ART
[SECOND woricEi In our first notice of this Gallery, we spoke only of the contents of the first room; we now propose to mention, as briefly as possible, a few of the more interesting pictures in the Central and .East rooms; and first amongst them let us look at Mr. Edwin Hayes's "'Vessel entering Port Fowey," one of those old.
fasioned seascapes which remind us more of Stanfield and Edward Duncan than of work of the present day. Despite its conventionality, the picture is worth examining carefully, if only because of the painter's breadth of view, his painting the sea rather than the waves, his conveying the spirit of the scene, aa well as its actual details. The truth is that Mr. Hayes, despite many limitations, is able to treat with genuine success what we may perhaps be allowed to call the landscape of the sea; to bring the depression and elevation of his green water into perfect pictorial accord with his boats and clouds ; in fact, to make a picture of his subject. And since this is an art which is daily becoming more rare, it is well to dwell on the fact a little, even at the risk of wearying our readers. Note, also, as a minute rendering of technical details, a quality which is very valu- able for a marine painter, Mr. Hayes's power of what a. sailor would call "putting a boat into the water." His vessels are not merely surrounded by waves, they are actually riding in them, are making their way through them. The peculiarity is analogous to that of a landscape-painter whose trees are rooted in the ground, not simply stuck in. For the rest, there is nothing particularly new about these pictures of Mr. Hayes's ; there is the same monotonous grey-green water, the sama rainy sky, the same reddish-brown boats and sails, as usuaL The work is not one of Mr. Hayes's very best, nor, indeed, are. Iris other examples in the exhibition especially favourable.
Mr. Napier Hemy's painting forms a curious contrast in everything to that of which we have been speaking; the scheme of colour is deeper and "hotter," the painter's vision of the sea is limited to comparatively few of the waves, and the special details of these, in form and light, are studied with com- parative minuteness ; indeed, this artist might be described with tolerable accuracy as a painter of "green water under a boat." The special look of transparency which (as most artists know) the water seems to possess under the shadow of a boat's bilge, is rendered by Mr. Homy with great fidelity. He has two pictures in the exhibition, in both of which the above-mentioned characteristic is plainly observable, and both of which are up to his usual level. "The Little Trawler" and "At the Harbour Buoy" are incidents of fishermen's lives on the Western Coast, a class of subject from which Mr. Hemy rarely departs ; and in each of the pictures, the drawing of the fishing-boats and the painting of the green water, are the chief matters. The figures are comparatively unimportant, and the great defect of the pictures is that the seascape round the boats is so evidently only the background to the boats themselves,—ia other words, though we are supposed to be out on the open. water, our vision is narrowed down, with a limitation and a precision which are untrue to Nature. It is worth remarking, however, that Mr. Hemy's drawing of the boats themselves, and the way in which he puts them in the water, are quite admirable. There is probably in England at the present time —now that Mr. E. W. Cooke is dead—no living painter who, in the former respect, equals Mr. Hemy ; and, indeed, his knowledge of all the technical details of fishing craft, is fir superior to that of Mr. Hayes. One other word must be said, in justice to this artist, and that is that be absolutely scorns all the sentimental tricks and cheap effects of which we so often speak severely : he relies for the attractiveness of his picture on its truth to Nature, and he does paint his picture as well. In this latter respect he is a thoroughly capable workman; he has learnt his business well, and uses his know- ledge to the best of his ability. There is no fumbling or dashing in chance effects in any of his compositions; they are deliberately conceived and carefully executed ; and whatever the limitations may be, they are neither those of haste, indolence, nor affectation..
It is somewhat unkind, perhaps, to select the work of a painter who exemplifies in his essential characteristics almost all the defects which we do not find in Mr. Hemy's work ; but we cannot refrain from noting that in the compositions of Mr. R. H. (not Hugh) Carter, most of these may be found. Look, for inatances of this, at his picture in the: East Gallery, entitled, "The Stranded Life-Buoy," a scene on the same Western Coast, and with the same fishermen whom Mr. Hemy delights to paint, but which has no touch of his truth to Nature, and, if the truth must be told, has scarcely one artistic quality. The rocks are formless, the drawing of the sea confused and inaccurate, and the figures are transparently dressed up for the occasion. The picture would not be worth noticing at all, were it not that it shows a certain touch of skill in composition, a certain half. sentimental, half goody-goody dramatic quality.
Turn from this to an example of a wholly different art,—of an art which in its deliberation and quiet truth is little likely to attract the visitors to the Gallery, and the artist of which has, we fear, never received the public esteem which is undoubtedly his due,—this is a picture of Mr. Aumonier's, entitled "A Sheep-Fold," a simple English landscape in which the spectator looks first down the whole length of the fold, whilst in the middle distance rise the farm-buildings, and beyond them spread low curves of down, and a broad expanse of sky. The work is admirable for its ease no less than for its skill, and perhaps no landscape-painter of the present day has mastered more thoroughly than Mr. Annionier the delicate gradations of atmosphere. His painting is, too, a curious combination in its intellectual aspect, of the older and the modern schools of water-colour painters. There is a trace therein of the scientific spirit, but it is so gently and so subtly introduced as to be scarcely perceptible. Perhaps we should explain our meaning by saying that it is well-behaved painting. The work is a trifle sell-conscious, though it is self-conscious in a good sense. A landscape of a different quality to this, but singularly quiet and unaffected in its rendering of Nature, is Mr. F. Walton's "Near Bade," a cart on the edge of a low down, with a view of cliffs, rocks, and the blue sea in the distance.
We hardly know whether to be pleased or annoyed with Mr. J. C. Dollman for his picture of "The Top of the Hill," in which is a ploughed field with one of the horses which have been drawing the plough fallen dead in the furrow, while his companion nag stands sorrowful beside him, and the ploughman is hastening away for help. The horses are well drawn, the landscape well suggested, and the story of the composition told emphatically and clearly. The work does not impress us as being true to outdoor nature, but it is dramatic and interesting. Perhaps the sentiment is a little cheap, but even cheap sentiment is better than none; and where some artists seem unable to feel at all except for the fashion of a enn-bonnet, it is a pleasant relief to have one dwelling upon the silent, every-day tragedy of animal life. In harmony with this composition of Mr. Dollman's is Mr. Wetherbee's "Shepherd and his Sheep," in which the figure of the shepherd is perhaps a little poor in drawing, but is in thorough harmony of tone and perfect accord of sentiment with the rest of the composition. It is as a whole a good picture, if only because of its strong humanity. Very likely it could not have been painted, or at all events would not have been, had not Millet painted his "La Tondense " and similar pictures ; indeed, the sentiment of the whole work is that of the French painter. However, Mr. Wetherbee is entitled to praise for having pro- duced a simple, faithful rendering of peasant-life, which is distinctly attractive, and which, we think, one might live with and like better every day.
A pretty little picture, called "The Brook and the Sea," by Mr. John White, deserves a word of notice, if only for its pretti- ness; and it seems ungrateful to pass over Mr. Stock's alle- gorical Cupids and mermaids in an exhibition where there is but too little imaginative work. But Mr. Stock is at times irri- tating; he will make his supernatural beings of such solid, matter-of-fact material. There is a Cupid in one of his pictures here, with a pair of pink wings, lurching down out of a cloud to kiss a young woman, which fills us with trepidation lest the wire which suspends him should be broken. After all, allegories are only tolerable when they are complete successes. If we are forced to consider whether the picture has or has not sufficient meaning, and if that meaning is worthy of being pictorially repre- sented, we have already condemned the composition. Mr. Stock's mistake is that he apparently paints with an intention half. literary, half-artistic, and the result is as hybrid as his ideas. We say of the painting in our minds, "it is earnest and industrious ;" then we add, with reluctance, "and it ought to have been beautiful." It reminds us of Canning's celebrated speech to the clergyman who asked him, "Did you like my sermon P I endeavoured not to be tedious." The statesman answered, "And yet—you were."
Two of the most striking pictures in the exhibition from the dramatic point of view are Mr. Joseph Nash's "The Forgotten Skirmish," and "The Miser's End." In the picture of the miser's end, the subject is the moonlight interior of a bedroom, and all we see of the dead man is one hand projecting on the floor beyond the bid-post. Despite a certain crudeness of colour, the pictures are worthy of attention for the careful work; and in the case of "The Miser's End," a genuinely clever study of
moonlight, which illumines the room. May we suggest to Mr. Nash, however, that he has given us enough of these dead men, and that it would be a pleasant change if his next picture were to show us one or two living people P A good, pleasant picture of old buildings is Mr. C. Holloway's "Old Rye ;" and Mr. Elliott's" Wilton Ferry " ie a good example of a young man's work. Nothing, however, can be said in praise of such inartistic performances as Mr. W. L. Thomas's " Jump- ing Powder," a parody of a hunting scene ; or as Mr. Corbonld's " Ashtaroth," a simpering, half-dressed model; as of Mr. Guido Bach's "Bacchus Festival,"—these are pictures of a class which the Institute would do well to exclude from their exhibition, since they are not only tame and most conventional in their sentiments, but are technically inartistic in the highest degree. Mr. Charles Green, too, clever draughtsman, good painter, and original illustrator as he is, has failed in his purpose in "Little Dorrit's Visit to her Sister at the Theatre," a drawing which neither tells its story, nor is attractive in any way, and in which the various actresses behind the scenes look more like prize Sunday-school scholars than is usually the case with that profession. Mr. Green has, however, done so much excellent work that it were kind to forget the present picture.
We have no space to do more than to allude to several interesting works, such as Mr. Falleylove'e "Italian Garden," Mr. Whymper's "Benfleet Creek and the Thames," Mr. C. B. Johnson's " Oa the Moor at Roy Bridge," Mn. Edmund Warren's "A Splendid Solitude," and Mr. Thomas Pyne's "Village on the Norfolk Coast,"—all of these deserve some attention ; and a word of praise must be given, in conclusion, to Mr. Frank Dada's humorous picture of "The Inglorious Arts of Peace."
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