Bonington's Sketches, No. 1V. •
This is the concluding number of a highly-interesting and beautiful
work ; and although, as regards the subjects chosen, the collected sketches of BONINGTON might have afforded a more choice and varied selection, we are by no means dissatisfied with the specimens here given us of his genius and talent as a painter. His coast scenes, of which we have two in the present number, are eminently beautiful. The truth and simplicity of nature displayed in the most admirable skill of art, render them equally attractive as picturesque scenes and as spe- cimens of Isis style. The group of figures' indeed the whole of that picture in the possession of the Duke of Bedford), is charming: the serenity and brilliancy of the foreground, the calm sea, and the hazy distance, are combined with the happiest effect. In the "Sea View," we almost perceive the deep green colour of the waves, and their liquid motion; and there is a freshness and brightness in the atmosphere and whole effect of this picture, which are beautifully given in the litho- graph. Indeed, no one but Mr. HARDING could have conveyed so vividly the tone and effects of these marine sketches in blink and white; so that, as specimens of lithography, they possess extraordinary merit. The c Pont Royale, Paris," is clever, but heavy, and not very extraor- dinary. The " Albanian " is a fine specimen of BONINGTON'S style of sketching in oil, even in the lithograph : -the sharp, broad, and brilliant touch, so full of purpose, yet apparently so rapid, with which he, as it were, blocked out his figures on canvass, evince the mastery of his genius. He appears to have seized upon the leading characteristics both in the detail and effect, and we doubt not in colour also; which will ac- count for the clear brilliancy and purity of the colouring in his pictures. A portrait of the artist himself, from a sketch by Mrs. W. CARPENTER, is not the least valuable plate. It is a good, manly head, though not characterized by any striking expression, except the phy-sical one of a morbid irritation, which he seems to have possessed. We did not know him, and cannot therefore speak to the likeness. We.wish (no offence to the fair artist) that we could have -had a sketch of himself from his own pencil ; it would have possessed a double interest.
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