ART.

THE DUDLEY GALLERY.

WE fear the tendency to be satisfied with low aims, to. substitute good workmanship, for high ambitions, to please

the vulgar, rather than the select, to subdue their art to their market, rather than raise the market to their art,—in a word, t,c. manufacture pictures, rather than to let pictures spring from a real love of beautiful things and worthy subjects—this tendency is, we fear, growing more and more marked amongst our painters.. And it is pitiful to see that it is becoming most noticeable where- we should expect it least, and where least excuses can be found.

for such shortcoming. An old artist may well be pardoned if, when his hands and eyes grow comparatively dim, his imagination wearies, his ambitions fail, and he seeks chiefly to sustain his level of technical skill, rather than to push forth to fresh con- quests. Every one is not an Alexander in spirit, and most of us only too willingly rest content with our first trivial triumphs..

But if we can forgive an old artist for becoming in his later days somewhat prone to repetition, we can by no means grant a young painter the same excuse. And yet it is amongst the young painters of our own day that this fault is greatly if not chiefly found. The exhibition which opened last Monday at the Dudley Gallery of the Egyptian Hall, shows more despairingly than ever the lack of all attempt at the higher forms of art; it is, in a double sense of the words, a despairing exhibition, for it inspires a beholder with despair as to the future of these

young artists, who seem to have a "thirty-two pound shot under their ribs, instead of a heart," and an aching void where there should bp ambition, emotion, and energy; and it seems to indicate despair upon the part of the artists themselves,. hopelessness as to the attainment of any worthy art, or the possession of any ideal whatever.

These are the works of men who have intrusted to them,. above all others, the task of keeping alive, in hard, modern times, the spirit of beauty ; they are, or should be, the guardians of " The fire that barns for aye, And the shield that fell from heaven."

And the best they can give us, the best that the best of theta give us, is a delineation of a little bit of wave under a sunset sky ; a cold, grey mist settling heavily over a dreary river ; a country field, with a couple of sheep galloping on the grass ; two or three pretty sketches of old Dutch towns, and some little bits of spring and summer landscape, hardly larger in their scope than the corner of an almshouse garden. And if this be the best, what is the worst like ? What can be said for such pictures as we see here by the score, we had almost said by the hundred, of "Mother's Help," "At Home," "Irene," "I paint Bootiful," "Thoughts far away," "Row is your Mother ?"

"Who knows what word were best to say, For last year's leaves lie dead and red On this fair day, in this sweet May, And barren corn makes bitter bread; What shall be said ?"

Think of it, for a moment ; here are 670 pictures, drawn by about 400 people, and these people are those who are picked out of 1,000 others, all of whom, or nearly all, are artists by profes- sion,—that is, are supposed to be endowed with an especial -comprehension of the beautiful ; a love, too, of beautiful things so intense as to cause them to spend their lives in trying to express some of that comprehension. And, in the full flush of their youth and ambition, they can give us nothing new, and care to attempt nothing, but to use a swimmer's simile, wade on still in their miserable six inches of water,

though the waves are breaking merrily in the sunshine, and the ocean of beauty lies bright and fair before them, dared they but -venture in. It is not of failure we speak here ; failure would be a relief. It is that apathy of the soul, as shown in the artist's -handiwork, which is far worse than failure, for it can lead to nothing.

We have hardly the heart to speak' much of this exhibition, and will content ourselves with noting very briefly the few

works which seem to us to be a little better than the rest. First amongst these come the sea-scapes and river- scapes of Arthur Severn, especially those (No. 28) of the Thames at London, in the past winter. They show us the river, -with snow-covered barges, under heavy, grey skies, full of fog and snow possibilities. In the tone of the faint greys and greyish-whites and pale yellows used, these pictures are very beautiful, and the dreariness of the river on a winter's after-

noon is exactly reproduced. Another work by this artist which we noticed for its poetical feeling was a wave glowing with light from a red sunset. This last picture is more ambitious and slightly less successful than the little Thames subject above spoken of.

"Old Pear Trees" (No. 26), by Alfred Parsons, is a clever -and painstaking piece of work, noticeable for the good drawing of the boughs and trees. "A Drowsy Land" is also pleasant and interesting. "Sweets," by John White (No. 78), a pic- ture of a child in a fur cloak opening a sweetmeat-box, should be noticed for its strength of colour and powerful effect of light and shade. In effect, this is the richest piece of work in the gallery. Two views of Dordrecht, by Mr. A. B. Donaldson, are interesting and pretty pictures of an old Dutch town, and have a beauty of colouring which, though perhaps a little arti- ficial, is very pleasant. No. 206, "Sisters of Charity," by Vincenzo Cabianca, has a luminousness of effect, without any apparent loss of truth which is very rare. This is especially observable in the blue dresses and white caps of the Sisters. "A Bye-path upon the Moor," by Joseph Knight (No. 215), is the best work we have seen from this artist; in some ways, it is the finest work here. It represents a few villagers returning home after their day's work, just after sunset ; and the part of the picture which struck us as most true and beautiful was the breadth of light throughout, and the manner in which Mr. Knight had made the ground reflect the light of the sky, without losing any of its deep twilight tone. The weak point in the picture, as in most of Mr. Knight's, is the clouds, which are woolly and unreal. Another little picture, by Vincenzo Cabianca (No. 227), has a touch of imagination in its rendering of "Snow at Venice,"—an old woman muffled in a long cloak, stepping out of a narrow doorway, down to a snow-covered gondola. "Hawthorn," by Mrs. Carr Hastings (No. 280), is a fair girl's head, against a background of white flowers, very pleasant to look upon, and contriving to inspire a wish to see the young lady in -question, which is, we suppose, the only object of work of this kind. It is the sort of picture that ought to be liked by a young girl of sixteen or so, and hung up in her sanctum sanctorum.

Miss Kate Greenaway sends a frame full of the little chintz- dressed figures, as attractive in colour and quaintly pretty in design as usual,—on the whole, the most original work in the gallery, though hardly reaching to the level of serious art ; as, indeed, why should it ? There must be flies on the wheel in paint- ing as well as society, and as long as they are ornamental flies, we must be content. "The Intruders" (No. 355), by Mr. Frank E. Cox, is a really pleasant, fresh landscape, with a couple of startled sheep as the most prominent personages. There are two small figures in the middle-distance, put in as cleverly as usual with this artist. "Oh, oh, the World is Wide, ye Lily Flowers !" (No. 367), by Mr. W. G. Addison, is one of the prettiest peaches of the Thames, the foreground thick with water-lilies, and as breezy a bit of nature as one would wish to see No. 385, by Arthur Severn, is the most ambitious of this artist's contributions here. Instead of looking seawards, as in his sunset picture, the spectator is supposed to be watching the waves in-shore from the end of a pier. At first, the effect seems all tumbled and confused, but gradually the forms come out with tolerable, though hardly, we think, with quite suffi- cient distinction, especially in the waves furthest from the shore. One little fact Mr. Severn has indicated in a very masterly manner, that is, the manner in which the retreating wave sucks back along the shore, dragging the shingle with it. Miss Martineau's " Adeline " is a good and thoughtful work, and deserves careful notice. She has also several other works here, all careful, and all perhaps a little hard in effect, and somewhat motiveless ; the best is probably the young lady in the red dress about to play the fiddle. Mr. Walter Severn sends a largish picture (425) of the "South Needles," which is coarsely brilliant in its painting, though apparently very faithful to nature ; and the picture in the exhibition which has some imagination in it is (441) "The Phantom Ship," by W. H. Overend.