ART.
THE ROYAL ACADEMY.
[THIRD NOTICE:I
IT does not matter in the least whether Mr. Leighton's picture of lovely draped figures in a courtyard, striking lemons from a tree, and doing other acts of gardening, be or ever were like anything in the "Jews' Quarter of Old Damascus" (303), or whether any "Antique Juggling-Girl" (348), with the smallest conceivable amount of drapery, ever tossed a circle of golden balls in front of an ivory-tinted screen. It is enough for us that we see in each a graceful composition of beauteous forms and tender harmonies of colour, with a subtle play of light, and everywhere what is grate- ful and delicious to the eye. We are less pleased with the same painter's "Moorish Garden : a Dream of Granada" (131), because we do not feel the same charm of colour or of form, and even in our dreams trees are apt to be trees, and water, water. We acknowledge the grace and sweetness of Mr. Albert Moore's figure, the same that he has often painted, and which he now calls " Shells " (936) ; but we find the rippling sand on which she walks so substantial and so perfect in perspective, that we want to see more of the scene and know more of the general state of affairs. And again, if we step back far enough to take in the whole painting as a piece of decoration, we behold a hard blue line of the sea horizon, which cuts it in two and destroys it altogether. And moreover, we wholly decline to accept the theory laid down by some critics, that this action of resistance to the effect of wind on light drapery is by itself a sufficient motive for a large oil picture. If Mr. Moore and Mr. Armstrong would study the small vignettes of Stotbard or the designs of Flaxman on Wedgwood plaques, they would find that most of the beauty of these pictures (except the colour, which is not perfect), could be conveyed as well, or better, in a few simple lines, and in the space of a few square inches. But the works of the little clique to which these two artists belong would not be what they are with- out a refined sensibility to certain kinds of beauty which might be exercised in a larger field. What tends to narrow their school, and place it in opposition to other departments of Art, is the virtual denial by its supporters that refinement and sensibility may exist in many other matters wherein a painter is called upon to exercise his taste besides those of purely sensuous beauty. In every walk of Art, it is a delicacy of perception of one kind or another which is above all things needful to the highest success ; and there are all sorts of opposite extremes, between which the greatest nicety is required to steer in the true course. To be dramatic and not theatrical, pathetic and not sentimental, humor- ous but not grotesque, forcible without vulgarity, characteristic without caricature, original without being eccentric, individual without mannerism, to be true but not common-place, and to generalize without becoming conventional,—all these are problems affording tests whereby the taste of an artist may be as fairly tried as in the laying-on of colour and the matching and gradation of hues. Let us pass on to some of these more sublunary spheres of Art.
We can call to mind but three artists of our school who exhibit in their works a sense of the purer and more refined order of humour. They are Mr. Marks, Mr. Hodgson, and Mr. Storey. This year, however, it is only the first two who give specimens of their quality in this respect. Both of them have been received into the charmed ranks of the Academy within the last few years, but neither has as yet succumbed to that deadening sense of security which seems to check the efforts at improvement on the part of so many of our painters, after they have once acquired a name and social dignity. Happily Mears. Marks and Hodgson are still taking pains, and they have never painted better than in " A Page of Rabelais " (388) by the former, and " Returning the Salute" (286) by the latter. And while each is advancing in technical power, both have risen to the same point of nice discrimination in their con- ception of character. But they started from different points on their upward journey. Mr. Marks began with something closely allied to caricature, and has been gradually gaining in refinement
ever since. In sober truthfulness be had never equalled the portrait of a retired military officer arranging stuffed birds, which be showed us last year ; and now there is no tendency to the gro- tesque, either in his strike among the masons employed on a gentleman's house in the sixteenth century (179) ; or in this de- lightful picture of a student strolling by some park paling; and chuckling over the fun of the old French humourist. That Mr. Marks has always had an eye to popular success, one may see by his frequent choice of telling subject and taking title, but it is to the credit of his taste and conscience as an artist that he has not been content with a facility of this kind. A present habit which he has of selecting Shakaperian mottoes for all his pictures seems in accord with a kind of voluntary restraint of his exuber- ance. The same point at which Mr. Marks has arrived through some suppression of the sensational element, Mr. Hodgson has reached by the contrary process of development. In his picture last year of " Jack Ashore," and in a greater degree in his present one of a black slave at Tangier being forced forward by Moorish guards to fire a rusty gun which will probably burst, he relies more than he used to do on the comic nature of the incident. But the fun of the thing is by no means overdone. There is nothing of the clown and hot-poker business about it. A marked foreboding in all the faces is nevertheless shrouded in Eastern dignity, while that of the foremost has at the same time a perceptible spice of satisfaction at the poor negro's unconcealed fear. There is a fine glow of sunset over the bay wherein H.M.S. Sultan' lies, having just fired the salute which has to be answered ; and the whole picture is painted with care. The only questionable part is the negro's white drapery, which seems rather too coarsely handled, even with a view to the effect of contrast on the rest of the picture, besides being a trifle colder in colour than it would be in the warm light. Both Mr. Hodgson and Mr. Marks have so much perception of what does not belong to any particular age or nation, that we wish they would sometimes draw from the fund of material which lies round about us in our own time and country. The jack-tar of the one and the old naturalist of the other show their respective capacities in this direction. Mr. Storey, whom we have named in connection with these two painters, in virtue of what be has done before, notably in the picture called "Scandal," exhibited last year, has a vein of delicate humour much more allied to pathos than that of the others, but he does not show its comic side at all on this occasion. He has, however, done what we wish they would attempt, and given us a scene from real life in the singularly unaffected picture of little blue-clad Canterbury charity-girls, trooping forth to church from under the old brick gateway (66), all of them portraits, including the lame child with the crutch, an element of sadness quite in harmony with the con- ception. If there is not the like sense of humour, there is the same instinctive avoidance of exaggeration in the pretty and truthful bits of English life by Mr. Yeames, another of the Asso- ciates who has not yet left off taking pains. His old hall at Cothele (412), with young ladies arranging flowers, and a young gentleman being shown the armour and other relics on the wall, is full of air and sunshine in more than the literal sense, and is just the kind of picture that it would be pleasant to live with. Mr. Eyre Crowe portrays very truly, and with the variety fairly arising out of the subject, a characteristic scene of existing life, which was worth painting and preserving, in his '• Dinner Hour" (676), where a party of clean-looking Wigan factory girls, with their gay kerchiefs, are taking their mid-day meal in the centre of the street. This, and his more grim scene (537), where parties are gleaning the refuse or "spoil" bank of a neighbouring colliery for fragments of coal, are examples of a fund of neglected material, out of which, despite its sober colouring, a true artist may find not only noble, but also picturesque motives. The first of these pictures receives less attention than it deserves because it lies between two others, also of modern life, that attract notice by virtue of the exaggeration which Mr. Crowe so happily avoids. One of them, by a professed caricaturist, F. Barnard, represents " The Crowd before the Guard's Band, St. James's Park" (684), and is clever and amusing enough as a confused congrega- tion of grotesque figures, each characteristic of a class. The other, called " The Rightful Heir" (675), by Mr. G. Smith, is also clever and amusing, but in a different way, namely, as a specimen of the extreme limit to which the theatrical school of art can be carried in a certain direction. It is neither more nor less than the denouement of a modern drama of the most absurdly conventional kind, and it must be admitted that the play is as carefully and realistically mounted as such things usually are on the stage.
To a foreign artist settled in this country the credit is due of painting the most elaborate, and in some respects one of the most truthful, representations of a scene in English life of the present. day. M. Tissot's " Ball on Shipboard " (690), in bright sunshine. on the Solent, under an awning of flags, if somewhat too white in colour, and needlessly dazzling in its arrangement of black and white, is painted with care and refinement, and some of the groups have considerable grace. Except in the case. of the old officer, whose large profile is just seen on the left, and who is an unmitigated Frenchman, M. Tiesot is fairly successful in his attempt to depict an English type of face, and he is peculiarly so in his group of " London Visitors " (116), on the steps of the National Gallery ; but there is a same- ness in his models of young ladies, and though we admit them to be English, they are so rather as seen from the French than from• the English point of view. Mr. Calderon's, or Mr. Yeames's, or even Mr. Frith's less distingue type of young lady is more national' to native eyes. With the exception of Mr. Prinsep's excellent group of gipsies on Newmarket Heath, trudging to the races (943), where the leading figure has a natural dignity of carriage,. we remember but few other noteworthy examples of pictures of existing life, where the artist has not in some way endeavoured to import a sensational incident, and to point a moral or adorn a. tale. One picture, however, taken from times long past, is con- ceived in so consistent a spirit, that it may almost be looked upon' as the reflection of an age once living. We refer to Mr. Bough- ton's charming dream of the pleasant blossoming spring-time of Chaucer's day, when " longen folk to gon on pilgrimage." It re- presents an open bit of country, with a quiet, quaint, old town- beyond a white road ; a holy well and cross and village maids ; and, straggling all about, the groups of lazy "Pilgrims setting out for Canterbury" (982). To come back to the pre- sent time, and more sensational incidents, it is scarcely possible to find anything, except Israels' " Anxious Family,' in which drama is not tinged with melodrama, or pathos weakened by sentimentality. In Mr. Feed's return of a disobedient daughter to her cottage-home to be " Forgiven " (227), the natural expres- sion loses its proper effect through faults of drawing and careless painting. The child, it will be observed, sits upon nothing ; and the way in which so much light has got into the cottage, though it is nearly dark outside, is as much a problem as the course by which the repentant lassie could have come in. Mr. Holl's picture of a deserted child (487) being carried off by two policemen near the Docks is excellent in the unexaggerated truth of the indi- vidual figures. The elderly gentleman behind is evidently the same Jew pawnbroker to whom the mother pawned her wedding- ring in Mr. Holl's last (and better) picture. But the whole is made theatrical by needless devices. The mother, a few yards off, could not fail to be seen ; it is impossible to say how far off the old woman is who grubs on the ground to the right ; and the principal group has been polished up into inconsistent distinct- ness, as if dust or damp had been wiped off the centre of the picture with a handkerchief. Mr. Stone relies more than usual' upon sentiment, but paints with greater vigour in a modern scene of a ditcher embracing his wife and family outside a park wall, while my lady, "widowed and childless" (106), envies her from within. Mr. P. R. Morris produces a more satisfactory picture than either, because he does not seek to make us cry over a pair of travelling performers, an old man, and a very graceful girl, waiting at a ferry at the " End of the Journey " (1020). Mr.. Maclean runs off the rails at a different point, in his endeavour to elevate the type of the costerwoman of "Covent Garden Market" (531). We need the date, 1873, appended, as it is in the cata- logue, to assure us that this is not Covent Garden in the time of the Caracci. But the catalogue does more for us than. this. It describes at some length the pictures of Mr. and Mrs. E. M. Ward and Mr. Cope, the large altar-piece by Mr. Horsley,. and Mr. Herbert's " Adoration of the Magi," together with a few other pictures in more need of interpretation.
We have no space left to criticise the large class of pictures. of events which the painters never saw, but have made up from models and dresses in the studio, and we are conscious of having passed over many noteworthy works of various kinds ; but, as we said at the beginning of our first notice, our chosen course has been to deal too largely with the few, rather than comment too slightly on the many. We may, however, name the following pictures as among things to be looked at, some, but not all, of which might be passed over, as being ill-hung or not sufficiently showy :—" A Cup of Tea " (13), by C. E. Perugini ; "A Safe Confidant " (27), by V. C. Prinsep ; "Spring-tide in Ramsey Race" (114), by C. P. Knight ; " Homeward Bound" (126), by J. G. Naish ; " Pot-pourri" (129), by G. D. Leslie ; "Half-hours with the Best Authors" (166), by P.tH. Calderon ; " A State Secret" (223), by Mr. Pettie ; " On Mousehold Heath, Norwich " (251), by S. Elton ; " Apollo " (260), by Briton Riviere ; " A French Lane" (270), by H. W. B. Davis ; "Joseph, Overseer of Pharaoh's Granaries " (300), by L. Alma-Tadema ; " The Por- tion of the Poor" (319), by P. Sadee ; "The Queen of the Tournament " (335), by P. H. Calderon ; "The Vagabond " (340), by H. H. Canty ; " A Lady receiving Visitors " (354), and other pictures, by J. F. Lewis ; " The Morning Watch " (433), by R. Leslie ; " Old Nall at Algiers " (438), by A. Ditchfield ; " Portraits " (450), by J. Archer ; " Through the Wood " (456), by J. R. Herbert ; " Heath Scene " (472), by G. Cole ; " Let the hills be joyful" (533), by J. S. Raven ; "Lath in the Day " (536), by J. L. Pickering ; " A Visit from the Inquisitors " (546), by D. W. Wynfield ; "The Wild Duck's Haunt" (560), by J. H. Davies ; " From Naxos" (572), by H. Wallis ; "The Convent Boat" (584), by A. Hughes; "The Embankment" (588), by J. O'Connor ; " Expectation " (621), by J. Israels ; " Homeless, Ragged, and Tanned " (624), by F. Morgan ; " Corporal Trim " (625), by W. M. Egley ; " Holmbury Hill" (633), by F. Walton ; " The Doctor's Visit" (658), by J. A. Heyermans ; " Baron Von S." (685), by 0. Weber, particularly good ; " Ulysses at the Plough" (710), by H. Hardy ; " Ruined " (719), by H. Bource ; " Tea it a Russo " (728), by Sir H. Thompson ; " Near Towyn" (922), and " Sand Hills" (929), by E. Ellis ; " Knucklebones" (948), by W. Macatren ; " Mr. Heatherley's Holiday " (959), by S. Butler ; " My Doll's Picnic " (962), by Miss Epps ; " A Sandy Bit of Road " (976), by J. IV. Oakes ; " Clytemnestra" (981), by F. Leighton, which should have been noticed at length ; " Portraits " (985), by J. C. Moore ; " May it Please Your Majesty" (1022), by C. Green ; " Wintry Sunshine" (1030), by C. H. Brockman ; " Purpureal Eve" (1036), by W. Field ; " Fox- hounds in Kennel" (1045), by Eyre Crowe ; "The Old Sailor's Museum " (1332), by A. Stocks ; " A Moorland " (1349), by J. Knight ; "Roman Cattle Market" (1398), by C. H. Poindestre ; "The Winged Pensioners of Assissi " (1414), by F. W, IV. Topham ; and among many portraits, that of John Bright (112), by L. Dickinson.
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