lint arts.

THE It OT.AL ACADEMY EXHIBITION—THIRD VISIT.

The latter half of the West Room, the small North and South Rooms, sanctuaries of miniature and architectural art, and the sculpture-recept- acle, remain for our inspection.

Mr. Halliday's picture, "The Measure for the Wedding-ring," ex- plains its subject by its title, and stands in little need of explanation at all. Two lovers, persons of refined society, have paid a visit to an old feudal ruin, and the suitor is taking the measure of his lady's finger. There is a manly English character about him, and much tender confi- dence in her, marred somewhat by too "full-blown" a character of face. The painting is in parts too thin, and the general treatment has a matter-of-fact tendency; but the study and resolute truth-telling which it displays are the sure discipline for a young painter. Of Mr. Hook's landscape subjects we have already spoken in general terms. "The Fisherman's Good Night," however, where the handsome stalwart father clips his boy's rosy checks before descending the ladder to the beach and launching on the far-down grey-shadowed greenness of the evening sea, is so lovely that we cannot forbear front referring to it. "April Love," by Mr. Hughes, is full of grace and sweetness,—implying a delicate sensitiveness in the artist, which induce all he (low, whether as regards conception or execution, with a character of beauty. In this-picture, a fair golden-haired young girl is standing in a summer-house, ivy-grown and lilac-shaded, and yields her hand, timidly but not grudgingly, to a young man who kneels outside. There has evi- dently been a little lovers' quarrel in the matter, and the tears upon her cheek are as much tears of gladness that it is overflow as anything else. A blemish in the work is the uncomfortable way in which the man's head is introduced, so that it requires some scrutiny to know what it is, and what he is doing; and the green of the vegetation, especially where sun- lit, inclines overmuch to a bluish tinge. "The Heir cast out of the Vineyard," by Mr. W. Cave Thomas, is remarkable for the intellectual aim controlling the treatment of the symbolic subject throughout. The parable being a type of Christ's mission and rejection, various incidents of the passion are used in its embodiment : one of the rebellious hus- bandmen plies the scourge, one brings a cross as the instrument of death, one plucks thorns for the crown of scorn and anguish, while a woman, whose figure suggests the Madonna, pleads with the tormentors. In the distance appear the avengers come to execute judgment upon them. The chief figure among the huabandmen has a face strong, sot, and hard,— the face of a man of mind " without God in the world." It is probably also with a symbolic view that the costumes of different periods are brought together, and that, while though all the personages are in action, the composition presents a certain appearance of fixity, which interferes with its effect as a work of art. Mr. Thomas's entinenee as one of the first draughtsmen in the country is visible in this picture, which, though , it may not gain sympathy from many, ought to command the respect 1 of all. ' The works in the Miniature Room requiring detailed specification are few. In miniatures, there is perhaps less of a first-rate character than usual; but various water-colours, such as those of Miss B. L. Smith and Mr. Seddon, arc of a high class. Mr. Hunt's three are most valuable and interesting as records of memorable scenes traced by a master-hand with the severest truth. The subjects are a "View from the Mount of Offence, looking towards the Dead Sea and the Mountains of Moab—Morning,"—where the tints of distance on hills and sea are peculiarly subtile and aerial; "Jerusalem by Moonlight, looking over the site of the Temple to the Mount of Olives,"—which should be viewed from a little distance, when the green greys of the moonlight, the deep russet shadows, and the lights from the interior of buildings, tell out with surprising effect; and "The Sphinx, Gizeh, looking to- wards the Pyramids of Sakhara,"—a burnished snake lying crushed in the foreground amid the red arid waste of sand. Another very powerful work is "The Bottom of the Ravine at Inkermann, from a sketch taken on the spot four months after the Battle," by Mr. Armitage. Human

death and decay on the one hand, inorganic nature on the other burst- ing into new life and beauty, could scarcely be more impressively con- trasted; the contrast being doubtless not the artist's, but Nature's own. One of the brave dead, who lie thickly about the terrible copse, has his face hidden by the upspringing of crocuses, and between the very fingers of the hand rigid and cramped in death the -crocuses again are shooting their amber heads. This is a strong, stern, dignified piece of work, in all respects. In the Architecture Room we again meet Mr. Hughes. His picture in three compartments from Keats's "Eve of St. Agnes," is on the whole, after 'Millais's "Autumn Leaves," the most striking thing in the Exhibi- tion as a work painted for a beautiful and intense effect of colour. The same prevailing chord of colour—greens and purples setting each other

off by exquisitely-managed contrasts—is apparent here as in the "April Love" ; but here it is a matter of effect more than of local hues, and is

the more difficult and splendid in consequence. The first compartment is early moonlight out of doors, with glowing lights from within: Por- phyry advances to the perilous castle which holds his Madeline. The second is moonlight at the dead night-hour in Madeline's chamber—the great painted window flooded by the moon-rays, and all within brilliant - in their glory, yet uncertain and mysterious. Madeline, at Po hyro's playing, starts awake, half seared, half impassioned, and stall all dreamy and tender from her spell-guarded sleep. This is a most lovely figure, imagined in a true spirit of poetry. The third compartment presents the lovers reaching the castle-door in their flight; the effect being that of lamplight, instead of moonlight, but managed -well in harmony with the others. In details, much-might be pointed outfor admiration—something

for dispraise ; the figure of Porphyro is not in any instance satisfactory, and the thought of the picture, if we except the waking Madeline, is confined to the artistic invention of effect and colour. In these respects, however, there is so much of perfect instinct and deep feeling, and the work takes, on these grounds, so marked a position of its own, that other considerations become secondary. Mr. Hughes will henceforward be one of the men on whom we may securely count for an exercise of the artistic faculty in its most intrinsic essence and in supreme degree. Mr. Martineau has treated the story of the prison-flower " Picciola" in a spirit of sin- cerity and accuracy, which makes his work honourable and in a sense interesting, although he misses the touch of beauty which makes the idea what it is. From Mr. Anthony comes a "Summer's Eve," in which the hand of the genuine student of Nature, who does not shrink from paint- ing what he sees because it _would look " so strange" or "so outré," is unmistakeable. The flushing carnations of the Eastern sky yield to pro- foundest azure nearer the zenith, against which the pure warm greens of the central tree relieve themselves with an enchanting effect of luminous and vivid harmony. The foreground is scarcely so harmonized in its brightness as the sky and the upper portions of the picture ; but the matter of the whole, characteristic and homely throughout, is raised al- most into abstract beauty by the transforming charm of its sunset hues. Amid the even uncommon mediocrity and conventionalism of the Sculpture-room, one work stands out as almost perfect of its kind—the small female figure named "Love," by Mr. Woolner. As an ex- pression simply of what is beautiful, this could scarcely re- ceive additional grace ; and its exquisitiveness of modelling and finish is something, for our age and country, wholly exceptional. The pensive sweetness of the face, pensive with sentiment, not with care, the form, between maidenly and womanly, uniting the gentle grace of the first period with the achieved development of the second, the poised sway of the body, the tender rounded arms which arrange the hair about the starlike flower within its rich folds, con- stitute a whole of lovely completeness. The figure • is neither Greek nor anti-Greek ; but is an idea of beautiful form, embodied accord- ing to the direct and pure principles of the sculptor's art. From one who understands his art so well we should rejoice to see an application of it to subjects of individual life, such as seem to be imperatively needed if sculpture is to be endowed with life and genuine meaning. The same artist has a noble medallion-portrait of Carlyle, and others which merit far closer examination than their position admits of their obtaining. The "Marble Bust of the Queen" by Baron Marochetti is chiselled with clearness and decision, and reaches, without much posi- tive significance of expression, a certain air of elevation and fineness ; but the likeness is not striking, nor does the work rank with the admira- ble female busts which Marochetti has before exhibited. Mr. Papsvorth junior's "Nymph Surprised" possesses some prettiness of action and contour; Mr. Bandel's "Youthful Achilles" is a talented academic study of pose and form ; and there is a largeness of form and general im- pressiveness of manner about Mr. Davis's "Rebekah," which, with greater character in the head, might have earned more than respect for the work. Mr. Munro's alto-relief "Repose—Study of a Baby in Marble" is re- markably sweet and delicate in feeling, and wrought evidently con amore. The droop of the little head on the left shoulder is tenderly given, and the overhanging blooms of the lily of the valley and other flowers impart at once richness and charm to the general effect. The work serves once more to show how real is Mr. Mum•o's vocation as a sculptor of children. The group of "Miss Agnes Gladstone and her Brother Herbert" enforces the same truth ; the actions being delightfully childlike, and the whole in an 11.11001=011 degree graceful and engaging.

Our supplementary list of works to be commended to the visitor's at- tention swells this week through dealing with the miscellaneous contents of the Miniature and Architecture Rooms, where little lends itself to descriptive analysis, although among the great number of items, several may be praiseworthy or noticeable.

On.-Picrouns.

569. Twilight—Lyndhurst, New Forest.. H. Moore. 576. Bianca F. S. Cary.

625. 993. The Island of Phille, from the South'

The same from the Noch Mount 1E. Lear. 907. Mrs. Coventry Patmore „T. Brett. 1187. The Burn, November ; the Cucullen Hills .T. w Inchbold.

1207. Sunday Morning J. Deane. 1215. F B. Barwel. 1216. The Woods in Summer, Sussex A. Lewis.

1217. From the Cradle to the Grave A. Bankley.

MINIATURES.

700. 710. Mrs. Lowther, The Hon. Mrs. Russell. B. 27rorburn, 724. Lady Selina Vernon H. T. Wells.

848. The Invalid H. C. Heath,

WATER-COLOURS AND DRAWESOS

800. 913. 964. The Sea Grove. At Ventnar. The )3rms B. L. Smith. Margin of the Sea 881. The Good Shepherd W. Doe. 895. Interior of a Deewan T. B. Seddon.

911. Study in Harewood Park T. Sutcliffe.

947. Mont Blanc W. Moore.

981. Portrait of a Lady J. H. Haider. 1003. 1001. Fungi—Bird's Nest and Primroses B. .P. Burchaw.

1009. Luccombe Chine H. A. Bowler.

1149. St. Mark's, Venice G. P. Boyce.

ARCHITECTURE.

1092. The New Hall, City Banks and Barry.

1094. Exeter College, Oxford, showing the templated New Chapel, &c

1115. New Reading-room, British Museum S. Snairke.

1138-'9-'40. Studies in Rome and Venice F. P. Cockerel&

ScaLyroax.

1230. Titania J Lawlor.

1245. Lalage .1. Bell. 1262. Cinderella T. Earle.

1264. Adam and Eve conscious of their Fall H. H. Arm stead.

1268. Girl and Bird F. Thrupp. 1271. Robin Hood Miss S. Durant.

1277. 1371. Professor Bell—Portrait .1. L. Tupper. 1319. Bust of Samuel Rogers W. C. Marshall. con- } G. G. Scott.