ART.
THE ACADEMY.--I.
IT must be confessed that the present Exhibition at Burlington House is one of very little interest. Such a large collection of pictures as that shown annually at the Academy is bound to result in an average of work the level of which is maintained year after year. But though the general level may be the same from year to year, a few pictures of remarkable quality as a rule stand out from the background of dulness and vulgarity. This year, unfortunately, these remarkable pictures are difficult to find, and indeed it would hardly be an exaggera- tion to say that they do not exist.
The reply of the Academy that it is impossible for them to cause good work to be produced and that they have not genius at command is obvious, but not con- vincing. It is, of course, true that they cannot call forth great executants at will ; but it is also true that they could exercise a real influence on the taste of painters. The last few years have been notable for the decline in the number of pictures produced of a style indicated by such titles as "Mother's Darling," "Playmates," or "Now den all turn and see me dump." These domestic pictures have given way to 'allegories and symbols. On most of the walla we see inane abstractions and sentimental truisms,—works which are intended to be ideal, but which never rise beyond
the commonplace and the obvious. If, when this fashion for idealistic pictures became prominent, the Academicians had set themselves resolutely to discourage all work that did not contain the true metal, who can doubt that they could have produced an effect ? Take, for instance, those semi- religious allegories with melodramatic staging of which No. 710, Mr. Sigismund Goetze's The Ever-Open Door, is an example. Reduced to words, this picture is not unlike the great picture of the Court of Death by Watts. But, unfortu- nately, ideas exalted in themselves can be presented with every circumstance of vulgarity and false sentiment. False and meretricious art exists in painting as it does in literature, and the admirers of Miss Marie Corelli will find that the Academy, like the publishers, know how to provide meat for their palates. There is an element of pathos in the spectacle of simple people standing in awestruck rows before a picture the sentimental appeal of which beguiles them into the belief that the work is a masterpiece. If the Academy would take a strong line, and refuse to hang sham idealistic work, they might have a real effect, not only upon the taste of artists, but upon that of the public. Artists very naturally paint what [they think likely to be hung. If pictures of a debased style are to be seen flaunting in every room, what encouragement is there for the artist to improve his style ? If the uncultivated find their tastes catered for on every wall by those who claim to be representative of the best in art, how are they ever to be made to realise that their vision is limited ? The Academy cannot compel painters to provide great works of art for their Exhibitions, but they could if they chose refuse to hang on their walls works of which the taste is vulgar, the sentiment false, and the execution meretricious.
Mr. Sargent's portrait of Lord Roberts (No. 41) in the first room is a disappointment. The ominous words "presentation portrait" in the catalogue make their influence felt in the painting. The nniform and the orders seem to swamp the personality of the great soldier, and the whole is seen in an almost commonplace way. This uninteresting way of seeing the sitter, unfortunately, may also be noted in two other portraits by the same hand. That of the lady (No. 217) in the big room is very far below what Mr. Sargent has taught us to expect from his brush. Face, hand, dress, and flowers alike have a per- functory look and absence of life, which cannot but be deeply deplored by those who have so often been stimulated and delighted by this painter's work. Mr. Sargent is much more his true self in the large group of four Professors of the University of Baltimore (No. 257). This picture, hanging where the Marlborough group hung last year, is as sombre as the other was brilliant. The Professors are gathered round a table, and clad in black Academic robes, in which they seem perhaps a little uncomfortable, and at first sight provoke a smile. But where else in the present day shall we find heads painted like these? In spite of their smallness compared to the whole area of the picture, they dominate their surroundings as do iving things among the dead. The canvas has been added to —indeed, one could wish the joins had been better done—but the enlargement has given room for a fine spacious background of carved wood and a panelling-surrounded picture. The retiring spaces of gloom in this background are infinitely delightful in their sombre quiet, and afford a welcome relief to the eye distracted by the discordant pictures of the Exhibition.
It is sometimes easy to overestimate the quality of a work from the way in which it is hung. In the fifth room Mr. John Collier's smooth picture of the repenting lady illuminated by the orange glow of a fire makes the landscape next to it, A Yorkshire Moorland Village (No. 330), by Mr. James Henry, look delightfully fresh in colour and pleasant in surface. Another very pleasant piece of colour is the breezy sketch, Luggers (No. 340), by Mrs. Mabel Luck.
A small picture in the first room called The Green Fields (No. 109) is the most attractive work exhibited by Mr. Clausen this yeas-, In it the artist has realised with great subtlety A114 beauty the effect et looking from high ground over Agile to the sky. The sky is one of tender blue dappled with clouds, which break up thi1 Sunshine into pools of light as it passes over the plain. By means of a haystack and two figures a most difficult piece of country has become thaweable pictorially. Our sense of composition is satis- fied, and we can enjoy undisturbed the rare beauty of the painting of the light and air. How easy it is to imagine the
scene of this picture, which is everyday English country, painted with all the dull circumstances of chessboard-like distant fields and commonplace details. By realising this we can estimate the power of the artist, who has been able to seize the essentials of beauty—in this case the colour and gradation of the light—and make this beauty predominate. So often in the landscapes of Nature the beauties are in the evanescent elements of the scene, and the artist, though he may have seen the better part, only succeeds in transferring to his canvas the constant and the prosaic.
H. S.
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