ART.
THE SOCIETY OF PAINTERS IN WATER-COLOURS. WHATEVER truth there may be in the unchivalrous saying, "Water-colours for women, oils for men," it is certain that the former branch of the painter's art is now-a-days less disappointing than the latter. It may be that the great oil pictures of other times, growths of mighty minds and devoted hands, overshadow with their solemn images the clever sketches and self-conscious elaborations of our own age. Be this as it may, in Water- Colour painting, we have an art that, as such, is hardly a, century old, and which, as a genuine product of the time, has a sensitive, if not a very vigorous vitality. For this several reasons might be assigned ; the most obvious, perhaps, is the ascendancy of Landscape as a subject of modern art. Two influences seem to have shared in this result, the one outward and visible, the other inward and more difficult to discern. As the exercises of the palmstra familiarised the Greek sculptors with the beauty of the naked body, so the free public life and picturesque dresses of the Italian Republics gave us the fine forms that glow on the canvases of the Old.Masters. We of this day have neither the one nor the other. In our streets, or at our banquets, it would be difficult for either Ghirlandajo or Tiatoretto to pick
up an idea, while Phidias certainly would be unable to do so. Neither is the imagination that can efface the traces of the model and the lay figure to te met with every day. Nature, on the other hand, is always accessible ; no amount of art can make her artificial,—the fairest of all models, she shows her various beautiee to all who seek them, and at all times. The second and deeper cause may be stated in a few words. The basis of all Art is that part of man's emotional nature that we must call religious, not with reference to any particular creed, but in the broadest sense of the word. This feeling, once directed to objects of worship endowed with concrete attributes, found its satisfaction in sacred art, but as religions conceptions grew more spiritual and abstract, it turned from the figures of saints and virgins to the beauty of the inanimate world, deep and suggestive as the chords of music. Hence the real religious pictures of our day are the different aspects of that beauty as interpreted by the artist, the shapes of hills against the evening sky, cloud ranges piled above the level horizon, the solemn woods, the stern lines of the rocks, the curves and colours of water; and the reason is that they are in- scribed,—T avri.arra 04. Now, for landscape, water-colour, though not the superior, is undoubtedly the easier and more man- ageable vehicle. The very transparency and softness of the material are in keeping with the phase of feeling we have at- tempted to indicate, while its superior handiness enables the artist to follow Nature into her haunts, and catch her more fleeting expressions with greater readiness than his fellow-craftsman in oils.
The present exhibition, the eighty-sixth of the foundation of the Society, is considerably below the mark of the majority of its predecessors. Without taking into account the noticeable gap caused by the death of Pinwell and Walker, the pictures of the older members of the Society are decidedly inferior.
Never, perhaps, has Sir John Gilbert been seen to less advan- tage than this year. Of his three contributions, No. 118, an illus- tration of the Laureate's idyll of" Enid," alone shows any signs of his former vivid conception and dramatic power. The three examples of Frederick Taylor are poor and uninteresting, while the numerous • contributions by George Fripp, though showing in places much of his delicate treatment and harmonious colour, are on the whole weaker than usual. Mr. Marks, however, sends four pictures in his best style, and they are decidedly the most interesting in the exhibition. The companion pictures of herons and vultures,
• entitled respectively "The Three Fishers" and "Sittings in Banco," may rank with any of this clever artist's previous work, for the quiet fun with which the subject is treated. Mr. Marks has made this a specialit4, and shows the humorous aspect of a bird's character as well as Mr. Riviere does the pathetic interest of his animals. Not less admirable in its way is No. 222, "Convalescent," by R. W. Macbeth, a small, unpretending study of a sick child receiving visitors in a quiet old- fashioned bed-room. Of course the greater number of the pictures are landscapes, but none of them approach the same ex- cellence in their line as the figures of Carl Haag, E. K. Johnson, and E. Radford. Mr. Carl Haag's style is so well known, that it would be superfluous to praise its peculiar merits here. They are, however, well represented by two uninteresting desert scenes of his usual strength and richness, but more notably by "A Nubian warrior" (No. 62). This is a work of great power. Besides the realistic solidity of the execution, which almost gives the oili- ness_of the negro skin, the different greys of the armour, the face, and the tiger-skin upon the shoulder, combine in a scale of great richness and harmony. As a whole, the effect is very striking, though the face by itself is necessarily ugly, the eye passing with more pleasure to the graceful casque and the strange shapes of the letters graven upon its rim.
As to the paintings of E. K. Johnson and E. Radford, although there is no deep meaning in the work of the former or grandeur in that of the latter, still taste, harmonious colour, and careful drawing exist in both to a rare degree. The former sends three pictures, all possessed of a charm of their own, as well as distin- guished by originality of manner, bright freshness of hues, and a masterly use of body-colour. The first of these, "The Bailiff's Daughter" (No. 38), is remarkable for the graceful attitudes of the figures, and the rich treatment of the reds in the bricks of the cottage and wall, which reminds us of some of the old Dutch masters. No. 115, from the same brush, is charming in colour, as well as noticeable for the drawing of the fore-shortened hand and arm, though in the face even Mr. Johnson has failed to give a pleasing effect to an open mouth. No. 122 is not quite so graceful in line as the two last-named, and there is something distressingly common-place in the counten- ance of the girl ; but the combination of tints is extremely piquant, an epithet that may be said to sum up the quali- ties of this painter. Mr. E. Radford,. employing next to no body-colour, contrasts in his miniature-like softness with the somewhat hard manner of Mr. Johnson, attaining a delicacy peculiar to himself. His most remarkable quality, however, is the combined grace and simplicity of his attitudes,—a rare trait now-a-days, when the affected figures of the " faint-and-fretful " school find such favour in high places. The pictures he exhibits are numbered 19, 235, 273. Of these, for choice, we would name No. 273, a well-conceived subject, founded upon a verse of Longfellow's, and where the face of the male figure is worthy of the idea, a quality lacking in that of his companion. The idyllic school is well represented by Birket Foster and R. Barnes. No. 59 is an example of the well-known manner of the Surrey artist, that clothes the progeny of our agricultural labourer with an airy grace only too uncommon in our country lanes. Still it is a pleasant picture, with an attractive distance and sky, though the general effect is somewhat too stripy and va- riegated. This last observation might also be made of "The Mar- ket at Toulon " (No. 71), in other respects a delightful picture, com- bining charm of line with a sunny brightness and rare delicacy of workmanship. Without any of the taking, if somewhat mannered, grace apparent in the last-named works, Mr. R. Barnes shows in his"Broken Hoop "(No. 91), what may be done by a simple, manly treatment, combined with good, honest colour and drawing. The same painter in No. 103, "A Surrey Cottage," recalls some- thing of Mr. Walker's style, in the effect produced by the ordinary dress and surroundings of rustic life, as well as in the careful finish of the foreground, though the tone of the whole is some- what too pale. Traces of the same influence may also be found in a group of girls in No. 180, the work of Mr. J. Parker, who, in the prettiness of their posture, make up for the clumsiness of their limbs. No. 3, another work from the same studio, recalls no such high example, but rather the astonishing infatuation of that portion of the public who patronise the sickly art we lately mentioned, as put to shame by E. K. Radford. Among the por- traits, Mrs. Allingham has one of IV. Allingham, Esq.," full of character.
To proceed to the landscapes. The first picture on the catalogue is from the brush of Paul Naftel, who contributes thirteen sketches, not all—for example, 259—of equal merit. No. 1 is noticeable as giving the effect of a hill retreating heavenward by the most admirable gradation of tone. 199 is a first-rate sketch ; 212, a good rendering of the splendid colour and fine contours of moorland, with that most beautiful of hill-shapes, Noel Siabod, in the distance. Nos. 205 and 210 are rather chalky in the middle-distance, from rough handling of body-colour. Last, but not least, comes " Idwal at Rest," No. 56, one of the most attractive landscapes in the Exhibition, and working out thoroughly well its leading idea of repose, enhanced by the suggested presence of convulsive force in the past. Upon a grassy terrace of the Welsh mountains, the naked rocks lie tumbled one upon another like pebbles of the brook, now, immovable as the crags from which they fell ; above, the bills loom soft and silent in the summer haze ; and in the fore- ground, a dark pool sleeps with unruffled surface, guarded by the motionless spears of the tall grasses on its brink. For drawing of rock-forms and expression of aerial perspective, there is nothing in the Exhibition to compete with Nos. 12 and 31, by G. A. Fripp, the first of these, "The Coup& of Sark," being a specially beauti- ful example. With far less power of execution, Mr. A. P. Newton shows more feeling as an interpreter of Nature, witness No. 69, a fine study of beech-trunks, relieved by sunlit greens ; No. 117, 4' The Head of Loch Torridou," a wild scene, with the mists clearing from the hills ; the glowing sunset at the same place, No. 140 ; and the shadowy buildings set against the evening sky in No. 145.
Mr. T. M. Richardson, with a careful and accom- plished execution, astonishes us by the slight impression he is enabled to produce. "Where the Phcenicians come for Tin" (No. 150), by Mr. A. Goodwin, is grateful in tone, and suggests well the melancholy of stretching sands under a lowering sky. Here, as well as in No. 187, "Through the City Seaward," we could wish the figures away. All art must have its eccentricities, and though there are here no Nocturnes, that phase is not wholly unrepresented. Mr. G. P. Boyce, although remarkable for a certain richness and harmony of colour (Nos. 96 and 262), yet prefers to employe touch suggestive of worsted-work, while Mr. G. Dodgson seems to have an equal hankering for mosaic. In the same way, the craze of some modern artists for seeing nature with half-shut eyes is illustrated in the "Sketches Of Bristol and its Neighbourhood," by Mr. W. M. Hale. Still it is impossible to help wishing that this artist may some day wake up, for as tapestries of subdued tints his drawings have considerable charm, and he is evidently not with- out an eye for the sweeping curves and strong, graceful lines of ships and spars. Mr. Hale has brought us to the water's edge, and we may nue pass on to the painters who set up their easels in that fascinating region, or who, still more adventurous, depict the ships upon the paths of the great waters. Familiar to all are the somewhat inky skies and metallic scenes that form the backgrounds to the excellent, seaworthy craft of Mr. John Callow. The first of these peculiarities seems to have been adopted by Mr. W. Callow, in his "Entrance to Calais Harbour," which is like a pen-and-ink sketch after Turner. Though professedly upon marine subjects, it is impossible to pass this artist without noticing his architectural pieces, the only re- markable ones in the Forhibition. There is a dignity about his old buildings most appropriate to their time-worn walls, that with their rich colour and broad treatment gives them the grandeur' of natural objects. To return to the sea, "Fast on a Reef," by Mr. H. Moore, seems to us to miss the mark completely. The sea is never woolly, but whether in ripples, waves, or swell, presents clear and sharply-defined curves. Mr. Francis Powell sees this, and gives it well in his " Ard Tomish," (No. 141), and the " Ranti- pike " (No. 172), though the waves have too much the tint of the turbid waters of an estuary. The first is a fine and suggestive piece of Highland coast scenery, on a day of rain and sunshine, the past shower just hurrying from the cliffs in the background, leaving streamers of mist clinging in their crevices. Of a very opposite character, but certainly taking in their way, are the studies in grey and °tangs by Clara Montalba, though if the colouring of Venice in winter is really that here represented, this clever lady might do equally well at the London Docks. This sombreness, of tint occasionally slips into positive dirtiness, as in No. 40, where the dingy hues of San Salute suggest the whitey-brown of our own City churches.
Other pictures there are in great numbers, many of them con- taining points which the various tastes of individuals will visit• with praise or blame, or which are objects of interest to the artists' friends ; suffice it to say, in conclusion, that to discover these is not within the function of a critic, or the limits of an article.
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