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THE INSTITUTE OF PAINTERS IN WATER COLOURS. JUDGING from recent elections, the immediate object of the Water-Colour Societies would appear at present to be to augment the proportion of their figure painters to their landscape painters. It may well be doubted whether this is either judiciously planned for the best interests of art, or whether eventually it will turn out to be the best policy (in the narrowest sense) for the societies themselves. True it is that a large number of persons prefer figure-subjects to landscapes, whatever be their relative merits or demerits ; that to the many the vulgarest bit of dramatic action is more intelligible, and therefore more attractive, than the highest achievement of a Turner ; and it may be argued that more people will go to see a picture which includes the former, than to listen to the most eloquent of the sermons that are in stones. Such are the considerations that direct the policy of the Royal Academy, whose chief object it is to maintain the enormous income Which they derive from visitors' shillings. But such ought not to be the policy of the water-colour societies, the foundation of whose fame rests on the works of landscape painters—of Cox, De Wint, Fielding, and Barrett —who cannot hope to compete with the Academy exhibitions in genre pictures; but might turn Academy neglect of land- scape to good account, by maintaining the hereditary contrast of subject afforded by their own Exhibition-rooms, and continuing to fill the part, elsewhere repudiated, of guardians of the English school of landscape painting. It is not that water-colours (in which, notwithstanding the banter of our epigrammatic neigh- bours, it may for the present be assumed there lies some more substantial quality to recommend it than the satisfaction of a national conceit) are entirely unsuited to figure painting : the names of William Hunt, of Carl Haag, and others will occur to every one in refutation of such a notion. Still it is not every figure painter who can be classed with Hunt for expression, or with Haag for that and for trained ability, and it would be better to wait for real eminence in the art than to surrender wall space to mediocrity or worse under themistakeu impression that a certain pro- portion of figure paintings must needs be maintained. Undoubtedly it is not in pictures of this class that the interest of the present
Exhibition lies, and without assuming the ungracious task of particularizing names, it may safely be asserted that nearly all of them are stale, flat, and unprofitable. From the general censure, however, must be excepted two artists, Miss Fanner and Mr. Lucas, whose drawings possess a degree of originality and of care- ful painting which distinguish them front the crowd. The little people whom it is Miss Farmer's pleasure to paint are remarkable for their reality, and for the unaffected earnestness of their action, a rare merit. "The Bird's Nest" (328) is a very complete little picture, fresh and tender in colour, with less of her most obvious fault than other specimens, namely, a certain wooden hardness in the flesh. Mr. Lucas shares the same merits and escapes the faults by his greater freedom in painting. His "Rustic Courtship" (85) is a very good picture of a sensible lass busy over the wash- tub, and smilingly accepting, though only half-believing, the flatteries of a not over-wise swain. The man is the weak point of the picture,—weak in character and expression, weaker still in execution. Mr. Lucas exhibits several other pictures of cottage life, of all which it may be said they steer clear of sentimentalism.
But the Exhibition must mainly rely on its landscapes, a domain in which Mr. Hine again asserts his pre-eminence. A great charm of his works is that they are thoroughly original. He re- minds of no other artist, but gives a new and independeut view of nature. Repose is perhaps the chief characteristic of his pictures, but it is a serenity which has in it the possibility of change,— calm but not monotonous,—the repose of rest, not of lifelessness. "
Rye" (329) and " Durlstone Head" (90) may be pointed out as exhibiting in a special degree the artist's merits. All his pictures are broad and essentially large in treatment, and there is no quality which more than this latter denotes the difference be- tween a good artist and an inferior one. Those who prefer to have minute details strongly insisted on (at the expense perhaps of higher qualities), and are ever prone to accuse the generalizers of ignorance and indolence, must observe that in Mr. Hine's case at least simplicity is no proof of either. In his por- trait of "Mr. Archer" (313), there is minute and accurate imita- tion enough to show that where he uses less of it the variation is probably intentional. In his case indeed it is not so much absence of finish as absence of crowding. In landscape painting a good sky is half the battle ; it gives its special character to the picture, and is never slurred without serious detriment. Mr. Hine paints his skies with extreme care and delicacy. They are not troubled by multiplicity of forms : but careful gradation of tone, with well-considered suggestion of form, excludes poverty and secures space. Greater attention to this department of his art would much improve Mr. Whymper's pictures. He already ranks high at the Institute, but is too easily satisfied with a blank for sky ; or if he attempts anything more elaborate, as in " Beaehy Head" (291), it scarcely harmonizes with the subject. This picture goes near to great success. The cliff is large, the level sands are sloppy and spacious, but the general effect is marred by the incongruous prettiness of the pink clouds towards the zenith, and by the cliff top being cut out sharply against the clouds, instead of " lost " in half-tones. Mr. Whymper's success is more un- equivocal in "Sheep Washing" (312), a leafy nook by a lazy- winding stream ; sketchy and a little heavy in colour, but modest and true. Largeness of treatment, already noticed as the attribute of a high order of art, is observable also in the works of Mr. D'Egville, whether looking seaward, he paints the spacious lagune (86), or chooses the narrower canals and picturesque palaces of Venice (267). "In the Shade" (64), where two cows take refuge in a thick underwood from the midday sun, is a good example by Mr. Shalders of a rich multitude of details carefully painted and reconciled with breadth of effect. Mr. Shalders is not at all times equally master where details abound. Now breadth is indispensable. Nature is full, but still more emphatically is nature broad.
Mr. Sutcliffe (who has won scant justice from the hangers) ex- hibits some drawings, the best of which are remarkable for truth and quiet beauty of colour. "Above Airy Force (232) gives a true impression of mountain gloom, and the backward slope of the mountain side is exceedingly well expressed. In "Cottages, Greta Bridge" (203), there is excellent harmony of grey cloud and brown trees. There is more warrant in nature, by the way, for brown trees than is generally acknowledged. The brown leaves of autumn are indeed well understood, but in spring, too, the opening foliage of the walnut and of some kinds of oak is essentially brown. There is an incompleteness about some of Mr. Sutcliffe's drawings, as if he soon tired of his subject, and in some sobriety of colour degenerates into want of daylight.
Some of the older members appear to have little anibitidh be- yond repeating their earlier performances. They must remember, however, that it is impossible to be stationary. He who does not advance recedes. Mr. E. Warren deals out his drawings with the regularity and monotony of a brickmaking machine, and his pattern is false to nature. Mr. Bennett must be allowed the credit of good intention in his "One Rock amid the Weltering Floods" (166), but there is no weight in the waves. Most of his drawings bear the appearance of undue haste. This appearance comes to its climax in Mr. McKewan, in whose drawings there is an inde- cision of plan which seems to arise from slipshod hurry and insufficient thought. Having no definite object, he avoids gross errors only by indefinite expression. With him Mr. Leitch is in marked contrast. His compositions, though apt to be common- place, are solid and definite, and notwithstanding coarseness of colour the original conception, generally a good one, is plainly conveyed. Mr. Reed is a less experienced artist, but probably a more assiduous student of nature. His large picture of "The Conway Valley" (29) wants unity and greater simplicity of out- line, but his "Conway at Bettws " (249) is very good. The great cliff looks large and solemn, and would look larger if the reflection of the sky in the water were quieted. Mr. Pidgeon exhibits a sparkling and breezy drawing, " Landing the Trout" (38), and Mr. Penson's "Stronghold on the Coast" (276) is one of the best-conceived pictures in the gallery. The execution, however, is unequal, and the red clouds very false.
It seems as if Mr. S. Prout thought that with his name he inherited an obligation to paint the Same subjects as the elder artist who made the name famous. The still greater temptation to imitate his predecessor's manner Mr. Front has courageously resisted, and judging from two specimens of rural landscape at this Exhibition, fresh in colour and graceful in treatment (21 and 298), there is reason to think that he ought more frequently to repeat this class of picture, and not confine himself so exclusively to the street views in Continental towns for which he is better known. There is, however, a tyranny of custom (and of cus- tomers) which makes it difficult for an artist to go out of his beaten track. Mr. Prout's old houses are always picturesque. They lack a little of the solidity and manliness which Mr. Simnonau imparts to his work (176), while he, again, might advantageously borrow a little of the other's variety. Mr. Deane's view at Troves (140) is very good in colour, its proper feeling only a little dis- turbed by the troubled upper sky.
As if to furnish material for a comparison between his present and his former self, Mr. C. Werner sends two drawings, dated respectively 1854 and 1857. These are monastic interiors (71 and 244) rich with the carved wood of stall and panel and the varied tesselation of painted window. They are painted with much freedom and ease of style, and with considerable wealth of colour. Except the bad taste and worse drawing of a sleeping monk in one of these, they are both in every respect preferable to Mr. Werner's later productions, which appear to have been studied chiefly from
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