ART.
THE GROSVENOR GALLERY.
[SECOND NOTICE.]
IN our first notice of this Gallery, we spoke only of the works: of three painters, wishing chiefly to point out the difference- between imaginative art of the highest order, and realistic art of the highest order ; though it is hardly doing justice to 'Mr.
Holman Hunt to call his work simply realistic, in the ordinary sense of the term. At least, it would be very hard to say 'where his realism stopped, certainly not at a representation of the.
superficial aspect of nature, for his pictures are full of subtle undertones and hints of meaning, such as can scarcely be ap- preciated amongst a crowd of others in a public exhibition, and reveal themselves coyly, like ocean flowers seen dimly through the still waves of some tropic sea.
Let us now notice two other varieties of realistic pictures,. those, namely, of Tissot and Alphonse Legros, and try to see-
why the rare executive power possessed by these Frenchmen fails to produce work of the same high order as that of our above-named English artist.
The work of Legros may be described as the refinement of roughness ; an impression of a subject is given with marvellous
facility, rather than an elaborate copy of it, —but this impres- sion has nothing of the vague mistiness which English impres- sions are apt to have ; it is perfectly resolved, sharp, and definite;. the work of a man who feels himself competent to resolve any problem which is placed before him. And the drawing can only be expressed by a paradox ; in it there is nothing right, and nothing wrong,—truth and error are equally absent. Why is this ? Partly, it seems to us, because merely mechanical errors are eliminated by the master's control of his material,—a mas- tery which, as far as it goes, is singularly complete; and partly that the subject-matter of his work, is not anything which out- siders can tell much about. Legros does not care for his sub- ject a bit—nothing could frequently be more unlike its original than the two-hour heads are like the sitters for them—bat what he does care for, is some impression which he receives from the sub-- ject, which takes definite shape in his mind, and alters, not, as in the work of Watts, the expression or the meaning of the face, but its absolute outlines. The famous dictum of Jeffrey upon Wordsworth's poems might be well imagined to be murmured by this artist, as he looks at the models for his pictures. He seems to feel in relation to each of them, "This won't do." We feel that this does not express clearly the difference between work of this kind and ideal work such as that of Mr. Watts, and fear we can scarcely express it to our non-artistic readers. In the work of the latter artist, especially in his portraiture, we- find the real man or woman always there, though generally at some height or depth of expression, which his face gives, perhaps,. no hint of to an ordinary observer. What possibilities are to be found in his subject Watts discovers, and drags the real man —the "John's John "—along with him up to that ideal height. Legros, on the other hand, cares nothing either- for "John," or for "John's John," or even for "other people's John," but despises " John " altogether, and twists. him into some other personality; and yet he is a realist, for he- has apparently no conception of raising his subject in any way. It is not that the face or figure gets taken hold of by the trans- forming power of the artist's imagination, but that he starts with a net conception of what his subject is, and paints that, and one of the consequences is that he has never created a character of any kind; his people have no personality whatever ; whenever his compositionaare of real interest, it arises from the realisation of an abstract feeling. This is what gave the "Mort d'un Vagabond" its intensity of dreary power, this it is also which prevents his portraits, even in etching, from possessing the slightest interest; they are wonderfully drawn, and manly and simple in execution,—hard, clear work, with no suspicion of trick about them, but they are not Manning, or Gambetta, or who- ever it may chance to be, but etchings of heads by .Legros. Think for a moment how different is Tissot's method. The dust and ashes of Legros have disappeared,—the canvas glows with soft colour and pleasant form ; clouds of lace and ribbons take the place of the rags of the beggar and the sack- cloth of the saint, and instead of St. Jerome in the wilderness, or Jacob sleeping on a rock, we have a softly nurtured lady, pouring out tea for a couple of Hyde-Park "swells." " Swells " is a very appropriate word, we may mention, for there is alwaya a suspicion of the " snob " about Tissot's personages ; their purple has too much of the Tyrian dye upon it, and their linen forces itself upon one's attention in somewhat offensive quantity and brilliance. Let us try to give his due to M. Tissot, though, in truth, this year he tries our patience somewhat hardly, for these ladies in hammocks, showing a very unnecessary amount of petticoat and stocking, and remarkable for little save a sort of luxurious indolence and insolence, are hardly fit subjects for such elaborate painting. To have the power of painting almost perfectly anything in the world, and to choose to paint a five-o'clock tea-table,--could any condemnation be really more severe than the one which the artist passes upon his own work 'by the choice of such subjects ? And yet the "pity of it "is great, for this artist is capable of far higher things. In his earlier pic- tures at the Academy, of the early arrivals at the ball, and of one or two scenes on board ship, especially one called" The Captain's Daughter "(or "The Last Evening,"—we do not remember which, and they were both in the same exhibition at the Academy), there was a considerable amount of character, and in the latter a hint of real feeling. Now, the only things that are real are the dresses, and the abominably artificial atmosphere of a certain style of society, which might be called the Neo-French-English, the essential parts of which are to dress like a French actress, and to care for nothing under or above the sun ; energy, truth, brains, heart, and life, all disappearing rapidly, and a talented artist revelling in the spectacle and painting the result. Never- theless, the painting itself is better even than usual. M. Tissot's great gift—that of painting the sunshine and warm shadow of summer—is again displayed in perfection, and his large picture of the interior of a conservatory (No. 95) is a wonderful piece of technical work. Never before, to our knowledge, have the tropical plants, ferns, dr,c., been painted so delicately and so artistically. That is a good word with which to end our notice of this painter, for it must be said that his pictures, however vulgar in conception and common-place in subject, are always artistic. It is quite unquestionable that for purely technical mastery of -the colour of and arrangement in shadow and sunlight, Tissot has but one rival in England, and that is Alma Tadema.
As a corrective to M. Tissot's glorification of the social phase of modern society, we will speak of the two large pictures by Mr. Watts, R.A., which hang at the west end of the Gallery. These are Nos. 73 and 74, "Paolo and Francesca" and "Orpheus and Eurydice." The first is the same incident in the story which has been twice done by great painters during the last few years, both Dor6 and Ary Scheffer having painted the lovers whirling "for ever on the accursed air." This rendering is more akin to that of Dor6 than to that of Scheirer, the position of the lovers being almost upright. Dante and Virgil are not introduced, indeed the whole picture is confined -to the figures of the lovers, and the clouds of sulphurous smoke with which they are surrounded. It may well be that we do not -coma to a work like this with a capacity for giving a fair judgment, as the picture of Scheffer's has been familiar to us for so long, and so- grown, as it were, into our consciousness as a right conception of the subject, as to give no other work a fair chance till it has been known for a long time, And grown equally familiar. However, with this qualification, we must consider at present that this is not a rendering of equal power to that of the foreign artist, neither the agony nor the love being so finely expressed. Nor considering it by itself, do we think it to be a good example of the artist's work. It has a painty sort of look, which is not infrequent in Mr. Watts's less successful pictures, And the cloudy background is hardly a satisfactory one, and it has the one sin which is unforgivable in a work of this kind,—that, taken as a whole, it is not beautiful. The "Orpheus and Eurydice," a subject of much less diffi- .culty, is, in our opinion, a greater work. The moment of the picture is when Orpheus has looked back, and according to the -decree of Proserpine, his bride is lost to him. Eurydice is already the ashen colour of death, and is falling to the ground, when Orpheus catches her in his arms. The hasty action and the passionate desire in Orpheus's face and figure are magnificently painted ; and there is much power of con- .caption in the inert mass of Eurydice's body, as it hangs limply upon her lover's arms. There is also here by Mr. Watts, a, portrait of Mr. Glad:stone, taken, we under- stand, about fifteen years ago. This is a very splendid -example of the artist's powers, and it was with the delicate Insight of this picture fresh in our minds, that we felt the inadequacy of Mr. Millais's portrait of the same statesman, in
the Academy. On closer acquaintance with the latter, we Must acknowledge that the epithet we applied to it, "inadequate," was not justified,—for though without the peculiar, earnest power of Watts's work, it is a finely painted and thoughtful por- trait, and in the mere painting very superior to Mr. Millais's other works in the Academy, and all that he has done of late years.
Mr. Hubert Herkomer is one of our younger artists, whose work is always worthy of serious attention, and this year he challenges criticism with an enormous water-colour drawing, larger, if we remember right, than any oil-work in the same gallery, and of a title scarcely less ambitious than its size. "Light, Life, and Melody" is the name of the picture. The spectator is supposed to be looking into a rough wooden building, through the side and further end of which is seen the landscape, while in the interior sit and stand labourer, guides, and mountaineers, of various ages, and chief figure in the composition, a stalwart German maiden, standing behind a chamois-hunter, who has a zither on his knee. The floor is strewn with gun, bags, and a dog (this the worst part of the picture), and on the left a figure leans up against the wall, apparently jealous of the zither-player and the maiden. On the left in the foreground are several seated figures, in various attitudes, one fumbling in his pockets, another with a tankard of ale in his hand, and so on. There are two questions which require answering with regard to this picture. First, is it a good one in itself; second, has the artist gained or lost by endeavouring to make water-colour take the place of oils ? We will take these questions in order. It is a good, but not a very good picture,—it is more audacious and dramatic than it is true or beautiful. Indeed, it is not, rightly speaking, beautiful at all ; the landscape out-of-doors is painted cleverly, but carelessly, and in some portions of the interior there is absolute ugliness, as, for instance, in the group of dog, gun, bag, on the floor. Again, for a picture of such very large size and name, it is lacking in interest ; had it been called "Beer and Skittles" (part of the background is a skittle-alley), it would have described the spirit of the picture better. Nor can the painting be called good ; strictly considered, much of it is not painted at all, but scraped about with a knife. Nor is the light of the outside landscape, as compared with the tavern's interior, adequately given. With regard to the second question,. we think that, on the whole, it must be answered in the negative. The idea of employing water-colour on this scale is, we suppose, to gain something which cannot be gained in oil; that, at least, must be the artist's plan, or he would never go to all the labour of joining sheets of paper with paste made, we understand, of paper-pulp, and so on. Now, the greatest beauty of water- colour is its delicacy of touch and effect, one which is only obtainable by the greatest masters in oil-painting. But there is no delicacy at all in this picture ; such merit as it has, con- sists in sheer, rough, dramatic power, and representation of peasant character. So that it appears that the artist has fallen into the singular error, of neglecting the one sure attraction of his medium, in order to make it possess what it has not got. Not that Mr. Herkomer has wilfully done this, but really because he does not yet quite understand what delicacy of colour is, though we remember a little water-colour of a tired old woman, by him, which had far more of the qualities of refinement and beauty than this large work. The truth is, that a mania is coming over artists, and especially rising artists, to paint pictures of an enormous size, quite irrespective of the fact that they have, as a rule, nothing particular to say ; if this work had been done in a week in fresco on a wall, it would have had every merit which it now possesses, and some which it does not possess, for it would have shown that the artist knew the limits of his material ; as a painting in rivalry of oil-work, it is a failure ; and as a picture, it is insufficient to bear out its title, and deficient in refinement. No. 49, the gigantic portrait (half as large again as life) of Mr. Tennyson, is far worse, for it is simply abominably ugly, and the colour a positive eye- sore. Like all Mr. Herkomer's work, it has a considerable amount of power, but it is power misdirected, and in need of discipline and care.
For the very antipodes of these works, turn to Nos. 38 and. 39, by G. Fairfax Murray. These are two very small pictures, one of them in three divisions, called "Garland-makers," and "A Pastoral." There is rather a peculiar point to be noticed about them, first of all,—and that is, that though very much smaller in size than any of the pictures to right and left, yet if the visitor to the Gallery will take the trouble to cross the room and.
et his eyes rove along the wall from end to end, he will find that his attention is infallibly arrested by these little works, and that each blazes, as it were, like a jewel amongst the varying hues of the other pictures.
He will be puzzled, perhaps, to account for this, as the works around are by no means deficient in brightness of colouring ; to the left, especially, hangs a gigantic picture, full of the most startling hues, called, "To God and my Love's Right Arm." On a closer examination, however, of Mr. Murray's compositions, it becomes evident that the strength of his colouring is wholly dependent upon a study of the earlier Italian masters,—a study which is by no means to be confounded with a slavish imitation. Give five minutes to each of these works, allowing the first feeling of repulsion to subside, and we think it will be found that with every succeeding time that you see them, their beauty will increase upon you. This is colour ; Herkomer's was not ; this, though deficient in many respects in the drawing, is "painting,"—that is, the art of using a brush has been here mastered. You may walk round the whole of this Gallery till you come to the work of Burne Jones, and you will not see a single picture in which the knowledge of pure colour is shown, as it is in these two works. There can hardly be called any subject in either; they are simply beautiful figures, arranged beautifully, and as such, satisfying. Had they been of greater size, the comparative slightness of the drawing and the lack of interest would have taken away much of their merit. As it is, we are content, in the same way as we are content with the lustre of a ruby, only that the delight which can be gained by pure colour, exquisitely gradated and combined, is far above rubies.
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