ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE ANNUALS—CONTINUED. HEATH'S PICTURESQUE ANNUAL.
Our Annual Tourists seem resolved to leave no quarter of the globe unexplored; and the fireside traveller, snugly seated in his easy chair, may expect to be transported ere long to the interior of Africa or the wilds of Iceland. While Davit) RouenTs has been basking in the sun, sketching the remains of Moorish magnificence in Spain, ALFRED VicitEas has been braving the bleak atmosphere of Russia for our gratification : his views in St. Petersburg and Moscow form the illus- trations of this year's Picturesque Annual. We can very readily suppose, without pictorial evidence, that the features of Russian landscape scenery are monotonous and desolate, if not repulsive ; but we were not prepared to expect that the two great cities of Russia would afford so little scope for the pencil of the artist, as, judging from these views, they appear to do. The scenes, though bright and even sunny, have that blank, cold, and cheerless aspect which we associate with the country; but they are deficient in that character of magnificence and vastness which we also expected to find. The streets of St. Petersburg are wide and spacious, and the buildings extensive ; but they convey no effect of grandeur. These drawbacks are probably to be ascribed, in part, to the youth and inexperience of the artist ; who has not yet ac- quired the practised skill requisite to make unpromising subjects at• tractive, nor the tact to choose the point of view best adapted to
render them so. ALFRED VICKERS waS known principally as a painter of marine pieces ; in which his skill in drawing ship- ping and craft was aided by a successful imitation of the manner of BONINGTON and STANFIELD. His pictures, moreover, evinced great promise in the imitation of nature as regarded sea and sky ; and he displayed considerable tact for pictorial arrangement and
effect. But the vigour and freshness of original genius and the ripeness of matured judgment were wanting : indeed, to say the truth, we thought his talent rather overrated. We are therefore not so much disappointed with the artist himself, as with the result of his labours. Not that we question the fidelity of the views ; we only remark their unimpressive character. They do not interest us, as they might have been supposed to do from their novelty alone. The architectural beauties of St. Petersburg appear to be neither numerous nor striking ; and the width and straightness of the main streets make the buildings less available for picturesque effects of grouping, and produce a mono- tony which the quays and canals do not tend to lessen. There is no want of light and air in these views : the clouds are spongy, the sun is bright like that of a winter noon ; the atmosphere is clear; the water is transparent ; and the coldness of tbe climate seems congenially re- presented in the artist's hard manner. But the pictorial effects are not so strikingly characteristic as they might be : for instance, out of five- and-twenty scenes in Russia, only one is represented under the ap- pearance of snow.
The principal objects introduced in the views of St. Petersburg are, the Admiralty,—a moonlight view of which is one of the most effec- tive of the series ; its spacious Square, with the Column of Alexander ; the bridge of boats adjoining ; the Kazan Church, with its dome and semicircular colonnade,—the interior of which reminds us of St. Paul's ; the Nikolskoi Church, whose tall spire is seen in the title vignette ; the Troitskoi Church, and the drawbridge near it, adorned with four pavilions, seen under a beautiful effect of sunlight ; a main street called the " Navskoi Prospect ; " the Haymarket, with groups of market-people; the Fortress ; the Bourse ; and the Smolnoi Convent ; the last two being marine views, and full of life and motion, which all the rest very much want. The views of Moscow are at least curious on account of their archi- tectural peculiarities. The buildings remind us of the fantastic struc- tures that are represented in the scenery of stage-shows as giants' or enchanters castles ; consisting of an incongruous mixture of castellated walls, Gothic spires, and Moorish cupolas. The great Church, the Tower of Ivan, Krasnoi Square, and the City Gates, are all different, but alike strange and barbarous. The Kremlin, however, constitutes the main attraction of Moscow ; and the appearance of this immense mass of buildings—where every style of architecture may be traced in an uncouth and vitiated shape in its numerous parts--is imposing from its mere extent. The views of Moscow are among the best of the series., for the subjects are picturesque, the points of view appear to be better chosen, and the pictorial effects—especially in those of the Kremlin—are bold and striking. The appearances of snow, sunlight, and storm, are vividly natural. Indeed they almost make us suspect— what we would willingly believe—that the want of picturesque beauty
in some of the Petersburg views is less the fault of the esti...0 than the defect of the place itself.
The engravings are executed with that finish and brilliancy which distinguish all the works produced under the direction of CHARLES HEATIL THE FORGET ME NOT.
The only one of the designs that illustrate the contents of the Forget Me Not—or that its contents illustrate—which is free from theatrical af- fectation, is the figure of an actress in character ! But then, it is by EDWIN LANDSEER ; whose perfect mastery of his art enables him to paint nature as she is, and whose pictures therefore have that com- pleteness and reality for which they are inimitable. It is an imaginarr portrait of " The Actress at the Duke's,"—who, we suppose, is the heroine of sonic story ; but it looks as if it had been sketched from life. It represents a pretty little girl in the costume of an old woman; and she looks, as she ought to be, unconscious of the contrast between her youthful fire and antique dress. The treatment of the subject ia simple and unostentatious : CitaLots would have run into excess had he had such a one to treat. The handsome young lady in her boudoir, by Miss LOUISA SHARPE, called " Juliana," looks more of an actress: for, like most of the pie:orial heroines—of which, however, she is not one of the least agreeable—she seems to be playing a part. " The Dying Sister," by Miss ELIZA SHARPE, is a scene that ought to be impressive ; the mere pictorial effect is so, indeed : but the little girl holding her dying sister's hand looks as if she were mimicking a doctor feeling a pulse ; and the mother stands like a painter's model, in a pic- turesque attitude of grief. " Confession," by F. STONE, is quite a stage-scene: the young lady with clasped hands and upturned eyes re- minds us of FANNY KEMBLE ; and her father (we suppose) looks up at her under his brows just as any melodramatic chieftain would do in a play : neither of them are in earnest. " King Alfred's Return," by Haler, is just such a picture of himself in the character as the Young Bosch's might have coveted : and his mother and the bard also are cor- respondingly theatrical. " The Young Enchanter "—Cupid caressing a nymph, by JouN WOOD—might form a pretty group in one of VEs- Tars's mythological burlettas, with the addition of a little muslin for decorum's sake. " Cromwell's Daughter" looks as if she were sitting for her picture to Mr. FisE, who has painted her. " The Dance of
the Peasants," by It. T. BoisE, is a pleasing picture, though artificial in its composition ; the peasants look like nymphs, and the other groups
are too set in their arrangement and action. " The Shepherdess," by IIANcock, is a delightful embowered scene ; only the sheep are of the biggest, and the shepherdess does not seem to care for them ; more-
over, she is EDWIN IANDSEER'S property. An effective sketch of the Porch of Chartres Cathedral, by Paotrr, completes the list of embel- lishments.
FRIENDSHIP'S OFFERING.
The illustrations of Friendship's Offering seem to have been selected rather as pretty embellishments for a picture-hook, than as specimens of art : they are of a very commonplace character, viewed in this light, and our criticism of them may therefore appear too severe to those who regard them as book ornaments merely. " The Black Seal " is a graceful design, by JOHN WOOD, spoiled by his preferring artifice to nature. The lady who stands up—she is almost preternaturally tall, by the by—turns her bead aside with downcast eyes, in an elegant at- titude, instead of bending over her companion in grief, as she would naturally do : this makes her appear insincere, and the attitude of the other constrained. A turn of the head is a little matter, but it may make the difference between earnestness and affectation. " The Pet "— a lady playing with a squirrel—is a very pleasing little picture, by Miss FANNY CORBAUX. " The Would-be Ninon," by S. J. E. JONES, we should have taken for one of STEPAANOFF'S affected and over- wrought designs. There is no mistaking RICHTER in that of "The Evening Hymn." " The Friends," by JOHN WRIGHT—tWO females reading from one book—is a nice bit of nature: the fair readers seem intent and at their ease. STONE'S portrait of Mrs. Leicester Stanhope is a cleverly made-up picture, though hard, like all his drawings. of the character of the likeness we cannot judge : the lady displays an ample bust, but this may only be the pictorial fashion of the artist; for a fancy head by PARRIS, called "Time Countess," surmounts a pair of shoulders of still more portentous breadth, without taking into account the expanding epaulettes of blonde that fall over the balloon-like sleeve. A portrait of a fine-lookinggirl in the attitude of LAWRENCE'S of Fanny Kemble, by JOHN WOOD, called" Arabella"—a staring por- trait of a round-faced girl in full dress by 114mm:es—and an ornamental landscape, composed from CLAUDE, TURNER, HARDING, and others, by. PURSER—complete the attractions.
The engravings are all highly-finished. That of Mrs. Leicester Stanhope, by C. Rou.s, is an exquisite specimen of the line manner.
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