SCOTT/5N ART ASSOCIATION.
The works which have been selected this year by the Committee of Management of the Royal Association for Promotion of the Fine Arts in Scotland will remain on view this month at Mr. Walesby's Gallery, No. 5 Waterloo Place. The Association styles itself "the first established in the United Kingdom for similar purposes,"—which combine the formation of a permanent gallery of art with the ordinary system of an artunion. It is but justice to say, that, judging from the evidence of the present year, this body might claim to be not only the first but the best of its kind : we certainly do not recollect any annual collection of ArtUnion pictures containing so large a proportion of creditable works or affording so much occasion for praise and so little -for cavil. The chief prize is Horatio Maceulloch's "Summer-Day in Skye, View of the Cullin Mountains,"—a strikingly clever work, full of ease and ability, though scarcely perhaps the best choice open to the Association. Then come, conspicuous among the minor prizes, Mr. Archer's "Shadow onthe Path,"—the wife of an absent officer, with her child, and a widow crossing the avenue ; "A Nameless Rill," by Walter H. Paton seldom equalled for fulness and minuteness of botanical detail, and watchful care throughout, by even the most elaborate of the works of a similar class, -which recent years have produced. in London Samuel Bough's -very clever " Holmewood Common, Surrey" a careful manly view by Milne Donald, "Arran, from the large Con:brae" ; two good observant domestic pictures by John Burr ; a coquettish and artistically painted " Polly Peachum, by W. B. Johnstone ; two Hudibrastic scenes by William Douglas, with a great deal of life and spirit, and no caricature ; and able views by Hargitt, Halswell, and Wintour. -Coming as they all do from the recent exhibition of the Royal Scottish Academy, these works give a very favourable idea of what the average of a Scotch exhibition of the present day must be.
Along with these pictures appear four of those purchased by the Association for the permanent gallery. Noel Paton's "Oberon and Titania" is too well known to need anything beyond simple mention. James .Drummond's "Rising of 'the Porteous mob" is a solid, valuable piece of work, well attended to in all its parts and incidents, though somewhat lacking impulse. George Harvey's "Columbus Discovering the First Sight of Land" will impress most people immediately, and many after careful examination ; but it does not, to our judgment, attain any high degree of success, save in the great voyager's set gaunt face of triumph and endurance. The first purchase of the Association, Mr. Scott Lauder's "Christ teaching Humility," was the least approveable of all.
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