ART.
THE ROYAL ACADEMY.
[FIRST NOTICE.]
THE clatter of wine-cups and the murmur of complimentary speeches has died away, and once more Burlington House settles itself down to receive the shillings, while it delights the eyes of the public at large. We have heard what " his Majesty, their Serene Highnesses, their Royal Highnesses, Lords, and Gentle- tlemen " could say in praise of this year's Royal Academy, and we ask ourselves, with considerable trepidation, what there is left P In truth, there is not much. The exhibition is neither worse nor better than usual, and if it be less interesting, it is only that many of the best men have confined their art to portraiture. Certain changes have come about in the Academic body, but scarcely any that affect the exhibition. Mr. Solomon Hart and Mr. Edmund Street have died, and their places have been filled by Mr. Aitchison and Mr. Henry Woods. Mr. Aitchison is an architect, whose only title to fame is (as far as we know) having superintended the decoration of Sir Frederick Leighton's dwelling-house ; and Mr. Henry Woods is a young artist, who paints in the foreign manner little scenes of Venetian life. The election of this latter gentleman was a singularly un- expected event, and one which was particularly uncalled for. He has done little or nothing to deserve the honour, and the claims of several other candidates were such as should have rendered their election comparatively certain. The work of Mr. Albert Moore, especially, has long deserved Academic recognition ; and there are half-a-dozen landscape men whose art entitles them to a place within the Academic pale. How- ever, the cliquishness and party feeling seem very high within the walls of Burlington House, and it is useless to speak of such matters. The usual complaints about the " Hanging Committee" are rife this year, and are, perhaps, more justified than usual. Certainly, there is many a good picture hung in an indifferent place, and many a bad one in a good position. Mr. Rooke's miniature work, for instance, is four or five feet above the spectators' heads, and all the big Scotch landscapes are, as usual, "on the line." There is a plethora of foreign art, but little that is first-rate, and that little first-rate only in a technical sense. The cleverest work in the Academy, speaking broadly, is the interior of a " Venetian Sartoria," by Van Haanen ; and the completest is called "The Yacht La Sirene,'" by Jan van Beers. This last picture, bits of which have been copied on panels and sold in Paris by the thousand daring the past year, is, in its way, a very remarkable work. It is a per- fect specimen of suggestive French art. We say French, because the motive and style of the picture are entirely French. Taken as the pictorial expression of a page of Arsene Houssaye or Adolphe Belot, it leaves absolutely nothing to desire. Some of .us may, perhaps, think that it is hardly one of those "fair- seeming shows " which " lift the soul up higher;" but of that the Academicians are, no doubt, the best judges. Next year, perhaps, we shall have the original studies for the illustrations to " La Vie Parisienne " exhibited in the great room, while the " Grevini " sketches for Le Petit Journal, fill up the odd corners. As for imaginative art, the less said, the better. There is simply none. The President has done his best to escape from that slough of waxy women and brown- skinned men, in which he has disported himself so long, and has given us a work great in size and execution, and almost great in intention. His " Phryne " recalls the painter of the " Hercules and Alcestis," and is certainly the finest work he has produced since the picture of the " Egyptian Lad Shying Stones at Sparrows," as Ruskin unkindly described "The Slinger." On the whole, the " Phryne " is a great picture, though it is hardly a natural one. It crushes all the other works round it, for one simple reason, that it is beautiful, and the majority of them are not ; and its motivelessness is less irritating to us, from the nature of the subject. " Phryue," we may conceive, was neither very loving nor very wise, but a fine animal; and this is a very fine animal, indeed,—strong and glowing, yet delicately moulded, full of life and health, and yet with something of sculpturesque purity and dignity about her. Mr. Hook, who may be said to be the only landscape painter amongst the Academicians—for Vicat Cole is hardly worthy to be ranked as any but a river-side artist—is fairly well represented by subjects of his usual class. Mr. Millais is strong in portraits of children and elderly men, and his "Cardinal Newman" is probably the best bit of painter's work in the exhibition. Holl and Herkomer have both confined themselves to portraiture, and have both succeeded in producing work of the very finest second-rate quality, and only missing being first-rate, in its indifference to colour and its too complete surrender to momentary effect. The portrait of the Master of Trinity, Cambridge, by the latter of these artists, is one of those marvellous, if unpleasant, likenesses, which haunt the memory like a too persistent nightmare. The rigidity, and dull, immobile smile that Mr. Herkomer has fixed upon the canvas are wonderfully characteristic of Dr. Thompson, and though, perhaps, his friends might wish for a less stern reading of the character, it is a vitally true one. This might well be the man of whom the Undergraduates tell the story that, when preaching to six hundred of them in the College chapel one Sunday, he looked round with a cold smile, as he gave out his text on the Parable of the Talents, and began his sermon in the following words :—" Now, you have all of you one talent (a pause), and some of you have two talents (a. longer _pause), and perhaps one or two of you have even three talents." Mr. Herkomer's portrait of Archibald Forbes, the war corre- spondent, is also full of individuality and power. It is coarsely and somewhat unpleasantly painted, but the figure and face stand out from the canvas, like life, and the picture gives an unmistakable impression of being a good likeness. The worst one can say of these portraits of Mr. Herkomer's is that they are hardly carried sufficiently far ; the work stops at being vigorous, and fails of being delicate ; the science, such as it is, is all superficial, and on living with the pictures would probably cease to please, from its too great insistance on one or two in- dividual traits. On a general survey like the one we are taking, the best landscape in the exhibition should be noticed. This is Mr. H. W. B. Davis's picture of the " Western Highlands," a scene of mountain and moor, with a foreground filled with richly-coloured cattle, on whose rough coats the evening sun shines goldenly. Now, Mr. Peter Graham, one feels in- clined to sa: , what do you think of that ? Here you are beaten on your own ground. Certainly, the cattle and the landscape, the clouds and the sunlight, have never been done so well by any of the Scotch school as they are done here. For actual thrusting of nature under your eyes, the sunlight in this picture is as powerful as in Brett's work. There is perhaps a little deficiency of feeling, which prevents the painting being wholly satisfactory to us ; but for those who think—and there are many such—that feeling is of no account in a picture, they could hardly have finer work of the panoramic kind. Mr. Riviere, so well known for his dramas of animal life, has been industrious this year, but hardly fortunate. His pictures are all of that delicate kind of subject that necessitates their being either failures or successes, and this year they are,—not successes. It is not enough, for in- stance, in a picture which is called "The Magician's Doorway,'" that there should be a couple of well-painted leopards. We want a little interest in the magician or his doorway, a little weirdness of conception, to satisfy the title. That has been attempted, and attempted unsuccessfully. And in one of his other works, the portrait of Miss Kate Potter and her poodle, he is still farther from the mark, and has painted a decidedly vulgar picture. Mr. Val Prinsep has a large work, something in the style of Armitage, of " Siward the Strong,"—dying in full armour, amidst his kinsfolk. This is one of the largest pictures in the Academy, and is painted with the clear finish that characterises Mr. Prinsep's work. Otherwise, it is not specially remarkable. Mr. George Boughton still • lingers in Holland, and sends both to the Academy and the Gros- venor Gallery pictures of village life in that country. This year, they are of somewhat larger size than usual, and the figures bear a less proportion to the landscape. This is pro- portionately a benefit, as Mr. Boughton's drawing of the human face divine is, perhaps, his weakest point. His strongest one is a rather indefinable quaintness of colouring and compOsition, that makes his works look half like nature, and half like a scene from an opera bouffe. The atmosphere and surroundings: are always carefully studied, and so markedly the same, that whether he paints an English village or a Dutch one, we have just the same feeling, just as a " super " on the stage looks. a " super," whether he has got a red cap on, as a Neapo- litan fisherman, or a blue one, as an English sailor. Mr. Watts has nothing of any consequence, and Mr. Tadema only one small and unimportant picture. Mr. Frith's great work of "The Private-View Day" could not be _finished in time, and he has only a small portrait. Mr. Marks has a large work, but one wherein the technique has usurped all his attention, and the picture fails to attract attention. Mr. Linton and Mr. Seymour Lucas are once more side by side, with pictures of similar style, of which we shall have to speak later on. Mr. Frank Dicksee and Mr. Gow, two of the youngest Associates,. both send interesting works. Brett has two good, but not superlatively fine, pictures ; he falls a little below his highest mark. " The Dreamers " of Albert Moore and " Stormy Weather" of Henry Moore, we shall notice subsequently. Mr. Munkacsy's interior is inferior to his usual work, but is still one of the strongest pictures in the exhibition. Mr. Leslie's two single half-length figures are as sweet and simple as ever ; and Mr. Leader, Mr. Halswelle, and Mr. Alfred Hunt have all good landscape works.
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