FINE ARTS.
ROYAL ACADEMY EXEMPTION : STORY PICTURES.
As you pass the line of the severer and more ambitious style of historical painting in the collection of the Royal Academy, you may notice a decided improvement in the pictures: the story is better told; the design is more complete; the subject better possesses the artist's mind, fills the picture with more completeness and unity. At the same time that this more com- plete performance of the function of imagination imparts to the figures more lively aspect of spontaneity, the execution, even in the mechanical parts, is more finished. It is difficult, indeed, " to draw the line," but you may almost define its place by this difference of treatment. Both Mr. Charles Landseer's subjects for instance, are taken from his- tory; but there is no equality between his Robber of 1-Tforbam and his pie" tore of Mademoi lle Montpensier at her toilette: the one is set, lifeless, and laboured without effect; the other is infinitely more lively. The countenance of the robber is abstracted, the face of Queen Margaret a mere blank pattern of a handsome heroine's face; Queen Henrietta, although copied from her portrait as to the forms, is well imagined as to the play of the features and the expression; Mademoiselle is very beautiful-- her expression such as a pretty and not ill-satisfied woman would wear at her toilette, a pleased contentment, a lively repose; and the whole design falls well round its centre. It is a picture of manners rather than of ele- mental nature—pictorial comedy: but if less ambitious, it is more success ful than the companion performance; and is in fact the most " promising work that we have seen from the pencil of the same no longer youthful student. Some other pictures of the semi-historical class Illustrate the same dis- tinction between the aptitude to tell a specific story and the want of aptitude to represent the working of the larger passions. Mr. Wheelwright's " As- sassination of Edward the Martyr ' makes a fair tableau vivant of the ac- tion: the expression is not amiss, but the interest is chiefly excited by the general disposal of the figures. In Mr. Egg's picture, " Queen Elizabeth discovers she is no longer young," the whole form of the design lies in the principal figure, which 15 really fine: but the passion which it illustrates is a petty one; and the pic- ture as a whole fails in two essentials of art, symmetry of composition and beauty of form. The forms which are displayed are poor; and we should argue from this picture, as well as from others by the same artist, that Mr. Egg has an imperfect sense for physical beauty. Where he is released from the exigencies of symmetry, as in the masculine old woman-from the igencies of a more exalted conception, as in that which is bizarre or pet- tY-11 saturnine humour-he can fetch out the expression with a force of effect that becomes in itself fine through its artistical power and complete-
ness. Mr. Elmore's deathbed of King Robert the Good ought perhaps to have
been classed among the purely historical pictures ; and yet it is incomplete. The head of Robert is really line, but it is too much like a sculptured head. The action and expression of the bystanders are good-grief, an eager anxiety, and a tender regret, sit upon the countenances of all, in every variety of age and sex; but the attitudes are slightly strained and studied. It is not always because the action is impossible or even difficult, but because somewhat violent positions, in themselves trivial-that is, not con- ducive to the general action-obtrude themselves on the notice. A man near the dying King stretches out his neck in a manner better suited to the attitude of one more distant; the aged woman who is arranging the pillows is twisted; a man behind the statesman on the sinister side of the picture is turning his eyes painfully where he would more naturally have turned his bead. Such chargings of the action are a needless defect in a painter who can portray expression so fully, but so naturally and modestly, as he did in Lee the inventor of the stocking-loom, and in the accusation of Hero. IC is to be suspected that Mr. Elmore has felt some greater call upon his ef- fort because the present picture belongs to " a higher walk ": but that would be a mistake: every subject should paint itself-every motive and passion should suggest its own direct, natural, and unexaggerated action or ex- pression; and every twist or gesture which is not simply dictated to the imagination of the painter by the subject itself-which is " heightened " or " thrown in " for effect-becomes an impertinence, a burden on the
design, a weakness. • It is because Mr. Ward has in this modest manner received the pure dic-
tate of his subject in the interview of Charles the Second and Nell Gwynn, that it has such an air of perfect reality. It is not to be understood that this more modest design is the eymptom of a feebler power-it is the very reverse: it is strength of imagination which is required to recall a scene in its reality, and is able to transfer it to the canvass without any trace of the artist's intervention; the more living and spontaneous the action, the more vigorous has the process been. You may test the work of assimilation by the results. The woman before you-gay, beautiful, unreflecting, enjoy- ing, unmistakeably kind-is exactly such a woman as the mistress whom Charles is said to have loved best: the artist has really succeeded in imagining such a woman as Nell, with her winning ways, her pretty toss of the head, her " petit ris folitre "; the smile glancing over her fea- tares with a transient undefined play of the delicate forms that would elude the mere mechanical pencil: the artist has recreated her, and Nell Gwynn is before you-no more, no less. Charles, again, is as "grim " as hidery describes him-black and hard-featured; but there is the gay enjoyment in his mouth, the lambent fire of wit in his eye, the free reckless character in his disengaged attitude, and above all, in the kindly admiration of his countenance, that power of thoroughly ap- preciating womanly graces which must have been, as it usually is, the true secret of his unqualified success with women. In the matter of execution, this picture appears to us to be Mr. Ward's masterpiece. The forms are traced with mastery. The principal figures are finished with skill and completeness. The accessories are touched in with a very sufficient care. The colour is a great improvement, and is free from the whiteness which we noticed as a defect in the picture of last year. The effect of sunlight is caught without adulterating the local colour of the objects on which it falls-or rather, with a more perfect brightness. But it is upon the design that we are disposed to insist as showing what completeness an artist may attain who performs that part of his work that is to be done in his own head: who is not content with contriving a composition pro re nate:, but develops his own faculties; who understands that the imagination is not a fit of heaven-born inspiration, but is a genius for a particular kind of industry,- and that it cannot be developed without a real, laborious, and in- dustrious operation.
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