FINE ARTS:
BREUER INSTITUTION.
Tnz present show of copies from works by the Old Masters exhibited last season at this gallery, may be allowed' to rank as generally the most creditable we have seen. Instances of hopeless incompetence are not very frequent ;, of helpless medioexily les& overpowering ; of respectable ar- tistic,promiso perceptible. In the itt.st class ladies certainly take the best places,, Perhaps, too, there js soninimprovemeni in the selection of works for study ; the,Dutch School being not so prominently represented to the neglect of others higher in style and character, and of more ho- nourable attempt to the student. Yet amthere mac or two, flagrant eases of wrongheadedness, What could be more perverse than the choice of the-Jortlaens,—notmerely a caricature but a caricature of mettn,vrilgar- ism? Why take Paduainno's loose distortion of Dejanira and Nessus or Tintoretto's Descent from the Cross ?—a picture the method of whose working must have made it always useless to beginners in art, and whose present decay leaves the copyist utterly powerless and abroad. The works which have attracted most student& are Guereino'S St. John in the Wilderness, Titian's Magdalene, and the Duchess of Lorraine by Rembrandt. Of the first, Mr. Hay's rendering ia the most faithful. Mr. Walters also has caught the expression with felicity, though his produo- tion strikes at first as less artistic than that of Miss Clara Cavrse. We cannot forbear from a word of censure on Mr. Havell. We would be 1.th to comment on mere failure; but there is evident in this case an attempt to improve on the expression, of the original—to make it more sentimentally pretty ; and a. languid washiness, more than casual, per- vades the whole treatment In the copies of the Magdalene Mr. Robert Fox stands single for any approach to the tone of colour. The Duchess of Lorraine we think on the whole an. injudicious choice. That there is abundant matter in it for study we amply concede; but not for copyism. The manner is too independent—toe-much that of the finished master who can afford to deviate from prescription. The copies by Miss Hill; Miss Lane, and Mr. Baines, are respectable ; Mr. West's, youthful, but with evidences of care.
The most artist-like study in' the moms is that by Miss -Guthrie from Sehidone's "Holy Family.' The correctness of tone is very unusual; and the general fidelity and breadth raise it strikingly above the ordinary level. Mr. Mornewick junior's copy of the "Ship Sovereign Royal,' by Vtaidervelde, is also of more than common excellence. Mr. Delotz's rendering of the River view by Vanderneer is remarkable as possessing— what is very rate in-these copies—the aspect of an original work; and the same may be said in favour of Miss Gould's water-colour from Vero- nese's "Expulsion of the Money-changers," though parts of the execu- tion are weak. Mr. Farmer, in his copy from Reynolds's "Sir Richard Worsley," has happily caught the character of his original in feature and expression, but with some slightness of manner.
The studies by Miss Cowell, Miss Hemming, and Miss Barber, (the latter with a disproportioned left hand,) from Spagnoletto's Miss Hemming, of Bergbem and his Dog—by Mr. Rivers, from the two very fine Velasquezes—and an anonymous copy (the only one not worse than. indifferent) from the so-called Titian, the Supper at Emmaus—are among the best remaining, We were surprised at finding one study only from Annibale Caracci's St. John—itself, but a study, though of a high class, and offering good practice. Nor has the modest grace of the Nun ascribed to Titian tempted more than two or three students. Its apparent ease and simplicity of treatment might have been, expected to prove more alluring ; though the attempt mould certainly have shown these to be but apparent. Only a single student has ventured on the Tintorctto, an Episcopal Ordination by Paul the Third; and. that one merely on a half-length water-colour of his Holiness. One satisfactory circumstance in this exhibition is the opportunity af- forded for a nearer inspection than was before possible of Sir Antonio Mere's noble portrait of Queen Mary ; a thoroughly sound and masterly production, not less free from harshness than from feebleness. It speaks—we know not whether well for the modesty, or ill for the taste, of the students, that so little emulation should have been excited among them by this truly historic work ; but, on- either supposition, the result is not much to be regretted by the lover of art.
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