FINE ARTS.
EXHIBITION IN WESTMINSTER HALL : THE PRIZE PICTURES.
THE fourth and last exhibition of works of art under the auspices of the Fine Arts Commission is now open to the public—at present on payment of a shilling for admittance; after two more weeks, gratuitously. This collection is one of pictures painted in oils, on subjects selected by the artists, with the limitation that they were "required to come under the general classes of religion, history, and poetry." It is understood that one hundred and sixty works were sent in; of that number one hundred and twenty have been selected as possessing sufficient merit for exhibition, and they cover not only the four walls of Westminster Hall, but also the two sides of a screen which extends nearly the whole length of the hall. Al- though the place is indifferently lighted for the display of pictures, the general aspect of the temporary gallery, clothed and animated by the genie/ hues of painting, is agreeable and imposing. The collection may be considered from three points of ViaW,—aa to the specific object of finding the proper persons to adorn the national Senate- house; as to the progress of the individual painters: as to the state of a4 in this country. With respect to the second point, the pictures. we think, show a decided advance on the cartoons and frescoes, not only in the treat- ment of the painting, and what might be considered ilicideutal to the more familiar vehicle of oils, but most especially in the design. So with respect to the progress of art, we hold that at no former time could so many young painters of merit have been gathered together in this country. The dis- covery of the artists to decorate the national Senate-house is a question of less obvious solution; and the very promise discernible in these pictures is an inducement not to attempt a premature solution. There can be no rea- son for painting the whole building from top to bottom at once; but the process might go on with the development of competent artists. There are high precedents for such a course: the great Ducal Palace at Venice, for instance, which is adorned with the works of several generations.
In noticing the individual pictures, we must for the present confine our- selves to those which have obtained prizes; reserving others, by no mean* less remarkable, for a subsequent notice.
First in the list is the " Burial of Harold at Waltham Abbey," by F. ft Pickersgill. It is an able and meritorious picture, with considerable power in the drawing, effective colouring, and a judicious unity in the composi- tion both of forms and chiaroscuro. In the last respect it is superior to most of the pictures in the exhibition. The vigour with which the Forms are brought out in relief, and the appropriate sobriety of the local colours, impart to the picture a material impressiveness. In the more vital elements of design and expression it falls short. There is au ungainly sameness ha the stiff-backed stoop of the people lowering the body into the grave. The countenances are stamped with emotion, but so little like that uf excessive grief as to raise a doubt whether the painter ever witnessed excessive grief in its full expression. Unfortunately for English painters, such a lack of experience is by no means impossible in England: although the English have their emotions, and pique themselves on " depth of feeling," they are not a demonstrative people; the whole training of our manners tends to the suppression of outward emotion; hence we not only deprive the painter—, who has to represent the inner emotions by their outward signs—of his proper materials, of a most needful exponent, but actually warp the judg- ment of painter and spectator; so that the expression which in a state of less stringently artificial control would be the natural exponent of a strong emotion becomes actually offensive or ridiculous. Hence two consequences* for a knowledge of human nature in her most picturesque aspects, the painter is driven to the second-hand sources of previous painters; and la the most salient parts of his picture he is bound down not to put forth all that the occasion demands, so that he produces a dry studied paraphrase of what would be natural expression, or a blank. Such is too much the case with Mr. Pickersgill's picture. The glaring eyes of the priest offici.:- ating represent no emotion in particular, and his features are unmoved. The well-trained countenance of Edith expresses something between gems. me grief and mere chagrin: her frame sinks with emotion, but her lace ii that of a modern English lady, in whom habits of polite self-control triumph over the incidents of mortality. The next prize painting displays more animation: it is Mr. G. F. Watts's! "Alfred inciting the Saxons to prevent the landing of the Danes, by en- countering them at sea." The young Alfred, with arms and sword ex- tended, calls upon his followers to enter a boat; they lean forward with eagerness, and some are scrambling into the bark. Boldness, freedom ef conception in the action, and life, are characteristics of the performance. But it falls in all respects so far short of its pretensions, that we must say, judged by those, it has no right to be accounted more than a student'l sketch. Mr. Watts has chosen a sober and flat style of colouring, after the manner of the Florentines, who waived colouring, and relied upon drawing and design. He pushes that licence to the extreme when be makes Alfred's face a pale brown that does not bear even a general resemblance to nature. In composition of action, and in drawing, Mr. Watts is laudably daring; but his study has not yet qualified him as a master. It would be difficult for him to justify in detail the anatomy of the two figures scrambling into the boat. To specify an instance: that suspended left leg is tolerably fair as a sketch; but either it is deficient in length, or else (if it is in- tended to be as much foreshortened as we suppose) in amplitude of the section. To justify the contraction and bend of the extreme outline, the transverse outline of the calf (gastrocnemius) under the knee should have been fuller and more elevated. Independently of these matters of detail; the figures want amplitude and weight; the action strength and dignity, the limbs of the Alfred have a pauper meagreness of outline. We are now judging Mr. Watts entirely by the pretensions implied iu the abnegation of the manner which he has chosen. To deny very considerable merit and promise is impossible: but he is not yet strong enough to introduce a Flo- rentine style into English art; he is not enough master of his purpose fitly to be a candidate for painting works to endure in a national edifice. Mr. Armitage takes a lower aim, and attains nearer to accomplishment. His "Battle of Meeanee" belongs to a less exalted school, but its execu- tion is more complete. Were it painted on the walls of Parliament, it might hereafter be taken to prove that art had not attained a very high pitch in England in 1847; but the spectator would not be able to reproach. the artist, from the internal evidence of his own work, with being a mere apprentice at his chosen craft. It is, like Mr. Watts's, full of satiation; the action is more living, the drawing is far more masterly. But there. is no unity of design, no symmetry of composition. It is merely imitative, and in many respects resembles a scene painted for a panorama. The sturdy red-coated English soldiers rushing forward with the deadly bayonet —the horsed Beloochees' with crescent sabres and barbaric eagerness—are mingled pell-mell in the foreground and right-hand section of the picture; at the back, towards the left, is the veteran Napier. In these distant figures is seen the stunted proportion, which Mr. Armitage has drawn per- haps from his French models and imported with his vigorous drawing. It is a great fault of art that the confusion of the battle should extend to the composition of the picture. Nature, in all great actions, is apt to fall into. symmetrical combinations, which not only justify the rhythm that all the arts require, but are in fact the natural exponent of unity of purpose. 'I hey arise from concentration of action; they are needed to concentrate the attention of the spectator. In "Richard Ccenr de Lion forgiving Bertrand de Gonrdon," by Kr.' Cross we come back to a style full of conventional faults and of higher natural qualities. Richard lies in bed wounded by the arrow of Bertrand; whom he threatens with death: Bertrand recalls the death of his kinsmen by Richard's hand; and, struck with the justice of the reproof, the King Orders his prisoner to be released. Richard is painted with the aspect tra- ditionally attributed in paintings to Christ; and is so far a misconception, for certainly there was little in common between Jesus of Nazareth and Richard of England, even when the King was under the transitory meek- ness of bodily infirmity. The attendant figures are forcibly and effectively painted, especially the mailed man who is unbinding Bertrand, with the cool energy of great bodily power. Bertrand is excellent: his attitude is self-possessed and bold; but his daring face seems to be suddenly dashed with surprise and regretful shame at the unexpected manifestation of Richard's generosity. There is no lack of emotion, well conceived and adequately expressed, in this face. The composition of the picture is dis- figured by a tendency to dispose the figures in the same planes. Among the attendants, towards the spectator's right hand, is a face so strikingly like an illustrious contemporary, that it provokes the question, whether, among his innumerable avocations, Lord Brougham has been playing model to Mr. Cross?
Mr. Poole's picture of "Edward's Generosity to the People of Calais, in 1346," displays feeling in the individual figures; but the composition of the picture is offensively inartificiaL It has been remarked that the figures are ranged in twos: they are also ranged so as to front the spectator, like a chorus of singers on the stage. Those who judge a work of art chiefly by its purpose and moral intent would give a high place to this picture: but a work of art is not to be judged by its moral intent; it must be taken for what it is, a substantive creation. With imperfect development, even the moral purpose is thwarted; for, however forcible the sentiment of the painter may be, if his expression be feeble so is the impression; and a work of art must be criticized less by its intent than by its effect. There is an apparent exception to this rule, but it is only apparent: a work of art may produce a great impression although its technical execution is imperfect; but that is when the leading idea is original, great, and impressive, in spite of the faulty exponent—where a truly great idea strikes us through a poor work. The feeling in Mr. Poole's picture is scarcely singular enough in originality or greatness for that result; nor is his picture so poor in exe- cution as compared with its moral as to need that sort of transitive Criticism.
Mr. Noel Paton receives a prize in respect of two paintings—" The Re- conciliation of Oberon and Titania," and the "Christ bearing the Cross." The artist is a young Scotchman, feeling his way to a style. We are dis- posed, like the Commissioners, to take the pictures cumulatively. The Scriptural design is a cento from older pictures; but it may be received as a proof, hitherto deficient in Mr. Paton's works, that he has a feeling for symmetrical composition and concentrated design, and an undeveloped power of portraying the human form with strength and dignity. The con- ception is feeble; but the parts of the picture are distinct; the action is free and lifelike; the expression is touching; and the colouring, if crude, indi- cates a right feeling. The want of originality, so apparent in the Scriptural picture, riots with exuberant fancy in the fairy scene; and that, again, is altogether wanting in unity of design. The main subject and the principal figures are tamely treated; but the painter has devoted himself with more heart to the several parts. The midnight forest swarms with an in- numerable host of fairies—some like lovely women, some monstrous little Imps; some at pure mischief; some in amorous dalliance, of which the vo- luptuous licence is redeemed by extreme grace and poetic faith. Any one of these separate groups is a picture in itself. Take a sample. On a little patch of water is a something which may be bubble or transparent shell; within it reclines a lady fay; others, beautiful as miniature hernia, are sportively helping its progress; and on it stands the charioteer, a micro- scopic Ariel, whose whole body is a deep crimson. This group is as fantas- tical as it is beautiful: it has the very genius of faery in it. The picture is executed with a laborious minuteness, exquisite delicacy, and a very considerable power of drawing. Courtly chroniclers record that Queen Victoria spent long time in conning the voluminous details of this painted lyric.
Mr. James Eckford Lauder likewise receives a prize in respect of two pictures—" The Parable of Forgiveness," and " Wisdom " ; both illustra- tions of Scriptural texts; both designed with much grace; but neither quite free from a commonplace "smugness." The story of the parable is well told, and the figures are gracefully designed.
"The Departure of the Pilgrim Fathers," by Mr. Charles Lucy—a ta- bleau vivant after the manner of the stage, on a religious theme—is not de- void of feeling; but it is poor in all respects, for even the feeling is super- ficially conceived and feebly expressed.
The last of the prize pictures is Mr. John Callcott Horsley's: "Henry the Fifth when Prince of Wales, believing the King to be dead, takes the crown from the cushion." It is a favourable specimen of the conventional man- ner. The King reposing is designed with much dignity and ease, and is suitably thrown into a deep shadow by the bed-curtains. The figure of the Prince, richly clothed, young and lithe, stands erect with arms uplifted in the act of self-coronation. His face flushes and his eyes glisten with an exultation so intense that it becomes solemn and majestic. The spirit of the scene is well caught; but, as a consequence of the style that distin- guishes the contemporary English school, while the face, which should be the principal point in the picture, is obscured, the more from its purplish tinge, the whole picture is overlaid by its own costume and accessories. It Is they which first strike you: the living part, which is the painter's chief merit, must be sought out.
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