ART
The Royal Academy
THE Royal Academy is simply its dull old self. There are good paintings in it : the standard is much the same as that of any large, old-established group. The percentage of respectable works is rather lower than at the Artists' International, rather higher than at the R.B.A. With vigorous and intelligent selection, and by limiting such a selection to thirty or forty works, an interesting exhibition could be made on C.E.M.A. lines, and (a fact that needs restating as often as possible, in view of the recent correspondence in The Times) such a selection would be more interesting than one made on any other lines. Still, it would by no means represent con- temporary British art adequately.
The authorities imply that the exhibition must be as large as it is in order to give every encouragement to young painters, but in effect they only seriously encourage smooth paint, or rough paint put on with smooth ideas: so that nine out of ten of the painters with other and better ideas—and not only the incompetent and the self- consciously "advanced "—escape them. The conscientious visitor's search for interest is unnecessarily protracted and tiring. Nearly all the best works are in the galleries devoted to oil paintings and a
large proportion of these are in Gallery .No. x. A visitor paintings, of time could do Worse than look with care at the pictures in this room, and leave the others unseen. The sculpture -and water-colours are unusually dim this year, and the architecture heavily prejudiced in favour of Banker's Georgian.
Probably the most useful thing a critic can do is to make a selec- tion from among the twelve hundred odd works—a selection that is small, personally prejudiced, and not intended to act as any kind of guide to what is popular, imposing, or even characteristic, but is simply a list of some works that will be found to have qualities: 14, Leonard Applebee ; x5, Mark Gender; x7, Richard Eurich ; 21, Lucien Pissarro ; 30, Charles Ginner ; 127, Reginald Brundrit ; 149, A. R. Thomson ; 174, James Fitton ; 237, R. 0. Dunlop ; 26o5 Ethel Walker ; 394, Ruskin Spear ; 411, T. W. Monningtob ; 497, Walter Woodington - 528, R. Moynihan, 548, Edward Wadsworth ; 586, Edward Le Etas ; 625, William Turner ; 714, M. Fisher Prout ; 715, Anthony Devas ; 737, Margaret Fitton ; 766, Henry Lamb ; 794, Frank Dobson ; 797, V. Pitchforth •' 989, &c. dialk drawings by Augustus John ; (sculpture), x174., Harold Youngman, and 1221,
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