ART.

THE ROYAL ACADEMY.

[PREFATORY NOTICE].

Tli E present year's exhibition of the Royal Academy, which was opened to the public ou Monday last, seems to afford an excellent opportunity for considering what the progress of English Art has been during the last decade, the third which has elapsed since the waters of painting and criticism were alike stirred, by the writings of Mi•. John Ruskin and the artistic heresies of the pre-Raphaelite brethren. It may not be useless or uninteresting to ask what has been the gross result of the new interest, of which there have been so many signs,--to ask whether We have, as a nation, really succeeded in that most difficult of operations which consists in converting a silk purse out of a sow's ear; or, iu other words, whether we have succeeded in making, by one desperate effort, an artistic nation out of an inartistic one. For that the effort has been made, it is impossible to doubt. What other cause has produced the flood of art literature, art furniture, and art dresses, which have practically had it all their own way during the last ten years P What other cause has produced the South Kensington Museum (with its training-schools and their num- berless provincial offshoots), which, like an enormous octopus, gathers into its voracious maw all the artistic heart of the nation, and, we fear, not seldom crushes out the originality and energy of its pupils, ere it sends them forth to the world as " finished" artists, with bronze medals and certificates, all complete ? Why have Mr. Da Maarior's satires on Mandle and Postlethwaite, and Messrs. Gilbert and Sullivan's operas, and plays like those now being acted at the Criterion and the Prince of Wales's, sprung into exist- ence P Why have we a new class of beings, called aesthetes, and new jargon, called. aesthetic speech, if it be not that we are trying violently, bravely, foolishly, and in some cases, perhaps, even knavishly, to make our silk purse, de- spite of proverbial wisdom? For, let the truth be owned frankly and once for all, wo are not at heart an artistic nation. In that plain fact lies all our present trouble. "The prophets prophesy smooth things, and the people love to have it so;" and now, as when that sentence was written, it is hard not to like and believe in the favourable predictions. All engaged in the matter are interested in keeping up the delusion. The great shopkeeper class find a new and practically unlimited field of operations, the literary and artistic classes are directly benefited by increased demand and increased price, the moneyed class gain a new outlet for their wealth, a new distraction for their leisure, and a now satisfaction for their pride ; the moralist and the preacher look leniently on a fashion which can scarcely fail to have some refining influence, even in its wildest excesses ; and the harder-brained men of business and professions, who are, on the whole, the least affected by the current, derive a certain grim amusement from the whole concern, and so—the making of the purse goes on. Ten years ago there were practically half-a-dozen picture exhibitions in London ; at the present moment there are probably fifty, and for every conceivable branch of art-work there are societies and schools of instruction. In place of the Docalcomanie of the last generation, a young lady may now (and what is more, very frequently does) paint plates, paint tapestry, paint panels, pianos, and dresses, paint in oils or water-colours, or etch copper-plates, or model in clay, or carve in wood, or chisel in marble, or belong to societies, headed by royal princesses, for art needlework and art cooking. There are art alliances for the rich, and art societies for the poor; Royalty has lent its countenance, and poetry given its sanction ; one of the most accomplished men in England presides at the councils of the Royal Academy, and each of the old Water-colour Societies boasts a Priucess of the Blood among its mem- bers ; everything that wealth, and fashion, and intellect can do for Art, has been done during the last decade; prices for pictures of contemporary artists have never been so high in the world's history ; and the old style of artist, with a long beard, a short pipe, and a velveteen jacket much out at elbow, has been replaced by an excessively neat, well-dressed man, with courteous manners, a Queen-Anne mansion, and a balance at his banker's. Such, put as briefly as possible, has been the social result during the years 1870-80 of the Art-development of England, let us now see whether the artistic result is at all parallel with it. In a word, do we get better pictures in technique, or motive, than we did ten years ago ? Has there been any distinct improvement, or are we just where we were, or have we oven deteriorated ?

It is a difficult question to answer, and many, no doubt, will say it is one which we should not ask. It is sufficient, we shall perhaps be told, to accept what is given us, without criticism or reluctance,—no good is to be done by analysing the nature of the draught which we have to swallow. But therein lies the whole question. How, if we are not obliged to swallow it P How, if the draught might be made at once more palat- able and more efficacious ; and how, if the present were the very time for the alteration P If it be true that lookers-on see most of the game, it can scarcely be denied that it is the function of true criticism to direct as well as to encourage the efforts upon which it comments, and not to blindly praise misdirected toil, even though it be prompted by an honest motive. Of course, in any general estimate of im- provement or non-improvement, great allowances must always be made for changes due to death or age, and such estimate can but be at best a very imperfect one. Still, we think a few of the main results of the period of Art interest which we have endeavoured to describe, are so plainly evident as to be appre-

ciated by all our readers, when once mentioned. Whether these results are, in the main, good or ill, is a much wider question, and one upon the discussion of which we do not propose here to enter. No one can walk critically through the present exhibition at Burlington House without being struck, forcibly, if not painfully, by the lack of subjects of more than domestic interest, especially of such subjects as require imaginative treatment; and it will also be noticed, curiously enough, that this bias in favour of quiet domesticity and gentle dullness is at least as much marked iu the Royal Academicians as in the work of less experienced artists. Nay, if the truth must be told, it is even more marked, and the great majority of Academic works in this exhibition are notable for this tameness of subject, this deficiency in imagination. It cannot be 'doubted, by those who have watched carefully the exhibitions of the past decade, that this tendency to leave out of the record the more vital passions, the more vivid iuteresta, of humanity has increased very greatly ; and the cause for this increase is a very simple one,

and is directly connected with the present fashion for Art. When an artist paints a big picture of a great subject, it is, as

the artistic world know perfectly well, very frequently unsale- able; it app,eals to comparatively few people, it necessarily represents a considerable amount of money, it is difficult to hang, and difficult to resell. Nevertheless, such pictures used

to be painted frequently, and are not now, simply because in the old days the few people who spent much money on pictures

really did know and care something about the matter ; and the artist, knowing this, was content to wait. But now-a-days, the sale is so ready for any work which bears a fashionable name, wholly irrespective of its merit, that the temptation is almost irresistible to a young painter to produce as cheaply as possible what is most saleable in the market ; and when he has made a hit on one subject, to go on repeating that subject as long as he can sell it. Artists are but men, and if you tempt them beyond a certain point, their art will go to the wall, in deference to their power of making a fortune. One of the worst results of foolish patronage is, that it attacks in this way the best men. It either makes them bitter and soured by the non-appreciation of their great work, and the preference shown for their slighter efforts, or

it makes them deny their artistic parentage, and, with a smile on their lips and a sneer in their heart, become mere producers for the market. Another sign of this result is to be found iu the constantly increasing number of portrait-painters, portrait- painting being a branch of art which, in all but its highest de- velopments, produces more money, at less cost to the painter, than any other.

Let us now turn to a wholly different aspect of the in- fluence of fashion over Art, as shown in the Royal Academy, and that is the amount of false sentiment which now seems to obtain in the painting of the simplest scenes. It is curious to notice how entirely the English feeling has died. out in social and domestic painting, and how all the most popular pictures are those which have a certain French air of either theatrical sentiment, costume interest, or morbid feeling. Look, for example, at the pictures of Mr. Frank Hol one of the re- cently elected Associates, and see how their very great ability is shadowed and, in some cases, almost obscured by this sort of tinsel feeling, which puts sadness in the place of joy, and sub-

stitutes lime-light for sun-light. Look, for another example, at the work of Mr. Marcus Stone, an Associate, who began his

artistic career by being one of the most straightforward painters of the day. One day ho gained an unfortunate success in depict- ing old English costume and garden scenes, and for some years we have had nothing from his hand. which has not been an echo, faintly sweet, from the life of the early part of the century. Look, again, at the numerous Academicians (their names will' suggest themselves to all of our readers) who are absolutely lost to all human interest in the intricacies of ruff, armour,

doublet, and hose. The public liked their ruffs, their- doublets, and their breastplates, and have not cared a farthing, for anything else, and are the artists to be blamed. for paint- ing what their patrons like P Well, perhaps they are, in strict, morality, but hardly in actual life.

And lastly, there is to be noted. the great change which has come over the character of the landscape-painting in the Academy, and this is to be traced in great part to the influence,.

in the main a most deteriorating one, of the Scotch school of landscapists. It is hardly too much to say that the art of landscape painting is wholly unrepresented amongst the• Royal Academicians, there being literally only two landscape painters out of the forty members. These are Mr. Hook and Mr. Vicat Cole, both of whom are, to a great extent, specialists,.

the one in the coast scenery of the West of England, the other in river scenery. Amongst the Associates, the case is a little better, but even here the proportion is one in eleven, one of whom, Mr. John Brett, has only been elected within the past few weeks, though be has been for many years past one of the- very first landscape and sea-scape painters in England. There- can be little doubt but that the practical discouragement of land- scape in the Royal Academy has retarded greatly the progress of laudscape Art, but it is a question whether the evil done by the, attractive scene-painting qualities of the Scotch artists (men of great power and ability in a thoroughly tricky and unsafe way) has not been greater, for it has substituted, at all events for the time, the habit of painting little, brilliant, semi– theatrical effects, for that of painting Nature as a whole. If,. for instance, we compare the work of Messrs. Peter Graham or MacWhirter with that of any of our earlier landscape painters, such as De Wiut, or Cox, or Turner, we find that one of the greatest differences lies in the range of vision. The old English artists, whether they painted sun or shade, wind or rain, almost inevitably opened out to the spectator a series of atmospheric- planes, so numerous and so subtly depicted, as to be sometimes (as iu the case of Turner) practically infinite. The Scotch school, on the other band, almost inevitably arrange their land- scapes much in the same manner as a stage manager groupis his actors,—the principals first, and the rest nowhere. The- ability of these artists, great as it is, has taken the direc- tion of one special point iu the landscape, has been im- pressed by that, and has failed to perceive the subordinate- truths which are necessary to the composition of a great landscape. And this is the real reason for their popularity, because it is within every one's capacity to perceive the beauty of one striking effect of sunlight and shadow, say, upon a patch of moorland or the side of a mountain ; but it needs close acquaintance with both nature and art to appreciate the truth and beauty of landscape which deals with Nature as a whole,. and which possesses something of the infinity of beauty with which atmosphere and sunlight can surround the commonest scene. If we have lingered somewhat over-long on our descrip- tion of one or two of the characteristics of our present state of oil painting, it was because it seemed worth while to put before- our readers the anomaly of increased interest in Art, and changed, we might almost dare to say lowered, aims. There- must be something radically wrong, when increase of public- interest in Art produces lower forms of painting than did the neglect which preceded it. Tho solution of the puzzle is this,— that no real appreciation is now shown at all, it has been swamped by the fashion for art which has grown up, accord-

ing to which a person puts on art just as he does a coat from a good tailor, and considers himself well dressed. In the present exhibition of the Royal Academy, with which we shall deal in succeeding articles, there are scarcely more than six imaginative pictures ; there are a considerable number of fairly

good landscapes, chiefly of what may be called the• foreground type, and a very large preponderance of good portraits. Of' genuine historical, classical, or poetical painting, there are.very

few examples indeed. There is some exquisitely skilful work in water-colours, and there are some very fine etchings and en- gravings ; but, as a whole, the exhibition is tame and poor to an unusual degree. The one effort at " high art " which is successful (if we except portraiture and landscape), is the " Archer," by the recently-elected Associate, Mr. H. Thorney- croft. .