FINE ARTS.

EXHIBITION OF THE SOCIETY OF BRITISH ARTISTS.

The first general glance round this exhibition impressed us with the idea that it is the best held by the Society of British Artists within a number of years ; and further inspection left no doubt of the fact. Ex- cessively bad pictures are in a decided minority ; and the mediocrity which forms the staple of this as of every other exhibition has, in many cases, gained caste as less good than the good, instead of being only less bad, and even more unimproveable than the bad. This is a great step, when duly considered : for it could not have been taken without

some shaking off of that uninquiring and complacent inertness which is virtual death in art, without some perception of better things and some will towards their attainment. Another hopeful sign is the fairness of hanging ; few instances of dubious discretion, and no self-evident injus- tice, being observable. Among the members, we miss only Mr. Josi and that painstaking Sisyphus Mr. Prentis.

In one respect—however low may have been its general level—the Suffialk Street Exhibition has uniformly fur some years been better worth a visit than others : we refer to the prominence of Mr. An-

thony on its walls. For more profit is to be found in one originality than in a host of even hORWITable results of routine study : and here the

originality is of a high class and in the utmost degree suggestive. Mr.

Anthony's works of this year give token of his continuous progress ; his style—which at first, to many, seemed a rash and anomalous innovation—

proves to have contained enough of vital strength to work itself out from its own 'melded resources. What was overcharged has been condensed, what was superfluous has been dropping off; and year after year wit- nesses an increase of its inherent purity. The Old Churchyard " (24) is the chief work of the present exhibition. The charm of this, its repose and completeness, are hardly to be expressed; nor can we even feel them as mere beauties of a picture, but rather as they are felt among the very

graves and in the grass itself. We cannot name any painter who so con- veys the peculiar tenderness of nature. And this under the sternest con-

ditions : for there are some aspects in nature so harmonized and blended —as of twilight or moonlight—as at first glance to impress a general sen- timent. These are imitable with comparative ease. The painter will tone down his blues and greys and will shade off his angles ; and his re- sult also is necessarily an unity—if at all truthful, a sentiment. Here none of these aids exist. The aspect is of broad sunlight, and is so rendered with all possible intention; sharp abrupt shadow, trenchant outline, diffusion

and variety of colour, and that the brightest. It will be but one out of a dozen masterly painters who, like Mr. Anthony, realizes an amazing daylight

effect : he must be something besides a masterly painter who recalls (what is recalled here) the thankful happiness—sad, too beyond speech—felt in in- tense sunlight more than at any other time. Where such grand meaning is given, the details which concur to give it need not much be dwelt on; yet we think that the spectator, who, divesting himself of preferences as to style, and choosing his own distance, will consider the picture as re- presenting nature, and looks from the central yew to the glimpse of chapel-wall between the trees, to the gravestone clasped with bindweed and moss, and to the sheep cool in the near shade, will pronounce them

close on perfect truth. Next to this among Mr. Anthony's ten works— and not inferior to it, save in importance—we would place No. 357, " A Rocky Lane—Sunshine after a Shower" ; as a mere arrangement of hues,

most charming, with the additional charm of truth, and as brilliant and sparkling as an unequalled command of colour can make it. " A Rocky Glen—Close of Day" (299) has the wildness of its wave-smoothed and furrowed stones beautifully tempered by the pure sky and the young rising moon. There is emphatic poetry in that which forms the connex- ion between these two parts of the picture—its only incident of life--a

bird flying towards the light between the steep ridges. " The Vesper Hour" (464) is an exquisite interior, rich and delicate, and receiving a grace from the nun's figure traversing its silentness : at a short distance,

the picture seems literally lighted by its background window. The

"Welsh Interiors" (10 and 398) are remarkable for rich golden chiar- oscuro; "The Gate of Honour, Caius College" (927), for decision of touch, and the much made of little • "Musing by the Way " (435), for

pleasant imaginative quaintness. The " View from a Country Church- yard" (146), and "A Dewy Day" (505), partake largely of the artist's

power. In every one of these works there is a greatness, genial, unaf- fected, unborrowed, unlearned save from nature, dependent on nothing but resolute direct truthfulness for expression ; a greatness which wili find material anywhere, and the very peculiarity of whose method con- sists in its obviousness. Each work worthily displays this method, with- out slightness or insufficiency ; and it is most gratifying to observe that they are all sold. English art must rest content for the present with its one Anthony to

an exhibition ; and may be pleased to find him seconded by a Pyne, a Boddington, a Percy, and others. The first of these gentlemen contributes but one picture, " Landing Herrings on the Yorkshire Coast " (60) ; very pleasing and with fine artistic qualities, but still a convention of the craft, with a certain opaque brightness, and paint-brush foam-splashings. Mr.

Boddington has made a decisive stride of late, and may afford to stroll up and down Thames banks and Welsh hills to his own self-repetition and our satisfaction for some time yet. Unfortunately, not only is he himself most prolific, but his brothers are no less so ; and unless some member of the family will resolve to see that nature has more faces than one, it will continue mere guesswork to single out the score of Boddingtons from among the half-hundred landscapes where they confuse themselves with Percies and Williamses. No. 61, "A Sketch from Nature, painted on the spot," is very sunny ; sweet and quiet in the left-band distance. "An Autumnal Noon-on the Mountains, N. Wales" (81), is particularly fine ; the middle distance of hills treated with a more noble character than usual, and the shroud of rainy atmosphere to the right excellent. The trees in this picture and generally in those of the family are a mannerism. Of many others by Mr. Boddington, we must say simply that they are very pretty : No. 91, for instance ; where the weak points of colour be- tray themselves, however, in a treacky foreground of stones washed by a shallow brook. Mr. Percy, strange to relate, exhibits but one work, " Llyn Lydan, the Lake on Snowdon" (68) ; a picture of much beauty. The misty-shaded mountain-side, with all its form save the sharp outline lost in gloom, is a feature we have met before in Mr. Percy's works, but treated here with marked success.

Mr. West, in two of his landscapes, exhibits so striking, and, we in- fer, so lasting an improvement in colour and steadiness of handling, as to throw his other six completely into shade. This progress is specially ob- servable in the midmost trees and rocks, reddened in sunlight, of No. 188, " Overflow of a Mountain Lake, Norway." The upper ledges of mountain towering unapproached by the turbulent waters, contribute much to the dignity of the scene. Yet more impressive, perhaps, and not less indicative of advance, is No. 232, "On the Road between Bergen and Christiana," desolate in its purple rocks and overshadowed stream. Mr. Dawson's "Scene from Creme Hurst, near Croydon" (407), with the sun bursting through clouds, is, we think, rather smoky than cloudy : but it is no common work, and shows a fine perception of expanse. Two pictures by Mr. Hammersley, No. 164, and " The Last Ray on the Moun- tain-a View of the Lower Glacier of Grinderwald, Switzerland " (393), are palpable imitations of Pyne. The forms of the latter scene are so noble as to give value to any treatment-and this possesses merits of its own : the foreground, however, is poor and velvety. Several of the land- scapes by Mr. J. Wilson junior are pure in character ; and Mr. Clint's rural and healthy. But we find that this artist and Mr. Tennant tend, in their coast-scenes, to stretching out flat unvaried tracks of sand, of unknown interest ; a method whose extreme example is Mr. Waine- wright's " Carting Sea-weed on the Beach near Broadstairs " (445), which shows a peculiar faculty for covering a well-sized canvass without doing anything. "The Thames at Lambeth" (179), by Mr. Hassell, is of a creditable class ; " Wolsey's Tower on the Banks of the Mole" (305), singularly wretched. Two small views, 76, by Miss Nasmyth, and 330, by Mr. Deacon, are agreeably simple. Of Mr. Hurlstone's numerous contributions in portraiture and Spanish costume, the only one adequately representing what he can do is " A Glimpse in a Spanish Patio " (261)-a girl looking from behind a curtain ; sweet in colour and feeling, and with a dim dubiousness in it. Perhaps the next best is "A Spanish Girl, Sevillana " (222) ; a pretty suggestion of colour, but extreme in that inlaid shell-like kind of hue which the artist affects. No. 184, also a Spanish girl, is horribly bad ; drawing, colour, and texture, distorted in a way we cannot account for from so practised a band. The ugliness of the "Street Scene in Seville" (141) is of that offensive kind that should never be treated unless incidentally, or by way of study ; and this large canvass is filled up far too sketchily to be of value for the latter purpose. The "Portrait of Morton Frewen, Esq." (122) is good and characteristic ; that of " Lord Wallseourt" (369) has the aspect of nobility. No. 47, "Son and Daughter of Wilbraham Tolle- mache, Esq." lacks invention,-both expressions being precisely similar : on the contrary, the pensive and spirituel characters are well discrimi- nated in the " Daughters of the Reverend - Hansom" (70) ; but here the execution is in the last degree stringy and flimsy. No. 29, "Versailles, time of Watteau," and No. 102, "An Avenue at Versailles," are very pleasing samples of Mr. Woolmer's elegant hand- ling. The figures in the former are sketched with correct artistic taste, and the background is true to its character. No. 509, "On the Findhorn, Inverness-shire," is a stronger attempt than usual with the artist. The extinction of " Greenwich Park" (363) in the neighbourhood of Mr. Anthony's " Rocky Lane " is so complete that we can scarcely believe it is not of itself dull in colour : yet this is not a common fault with Mr. Woolmer. We have here another "Incident in the Life of Milton" (474), which Mr. Woolmer will do well to forget for the purposes of his art, or the poet's share in it at least. No. 510, " Portraits of the Chil- dren of Mrs. H. L. Philips," gives the best points of Mr. Dobson's style, and the extremest of his manner ; but on the whole is one of his most praiseworthy works : Mr. Baxter's three pictures also will stand well with his admirers Mr. Noble's " Squire Thornhill introduces himself to the Family of the Vicar of Wakefield" (130) is at least as bad as Mr. Brooks's productions ; the only adequate expression we can find for it. Mr. Salter maunders along as usual ; from " The Marriage Festival of Bacchus and Ariadne " (170), to a woman exhibiting a substitute for a back (474). Mr. Gale shows some clever design, to catch the eyes of the groundlings, and good qualities of colour. Mr. Pidding and Mr. Clater it has long been labour lost to criticize. Mrs. C. Smith at length exhibits works (98 and 297) whose coarseness is not so great as to make it painful to mention them ; they possess truth of character, though hard and liny in manner.

In the domestic style, Mr. G. Smith's small companion studies (257, 265) are very creditable. "Taking the Sacrament" (489), by Mr. Sintzenich, though prosaic and destitute of anything striking, is a correct transcript of fact. " The Broom-maker " (144), by Miss C. Doe, is careful and unobtru- sive; Miss Solomon's Charity Girl (254) and Mr. Perkins's subject (366') good of their class; and there is something not commonplace in No. 482, by Miss Grover, though it is extremely defective. The same holds good of Mr. Gray's "Spanish Tambourine-girl" (421). A small "Study of a Head" (378), by Mr. Burgess, is painted well and in good feeling : Mr.

Glass shows cleverness, tending towards the theatrical ; and there is a certain pleasantness in Mr. Crabb'a " Sunflowers" (353). One of the best portraits in the gallery is by Mr. Fisher (35). As painters of ani- mal life we have Mr. Herring and Mr. Earl : the former coarser than usual, although the "Farm-yard, Winter" (485), is a very successful work ; the latter, we find, is a much better artist than he tried to make us believe when he sent "Nature and Art," and another canvass-scrub- bing, to the British Institution. "The Rabbit-Warren," (57), though not much more solid in execution, shows in its eager watchful dogs decided cleverness and knowledge of expression.

The Water-Colour room contains a few things worth notice ; which has not been the case always. Mrs. Withers's "Red Grouse" and "Ptarmi- gan" (519, 554) are excellently truthful ; but we hold it a barbarism- only the worse that it wastes instead of saving time-to paint minute printing as is done here. Mr. Welles " Study " (623) is very tasteful in colour and finish, but the stippling of flesh is viciously exaggerated : Mr. Kinnebrook has painted from the same model (651), and also with success. The standing figure in Mr. Blencowe's "Indian Home" (547) is refined and graceful, and the general arrangement natural. We are surprised that the same artist should have perpetrated "Esther before the King" (551)-a lay-figure getting sea-sick, to all appearance. There is a good quality of form in Miss Tekusch's portrait (605) ; much nature, al- loyed by a rather coarse treatment, in that by Miss Davies (628) ; and good expression in Mr. Newton's (536).