have thought so, since the painter was rewarded for his painstaking by finding a purchaser for it at the price of two hundred guineas;—here is encouragement to persevere ; to say nothing of the edit of being at the head of the worst sort of bad painting.
There are a few landscapes that in some measure mitigate the disgust experienced by the visiter of this exhibition. Leith Hill, (61,) is the largest and best of J. W. ALLEN'S pictures ; being free from his besetting faults of rigid handling and discordant colouring, that are so glaring in his view of Holmwood, (474). Shoreham, (295,) by J. B. PYRE, is a graceful composition, chaste in tone and well painted : Mayence, (581,) is the most artistic and effective of C. F. Toxic's:Ws Rhine views, for he has in this picture imitated the style of CANALETTO. J. TENNANT has emulated Cuyes bright effects of sunlit haze in his river-scene on a summer-morning, with a carter and a milk-woman in the foreground enjoying an Unprofitable Gossip, (167): H. J. ROD- DINGTom has spruced up the trees in an otherwise pleasing lane-scene on Sunday Morning, (159) ; and W. SHAVER contributes some of his hot, close, rustic pictures. The most remarkable marine subject is a scene on the beach At Entretat, on the coast of Normandy—Brig coming ashore—Stormy Sunset, (117,) by II. LANCASTER : the lurid glare of the sun's rays reflected on the rocks, the waves, and the groups of figures on the shore, is a little too violent perhaps, and the water wants fluency ; but there is a great deal of power in the painting, and the artist shows himself to be a close observer of nature. Two interiors of Henry the Seventh's Chapel, (582,) by S. RAYNER, and a Chapel at Antwerp, (393,) by E. HASSELL, have considerable merit. Mr. HERRING'S horses haunt every room, like a visitation of nightmare. Among the wider-colour drawings, a bold and effective view of Lon- don from Waterloo Bridge, (659,) by W. C. SMITH, and two life-size heads in crayons, of a sweet girl and a grave man whose look is heavy with thought, (707 and 726,) beautifully drawn by LAURENCE, are the most striking.
The Sculpture consists of a few busts and a figure or two : PARK'S busts of Commodore Napier, Mr. John Foster, and Mr. A. Johnstone, a young painter of promise, are the most characteristic.
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