THE WATER-COLOUR SOCIETIES.
That England is far ahead of all other countries in water-colour painting is an admitted fact. The comparison, therefore, which she challenges from year to year when the two Water-Colour Societies open, as they have done this week, is not with the general state of art in Europe, but only between the Societies themselves, and each with its own precedent
displays. From this point of view, the present exhibitions elm only be deemed moderately successful—the New Society fairly up to its average,
the Old somewhat below its own. The rapidity, constancy, and high ratio of productiveness which belong to artists in this department, is only too surely marked on their performances: there is unquestionably some staleness in the Old Society, and not too much freshness in the New.
However, while we look at the contribution of the President of the senior body, Mr. Lewis's " Hharcem Life "—and it is a work which one may linger over for an unlimited time and be still discovering fresh beauties—we forget all about the average of the exhibition, in wonder at such exquisite and perfect skill. The subject is simplicity itself. One of the hluireem ladies lolls on her couch, dangling her fan of peacouk's feathers at a tabby cat : another woman, probably an attendant, stands looking on. Her face is reflected in a tourer which hangs forward from the wall, and which reflects also the advancing teat of a man, not otherwise visible in the picture,—the guardian of the sequestered beauties, or, " it may be, their lord and master, of whose entrance the reclining fair one affects a coquettish unconsciousness. Green, crimson, and gold, and hues too subtilely blended and refined for words—brocade and silk—ming ling the enchantment of their tints, "make a sunshine in the shady place" ; the open window, trellised above, looks down upon the rich country, lying bright and pale in the sunshine. The faces are painted with astonishing delicacy of manipulation, but are not, it must be confessed, the most interesting part of the picture : the lady's is soft and
pleasant, but neither very beautiful nor exalted by depth of expression—
which would, indeed, be out of character in such a subject ; the standing figure's is rather severe than otherwise. The glory of the work lies in
its colour and its marvellous art : to analyze and appraise these at full, would be to write a treatise on colour, as their attainment has been the work of a lifetime, and is matter for study sufficient to exhaust the life of many another painter.
Not less perfect in its way is Mr. Hunt's head of "A Poacher." Thushort round features, expressive of low humour and cunning, full of' shifts and "dodges," are admirably individual. In dingy green coat, with his short clay in hand, the misdemeanant site in the tap-room over Ins pot of beer, the incarnation of callous joviality. Mr. Hunt has done nothing better than this as a study from common life; nor perhaps anything finer, as a bit of still-life, than the "Quinces, tke." on another screen.
The most ambitious attempt as a figure-subject is " Faust's First Sight of Margaret," by Mr. F. W. Burton. This is evidently, however, be
yond the present powers of an artist whose studies from actual peasant
life deservedly won him so rapid a reputation. Faust is clumsy in the upper part of the figure, and bumpy and meagre in the legs ; and Mar garet's baihful flutter betrays as much slyness as shyness. Mrs. Grid
dle's "Children in the Wood" is simple in expression and painting, and,. though it looks rather "odd" at first, will bear careful examination. Mr.. Haag ranges between what may fairly be called grandeur on the one hand and a very offensive form of conventional affectation on the other. The "Tambourine Girl" combines his best qualities with a quiet ease of exe cution which he rarely displays; the "Roman Pilgrim" is miserably pretentious and got-up. Mr. Taylor again, at the opposite polo in style, varies considerably ; in execution always insipid, but sometimes
easyand sprightly, as in "Glen Tilt—Otter-Hounds Questing," or "A Ride through the Heather" ; at other times, utterly vapid, as in "Highland Drovers." Mr. Walter Goodall's "Caught by the Tide" is the most important subject he has exhibited, and one of the most valuable. Mr. Joseph Nash also appears in now unusual force : his "Summer's Diversion on the Terrace, El ramshill, Hants," has all his cleverness and bright precision, with the accustomed want of life. Once more that grand old man David Cox shows his juniors how easily he can beat all their most deliberate undertakings, by dabbing-one would have said at haphazard—a brush with dusky blues aud greys over a bit of packing-paper. Yes, he holds the talisman ; and the scraggiest forked creature from his hand comes out a man instinct with will and motion and the most undecipherable splotch becomes more solemn than a cathedral chant. Look at that man fishing "On the Llugwy," on such an excessively black day ; or at " Carnarvon Castle," which need not be quite so dirty brown against the noble horizon-line of sea; or at the sturdy old horseman in his white coat in the "Shrimpers, Hastings," and the fishing-women breasting the wind so stoutly, as they hurry seaward to catch the nick of time; or at the purple hills, and yellow sky with crows in the "Bolton Abbey, Evening." These things can be parodied, but remain unemulated. Next to these, we find nothing better than Mr. Duncan's "Winter—Sheep Feeding " ; which is very beautiful for truth, quiet sentiment, and mature observation. If it presented, especially in various vividness of colour, more evidence of study from nature direct on the spot, this would be nearly faultless ; and it indicates so much of the results of direct study that we are scarcely disposed to complain. In the same artist's "View of Spithead from the Isle of Wight," the liquid luminous gleam of the double rainbow is surprisingly well caught. Then, there are the careful unexaggerated streetscenes of Mr. Burgess junior ; the broad Italian masses of Mr. Evans's light and shade • the effects rendered by Mr. William Turner in genuine seeking after nature; Mr. Rosenberg's and Mr. CoRingwood's mountainscenes ; some particularly pleasant and tasteful landscape-studies by Mr. Dodgson; the poetical feeling of Mr. Palmer, with daring effects which somewhat transcend the healthy effort of art; and the bright fresh foliage and water of Mr. Naftel. The brightness of these, however, certainly extends too often to crudeness : the danger has been least, and the success most unalloyed in "Under the Old Castle-walls, Guernsey," which is strikingly brilliant and fascinating, with the warm yellow of the sunlit stone, and the azure inlets of sea among the shingles. The New Society, like the Old, has a President who delights in Oriental subjects, and who portrays them with so much of local detail as to render not readily credible—what we understand to be the fact—that he has never visited the scenes of his predilection. Mr. Warren's " Street Scene in Cairo, with a Marriage Procession," is one of the most deceptive works of this class, and in many respects highly attractive. The chief foreground figures, it is true' are more than commonly poor and uninteresting ; but the centre, with the bride and her company, is gay in colour, and brightly without being gaudily lighted, and the background is picturesque enough to indispose one for picking faults. The picture will enhance Mr. Warren's reputation with the public. Three other large figure-subjects arrest attention at once. "The Fatal Meeting," by Mr. Corbould, is the old story of the Buondelmonte, who, falling in love with the damsel of the Amidei family, embittered the Guelph and Ghibelline factions in Florence. Mr. Corbould has seldom of late years exhibited a work in which his uncommon skill and mastery are so satisfactorily balanced against the defects which are now too familiar to need description. The Buondelmonte has a knightly seat on his charger, and the lady is blooming enough to make the point of the story intelligible at once. The Scene at a Prussian Fair," by the same artist, where gossips, students, philisters, and military, are heartily drinking the health of their future Queen the Princess Royal of England, has also plenty of cleverness and bustle,—a rout of unruly dogs snapping and running amuck among the people's legs in the foreground. The feminine portion of the concourse strikes Us as remarkably un-German. Mr. Wehnort has found a most interesting subject in the early days of the Ragged School movement—" A New Pupil for John Pounds,' —a subject, too, in no degree unadapted for pictorial treatment. The noble cobbler works and teaches among the boys and girls whom he has enticed from the streets ; while a eat in fine condition, a raven, and a whole row of tenanted bird-cages in the background, evidence his love for the dumb animals. His own head, unfortunately, is here very meaningless and ineffective ; but there is purpose in many figures of the pupils—beauty mingled with the squalor, bright apprehension with the unchildlike hardness, the mind unopened, the dulled or painfully-sharpened faculties. We should like to see this picture engraved. The " Petrarch" and " Laura " of Mr. Wehnert are manifestly an attempt at an alien style ; the former mannered but not unbeautiful in colour, the latter wholly a failure.
Nothing in the exhibition is purer, tenderer, or prettier, than the "Wild Flowers" of Mr. Carrick,—a little girl who looks at the harebells she has plucked, before adding them to her lapful of wild flowers : nor is there a sweeter deeper bit of colour than the distance of heather— purple and green—in "After a Rabbit." Both these have art, and nature too. "A Secret," by Miss Emily Farmer, is very carefully executed, and the faces of the two little confidantes have nice espiegle expression in them ; but we doubt whether it would be guessed that the subject is the imparting of a secret. Of Mr. Ilaghe we cannot speak so favourably as usual. The picture representing the devotion with which a party of monks greeted some pictures of Cornelis Vroom recovered from the sea is a very stupid one, the only good point being the casting of some of the draperies. "A Public Letter-writer in the Remains of the Theatre of Marceline, Rome," is a good deal better ; cleverly put together, and Italian in character.
Upon the landscapes, though many of them show observation and merit of no mean order, we shall not dwell long. Mr. Edmund Warren's "Glen Sannox, Isle of Arran' " is a well-studied and valuable work ; of his others, the colour is generally sickly, the design full, the finish rather apparent than real. The manly style of Mr. Whymper, and the effective Cornish scenes of Mr. S. Cook and Mr. Philp, deserve attentive examination ; but we have before adverted to the artists' styles and excellences, and must now pass on. Miss Fanny Steers, always warm and true in colour and feeling, does not send anything of special mark. Mr. Maplestone, Mr. Bennett, Mr. Robins, and Mr. Preset, are in force. Mr. Thomas Sutcliffe we do not remember heretofore ; but there is an amount of severe and accurate study, of refined drawing, and careful light and shade, in his works this year, such as cannot fail to result in excellence and reputation of a high class. The colour is less satisfactory as yet ; but there is truthful purpose in this also. The dock-leaf foreground in "The Banks of the Wharfe, Bolton Abbey," is a splendid study of vegetation the mossy stones with gushes of water between truly admirable in "Early Spring"; and the leafy covert of the unnamed glade, No. 197, penetrated with sunlight, though much too white and cold in colour, is rightly intended. In all these works also the spirit is thoroughly serious and unaffected.
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