ART.
THE ROYAL INSTITUTE OF PAINTERS IN OIL - COLOURS.
[FIRST NOTICE.]
TUE influence of the general depression in trade is very evident amongst the artists, both in the size of the works exhibited and in their character. Our readers may not know that the size of pictures varies in almost a direct ratio to the favourable or un- favourable state of the artistic market. Good times, large pictures ; bad times, small pictures,—is a pretty invariable rule, though we doubt sometimes whether it is founded upon a true generalisation : and for this reason. The folks who buy big pictures, or who have bought them, if they decrease their expendi..
tare and determine to buy no more, rarely console themselves by purchasing smaller works ; nor, we think, do the purchasers of cabinet works (with an increase of prosperity) feel tempted to buy twelve-foot canvasses. No; the large and small in painting appeal to a different order of minds, and it is somewhat strange that the finer taste commonly is to be found with those who prefer the cabinet works. At all events, such must be pur- chased, if at all, for their intrinsic qualities; no motive of vain- glory is gratified by the possession of such pictures, nor is it very easy for a cabinet work to attract by its superficial qualities those who care chiefly for what is eccentric, bizarre, or blatant. "Blood and thunder," if represented at all, requires an acre of canvas. Your Vereetchagin's Executions, Royal processions, Saowatorms, and Hospitals, are rightly (from their point of view) on a gigantic scale, and those who admire them, admire them (if they only knew it) not as pictures, but as "special correspondence" from the seat of war.
If, therefore, the majority of works in the present exhibition of the Royal Institute are small, while taking it as a sign that pictures are still in a declining market, we will not necessarily think them to show an inferior genius, or to be inspired by less worthy ambitions than if they gave us life-size elephants, like the Russian Verestchagin, or thousands of men, horses, and cannon, as in a De Nenville panorama.
Here, for instance, is a picture by Mr. F. D. Millet which is worth, as a work of art, many a one such as those of which we have spoken. And what does it show us ? A man in a white waistcoat fiddling at a table to a damsel in a grey dress and a friend. The costume is old-fashioned, the interior depicted dark, the figures full of characteristic yet quiet life, the drawing good and easy, the colour cool, and harmonious, and pleasing. Such are the bare facts. What else may be said with certainty P This,—that the excellence of the picture depends on none of these excellences or details, but upon its general "tone." It is hopeless to attempt, within our limit of space, to dwell on this point,—to attempt to explain our meaning to those who do not already possess some considerable knowledge of Art. But perhaps it is worth while to say that this excellence is one which may be seen in all the work of great artists of former times, and which is specially noticeable in all the Dutch school. Peter de Hoop probably was the greatest master of tone in the world, and it is of a Peter de Hooge that Mr. Millet's "Piping Times of Peace "reminds us. Over the whole picture, over the three figures, the chairs and tables, the walls and every detail, there is a lovely unity of subdued yet brilliant atmo- sphere, as if all that the artist had seen was, for him, apparelled in celestial light,—
" The beauty and the glory of a dream."
It is a great picture, though it is a small one, and belongs to another century in its merits, in its unobtrusive, unaffected truth, its simple dignity of conception, its completion of work, and its perfect realisation of the subject. In every sense of the word, this painting is a work of fine art ;—may we have many such in the future from the same hand !
Here is another artist, a genuine one to the tips of his reckless fingers, though opposed in almost every conceivable way to the foregoing. Mr. John R. Reid is his name, and his most im- portant example here (and it is one of the few large pictures in the Gallery) is called "Old Batten's Farm," and represents an old cottage, in front of which stands a ragged blossoming tree lit up with warm afternoon light, whilst in the back- ground is a broad plain of blue sea. Very hard words might, with plenty of truth, be applied to this work. It is scmbbly and sticky, both in execution and colour ; it is heavy, insufficiently expressed, coarse in effect, though not in colour, and frightfully careless in drawing. And all these defects are not only there, but are, as it were, painted in large capitals, insisted upon by the artist. There was a Scotch- man in a village we knew lately who, not content with pro- claiming his individuality every time he opened his mouth, would on Sunday afternoons don his kilt and philabeg, stick a dirk and a knife and fork in his stocking, and with bagpipes playing under his arm, parade up and down the streets, to the great enjoyment of the village lade and lasses. Well, Mr. Reid just now—we say it in all seriousness—reminds us of this too, too national child of the mountain and the flood. It enforces the peculiarities, the nationalities (if we may use this word in each a connection) of the artist to an almost unbearable degree. He was always a painter who, with great ability, had strong personal peculiarities which affected his painting ; but now he has taken the bagpipes under his arm, and is proclaiming to earth and sea and sky what manner of man he is. This picture is, in short, the product of a very clever artist, but one who has allowed his cleverness to run away with him ; the effect he sought is not there—and he does not care that it is not —instead thereof, is an effect of his own. Something, as Virgil hath — " Monstrum horrenclum, inform°, ingens, eni lumen ademptam." At no sunset or other hour in its peaceful life did old Batten's farm look like this; and yet,—well, as an artist remarked to. us deprecatingly, but with genuine conviction, "Still, you know —you must say—there's something fine about it." And so there is. The painter is a colourist by right divine, and he is also a man who when he paints means something, if it be only to be himself. And in this picture, after a minute or two, we find out what the quality sought—or at least obtained—is. "Old Batten's Farm," as shown us by Mr. Reid, is actually an old farm belonging to Batten or some other old farmer, in the heart of the country, very far from city life. Seclusion, quiet, and the often unheeded loveliness of natural things,—these are the thoughts which Mr. Reid's picture arouses, which are implied or contained by its phraseology. Natural in its detail of colour and form, in our belief the painting is not ; but true in its emotional atmosphere, and in its suggestiveness of the beauty of the natural fads with which the artist has been concerned, it certainly is,. and would have been far more true and more suggestive had it not been a trifle reckless, and more than a trifle coarse.
Let those who care for contrasts, and want to understand how various are the aims of artists, look now at Sir James Linton's. one contribution,—a profile head and shoulders of a young- woman named " Henriette," at once the quietest and the- beat head in the Gallery. Here is a subject for specula- tion amongst our readers. Why does this young lady's portrait in a modern dress against a simple background of dark paint suggest the work of the old masters ? We do not say equal their work ; but why or how is even the suggestion made ? Can it be because the President of the Institute is seeking for- the same objects of which we find the achievement in the great work of the old men,—that he is striving for simplicity and dignity, rather than for brilliant or startling effect ; that he is suppressing his own individuality, or rather forcing his in- dividuality to hide itself beneath the personality of his sitter ? Let our readers remember, or learn if they have not already known, the fact that the assertion of the artist's personal ability is an entirely modern invention, one of the products of these Jubilee years, on the art of which there has been so niuch cackle- of late. And whatever else be uncertain about a picture, this is indubitable,—that if its chief words to us be of the cleverness or the audacity of the painter, the work cannot be a great one. For a true artist is never clever, though he is always great. His feeling towards his work is humility and shame for its imper- fection ; it is only the young gentlemen who have spent six months at the "Beaux Arts," or listened to " Carolus " (as they fondly call him) for half-an-hour, who know all about Art; who' would instruct Titian and patronise Angelo, pity Fred Walker and deride David Cur! So it is a treat to find one of our leaders —and a man in the position of Sir James Linton is necessarily a leader—working steadily and faithfully in the old ways which "oar fathers have taught us."
And now, having mentioned these works of more or less admirable quality, let us take another contrast, and this time- a contrast on the bad side. Here is the largest, and in one sense the worst picture in the Gallery, Mr. S. J. Solomon's so- called "Remorse,"—a female figure nude to below the breasts,. and thence wrapped in a nondescript white satin robe. She lies on (or rather slips off towards the spectator) a couch covered with tiger-skins, her head is forced into an upright position by a sofa-cushion, two Eastern daggers are hung on an archway behind her,—suoh is the mise-ert-eme. Now, we will not quarrel with Mr. Solomon because he has simply taken the model for his "Delilah," and painted her over again with a name of which he has not sought to express the meaning in his painting, though it would be true to say that there is no hint of "remorse," or of any other special feeling, in the figure depicted. Artists must paint " pot-boilers " sometimes ; and as the public insist upon "catching" titles, must give such to their works, even if they are inappropriate. But what we do maintain, and most strongly, is that this is a bad, a vulgar,—yes, and even a debased style of art, which is not only opposed to the great art of all earlier days, but which has, even as a product of modern times, none of the redeeming qualities of fine art. It is neither national delicate, thoughtful, nor true; it is ugly to look at, ugly in conception and execution ; and it shows in detail no refinement a colour or form, no beauty of tone, no pleasantness of coin. position.
Our readers will very likely feel inclined to say,—" These be • prave 'orts ;' but if they are true, why so much emphasis, why, indeed, not leave the picture alone P" The answer is a simple one. Mr. Solomon is a young man of great ability, who has learnt his business from the Academic point of view thoroughly. Be can draw a nude model strongly and, with fair accuracy. He eau, thanks (we should imagine) to foreign training, paint her, when drawn, strongly and simply ; and joined with this, he has great facility and greater ambition. His work, in con- sequence, is always striking, and most likely to attract visitors to a Gallery, and influence younger and weaker artists. Therefore, we insist that, despite this painter's merits, his art is a bad, not a good art; that it is the very negation of good art, and can come to nothing. There are a hundred melons for this, but one is sufficient. Look at this great, fat, black-haired, half- clothed woman, posed in an attitude in which the ugliest por- tion of her body is most insisted upon, for the sake of show- ing how cleverly the artist could express the foreshortening of the figure, and think what possible reason there could be for any one desiring to possess the picture, except the solitary reason of admiring the audacity and strength of the man who painted the work. And if this be trite, as we are confident it is true, the condemnation of such a tableau is justified. An artist, we say boldly, has no right to exist if he does not seek to show us some beauty which strongly appeals to him, if not to us. No one wants to possess a picture because that picture's painter is a precious clever fellow, but because the picture is interesting and beautifuL And the fallacy of the whole modern French school, and of the Englishmen who follow in its track, is that its painters deny this great and important truth in every picture they paint,—almost in every subject they choose.
The imperfections of our national art are great, but they are not so vital, nor so hopeless in their outcome, as this French practice. At least we try (blindly and humbly, it may be, yet habitually and anxiously) to represent beautiful things, to choose interesting and attractive subjects, and who knows that if we go on in the same road, we may not arrive at something of which even M. Doran himself may speak with approval.
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