THE WATER-COLOUR SOCIETIES.
The terms of comparison between the Old and the New Galleries of our Water-colour School are more than commonly unequal this year. The Old Society has got up a capital exhibition, maintaining a very honourable average throughout, and distinguished by many first-rate examples of the best men of the day. In the New Society, one sees once again the same facile half-done -landscape bits, and the same cos- tumes with meaningless figures inside them, which one has been seeing year after year—and little beyond these. Like its competitor, however, this society seems to "pay"; and so long as that is the case, one can scarcely expect it to set sternly about the work of reformation. At the Old Gallery, Mr. Lewis has signalized the first year of his well-earned Presidency with a single work of importance—" A Frank Encampment in the Desert of Mount Sinai, 1842—the Convent Of St. Catharine in the Distance. The picture comprises portraits of an English nobleman and his Suite, Mahnioud the Dragoman Maeda, Skeikh of Gebel Tor, &c." Marked by Mr. Lewis's wonted delicate equality of light and finish, this presents 'a store of interesting and va- ried material, and a well-defined contnist of national character. The Englishman, though costumed en Arabe, carries with him his Quarterly Review and his Skye terrier, and his large finely- moulded limbs remain stretched out along the ground in non- chalant dignity as the brisk Gneco-Oriental dragoman introduces to him the Arab sheikh, rigidly upright, yet courteous in his gravity. The tawny pink of the Sinai rocks, the flat green grey of the sky, and the light quietly penetrating the gold damask of the tent, combine with figures animals, and accessories in abundance, to produce an individual and refined result of colour. Perhaps the camels have somewhat of an architectural look, in which some of the peculiarities and distinctions of ac- tual life are merged ; and the oasis and convent of the middle distance look much too small for their apparent place in the picture ; unless, indeed, some effect of light true to the desert, though not to our own latitude' .is indicated by this. We might extend our remarks on the picture to al- most any length, for, as in others of Mr. Lewis's elaborate efforts, there is intention and point in every part of it; but we have said enough:to imply that it occupies a high place in a series of works wherein ho stands without a rival. The Italian study of Mr. Alfred Fripp continues to produce fruits quite surpassing anything we remember from him pre- viously. Though yet haunted by the evil spirit of annual or album art, he attains a brilliancy of pure and light colour, (sinning some- times on the side of chalkiness,) and a dainty elegance of execu- tion, which are fairly fascinating. "Capuchin Monks Relieving Pilgrims," "A Feats Day at Olevano," and "Titian Visiting the Studio of one of his Pupils," are notable examples ; and above all, "The Ambassadors' Chamber, Venice, Ducal Palace," where the brightest of sunshine lights up the brightest of costumes with a vividness which, especially if looked at on a sunny afternoon, has an effect both daring and surprising. The largest picture in the gallery is contributed by Mr. Gilbert—" Her Majesty the Queen Inspecting the Wounded Coldstream Guards in the Hall of Buckingham Palace " ; a com- position crammed with figures, and crowded with portraits. It is a dash- ing clever affair, painted for effect, and on the whole coarsely, with an obvious want of that completeness which results from accurate rendering. We have more than once already pointed out that Mr. Gilbert's very un- common genius is not to be tested by anything done in colour for exhibia
tion-rooms, but by his interminable fertility of wood-cut designs, and best among these by the most rapid and unlaboured. Mr. Burton, in his -" Beggars of Ober Franken," has a head—the old woman's—carefully worked out in character and expression, but nothing fully to redeem the promise of last year ; and Mr. Haag's "Tyrolese Bride' is about the most pleasing and least " got-up " figure he has exhibited—the old stone of the wall, grey with daylight reflections, is particularly well given.
The gallant veteran David Cox continues to be the "general command- ing-in-chief" the disciplined army of landscape-painters in water-colour. So far from losing any of his power and irresponsible audacity of re- source, he seems rather to increase in vigour with the weight of rolling vars. In "Driving the Flock," the big tumbled grasses, scattered sheep, and broad-shouldered white-coated fanner, the windmill and tu- multuous crows, and white drift of clouds over the blue sky ; in Peat- -Gatherers," the wild heathy lake-border rugged with loose stones, and the women bowed in steadfast advance under their loads ; in "The Moors near Bettes-reoed," the bull bellowing with rigid tail under the pelting storm ; and in each of the many others the main character which the artist has aimed to express—are all of his freest, strongest, most in- imitable quality. Nothing is easier than to Parody him • but, for any- thing that appears at present, that which is vital in the style will die with the master. Mr. Branwhite's view "On the River Teivi, South Wales," has a beautiful effect of glowing twilight in it soft dark re- ceding greens, and the liquid quiet of its water. The sky is rightly at- tempted in the greenish tone of its illumined blue, but it wants smece and tingling depth of light. Mr. Rosenberg and Mr. Collingwood -an artist whom we have known hitherto only by his interiors—send excel- lent views of mountain-land. The "Scene in Glencoe" by the former is unconventional in its pale green sward, through which the violet crags are pushing, and worthy of special praise for the rounded upheaving of its forms; and the "Sunrise on the Jungfrau " of the latter is grandly studied both in its carved and cloven peaks and ridges, and in the hues between rose-pink and salmon colour, of the upper rocks, de- scending into mysterious purples, and the creamy mist which hovers above the silent lake. Mr. Evans is powerful, peculiar, and broadly harmonious in his Italian scenes—" Bellagio," "The Lake of Lugano," "Capri," and "Villa d'Este." There is a sense of largeness and of -great natural agencies in this gentleman's work ; and his manner, though it is a manner, is an original and manly one. The Guernsey and Jersey views of Mr. Naftel form a striking contrast to Mr. Evans ; the style here being precise, careful, and yet dashing, and full of observant detail tending towards the Prmraphaelite. Always talented and successful, he is even more so this year than usual ; but there is still in general a cru- dity about his colour which injures their artistic completeness, and leaves them in the class of studies when they ought to take rank as pictures. Mr. Palmer has two landscape compositions from "Coning," evidencing something of an ideal character, which, however well put together, we would gladly forego. The blazing sun in one of them is among the most ambitious and telling effects with which we are acquainted ; but it is an effect beyond the reach of art, leaving an impression, not only of over- strained effort, but rather of mechanically literal imitation than of the wisdom of a bold conception. Numerous other landscapes remain, well worthy of examination and review; but we can do no more than direct -attention to the works of Messrs. W. Turner George Fripp, _Duncan, Cox junior, Andrews, Collingwood Smith, Holland, F. Nash, Davidson, and Glennie. Mr. Richardson, the model of dexterous and well-informed conventionalists directs only too much attention to himself.
We speak last of Mr. Hunt, because, spite of the refined truth of isis" Itinerant " Mulatto boy, it is in still-life that his most shining and marvellous attainment is displayed in this exhibition. His "Bit of Mont Blanc,"—two small geological specimens, one bare, one moss-clothed, placed against a bit of English-looking bank background, —is one of the most extraordinary and lovely little pieces of colour, ex- haustless in its gradations and subtilties, which it is possible to imagine. 'Mere common stone as it is, this is indeed an achievement intense and splendid in its beauty—the very acme and ne plus ultra of object-paint- ing. The left-band apricot in No. 292 is also delicious colour.
At the Now Gallery, the only exhibitcr who has struck a full chord of artistic beauty, and reached that point at which we rest satisfied on the attainment instead of feeling the deficiency, is Miss Fanny Steers; a lady whose productions seem to attract the smallest possible notice, but who to our judgment, has been for years past facile na of the exhibition. On the present occasion, her principal work, "Eventide," is with gallant consistency hung down to the 'bottom -of a screen on a level with the visitor's ankles. For glow and richness of colour, and aubdued melancholy of feeling, this is here altogether unrivalled. The burst of purply-black clouds in mid sky, against the blue, orange, red, and reddened slate hues of the ex- panse, the distance with the evening gleam upon the water, the foreground pines, and the burning dun hides of the homeward cattle, are all exquisitely wrought—deep and tender. Miss Steers invariably feels what she paints ; and this makes her two other contributions, "Brook Farm" and a "Rural Landscape," interesting and right, small as they are. Next to this lady we rank the Cornwell views of Mr. S. Cook, and those of Mr. Philp. The former attends more than any other of the contributors to making a picture out of his materials, not merely a sketch. His colour is bright, varied, and unaffected ; his selection picturesque, and his manipulation artistic. The "innumerable laughter" of Ins blue sea in " Looe Pier—Rame Head in the Distance" is an unquestionable success. "-Polperro- sunset after a sale," and several others might also be specified. .Mr. Philp is sensible and efficient, with a good notion of atones and rocks,— -not highly wrought, yet not wanting in solidity either : " Pordeniek Point, South Coast of Cornwall," is a good example. Mr. 'Maplostone has made a determined attempt at the style of Mr. David Cox, generally with no more than the wonted success of imitators ; but his " Autumn Mists, Peatsgatherers Returning," has, -in addition to sentiment and solemnity, some fine tones of colour in its purplish blues and the luminous orange of the sky. Mr. Penson, Mr. Telbin, and Mr. Fahey, have caught some effects with ability.; the first that of a darkling quiet twilight in "Cockle-Gatherers near St. Danos.l's, Cannarthenshire" ; the second, though too unsubstantially, that of moonlight in " Leigh,
Essex" ; end the third that of a con 'on of smoky chimneys by skylight in "Bristol from Brandon ." Mr. D'Egville 'has several
very clever views from 'Venice, done with extreme readiness, but not slighted ; and another talented architectural subject is the "St. Maclou, Rouen," of Mr. J. S. T'rout. Mr. Edmund Warren is not fully up to the mark of former years. His pictures are laid out with care, and a certain air of fulness but there is not much truth or charm in his colour, and the look of detail is obtained without its essence—deliberate study, Mr. Bennett, otherwise but so-so, has a sketch of "The Sea," very well expressed in motion and other sea qualities, but not in actual liquidity;; and Mr. Whymper, an artist with whose productions we are not fs mr, promises also to paint coast-scenes with a correct feeling of their cha- racter, provided he will work out the forms and substance of his material with more strictness and less regard to dexterity.
The figure-subjects, having scarcely at at all strained the inventive or thoughtful faculties of their painters, offer but little hold to the critic. Mr. Corbould's principal contribution is named, in modern-antique jargon, "Ye Lynmere hys Dreame." "Falling into a fitful and uneasy Sleep," as the catalogue has it, "after a long-protracted reading of various and antagonistic character, he dreams of patrons of art departed to the•Cri- mea; of himself as not having a leg left; of falling into the waters of oblivion, and vainly struggling to call for the drags of the Humane So- ciety, whose men are gone to Greenwich Fair." The result is as non- sensical a jumble as can easily be imagined of lumbering and poverty- stricken conceits under the mask of fancy. "Nobody axed you, Sir," —an abortive flirtation between a bouncing milkmaid and a silly cavalier —has something of careless grace not carelessly vamped up ; and "Griselda " is one of the prettiest faces and figures of Mr. Corbould's repertoire, but about as much like Griselda in character as the artist is like Chaucer in genius. The background here and elsewhere, in its unmeaning slovenliness, contrasts with the so-called " finish" of the figures and foreground, and makes one feel the more forcibly that this finish is but an outside show. Mr. Haghe sends three large pic- tures, of which the only one which in any way fairly represents his capacity is the view of Venice—D. -Moto "—painted with cleverness and effect, if not much beyond these. The "Antechamber of the Tri- bunal of the Inquisition in the Ducal Palace, Venice," with the im- prisonment of the relatives of an absentee nobleman, is only a scene from a second-rate theatre, with very " stickish " performers ; and the "Town-hall of Oudenarde—raeeting of the Corporations "—strictly ordin- ary.. Mr. Warren represents Rebekah's first sight of Isaac in his usual Oriental style ; attaining no high degree of sentiment or expression, yet making up a clever composition, with something characteristically pecu- liar in the bony height of the camels, and their long shadows along the sunset-tinted ground. Mr. Wehnert fails in more important subjects ; but one of his interiors from "Caernarvon Castle," with a trooper searching a chest, and daylight piercing the cranny of a shutter seen through a Gothic archway, is among the best of his recent works ; as are also, in a minor degree, the other subject from the same castle, and the "Girl at a Door-way." Mr. Carrick's "Boy at Prayer," though painted with his accustomed talent, is in expression less genuine -than another domestic subject, the "Castle-building" of Miss Emily Farmer. Here the face of the little girl, who is watching her brothers play at card castles is very sincere and truthful, the colour is careful and exact, and the details arc properly placed and combined.
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