ART.
THE ROYAL ACADEMY.
[SECOND NOTICE]
SINCE the opening of the exhibition, a lively controversy hae sprung up in the Times on the old claims of landscape painting to better recognition by the Royal Academy. And herein three ques- tions have been raised :—First, whether the landscapes accepted by the Council have been fairly hung, to say nothing of the rejected ; secondly, whether the Council and Hangers are competent judges of landscape art ; and thirdly, whether the two arts of figure and landscape painting are so intimately connected, that proficiency in the one necessarily qualifies the practitioner to be a judge of the other. The art-critic of the Times, and two landscape painters whose works, rightly or wrongly, appear to have been "skied," have argued the case in the negative; and Mr. Armitage, one of the Hangers, has taken up the cudgels on the other side on the part of the Academy, with a due sense of the enormity of the sin of differing in opinion from that august body. On the first point, the Hangers allege, with truth, that large landscape canvases painted in very different styles are in conspicuous places on the line ; and as the painters of these, Messrs. Brett, P. Graham, H. Moore, and Linnell (none of them members of the Academy), are particularly named. On the second point it is con- tended that the members of the Council are "tolerable judges of landscape art," and Messrs. Faed and Millais are put forward as specially qualified in this respect. But "the question," says Mr. Armitage, "must be finally settled by the public." It is not very easy to see whence or in what form an expression of public opinion is expected to come ; and, moreover, if the public are the best judges after all, what becomes of the Academy as an educational institution ? Nor, apart from the way in which the work of hanging has been actually done, have we any means of ascertain- ing the alleged strength of these qualifications. It least of all becomes a critic to contend that the power of judgment is pro- portioned to the power of production, and hence we should in general be unwilling to draw any inference, one way or the other, from Mr. Feed's or Mr. Millais's own works in the department of landscape. But there are such strength and character in those of the latter artist, and so distinct a demarcation between what he does and what he does not do, that we are justified in inferring the existence of a theory at the basis of his judgment. Mr. Millais's two paintings, "Scotch Firs" (68), and " Winter Fuel" (75), which have been too fully described in all the newspapers to need further description here, astonishing as they undoubtedly are as imitations of what they depict, are, after all, no more than fragments of a landscape. Neither here nor elsewhere have we ever been able to trace in Mr. Millais's works an appreciation of what is understood by landscape painters as the treat- ment of a subject,—the artistic language, that is, wherein the painter describes the qualities and character of a scene which have impressed him, and seeks to convey the same emotions te the mind of the spectator. Mr. Millais's idea of landscape ap- pears, in short, to be confined to mere imitation. It is, therefore, not surprising to find among the well-hung paintings specified by Mr. Armitage a preponderance of studies and imitations rather
than complete landscapes. Mr. Brett's "Summer Noon in the Scilly Isles" (130) is a wonderful imitation of Budges and sub- stance and expression of broad daylight, such as probably no other painter could effect so well, but what could be more tiresome than a room full of pictures of the same kind? On Mr. Graham and Mr. Moore, both of whom have on former occasions shown themselves to be highly competent landscape painters, the views which prevail at the Academy have bad an obviously prejudicial effect. The former sends nothing but a large mass of sea-foam (20), and a study—very good in its way—of a cloud on a "Misty Mountain-top" (494), both of which could, however, have been as well expressed within a few sqnare inches ; and the latter confines himself to studies of sea, the best of which, by the way, a very fine one, of deep blue waves rolling "in the open Mediter- ranean" (1409), is not favourably hung.
• The question of the relations between landscape and figure painting as distinct branches of art is too large a one for us to enter upon now. The truth seems to us to lie between the two extreme views taken by the figure and the land- scape painters. Each, we think, would gain by some further acquaintance with the domain of the other. Modern landscapes, as a rule, want the attraction of human interest, and figure painters in their studios are too often blind to the more delicate gradation, the broken colour, and the greater range of light which belong to open space and cloudland. But the two arts must always be distinct, and can never be equally joined in a perfect picture. Either the landscape must be wholly subordinate to the expression of the figure, or the figure be wholly incidental to that of the landscape. Mr. Hook's pictures, for example, ex- cellent as they always are in each department, seem to us to break down at this point of a want of unity. It is so in the picture called "Jetsam and Flotsam" (375), where there is a detached group of foreground figures overhauling the contents of a sailor's chest, and behind, a coast scene of rock and fresh sparkling waves, and each part is a picture by itself. So, too, the incident of a woman driving cows out of her cabbage-garden (232) would be fully enough to enliven the bit of Surrey landscape, without the larger unconnected figure of a boy stealing duck's eggs in the fore- ground. Among pictures which deserve better places are, we regret to see, some works by eminent foreign artists. "On the Coast, Scheveningen" (241), by Mesdag, "A Canal in Holland" (566), byJ. Marie, and the fine figure picture called "Expectation" (621), by Israelis, are in this condition. Mr. A. W. Hunt's lurid thunderstorm called "Rents and Scars in the Coniston Fells" (1361), and the representation of evening atmosphere filled with rain among Welsh hills (79), though wanting the light of his water-colour drawings, are nevertheless fine landscapes, full of character and expression.
The roost noteworthy feature of the Sculpture Gallery is the evidence it affords of the art-development now taking place in the production of works in terra-cotta, a branch of sculpture to which a correlative may be found in the sister art of painting. Setting aside all question of colour, the terra-cotta figure claims kinship with the spirited sketch or graceful drawing, while the marble statue is more nearly allied, in its studied completeness, to the finished picture. Unequal contraction after baking, and the want of a last magic touch by the master's hand, combine to for- bid the possibility of the highest finish in terra-cotta ; and hence the designer in earth can never hope to raise his work to the highest heaven of Art. While, however, the semi-trans- parency of marble is essential to the rendering of the peculiar brilliancy of human flesh, the opaque material is better qualified by its sharp shadows to express certain textures, as a drawing with a pen has often a kind of force unattainable with the brush. It thus happens that works in terra-cotta may be made in some respect more imitative or realistic than those in marble, while in -others the artist is forced to rely on broader methods of sugges- tion, so as to remove from the mind all thought of the material itself. For preserving what is called a speaking likeness, for catching a passing look, or for representing energy of movement, terra-cotta would seem to afford the better means of expression. There are admirable examples of its application to these several purposes in the portrait-busts by Messrs. Boehm of "R. Beavie, Artist" (1602), and "Colonel Alexander -Elliott" (1605), and Delon, of "L. Alma- Tadema, Esq." (1606) ; the charming figure, by the last-named sculptor, of a lady in a rocking chair (1530), whom one can almost hear singing her infant's lullaby, as true to motherly delight in higher life as was the simpler sweetness of affection of his " Paysanne Francaise " last year ; and the spirited " Groupe de la Dense" (1515), by J. D. Carpeaux, the model of the celebrated group executed for the new Opera House, Paris. But yet more striking is its application to a higher subject, and to a branch of the art more allied to architectural decoration, in the three very remarkable panels in alto-relief, by Mr. G. Tinworth, to the right and left of the entrance turn-stiles. They relate to the onacifixion, of Christ, the events of which are treated with an originality of invention that can only spring from vivid realisation of Cho scene,. and with a directness of expression which has no fear, of the grotesque on the one hand, and no affectatiou of it on the other, and which seems to bear the stamp of genius. Nor is the artistic composition lees effective. In "The Garden of Gethsemane" (1441), the Christ stands in &simple pose, which not only contrasts in line with the confusion around, the energetic action of Peter striking off the servant's-ear, and the soldiers who go backward, and fall to the ground. at the plain words, "I am he," but has the further dignity befitting the added quotation, "Before Abraham was, I am." "The Foot of the Cross" (1468) is more symmetrically balanced in its plan. One sees the feet only of the crucified figures, but the presence of Christ is finely suggested by the contrasted upward gaze of the two extreme groups,—one of mocking elders, the other the disciple John receiving the command, "Behold thy mother." In the centre, the soldiers at a table with covetous energy cast lots for the vesture, and in the intervals are diagonal groups, wherein one man searches vainly for the seam, and another fills the sponge with what the face of a boy who tastes it shows to be vinegar. Behind are eager disputants, and lamps in the band indicate the darkness. In "The Descent from the Cross" (1167), the artist takes a practical view of the mechanical wants of the case. The workman who has to bear the main weight presses his body against the ladder to obtain a purchase, another holds up the arm, while a third splits up the wood with wedges, to ease the extraction of the nails ; a soldier, above, rolls up the superscription ; while another, below, holds the helmets of the rest, which they have taken off as an incumbrance in their work.
No doubt the sculptor's invention has been stimulated in these matters by the fact that Mr. Tinworth was originally brought up as a wheelwright. He is a pupil of Mr. Sparkes, of the Lambeth School of Design, to whom, in connection therewith and with the potteries of Mr. Henry Doulton, is due one of the most promising developments of ornamental art.
The success of the above sculptors in infusing into potter's clay the fire of life leads, naturally enough, to the subject treated by
another young artist, who has this year achieved new distinction,—
namely, Mr. W. B. Richmond, in his colossal picture of "Prometheus Bound" (687). It is some consolation for the loss of the excellent portraits usually contributed by Mr. Richmond, R.A., of which there are none in the exhibition, to have to welcome a work of such strength from his eon's studio. We leave it to more learned anatomists than we are to criticise the heroic proportions of the figure, in which we can detect no fault, unless it be some slight deficiency in the vulture's peculiar domain. We are told that the entrails of Prometheus grew as fast as-they were eaten, last here the vulture seems to us to have stolen a march upon them, and gone off to gain fresh appetite by a temporary flight. But the intellectual type of Prometheus is admirably chosen, the massive brow and general cast of face reminding us a little of a more modern dealer of omniscience, the late Master of Trinity. To our eye, too, the
colour of the picture and grandeur of the form are in fine accord, and the flight of sea-gulls circling round the victim's feet add to the pictorial effect, as well as to the wildness of the scene. Mr. Boehm's noble figure in the Lecture-room of a rearing horse, of the gigantic Cleveland breed (1520), is another most successful piece of work on a large scale, though we are assured that the group is not colossal, such is sometimes the prodigious *size of these creatures. We return to the Sculpture Gallery, to notice Mr. Woolner's very highly finished bust in marble of "Mrs. Alfred Morrison " (1454).
In Tainted portraiture, Mr. Watts is entitled to the highest place, by virtue of the two thoughtful, anxious, and most characteristic heads of the late John Stuart Mill (246) and the Rev. James Martineau (51), contrasting as they do with the less speculative and more practical look of the Rev. Harry Jones (1353). Among Mr. Wells's portraits, that of "John P. Kennard, Esq." (571) strikes us as peculiarly harmonious in colour. Mr. Oulless has established for himself a high position for a quiet, manly style of portrait, paintA with a firm touch and much use of grey. Of two pictures here of Lord Selborne, that which he haa painted (570), is, we think, the best; but he has no portrait that so thoroughly pleases us as that of "Mrs. Peek " (697). Mr. Archer gains ground in portraits of ladies and children, but in this depart- ment there is nothing finer than the very beautiful water-colour drawing by Mr. F. W. Barton of "Mrs. George Smith" (869). Besides the refined individuality of the likeness, the picture is remarkable for the delicacy of finish and thorough elaboration of the draperies, and the way in which their richness is kept unob- trusive by harmony of colour and light and shade, is a much higher kind of art than the contest of brightness in fashionable full- lengths that make a greater show in the Oil galleries. Not that elaborate finish or close imitation of texture are things to desire for themselves. There is warning enough against that in Mr. Holman Hunt's portrait of "Thomas Fairbairn, Esq." (660), where the artist's whole strength seems to have been expended in painting glossy tailoring, a gold chain and eye-glass, an ottoman in a museum, and a face, with such perfection as to be almost as sensible to feeling as to sight. We observe that Mr. Hunt hails both from Hammersmith and Jerusalem, and this, we
presume, is in his Hammersmith manner. •
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