fiat Arts.
THE BAD PICTURES AT THE WINTER EXHIBITION. REFERENCE was made last week to the inordinate amount of ques- tionable art to be found at the Winter Exhibition—of pictures pos- sessing neither taste nor feeling nor honest study of nature to recom- mend them, but distinguished by clap-trap effects of light and shade, vulgarity of treatment, and a general look of manufacture totally at variance with the best interests of art. Any criticism of such works would be wasted so far as the painters are concerned—they evidently are thoroughly satisfied with their own performances, and succeed in gaining a large share of public attention. But some benefit may result by showing wherein the difference consists between a good and a bad picture, and as those thought worthy of admiration have already been pointed out, let us take into consideration some of the more glaring examples of that art which it would be desirable to avoid.
The bad pictures here may be divided into three classes : those that are outrageously or actively bad, about which much may be said ; those which are feebly or passively bad, about which little can be said; and those which are so vapidly or inanely bad, that nothing can be said of them whatever. Of this last class a type may be found in Mr. E. Long's " Ninas y Vinas son mal a guardar," a picture painted with the sole object of showing the face of one Spanish woman and the back of another. Under the second head comes Mr. Mann's " Guardian Angels," which, though intended to be solemn and touching, has much the same effect in awakening opposite emotions as is experienced in witnessing a performance of a good tragedy by incompetent actors. One can scarcely resist a smile when gazing at these angels, who float in the air with such mathe- matical precision that the ends of their pinions find a convenient resting-place on the little knobs of the cot in which two little bladder- shaped children (twins, I believe) lie sleeping. This picture is not a fair sample of Mr. kann's abilities, who can paint very grace- ful and pretty female heads, but he should be cautious how he .'again attempts the supernatural. Mr. Armfield's dogs come under the same category as Mr. Mann's angels, though they are far more objectionable by reason of their number. Mr. Arrofield is the most prolific dog, or, it should rather be said, the most prolific terrier painter on record. His pictures may be seen anywhere, and a description of one will serve for all : a white, a black, and a drab terrier, a wisp of straw, a battered lantern, and a piece of red drapery, are the materials out of which this painter has concocted some hundreds of pictures. They are all over London—a fact which the reader may test for himself any day when taking his walks abroad. He will notpass two shops in succession, in which oil- paintings are exposed for sale, without encountering at least one picture of straws, lanterns, and terriers, which he may safely attri- bute to the indefatigable Mr. Armfield.
In the first division, that of the actively bad pictures, Mr. T. P. Hall worthily occupies the first place. In "Not half good-looking
enough !" two maid-servants, who have been en d in their morn- ing duties of sweeping and scrubbing, stand oif engaged door-steps of a suburban house. To them enters a postman, who, having delivered the letters, lingers for the purpose of chatting with the girls, one of whom submits a photographic likeness of herself to his inspection. The postman is complimentary, and utters the exclamation which forms the title of the picture. There is scarcely a square inch in this work which does not betray a wilful disregard of facts. Servant- girls do not clean door-steps, or sweep out passages, in their newest dresses, nor adorn themselves for the occasion with smart blue bows. The clothes of postmen are not remarkable for accuracy of fit, but at least their hats can be placed on their heads without a violent com- pression of the brain, as is the case in this instance. The size and form of the photograph indicate that it is intended for hanging on a wall, yet the painter has attached to it a long ribbon, as if it were to be worn round the neck. Imagine a postman going his rounds with a large photograph dangling against his chest, for the effort to hide the cherished object in his waistcoat might be attended with some serious inconvenience. Other matters might be mentioned, such as the flimsy columns of the portico under which the figures stand—the knocker of the door, which is of a fashion never yet seen in England, while there is not one truly drawn leaf in the ivy (?) which covers the front of the house. Then compare for a moment the faces of the two girls in Mr. Calderon's "Le Secret des Amoureux," or in Mr. Storey's "Con- solation," with the affected air and self-satisfied smirk of these maid- servants, and the vulgarity of treatment in the latter will be at once apparent. With few exceptions, all the painters who exhibit here lose themselves in vulgarity and error when undertaking subjects from humble life. Having no respect for the truth—without the wish or the power to depict it—they dress their figures in garments of impossible colours, violate the laws of light and shade with impunity, and indulge in other idealizations of a doubtful kind. Mr. Hemsley in "The Toilet," a child screwing up her sister's hair in curl-papers, is an instance of coarse treatment as applied to children. Mr. Hemsley has acquired some reputation by an assiduous following in Mr. Webster's footsteps, hat there is a wonderful difference between the master and the pupil. The children in "The Toilet" are not only devoid of expression, but are of that common and uninteresting type that no one cares to look at twice. Mr. Bromley is another painter who is dead to the beauty that exists in humble life. His pictures call for no special remark; they are as uninteresting and as unrefined as Mr. Hemsley's. Mr. E. C. Barnes is an ambitions painter. " Who's to Blame ?" a group of women surrounding a child who has let fall and broken a jug of milk, is not without a certain specious cleverness, but will not bear examination in detail. The. story, to begin with, is not clearly made out. One does not see why that raw- boned woman, whose countenance bears some resemblance to Mr. Robson's, of the Olympic, should be bullying the faded senti- mental female in the black dress. Some glaring errors in pro- portion are discoverable, as in the size of a little girl's head to the right. She stands on the same plane as the other figures, but her head is scarcely half the size of theirs. The background figures are also too small for their position. The painting is executed in the tricky manner; but meretriciousness of execution is still more pal- pable in " Grandfather's Breakfast," another work by Mr. Barnes, in which masses of grey colour have been worked into seas of asphaltum with such recklessness, that the upper portion of the picture is weeping bituminous tears. One consolation is left us in looking at these hastily and trickily-painted works, as it is evident, from the method of execution employed, that they will shortly crack and peel, become blackened and disfigured, and thus, though we may not be able to escape their presence, posterity at least will avoid the infliction. The pictures of Mr. Dukes are not badly painted in their way, which is a sort of recollection of the earlier manner of Mr. Frith; but in all his works there is an undercurrent of sensualism, which might very well be dispensed with. His gipsies and peasants, though fairly drawn and composed, are utterly unlike the real ar- ticles. Mr. Dukes's gipsies are remarkably clean and neat in their persons ; their faces are always well washed, and never brown by ex- posure to the sun. His peasants are characterized by an equal im.. salinity from dirt or any other sign of honest labour. One particular figure may be recognised in all Mr. Dukes's pictures—that of a woman, "fat, fair, and forty," who neglects no opportunity of displaying her personal charms. In the " Gipsy Mother," the incident of suckling the child is dwelt on as much for the opportunity it affords of displaying a very rotund bast, as for any grace or purity that might be seen in the action. The pictures by Mr. Haynes King violate the laws of light and shade in the most pleasantly daring manner. A woman and her cradle are placed in front of a window; one would there- fore naturally expect that the greater proportion of the figure would be in shadow, the light striking only on the contours ; but no, Mr. Haynes paints woman and cradle in full light, their shadows retreat- ing to, instead of advancing from, the window. A word of praise must be given to the imitation of the wood of the cradle, which is worthy of a professed grainer. Mr. Craig shows an equal facility for the imitation of inanimate objects, though he fails utterly in painting a face. In the " Trysting Place" he appears to have discovered a recipe for "doing" a shepherd's plaid, by scraping out, with a stick, little diagonal lines of light on the black squares of the pattern. So intent has the artist been on the plaid, that he has paid little atten- tion to the form it envelops. The head of the lassie is weak in drawing and expression, and her bundle of fern consists of a series of rectangular dabs of yellow, brown, and green, which scarcely pro- duce the required result. As a picture of checked plaid, " the Trysting Place" must be considered a success. It would ap- propriately adorn the window of a retail shawl warehouse.
The pictures above enumerated, though treated in different styles, have many qualities in. common : all, more or less, aim at catching some peculiarities of the manner of our most popular painters. Mr. Hemsley, as we have seen, tries to ape the style of Mr. Webster ; Mr. Dukes recals Mr. Frith in his uninspired moment; Mr. Barnes paints in a compound style—a strong dash of Alexander Johnstone with a weak infusion of Faed. Mr. King, too, strives hard to paint like Faed, but his only resemblance to that artist is to be found in his borrowed backgrounds. With the exception of Mr. Hall, who, to do him justice, is at least original in his ill-doing, all are convention- ally dull and common-place. - They seem not to try either to create nor to tell a story. Thought is never stimulated, pleasure never excited by their work ; one feeling only it calls forth, that of weariness and disgust. What domen see so fascinating in the games and pranks of boys that they should devote their lives to the delineation of them ? Boys areas great nuisances in our exhibition-rooms as in our streets. Their antics are only endurable when rendered by the appreciative pencil of Mr. John Leech, who gives us the actual. boy, full of the life and idiosyncrasy of his class; but with these expressionless dummies, eternally engaged in " knuckling down" or "leap-frog," we have been too long oppressed. The same may be said of the rustic subjects : in real life no one has yet discovered a peasant of the type so con- spicuous at our exhibitions, who bears as much resemblance to the genuine rustic as do the "happy peasantry" of the stage to the
natives of any village under heaven. But why are these things pro- duced in such quantities? The answer is obvious—they sell. Art. Unions, among other things, have fostered a taste for mediocrity, and called into existence a class of painters whose study it is, not to per- fect themselves in their art, but to cover the largest possible canvas at the lowest possible price. Quantity, not quality, is their motto. Thought and subject are out of place in works the execution of which is of the slightest character. Accordingly, there is no limit scarcely to the number which an industrious and expeditious manufacturer will turn out in the course of a year. If all do not sell, at least a proportion will be got rid of sufficient to enable the workman to live comfortably. The Art-Union prize-holder, the obscure picture-dealer, and the man who, having newly acquired a taste for painting, is begin. ning to form the nucleus of a collection, the remembrance of whichwill embitter those days when he has acquired larger views of art,—these are the enconragers and patrons of manufacturing mediocrity and imbecile eonventionalisms—a large and still increasing class. 'With their aid it is not impossible that we shall be even still further flooded with pictorial rubbish, though, for the credit of our exhibitions generally, it must be affirmed that seldom is such a mass of trash collected together as that to be found at Mr. Wallis's winter ex-
Previous page
