ART.
THE OLD WATER-COLOUR SOCIETY.
Tun Seventieth Exhibition of the Society of Painters in Water Colours appears to us to be one of the best which has been seen of late years. There are some absentees, whose absence we regret, such as Mr. Carl Haag and Mr. Frederick Walker, but the stock contributors are equal to their average, which, in the case of some, is a source of much strength ; and there are certain noteworthy developments visible in the works of both young and old exhibitors. Among the former is Mr. Albert Goodwin, who has ventured into a new field, and treads it with a firm step,—a field, moreover, which has not hitherto been cultivated as it deserves to be by artists. A summer sojourn in the village of Simplon has produced us a crop of drawings which breathe the air of Switzerland, and refresh that of the Pall Mall gallery with some veritable Alpine breezes. It is seldom that the scenery of the Alps has been attempted from so accessible a point as that selected by Mr. Goodwin. In former times we had enough of the grand and the terrible, the nwntagnes maudites, the thunder and lightning, and the unfathomable gorge. Then we have had the picturesque view of J. D. Harding and his school ; grand and poetic treatments from Turner's down to Elijah Walton's ; the theatrical and operatic, with William Tell and the merry Swiss boy, short petticoats and the rata des yacht's; sunsets and pines by the native artists Calame and Diday ; and in these days of Alpine climbing, a true portraiture of the glacier and the snow- drift by a daring mountaineer, M. Loppe, of Geneva. Mr. Good- win's Switzerland is different from all these, and though his view is circumscribed, it is as characteristic as any.. We may stand by his side without an alpenstock, for he climbs no pinnacles and takes us to the verge of no abyss. He merely brings before us the rural aspect of Alpine scenery, and in a spirit which is truly British. The motive of his whole group of pictures might, indeed, be fully described under the homely heading, "The Weather and the Crops." " A Stormy Sunday, Simplon " (81),. is one of those well-remembered wet days in the Alps which most travellers would wish to escape, but which rightly have a charm for the landscape painter. It is then that the colour shines forth in all its richness from the moist earth, and Mr. Goodwin has caught these heightened hues,—the fresh green of the turf• and red soil among the pine - roots ; and they harmonise well with the group of herdsmen and goats that cross the bridge to the "Swiss Homestead" (64), and with the blue and red umbrellas of the Simplon peasants in the first- named picture. Here there is a sense of unity in the driving rain and drifting cloud, and fitful gleams and lines of cottage- smoke swept by the wind, which fairly associates itself with the- " great-coat weather" of Constable and the breeziness of Cox. There is a different quality of good art in the elaborate and very beautiful study of an irrigated slope of green mountain pasture, covered with countless flowers, called "The Alpine Summer "- (108), and the foreground bed of " Alpine Rose " (175) ; but in, all these drawings alike, and in the " Colour in Sunlight- Lago Maggiore" (167), there is evidence of a new and• promising phase in the artist's career. His painting has more firmness and substance than of late, and with a refinement acquired since his earlier manner he returns to the richer palette by which he was first known at the Dudley Gallery. He is not quite cured of one trick which has been often repeated in his works,—that of isolating a patch of tone by way of contrast to the rest of the picture. Formerly it was an opening in the cloudy sky above, now it is a shadow or a gleam on the earth beneath. It is so in the pair of pictures just referred to. Both would ba- the better if their central points of strength had not been screwed up to so high a pitch. If, in the " Simplon," the light on the cottage and road had been a little moderated, the eye would have wandered more freely over the scene ; and if in the "Homestead" the pines in the middle had been less black, the blue glacier above would have looked larger. It is a common mistake to suppose- that strong contrasts are necessary to vivid expression. A perfect scale of gradation of light satisfies the mind, whatever be the sub- ject of a picture, and places it in a condition of repose, which leaves it all the more capable of entertaining the ideas presented to it by the painter, whether he desire to convey a sense of motion or a sense of rest. There is an apt illustration of this in two drawings which here face each other at opposite ends of the room, Mr. Powell's large study of ever-moving waves, " The Isles of the Sea" (180), and Mr. George Fripp's perfect calm of morning under " The Woods of Sonning Park, on the Thames " (73). It can scarcely be possible, we should think, to stand before Mr. Powell's simple picture of sea and cloud, with its one break of pale-blue sky above, and one island looming through the spray, without feeling, unconsciously it may be, the influence of its unity, or, to use a techical word where there is no other which exactly conveys its meaning, its breadth of effect. The kind of waves, too, is just that which belongs to the Western Isles- of Scotland, differing alike from the grand roll of ocean• and from the more fretful billows of a shallower sea. In Mr. Fripp's drawing the range of light is greater, for the source- of light itself is represented. Such is the tender subtlety of its gradation, that a mere point scratched anywhere upon the surface would be an instant eye-sore. We are heartily glad to welcome Mr. Fripp's appearance in such renewed strength in the present exhibition. We have no greater landscape painter. A veteran of the Society, and possessed of many of the traditions of the best school of landscape that the world has seen, he happily does not follow the example of some even of the moat eminent of his pre- decessors, by adopting in his later years what is popularly called a broader style, but which generally means more slovenly handling and slighter work. Breadth, in the artistic sense, is one great characteristic of Mr. Fripp's painting, but it is obtained neither by dash and impulse, nor by a discipline which has become mechanical, but by an increase of refinement. Instead of broad- ening by omission of detail, he seems to broaden by further ands more delimit, extension of treatment. The nice judgment with which every little point of light or dark is placed, so as to heighten the effect of the chiaroscuro without being obtrusive, is always- observable in Mr. Fripp's works. See, for, example, how in the beautiful drawing of " Mountains at the Head of the Pass of Glencoe" (13), a sheep in the centre and a bird on the left eve, brilliancy to the whole, and by their relief throw the broad shadows into an agreeable half-tone. Another great character- istic of Mr. Fripp's painting is its faithful topography, and the really laborious suggestion of the surface and texture of what he paints. The geological features and structure of the coast of Sark have never been portrayed with the speaking fidelity with which he has here rendered the " Coupee" (19) and the " Port du Moulin " (69). How fresh and clear the air is in the latter, how insidiously the tide is rising in the bay, and how delicate is the gradation of colour from the golden rock in the foreground to the Autelets rocks lit up by the evening sun, and thence to the distant point ! And in the former, how one feels the dizzy isola- tion of the wonderful ridge, and is led to traverse and measure the length of the uneven road along it ! Mr. Alfred Hunt, with a .different manner of working, and often a finer point to his brush, but with less unity and breadth, and therefore less power of throwing us into a contemplative mood than Mr. George Fripp, yet shares his love of light and the suggestive mystery of his -detail. In delicacy of gradation it would be difficult to surpass the play of tone upon the mud at low tide " On the Conway " (260), against which the little specks of gulls about the boat tell in true relief. As we see here, too, and in "Loch Maree "(252), he is a master of watery cloud which the eye can half penetrate, as well -goof fine-weather sky, such as we see it in the exquisitely tender " Still- ness of the Lake at Dawn" (288), or the almost unique drawing, -" On the West Coast of Scotland" (282). There are few artists who would have attempted to paint an effect like this, of a summer sun shining in full midday upon a Scotch hill-side, and fewer still who would have succeeded. Many would have sat down to enjoy it, but most would have waited for work till a more paintable 'time of day. But Mr. Hunt has set to work at once, and found that he could paint it truly ; and he shows its beauty to be really one of most tender quality. His noonday light is filtered through thin clouds, which cast a cluster of soft shadows, mottled, yet broad, and giving a dappled, but not a piebald look to the landscape. Mr. Alfred Fripp has been somewhat too tenderly affected by a very lovely effect of sunshine and shadow (231) on the shore of Peveril Point, Swansge. The landscape part is deliciously lumi- nous, but it would have been better to have omitted the group of young people gathering " Sea Anemones," than to have reduced them for conformity to the consistency of phantoms. Mr. Boyce, another great interpreter of light, seems to us to have erred slightly in the same way, in his representation of the searching quality of Eastern sunshine within the broad shadow of "A Khan at Cairo " (291). Here, also, the figures are a little ghostly. On the other hand, his study of " Old Cottages at Chiddingfold " (275), only 'want the interest of a figure incident to make it, in its way, a per- fect drawing. Mr. Boyce's other studies are characterised, as usual, by an absolute truth of colour and tone, and by the absence of pictorial effect ; as Mr. Danby's Welsh hills and streams are by freshness and tone, Mr. Dodgson's Yorkshire becks and coast studies by rich colour and luminous shadow, and Mr. Glennie's Italian views by golden sunshine. Among landscape painters who, with a new manner of painting, have arrived at greater truth, is Mr. Naftel, whose recent studies in Scotland, and more moderate use of body-colour, have resulted in a more desirable kind of art than the bright bits which he used to paint in the Channel islands. " On the Moor at Killin " (2), and " The Burn in the
Deer Park, " (156), are examples of this. We regret to see so excellent an artist as Mr. Powell dipping his brush in opaque colour. There are two little drawings of his (240, 254,) on a screen, which it is hard to believe are not painted in oil. On the same screen, however, is a most masterly example of the right use of pure water-colour, in a nearly perfect little gem by Mr. Alma-Tadema. Of four small drawings which he contributes, all of which show consummate skill in the matter of pure painting, this is by much the most attractive, by its completeness of com- position, rich harmony of colour, and concentration of light. It is a small, long drawing, called " Autumn " (249), representing three Romans on a curved stone bench, and two lovers walking by under beech trees, of which a small section of the trunks alone is seen, but whereof the brown leaves strew the ground. It would be easy to praise the wonderful imitation of the stone, the delicate drawing of the drapery, the natural grouping of the figures, and he individuality of each, but it is not so easy to tell how these qualities combine to leave so vivid an impression on the mind, and yet impart that feeling of repose which makes this peculiarly a picture to linger over and enjoy. " A Roman Artist " (268), absorbed in his work, with his canvas (or skin) on his knee, comes next in interest, and contains some wonderful Painting, which alone would make Mr. Tadema an invaluable
acquisition to the figure school at this gallery. Of the re- maining figure subjects there is not much above the average. Mr. Topham's chief picture, a Spanish " Church Door" (128), is agreeable in its contrasts of colour in the draperies ; and there is a great deal of imagination in some of Sir John Gilbert's smaller works, particularly in "Touchstone and Corin " (127), where the conception of the jester, perched like an imp on a tree- trunk, is excellent. A study of a trumpeter on horseback (52) is also very spirited, but the more ambitious picture (16) of Deade- mona and Othello before the Council is but second-rate acting, and not very happy in the misc en scene. Two new Associates appear for the first time, Mr. Walter Duncan, a figure-painter, and son of the member ; and Miss Clara Montalba, whose Venice interiors (66, 78) and Venice boats (234) show considerable power of colour.
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