Commentary is not yet available.
No. 129,
No. 317,
No. 282,
But perhaps the most admirable work in any class
upon these
walls is Mr. Branwhite's
Long years ago it might befall, When all the garden flowers were trim, The grave old gardener prided him On these the most of all. And lady, stately overmuch, Who moved with a silken noise, Blushed near them, dreaming of the voice That likened her to such.
quotation of
There can now no longer remain a doubt that Mr. C.
Lucy is one of the elect of art destined to contribute to
his epoch. In no painter whose works we can
re–
member is there to be found more of resolute
truth,
while in none is it accompanied by less of the mere
parade of truthfulness.
The increased solidity of thought and manner in
Mr. Lucy's pictures of last year is confirmed in this
exhibition; it is evidently a permanent advance in
power.
His present subject,
Mr. F. R. Pickersgill's nymphs differ from
Mr.
Frost's by something of the same
space as might exist
between a doll which, having put on
humanity[,] has
grown to the size of a woman, and a high-art
wax-work.
The latter are more firm and consistent; the former
retain the pulpiness of infancy, and stare with the glass
eyes of their primitive status. We may refer, for
con–
firmation, to Mr. Pickersgill's
Pluto carrying away (No. 264), as
Mr. C. H. Lear has this year taken the subject of
his single small picture (No. 172) from Keats:
has found a sympathetic echo in the words of a brother
poet. The “heard melody
” is indeed
“sweet,
” so sweet
that the
“unheard
” may scarcely exceed it: but the
parallel is unnecessary; they are like voice and
instru–
ment. This picture should hang in the room of
a poet:
we will dare to say that Keats himself might have
lain dreaming before it, and found it minister to his
inspiration. Here we will not stand to discuss trivial
shortcomings in execution; believing that, when Mr.
Lear undertakes—as we hope he will not long defer
doing—a subject combining varied character, and whose
poetry shall be of the real as well as the abstract, he
will see the necessity of not denying to his wonderful
sentiment, which has already more than once
accom–
plished so much by itself, the toilsome but
indispensable
adjunct of a rigid completeness.
While we are still within the magic circle of the
poetic—the
truly and irresponsibly pleasurable in art,
let us turn to Mr.
Kennedy's
Mr. Landseer's chief work of the present year is
(No. 189),
The subject of Mr. Cope's principal picture is
from
the 4th Act of King Lear:
theme of
Mr. F. M. Brown's work of last year, the
most remarkable contribution to the then “Free
Exhi–
bition;” and a comparison of the two renderings
may help us to some conclusions. Firstly, Mr. Cope
has assigned a more prominent place to the music, and
has
attempted more of physical beauty and of differences
of age and
position in his singers, the chief of whom,
we submit, is man
or woman, at option of the spec–
tator: the other
picture had a background of music;
but its subject was
emphatically the filial love. There
appealing to sense were
but a ministration. Yet the
subordination of the persons doing
did not detract from
the full presentment of the thing done, to
which the
ostensible action was referred by the waiting and
lis–
tening heads of Kent and of the Fool,—a
character not
introduced by Mr. Cope. The
latter, in keeping
strictly to the text,—“In the
heaviness of sleep we put
”—has, we think, acted well,
fresh garments on
him,
though the
result is necessarily a less obvious and im–
mediate
realization: but, in all that relates to the
characters of Lear and Cordelia, considered as
either
individual or Shaksperian, Mr. Brown
shows a far
higher apprehension; nor must his adherence to
appro–
priateness (as far as possible) in costume and
accessory
be overlooked, as contrasted with the unknown
chro–
nology of Mr. Cope. The
colour of both is strong.
Mr. Cope's,
however, while specially noticeable for
modelling and relief,
has a degree of inkiness, as though
a tone of colour naturally
hot had been reduced by
means of corresponding violence.
The name of Baron Marocchetti, well known, we
believe, in Italian art, is here represented by a small
statue of
The principal claim to support made by the promoters
of this new winter exhibition, rests on its being entirely
free of expense to the artists exhibiting, even in the
event
of sale; no charge being made for space, as at the
Portland
Gallery, nor any per centage levied on pur–
chases, as at
all other exhibitions with the exception of
the Royal Academy. Its
principal object appears to
be, to place before the public a
collection of drawings
and sketches (several of them the first
studies for pic–
tures already well known), a class of
productions not
of very frequent occurrence in our annual picture
shows.
Its principal exhibitors, are of course the same whose
works fill the other galleries, and among them may be
especially noticed a considerable sprinkling of associates
from the Royal Academy. Of late years, the
Associ–
ateship has come to present a somewhat anomalous
aspect, viewed as a position in art. Originally
insti–
tuted as a preliminary step to the highest
honours, it
bling each other in style, in choice of subjects,
and even
in the minutiæ of execution, that it is difficult to
sup–
pose, at each new accession to their number, that
the
young man so elevated is any nearer than before to the
full membership of the Academy; since all can
scarcely
be at any time received into the Forty, nor is selection
among them an easy matter. The Associateship has
thus grown to
be looked upon almost as a limit of
achievement, at least by a
certain class of artists;
some of whom would, we suspect, be
actually scared,
could they contemplate, when signing their names
as
aspirants for the minor grade, that they were ever
to be
called on to discharge the duties of a Professor–
ship,
for which neither nature nor study has fitted
them; utterly
lacking, as do certain among them,—
education, in the first
place,—and, in the second place, the
capacity to educate
themselves. Thus it happens that
year after year, the corner-places
and outposts of the
“line” at the Academy, are occupied, in a great
mea–
sure, by pictures so closely resembling each other
(though from different hands) as hardly to establish a
separate recollection. Meanwhile, year after year, the
works
of other young artists continue to be ill placed
and comparatively
unnoticed; one or other of whom,
however, in some year or other,
finds himself at last on
the line, in a little while to be an
Associate, and in yet
a little while an Academician. Then it is
that the ques–
tion comes to be asked, why he, now
suddenly found
worthy to take the head of the board, should so long
have sat beneath so many over whom he is now at once
advanced.
And the answer, whether spoken or not, is,
that this man was marked
by the Academy for an
Academician, and not as these, for
Associates; and that
verily they have their reward.
These preliminary remarks will not be considered out
of place when
we see how many of the young men in
this exhibition are evidently
striving to do exactly the
same thing which others, also exhibitors
here, have
done,—making use of exactly the same means as those
who have gone before them, in hope of the same result
and no
more.
We have said that the collection consists principally
of sketches,
and indeed rests its chief claim on bring–
ing together
for the first time any considerable gather–
ing of such
productions. We will not dispute the plea as
a matter of fact,
although our memory presents to us
certain feet of wall in
Trafalgar-square which have
been covered annually for the most
part, from time
immemorial, with works little differing from these
sketches except in size. Let us, however, allow that
we are
here for the first time presented with sketches
by British artists;
and still we must needs confess a
degree of obtuseness as to the
benefit, and a certain
reluctance of gratitude. It has long been
cause of
complaint that our organs of veneration are called upon
to be influenced by the I. O. U.'s and washing-bills
of great
men. But has it come to this now—that even
mediocrity shall not
have its dressing-room? For our
part, we have ventured to suspect
that the slightest and
most trifling productions of some British
artists—say
Mr. Hollins or Mr. Brooks—might, for any public
demand, as well have been held sacred to that moderate
enthusiasm which may be supposed to have given them
birth.
Nay, it has been suggested to us by an unguarded
acquaintance, that
even Mr. Frith, Mr. Goodall, or Mr.
Frank Stone, may be conjectured
at some time, in mo–
ments of unusual languor, to have
produced works
(say of the size of three half-crowns) which might
almost be regarded as inconsiderable, and the like of
which
Heaven permits the average Briton to execute,
so he be only
supplied with a given quantity of hogs-
hair and pigment.
Having said thus much in the way of introduction,
called for no less
by the recent establishment than by
the character of the
exhibition, we shall proceed in our
next to an examination of the
several performances.