ART
Official Portraiture Tire vast majority of exhibits in any exhibition of the Royal Academy are painted to suit the taste of the artist as a private person and intended to attract the attention of a private patron. They have nothing to do with the official art of the country, and might just as well have been shown at a private gallery.
But in spite of their numerical preponderance at Burlington House, it is not the private pictures that the Royal Academy exists to promote. Its real concern is with the social, and even with the public, life of the individual, whether artist or patron ; and the essential contribution of the Academy to the artistic life of the country will be found in the historical paintings intended for the adornment of civic buildings and the official portraits of those who have some claim to be publicly commemorated.
To judge by the present exhibition, historical painting is at a low ebb in this country. There are only two conspicuous representatives of this once great tradition : Mr. A. K. Lawrence's " Queen Elizabeth visits her Armies at Tilbury, A.D. 1588;" for the County Hall at Che:msford, and Miss Louisa Hodgson's " Corpus Christi Day in Newcastle : Procession of the Shipwrights' Guild," for the Laing Art Gallery at Newcastle-on-Tyne. Both artists do their best with their theme : Mr. Lawrence—recollecting, perhaps, Gloriana's dislike of shadows—has painted everything pale and flat, in a style which is indebted (odd as it may seem) both to Piero della Francesca and to Tiepo:o ; Miss Hodgson is sprightlier both in colour and action, though less accomp:ished academically.
But one cannot imagine that either will hold the attention of even the most benevolent spectator for more than a few seconds. Neither picture carries any conviction : neither seems to satisfy any imperious natural need. They are the product of a confused feeling that mural painting is a good thing and ought to be encouraged ; but they do little to prove that this feeling is justified.
Official portraiture is a much more vigorous and natural growth. In a country where individual character and public responsibility are carefully fostered, it is not surprising that the best official art should be portraiture. This has always been so, and is so still. In an exhibition not otherwiseremark- able there are several portraits which maintain a very respectable level of accomplishment. And of these the best are the most official, the most academic : the social reason for the picture's existence has had, as usual, a stimulating effect on the artist's invention.
The liveliest of these official effigies is perhaps Mr. Harold Knight's portrait of Lord McGowan in academic robes. Scarlet and gold, black and grey and white, are cleverly related by notes of mauvish pink and greyish puce in the flesh tones and the furniture. Everything is very clean and efficient and expensive-looking, very big-businesslike : there is no poetry (none was called for), but there is excellent prose. In a quieter vein Mr. James Gunn's portrait of the Prime Minister has the same qualities : here black and grey predominate ; only the red dispatch-box cheers the picture up. In a more romantic style (and this is- again appropriate), Mr. A. R. Thomson's portrait of Flight-Lieutenant Robert Grant-Ferris shows a sense of the officer as well as the man : the uniform and its accessories are imaginatively handled ; and, as befits an airman, the artist has chosen a low viewpoint, so that his model towers up against the sky.
In all these pictures the individual has become a person : he is there in a social capacity, with the attributes of his rank and the symbolic adjuncts of his character. Academic robes, Parliamentary black, Air Force blue are not mere disguises : they make their wearers historic. This is a creative feat on the part of the artist : a feat which can best be demonstrated by pointing to its opposite—the failure to create a historic per- sonality.
Of such failures the most conspicuous is that of Mr. Simon Elwes in his portrait of Queen Mary. Perhaps Mr. Elwes felt incapable of doing justice to one who in her lifetime has become almost legendary : certainly he has suc- ceeded in achieving what one would have supposed impossible —he has made her Majesty look something less than queenly.
ROGER HINRS.
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