ART.
THE ROYAL ACADEMY.
[szcoND NoTICE.] LANDSCAPE-PAINTING.
THERE is one respect in which the exhibitions of the Royal Academy are very depressing, and from year to year their deficiencies in this matter grow more and more evident, though little notice is taken by the Press or the public; and very naturally, the artists themselves hold their peace. The absence of really fine landscape-painting is the deficiency of which we speak, and this becomes more complete in almost every exhibi- tion. Now, it is worth while to ask and consider seriously for a brief space what are the causes here at work, why we do not find good landscapes at Burlington House, why we but rarely find them nowadays at any other less inclusive English exhibition.
One thing we may be sure of without delay, and that is that English painters have no constitutional inability to produce landscapes; it is not because of our nationality that we fail in this respect. For history tells us, shows us on the walls of our National Gallery and private collections, that the one department
of Art for which we Britishers have shown an undisguised pre- dilection, and in which we have achieved an unquestioned superiority in past times, has been the department of landscape. From Gainsborough to Cox, there is a list of English landscape artists who for comprehension of the scope of their art, no less than for fidelity and beauty in their translation of natural scenery, will bear comparison with the greatest painters of old, and who, it must be remembered, lived and worked in what is now considered to have been the very dullest and moat stagnant art period of English history. Taking them as a whole, it is no exaggeration to say that they invented and brought to perfection the art of natural landscape-painting, and that all the subsequent developments of that art which have taken place in France and elsewhere are due to their influence, and founded upon their achievements.
How is it, then, that for the last twenty years or so, our painters have been "losing grip" of this beautiful art, till it has become, as in nearly all the pictures in this year's Academy, trivial and meaningless,—till whatever examples we find thereof are either the work of artists who belong to the last generation, or are simply studies of natural effect, records more or less in- teresting and accurate, of how the wave broke, the rain fell, or the sun set ?
No doubt many causes have co-operated to produce the decline, and of these the neglect and contempt shown by the Academy to painters of natural scenery has been one of the chief. Boycotting an art, is quite as possible to those in authority as boycotting an agent, and at Burlington House landscape art has been boycotted remorselessly. Out of the whole number of Academicians and Associates, not 10 per cent. are pure landscape-painters ; and even those who are at present in- cluded have had to wait practically till towards the close of their career, whilst cestnme-figure painters by the dozen, of a tithe of their ability and half their age, have been elected over their heads. Indeed, with one great exception, the best landscape- painters of this century have never been elected to the Academy at all. Every one knows, or may know, this fact ; but, curiously enough, no one seems to think it specially important. Yet it is strange that, with all our boasted progress, we cannot see that a great branch of national art is, even commercially, a most im- portant possession,—that we had better throw away half-a-dozen ironclads, than half-a-dozen great painters.
Shall we speak quite plainly, at the risk (nay, the certainty) of being misunderstood? The art we are throwing away, are allowing to be discouraged by those in authority, is the only kind of painting, broadly speaking, in which we have greatly excelled, and in which our national character finds its true vent. There is little reason to suppose that we shall ever have a great school of figure-painting, or one which is specially characteristic. Nor do our people, as a whole, care that we should have. The majority of the nation is profoundly inartistic, and the popular idea of sentimental prettiness will probably be for many years to come the leading inspiration of our figure-painters. But, beyond all the Continental nations, we have opportunities for producing a school of landscape-painters. The national sentiment is an out-of-doors one, so to speak ; and not only is there an infinite variety of beauty in the varying effects of our most changeable climate, but there is a special loveliness about our land itself—the result, perhaps, of many ages of intimate connection with the life of the people—such as is scarcely to be found in less isolated and more extended countries. England is not too large for us to see her as a whole ; and when we think of her, as a rule it is of her outdoor aspect as of a land of green field and grey sky, of swelling downs and fumy commons, of white chalk cliffs, with the big waves beating at their feet, and long stretches of yellow sand, up which the tide steals noise- lessly. There is nothing much in the heart of Englishmen which responds to ".The Jealousy of Simethra " or "The Trial of Mariamne," to Venetian flower-girls, or Hindoo ceremonies, and such other subjects in which our Academic figure painters most delight. But we do all care about the common scenes and sights of ordinary English life, if only our artists will give them to us with some touch of insight as well as fidelity of rendering. Look at Mr. Hook's picture of "Tickling Trout" in the present Academy, and see what a carious contrast it forms in its completion and the scope of its artistic intention, to most of the so-called landscapes. This is a survival from the older school of landscape-painting, from the school which preceded what may be called the natural-history painting of the present day,—and the difference between it and its surroundings, is that Mr. Hook sees
that a landscape is something more than a mere grab at the first piece of Nature which the artist thinks suitable. We look at this picture first, and rightly, in simple enjoyment of its colour, its vivid rendering of the facts, its pleasantness of impression ; but if we examine it more closely, we see that much, if not moat, of the beauty of the work, consists not in the bare accuracy to a certain scene at a certain time, but to the spirit which informs the whole picture, to the artist's power of combination and selection. All this, we fear, somewhat wearisome preamble is to lead our readers to think of and notice for themselves the difference between a landscape picture and a landscape study. —between, say, Turner's " Crossing the Brook " and one of Mr. MacWhirter's blasted fir-trees, or Mr. Peter Graham's moorlands, There are two sides to this difference, a technical and an emotional (and intellectual) side, and the influence of both are, it seems to ns, necessary to transform a study into a picture.
If, then, we consider from this point of view the landscape pictures in the present exhibition, how many do we find which will bear the above test, which are entitled to rank as good landscape art, rather than as studies of this or that little bit of Nature P In truth, they are very few in number, almost to be counted on the fingers of one hand, —the beat example probably being Mr. Hook's "Tickling Trout," a large upright composition, with two children in the foreground on the banks of a stream, and a long vista of wood- land, meadow, and rising ground, which gives the work a some- what similar character to that of Turner's "Crossing the Brook." No one who compares this picture with the majority of the landscapes here, can fail to notice the difference, can fail to see the unity of idea, the thought, the concentration of many varied impressions, which render the work complete. For the rest, if any drawback must be noticed, the picture lacks a little the brilliance of Mr. Hook's earlier work. It is so quietly painted and coloured as to be almost tame. Beyond all question, however, this is the best landscape of the present Academy. It is well to compare with this, as an instance of very fine work and poetical feeling, Mr. Alfred Hunt's com- position, which he entitles " Oar Interest's on the Dangerous Edge of Things," a view of the village of Robin Hood's Bay, the Bea and the coast beyond. There is in the whole Academy nothing more delicately and beautifully true than the delinea- tion of the long lines of the retreating tide in this picture ; and the whole work is harmonious and subtle in colour, and poetical in its conception. None the less, it does not altogether please us. Half-shut the eyes and look at the picture, and we find its composition to be expressed by a parallelogram of light, with an irregular mass of dark stack in one corner, the sea and the sky forming the light portion, the cliff and Robin Hood's Bay the dark patch. Mr. Hunt has managed to make a poetical study of the very finest kind, but has hardly given it the pic- torial completion necessary. We feel that the difficulties of arranging the subject have either been too much for the artist, or that he has not cared to think it out sufficiently.
One of the most satisfactory pieces of work in landscape of the realistic kind, is to be found in the tenth room, by a new painter, Mr. B. W. Allan, whose merit we had occasion to speak highly of some weeks ago in our notice of the Royal Water-Colour Society. This he entitles "The Haven under the Hill," a composition of river and fishing-boats, a little town, and a range of hills beyond. The work is notable for its solid painting, its truth to the brilliancy of outdoor effect, its good drawing and composition, and the clear presentment of its subject. The fishing-boats are as well drawn as those of Mr. Napier Remy, and are less heavy in colour. The fault of the work is a certain absence of feeling ; the painter has been able to put down all that he saw, but his sight has been a little limited. It is, however, a very successful picture, and places Mr. Allan in the front rank of our landscape-painters.
As an instance of what we think landscape-painting should not be, take Mr. MacWhirter's large picture of "Edinburgh from the Salisbury Crags," which seems to us to be wanting in almost every requisite of good art. The composition is particularly ugly, running up one side of the picture, the colour far from pleasing, and the details, in apparent capriciousness, alternately insisted upon, and slurred over. The work would drive a Frenchman mad from its lack of "lee valeura," and above and beyond all, the handiwork is coarse, and the result unmean- ing. It is not uninstructive to remember in connection with the neglect which the Royal Academy have shown for many years past, to those who practise the art of landscape, that painters such as Mr. MacWhirter have been the artists elected to Academic rank. The decay of our landscape-painting is in no small measure due to the official recognition on the part of the Academy of such works as the one of which we have been speaking. Turn, for contrast to this, to a picture which is quite as bold as Mr. MacWhirter's, but is neither coarse nor uninteresting,—Mr. Henry Moore's "Morning after a Gale," with fishing-boats dashing out to the open sea, a delightful seascape, if ever there- was one; not perfect, perhaps, in colour, nor possibly painted with the utmost skill of hand, but fall of life, truth, movement, freshness, strength, and interest ; taking us miles away in thought from the studio and the easel, and yet consummately artistic in its composition, its light and shade, and its unity of impression. Mr. Henry Moore, be it noted, is one of the two brothers concerning whom for so many years we challenged the Royal Academy to give any reason which would justify their non-election ; and now at last that the sea-painter has been admitted to the Academic ranks, we may perhaps hope to see his brother, the figure-painter (Mr. Albert Moore), before he attains the allotted age of man, also made an Associate. His. picture in this exhibition has been already mentioned, and we shall probably notice it in detail in a subsequent article.
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