ART.
GENERAL EXHIBITION OF WATER-COLOUR DRAWINGS.
THE power of selection is, beyond question, one of the most efficient aids to the success of the general Water-Colour Exhibi- tions, and enables them, in spite of frequent secessions, to hold a respectable position somewhere between those of the Old Society and those of the Institute. It is a power which, while it leaves open a door for all the world, subjects every one to a scrutiny that is the best possible antidote to the lethargy which sometimes over- takes men in what they think a secure position ; and one which, so long as it is honestly exercised, should bring to those who possess it more of pleasure than of regret, when some favoured exhibitor is translated from the Dudley Gallery to the serener atmosphere of Pall Mall ; though in that case they may need the support and consolation of the old ballad :— " We trust we have in England Five hundred as good as he."
Thomas Danby, F. Powell, Lamont, and Basil Bradley here showed their title to the promotion they have won in the old Society ; Linton, Kilburn, and H. Johnson here exhibited the qualifications that have secured their election to the Institute. But the race of unattached artists is not exhausted, and the general Exhibition still flourishes. Mr. Danby, indeed, with most praiseworthy constancy, owns a continuance of his original allegiance not incompatible with the duties incident to his naturalization, now not so recent, in another Society, and enriches this Exhibition with a drawing remarkable for the purest nature and the ripest art. His view of " Llyn Gwynant " (104), with sun faintly gleaming through the showery air, is a beautiful lesson in that combination of full colour with tender grey which should be the aim of every landscape painter. It is a quality which is sufficiently recommended by its truth, and is especially suggestive of that restrained power which is one of the greatest delights in art.
But the degree of merit attained by the General Water-Colour Exhibition, whether absolute or compared with those of the two Societies, is of less importance than the influence it exerts upon English water-colour art in general, and the opportunity and in- ducement it offers to artists (and especially to beginners) of test- ing and cultivating to the utmost the talent that is in them. To the high position of a school, indeed, it may not pretend ; it has no machinery for such an office ; but its motto may be, "A fair field and no favour," which whether it fulfils is for the general body of exhibitors to declare by sending or withholding their con- tributions. As a fact, the number of exhibitors increases annually ; and among them it is a pleasant task to see the steady advance of not a few, and to mark how promise ripens into performance. Take a few such examples. Mr. Herries began four years ago with a power of drawing such as few landscape painters think it worth while to acquire. Building upon this solid foundation, he has reached a skill in composition and in the management of his palette, together with a breadth and vigour of treatment which not only give him high rank at present, but give promise of more to come in future. These merits are most conspicuous in his " Scarbro', Early Morning—Fish Auction" (295), bright and fresh in colour, with knots of fisher folk well grouped and subordinated to the landscape. "On the Sussex Downs" (96) overlooking the sea, and "Ben Damf, Ross-shire" (639), with evening shadows creeping up the mountain aide, exhibit similar qualities; while his boy and girl, "On Scarbro' Pier" (611) attest his versatility. Mr. Eden is another most improving artist. His special gift lies in expressing delicate tones, and tender rather than glaring sunshine, as in "September, Afternoon" (615), and "Near Pangbourne" (139). At present the exercise of this talent, which he possesses in a remarkable degree, gives him delight enough, without much caring for composition or "line," a care- lessness, however, which he will have to correct before he can make a large drawing like his " Streatley " (124) thoroughly pleasing. Not all the truth and beauty of sunshine on the wooden piles in this picture can entirely counterbalance their unfitness for the composition. Mr. A. Luxmoore has never exhibited anything so good as his "Preparing for Guests" (49), and "An Eaves- dropper" (154). In the first picture (exhibiting a very pleasing harmony of brown and grey), a comely Puritan lady in sober dress. sets flowers in a china jar. In the other, the very expressive sneak- ishness atones for the slight awkwardness of the stooping figure, while the painting of the background and accessories, especially of the blue velvet chair, bespeak Mr. Luxmoore no mean colourist.
Nor do such men as Mr. G. Mawley, who has always taken high standing at these Exhibitions, show any symptom of relaxed effort. On the contrary, his "Deep Secluded Vale" (75); darkening as the last beams of evening retire upwards, is a sober scene of pastoral beauty, which the longer it is looked at the more it will be liked. If Mr. Mawley has painted pictures that have been more taking at first sight, he has exhibited none of more sterling merit, more broadly treated, or of more powerful and poetical sentiment. The colour is transparent and good in quality, the picture being painted almost entirely without the use of the opaque vehicle so pernicious to water-colourists. A. certain crudity arising from the greater admixture of this very mischievous vehicle, and observable in certain parts of Mr.. Mawley's only other picture (92), prevents this latter, good as it is, from being an entirely worthy companion to the first. It shows, however, as well as the first, an attention to light and shade, which is generally too much neglected, especially among our younger artists, but which is a most essential ingredient (some say the one essential ingredient) in giving a picture whatever of poetry and passion it may pretend to. Mr. F. Walton has a thorough love for the home scenery of Southern England, and his pictures are well adapted to inspire the same love in others, especially "A Hampshire Lane" (482), and " Tillingbourne," (69), the latter a Surrey village lying beyond its green, under a mellow twilight. But the light would be yet mellower and the colour throughout more expressive of space, if the artist would do himself the simple justice of confining himself to transparent pigments. As Mr. Walton's drawings bear the stamp of duke domum, so Mr. A. Ditchfield's transport one in imagination to half remembered scenes, places dreamed of rather than known before. Mr. Ditchfield has a true vein of poetry, and this he indulges, with much pleasure to the beholder, by imagining roman- tic scenes with softly glowing suns, that seem to be a kind of protest against the purblind or pettifogging school who see things in a fragmentary manner, and never have their subject in their mind's eye as a whole. "Nymphs Bathing" (250), and "Sunrise on the Seine" (613), are amongst his most perfect works of the year. Hardly less beautiful is his "Paris and /Enone " (446), wherein the tone and colour of sky and distant mountain must be specially remarked. The defects of his pictures seem to be " chiefly such as will be removed by greater experience in
sketching from nature in a greater variety of countries. The poetical power, indeed, may be exhibited not only through the medium of imaginary scenes, but also by intensely real ones, when these are translated for us by a keenly sensitive perception into the proper language of art. Of this kind is Mr. W. Field's "Meadow Sweet" (622), a view across " unshaven " levels, such as border the Thames, under a pure forenoon sunshine. The little cloud reaching upwards into the clear sky from the horizon gives surprising life, freshness, and character to the picture. " Haymaking " (42) and "Winter Sunset, Hampstead" (603), by the same artist, are other examples equally good of his thorough workmanship and fidelity to nature. In the latter two things are especially to be observed ; first, the sky is of a colour that truly denotes the season, and is not seen in summer ; secondly, the leafless branches of the trees come tenderly against the sky, and not harshly, like a metallic net-work. This, also, is true. It is a truth which has been missed by Mr. A. Williams in an otherwise beautiful drawing (510), where, after taking into account the difference between the swelling buds of spring and the sapless twigs of winter, there yet remains a certain coarseness of articulation which is not really true to nature. Mr. A. Severn gains every way. There are probably none who can express a greater number of truths with a less amount of manual labour than he. But such labour is not, therefore, lost when given ; as may be seen in his "Sunset, Penzance Bay" (54), where the sun is fading away behind a veil of sea mist that rolls along in thick- coming volumes. Yet more remarkable for its masterly truth of colour and tone in sky and distant hill is his "Falmouth Harbour" (234), though as matter of composition these are not adequately supported by sea and foreground. His sketch of cliffs "Near Torquay" (141), with all their startling contrast of red and white, is what none but a good colourist could have attempted without failure. It is a most fortunate "bit." Mr. H. S. Marks' "May-Day in the Olden Time" (173) has the primary qualification for mural decoration (a purpose for which it is obviously designed), in the brightness of colour that tends to cheerfulness, and not to gloom. The subject might have tempted to broad fun, but Mr. Marks has chosen the better part of temper- ing the merriment with a degree of stateliness appropriate to a national solemnity, and has thus secured another quality very essential for his purpose, namely, repose. The artist's peculiar humour finds sufficient exercise in the consequential air of the "hobby-horse rider," and in the " dragon " sweating under his scales, and hanging his tail over his arm to keep it out of the dust. Even without this last touch, one ought not to see ground for complaint if the artist has done what the exigencies of his profession make it difficult for him to do with impunity, and treated his subject in a manner not generally expected of him ; rather ought he to be encouraged often to seek "fresh woods and pastures new," and to resist a prejudice which refuses to recognize his individuality in any but one " style " of work. It is not a case of exchange, but of addition ; and admiration for Mr. Marks' semi-monumental art is not to displace the old love for his delineations of strongly marked character such as we have here in his "Important News" (118), a letter delivered to a pompous justice by an obsequious messenger.
The Exhibition has the support of one other member of the old Society, Mr. F. Stnallfield, who, debarred by the rules of his own gallery from exhibiting portraits there, sends here one of con- siderable merit. Of the Institute, Mr. D'Egville exhibits a view, sunny, spacious, and beautiful, of "San Clemente, Venice" (479), and Mr. W. W. Deane a most artist-like view of the old castle at Villeneuve lea Avignon (238). The merits of these works are not to be measured by the shortness of the notice here taken of them. Mr. E. Cooke, R.A., sends several well drawn and accurate studies, and Mr. Yeames, A., a finished picture, named " Exorcising " (87), an assembly of white-robed monks attending the operation per- formed on one of their brethren of having a devil flogged out of him while the Abbot reads the spell. The brethren seem to acquiesce with unquestioning faith in the efficacy and necessity of the infliction. A view, by Mr. Holman Hunt, of the old bridge at Florence (266) on a dark night, with glare of lamps on the buildings, is a picture that must be seen, but is hardly to be described. It is the work of a far-seeing and a deep-thinking artist. Mr. Bottomley's dogs, Miss H. Coleman's flowers, the landscapes of Mr. H. Moore, and of Mr. J. C. Moore, some remarkable studies of drapery by Mr. A. Moore (675, &c.), Mr. S. Solomon's colour-harmonies in black and yellow (103), or red and gold (252), Mr. Poynter's graceful and finely modelled "Portrait" (278), and many things besides, would command
special notice, if space did not fail. V.
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