ART.
No one with any regard for contemporary art can visit the Society's Exhibition of 1870 without being conscious of the grievous loss it has sustained in the death of James Holland. It can never be, and certainly is not now, a matter of indifference that we have seen the last of a painter who was an artist in grain, who to the end of his career preserved all the enthusiasm of youth, and who has left us at last when his powers of hand and brain were till un- touched by time. His years indeed were not few, but his claims to honour were more ; and the perfect sincerity with which he pursued and practised his art insured him honour (whence it was most worth having) from his brother artists, though it failed perhaps to bring him that extraordinary degree of popularity which falls to the lot and into the pockets of many a less con- scientious and less self-exacting practitioner. It will be long before the frequenters of this gallery are reconciled to the absence of Holland's brilliant pictures, which, whatever their subject, pure landscape, street scenes, interiors, or flower pieces, were always passionate, tender, and manly ; or of his sketches, which stood almost alone in their elegance, vivacity, and suggestiveness. The Society has lost an exquisite sketcher and a fervid artist.
Some other members have chosen to prove their value by withhold- ing their contributions from the year's exhibition. Of these, the most eminent are Mr. Burton and Mr. Boyce. But after all deductions, and in comparison with every other exhibition, including especially the Royal Academy, this of the Old Society stands pre-eminent for the elevation of its aims and the soundness of its taste. And the significance of this indubitable fact appears more clearly when it is considered that the Exhibition is not an open one ; that there is no power of selecting what is good and rejecting what is bad ; but that every member is entitled as of right to have his picture hung,
were it ever so detrimental to the general character of the Exhibi- tion. There is good evidence that a healthy tone is encouraged in the Society, and but little countenance given to vulgarity.
Among the younger members, none shows a more determined devotion to his art, or a higher sense of the purposes it should answer, than Mr. Pinwell. It is a good sign, the more welcome because not in all cases visible, when the achievement of a position so high as membership in this Society is not treated as a final triumph, but as an incentive to greater efforts and nobler ends. It were indeed early times yet for Mr. Pinwell to be growing slack ; but persever- ance in an arduous course is too valuable a quality to be overlooked, and deserve,s recognition, if for no other reason, yet for the opportunity thus given of crying, "Be steadfast." The title of Mr. Pinwoll's picture is The Elixir of Love" (114), and it shows a number of persons of both sexes and of all sorts, ages, and conditions return- ing from supplying themselves with certain small vials containing the invaluable talisman so entitled. Looking at the pedlar in the background, whose movable shop seems to be the place for purchase of the elixir, one might hesitate to give entire credence to the intrinsic efficacy of the wares sold ; but faith obviously sup- plies all defects in the drug, and the merchant profits on the principle of "think so and 'tis so." The common origin of the emotions, variously exhibited in the various personages, is the thread that runs through and connects the differents parts of the picture, which is distinguished by variety, depth, and intensity of expression, not overstrained but real, by remarkable grace and beauty of form, and by the general composition, which is as free from conventional prettiness as from the opposite affectation of awkwardness. 'The colour, of which the prevailing tints are red- dish brown passing into drab, is not, on the whole, disagreeable, though it is decidedly artificial ; but sufficient attention has not been paid to light and shade, and the result is some flatness. The ground on which the people walk is also a trifle unsubstantial : this seems to be because it is not elaborated up to the mark of the rest, and is therefore out of keeping. These are not un- important defects, for they immediately affect the first impression of a picture which in many essentials deserves the highest com- mendation. Between the gravity end tenderness of Pinwell and the splendour and vehemence of Mr. J. Gilbert the difference is vast ; and here, as elsewhere, the spectator has the advantage of a totally independent view of nature. The lively action and motion of Mr. Gilbert's illustration of Marmion (189) would not easily be found in the work of any other artist. But in "The Arrest of Guido Fawkes" (101) he has permitted his drawing to resemble rather the flourishes of a writing-master than the lines of an artist, and has indulged in exaggerations and deformities quite unworthy of his talents or his subject. Audacity is a very dangerous quality in an artist. The eye turns with pleasure to the more modest works of Mr. Alfred Fripp, whose " Young Poacher" (230) and " Lace-Maker " (243) are among the most complete works of art in the collection. The "young poacher," with the evidence of his delinquency hanging over
his shoulder, and followed by his canine aider and abettor, lingers at sunset on a Dorsetshire upland till the failing light enables him to creep down unobserved to the village which sleeps so sweetly in the hollow below. The picture is pervaded by a sentiment of complete rusticity, is full and tender in colour, and painted with
a certain looseness of touch which always has the merit of suggest-
ing something beyond what it actually expresses. To some it has appeared over-refined ; but this is an appearance which ought not to be readily trusted in a public exhibition where there is generally too liberal an admixture of work specially designed to catch the eye with sharp contrasts and showy execution.
If novelty is not always forthcoming, it is well when a subject is so worthy of repetition as Mr. F. Walker's " Wayfarers " (209). There is a terrible reality as of a lost sense in the blind man's attitude and gait, and in the way he handles his staff, while the feeling is well maintained by the wild rainy sky and plaahy road. Mr. Burne Jones is certainly a colourist ; and this faculty, combined with a cultivated taste, has enabled him to produce a very clever imitation of Memling (61). But as a colourist, he can hardly be himself very well satisfied with some other drawings contributed by him, which look like far-fetched experiments that have missed the mark (45). It is useless, of course, to complain of his con- ventional type of bead and features, of the lips that reverse the poet's description,—
"Her lips were red, and one was thin,
Compared with that was next her chin ;"
of the flesh that is green, and the limbs that are either deformed or dislocated. His " Phyllis and Detuophoon " (154) is a poor illus-
tration of the line he quotes,—" Quid feci, nisi non sapienter amavi ?"—one of the most musical and pathetic ever written in any language.
It would be very surprising if, with all the best landscape- painters of the day practising in water-colours, the Water-Colour Society were not well furnished with good landscape. No such surprise awaits us here : for though Holland is gone. we still have George Fripp and Dodgson, Samuel Palmer and Thomas Denby, Alfred Hunt, Arthur Glennie, and Powell. Of all the beautiful pictures brought from the Thames by Mr. George Fripp, this of "Cleve Lock" (101) is the happiest. The shining meadow, the hill of Streatley lying long and massive in the distance, the wooded eyot, the placid river, the lock-gates and piles (too soon to be repaired and un-beautified) the windless, summer sunshine, all bear the very stamp of nature. That the treatment is broad and simple, the lines large andvarious, the colour transparent,bright, and yet sober, is no more than the artist has taught us to expect of him ; but it is only occasionally that any man is at his best, and there is a nameless charm about this picture which makes itself surely felt, though it eludes description. Two drawings from the Scotch Highlands (109, 205) attest Mr. Fripp's versatility and his power of seizing on the essential characteristics of a country. No more constant or reverent student of nature exists than Mr. Dodg- son, of whose wooded glades and leafy dells it is impossible to tire. Let those who think that " finish " consists in a visible mul- tiplicity of touches or scratches, study such a drawing as Mr. Dodgeon's "Quiet Pool" (234), and observe how the appearance of leafiness is rendered with scarcely an attempt to paint an indi- vidual leaf; but how infinite are the gradation and the variety of tone and colour that are required to express the secluded nooks and recesses of a shady covert. In that gradation and variety consists all true finish, and a comparison may be readily made be- tween it and the false finish above alluded to, by comparing Dodg- son with Birket Foster, whose large drawing (12) is painfully scratched all over, but neither in earth or sky has any of that purity, gradation, or variety that bespeak a genuine artist. His "Burnham Beeches" (66) is scarcely like the work of the same man, so superior is it and free from his most objectionable faults. The figures in this drawing are arranged with great skill. But to Mr. Dodgson we must again go for examples of consummate art in introducing figures in a landscape. Instances are to be found in "Crossing the Brook" (143), and "The Haunted Glen" (244), both of which drawings are full of beauty and poetry. A grand and solemn landscape is Mr. S. Palmer's "Curfew" (97), wherein the minster occupies, as it should, a prominent position in mid-distance, and overlooks the wide- watered shore of the poet. Mr. Danby has a kindred spirit with Mr. Palmer. He will scarcely ever be found contenting himself with a literal transcript or " study " from nature. Every rock and every tree has a special meaning for him, which impresses all his pictures with a peculiar interest far beyond the admiration to be excited by mere technical skill in realization. He contributes many beautiful drawings to the present Exhibition, out of which every person may choose a favourite according to his fancy. Ross-shire has furnished Mr. Alfred Hunt with subjects for two drawings, one of which is well named "The Foundation of the Hills" (194), representing the gigantic rocks and boulders of quartz that seem to be the pillars of the moor which sweeps upwards toward the bare crests of Meal-huish and Ben Eaich. The other is a corner of Loch Torridon, lit up and variegated by glistening sunshine (186). To the same coast belong Mr. Powell's herring-boats, which, under compulsion from a freshening evening breeze and a rising sea, have to weigh from their open roadstead on a lee-shore and put to sea (73). This is a very finely-conceived picture, the stormy rack flying overhead portending dirty weather no less than the curling waves that have just given the foremost boat a noser. Not far behind, though scarcely equal in quality of colour, is the same artist's " Storm " (121), with the sea racing and lashed to fury by a fierce gale. A quiet and unobtrusive determination to be right appears to shape Mr. Davidson's course clear of the quicksands of tricks, and to lead him steadily upwards in his profession. His view In the Isle of Arran " (18) is much to be commended for its honesty of purpose and artist-like treatment. Mr. S. Evans also shows the fruit's of active study in his spirited picture of "Market Boats on the Traun" (115), where the action is lifelike, and the noble moun- tains in the background well painted. Mr. Holman Hunt's Italian sunsets (58, 71) are neither beautiful nor true. With the sun in full blaze (as in 58), and staining a segment of sea and sky blood-red, it is not possible that all the rest of the landscape should
Previous page
