ART.
THE GROSVENOR GALLERY.
[FIRST NOTICE.]
AN interest of a peculiar kind attaches to the present exhibition, since it is the first which has been held at the Academy under the sole direction of Sir Coutts Lindsay. We do not intend to enter upon any discussion as to the merits of the dispute about which so much has been said between Sir Coutts Lindsay and his late assistant-directors, Mr. Comyns Carr and Mr. Hall& Since, however, the latter gentlemen have been associated with the Grosvenor Gallery from the very commencement, there might have been some reason to imagine that their sudden withdrawal would produce some deteriorating effect in the present exhibition. Had this collection, indeed, been one of less than average interest, there would have been a considerable excuse to be made for the awkward position in which the proprietor of the Gallery had been placed ; such, however, is not the case. We may say, without doubt or limitation, that since the Grosvenor was first started, there has been no Winter Exhibition of equal merit, nor one likely to be so generally popular. For the first time, indeed, this privately conducted Gallery has beaten the Academy. The Exhibition of Old Masters at the latter institution—the first notice of which we published a fortnight ago—must be con- sidered, as a whole, to be somewhat of a failure. And even if we ignore the completeness of the Bond Street Exhibition, and fix our attention upon individual works, we may still say it more than holds its own with the show which has been formed under the auspices of the Royal Academy. Let us look, then, at a few salient points, and first of all at the picture of the collection, the "Portrait of Julia, born Howard, wife of the ninth Lord Petre," as the catalogue describes the picture. This certainly is a most magnificent Gainsborough, at once brilliant and delicate, sumptuous and sensible, English to the core in its vigour, freshness, and character, and yet with just sufficient of French elegance to be quite in keeping with the rank of its sitter, who is very evidently a "Julia, born Howard." She is dressed in the height of the prevailing fashion, with the usual large black hat, powdered hair, and white muslin fichn, which were so dear to the heart of this painter. Now, there are fine Gainsborough portraits and fine Gainsborough landscapes; but the two are rarely combined, and perhaps the chief merit of the present picture is its landscape background. It is, in fact, more than a background, for it is as interesting and beautiful as the portrait itself, fall of deep yet glowing colour, and in most perfect harmony with the figure which is the raison d'être of the picture.
The Gallery is fall of Constables, of all sizes and pretty well every order of merit, from the little sketch of a windmill, eight inches square, lent by Mr. Orrock, to the six-foot picture of "Salisbury," lent by Mr. Thomas Ashton, of which it is almost impossible to speak in terms of sufficient praise. If we wanted a landscape to express the whole character of the English School, if we were only to be allowed to keep one picture as typical of what our National landscape artists could do at their highest, it might well be a question whether we should not choose this. It has not the sublimity of Turner's finest works ; but it is infinitely more human, and, in one sense, more true. It is more true because, though it does not pene- trate so deeply into the secrets of atmosphere and colour, yet, as far as it goes, it absolutely refuses to tamper with the truths which it does perceive. The painter is no special pleader, but simply a single-minded, vigorous man, with clear perceptions and untroubled mind, who went out to Nature with no whit of perplexity, and enjoyed the keen air and the shifting lights, the movement of the waters and the procession of the clouds, and plastered it all down upon his canvas with a sort of childlike confidence which affects us plea- santly to the present day. There is a living, breathing spirit in these works of Constable which the present writer at least knows not how to find elsewhere. They seem, if we may
use such an illustration, to be the work of a man who used almost to get drunk on Nature, so keen was the apparent enjoy- ment with which he depicted it. David Cox inherited, no doubt, a little of his secret, but with him it became more impersonal, and perhaps we might almost say, more professionally artistic; Cox could paint wind, for instance, in a tree or cloud as well as, and sometimes even better than, Constable himself, but he never gives us the same impression of having been in a hurry to
it; there is movement enough and to spare in the natural facts which he gives us, but there is no tumult. There is not that sense of the hurly-burly which marks Constable's land- scapes. Nature has become a little sorted, pigeon-holed, as it were, into its various departments of water, earth, and sky.
Let us turn to the most perfect contrast to the" Salisbury" which this Gallery affords, the view of " Somer Hill, Kent," by Joseph Mallord William Turner, a picture which, if we remember right, was exhibited at the " Old Masters," at Burlington House, some years ago. Well, this is another world altogether, a world of translucent atmosphere, perfect peace, infinite tenderness of gradation, and most lovely, subtly varying colours. It is to the Constable, as a speech of an old wise man to the babyish bluster of a boy. There is no neces- sity to insist upon any truth shown here ; this picture is the outcome of a thousand truths, known and laid to heart through long years, and affecting every motive of the hand and mind to which the work owed its origin. Somer Hill, Kent, never looked like this, perhaps, in such-and-such a detail; the trees may have been more to the left, and the stream more to the right, the acclivity on which the Hall stands may have risen less gracefully, or been of slighter eminence ; the Hall itself may never have been touched with such a soft opalescence of sunshine; but the concentrated essence of general truth in the picture overwhelms in the spectator's mind all such topo- graphical alterations or deficiencies. This is a representation of what life might be on such a summer afternoon, in such a spot, —a picture in which peace and beauty have joined hands, and wherein we gladly forget the jealousy and the unrest of city- life.
In one of the places of honour in this Gallery, there stands a lady, with a smile upon her face, who looks fit to inhabit such a scene, and live a gracious, gentle life in it with innocent enjoy- ment. This is George Romney's portrait of the "Dowager Countess Ponlett," the prettiest, as Gainsborough's is the best, of the portraits in this exhibition. Is it to "speculate too curiously," to suggest that the difference between Romney and Gainsborough is something akin to that which we think, perhaps on insuffi- cient grounds, there exists between an Eton and a Marlborough schoolboy. Certainly there is a touch of the fine-gentleman about Romney's simplicity ; and though we shall bring the whole world of critics upon us, there is a touch of the bourgeoisiff even in Gainsborough's most fashionably dressed ladies. The former is frequently affected, and his simplicity is of the most artificial, Dresden-shepherdess sort of order ; but there is no touch of vulgarity in the man. And " vulgarity " is not the right word to use with regard to Gainsborough ; but this latter artist does show a certain complacency in his painting of clothes, such as we may imagine a man to whom new suits are not an every-day occurrence to feel when he puts on one for the first time. It does not in the least follow that such a man is a snob at heart, or thinks much about such matters as dress, as a general rule ; only, the circumstances of his life make him think about it now and then.
Then there is one of the most celebrated Hogarth pictures— the double portrait of Garrick and his wife—to prove to all whom it may concern that sheer power of painting and pene- tration into character may avail to make a picture great, despite an almost absolute unattractiveness of subject. This work lives for the artist by its technical merit, and for the ordinary picture-seer by its hard-and-fast grip of the facts of the situa- tion; for neither by its beauty. Certainly, from the technical side, this is a wonderful work ; the firmness and solidity of its- painting, the certainty of its drawing, the simplicity and strength of its light and shade, are alike admirable. Above all, it impresses us as the work of a man with brains as well as- artistic capacity, and with the conviction of its truth not only to the aspect, but to the character of the sitters. Look, for an in- stance of Hogarth's more usual manner, at the scene in the social comedy called here "The Lady's Last Stake," an unpleasant subject enough, in which a young rake is shown endeavouring to tempt a wife to betray her husband by the presentation of all
the money, jewels, &c., which he has just won from her. The story is writ clear in large characters, as is Hogarth's wont; but it is an unpleasant picture, scarcely redeemed by the execution. The satire is too obvious to be effective ; neither the seducer nor the faithless wife stir our sympathies in the least. Notice an admirable little picture, by the same painter, of "A Sleeping Congregation," to whom a clergyman is still droning
"From the pulpit Like the murmur of many bees."
We hope to speak in a future article of many of the less well- remembered painters examples of whom have been brought together here—of James Ward, strongest of animal-painters, and Patrick Nasmyth, lineal descendant of the Dutch land- scapists; of Cotman, who painted a barge in a still river, and the landscape of the Eastern Counties generally, about as well as such subjects have ever been done ; of Bonington, the most refined of our sea-coast painters, and one of the most vivid and powerful of our colourists ; of Morland, who may be called the Rembrandt of the ale-house and the stable ; of Vincent, who gave to his rivers, crowded with shipping, something of the wide aspect and dignity of composi- tion of Turner himself ; of Wilson, who dreamt of Italian skies throughout a long lifetime, and had the rare pluck to go on painting them and the other subjects he loved, despite almost universal neglect ; of John Linnell, whom the Academy would not elect, because he was only a landscape-painter, but of whose works they availed themselves, after his death, to increase the attractiveness of a Winter Exhibition ; of George Chambers, who could paint the tideway of a river with an absolute fidelity to Nature ; of William Etty, the finest delineator of the colour and texture of flesh since the time of Rubens ; of Calcott, who brought the classical temples and aqueducts, nymphs and soldiers, back to earth with a stolid solidity of imaginative power which was peculiarly English ; of Stothard, who lived in a world of delicate fancies which was )2either wholly artistic nor wholly natural, but a subtle blending of both domains ; and of many another good man and great painter who has "gone down to Hades with other mighty souls of heroes."
Previous page
