We were present some days back at the privateview of Mr. Madox Brown pictures, some of whichhave since been sent to the Exhibition of the Liver-pool Academy for 1856. The two principal picturesare works of great power, and one in particular,entitled “” possesses suchnational interest in the subject, in addition to its sur-passing merits as a work of art, that we cannot let itpass even at present, without some record, as ithas not yet been publicly exhibited in London.The false relations of artists and the pub-lic produced by the mismanagement of existingexhibiting bodies in London, must surely be evidentenough when we see works of real genius producedhere, and in which the London public have a priorclaim of enjoyment, finding their way by preferenceto a provincial exhibition. Former cases indicativeof honourable impartiality displayed by the Liver-pool Academy have assured artists that there is a fairfield open for them in that town.

“” is an historical picture inthe truest sense of the term. It is a contemporarychronicle of the year of the great Australian emigra-tion, the results of which are even now matter ofanxiety and expectation to all of us. The most pro-minent figures of the numerous groups in the pictureare a young married couple of the middle class. Youngas they are, life appears before them now with allits stern reality. He is seeking a sphere for hisenergies in a new land—a happy home for thedear one who clings lovingly and anxiously to him.An ocean which may whelm them in its treacherousdepths lies between them and their future. For themoment, however, these aspirations and anxieties aresilent. Those white receding cliffs are to their eyes“the Last of England[.]” It is of that only that hethinks. It is with that and with him that herthoughts are occupied. There are disappointmentsand resentments in the look of bitterness which thethoughtful and active man bends on the land that heis leaving. His hand dark with cold lies in that ofhis wife, who, with the other, holds the baby close toher, under her great grey shawl. They sit togetherat the poop muffled up carefully as a protectionagainst the wind, with an open umbrellatightly tucked under the man's left arm, the hand ofwhich is thrust into his breast. The spray standingon the umbrella spreading over the lady, and on thetarpaulin which protects her knees, is wonderfullypainted. Indeed there is no point of expression oreffect of colour, from the anxious look on her beauti-ful countenance to such details as those just men-tioned, that is in the slightest degree slurred over.It may here be observed that the whole picture—wemean not merely the accessory parts but the figuresthemselves—has been painted under the open sky.This is a labour much greater than would readily beimagined. It involves immense forethought andpreparation to insure success, and has hardlyever been attempted before, even in the pic-tures of the new naturalistic school. Never-theless, without this, neither strong mind norskilful hand would have availed the artist to obtainthat “everlasting wash of air,” as Browning calls it,the effect of open-air daylight. It enters every foldof the thick shawl, and within it, where in warm cornerswe discern the little baby's cherished hand or foot. Itcreeps round the green and purple cabbages, swayingat the lee-side round the weather-quarter boat, tothe expanse of green sea and the distant steamer.It finds its way between the figures that crowd thedeck behind the young couple, revealing every detailof expression and costume in the blackguard who,hugging his bottle, shakes the free fist at the mothercountry fast fading away, and who would shake it assoon at the mother who bore him, and who is nowtrying to drag down the arm from its position ofimpiety. The daylight shows us everythingin these and many other figures—work-seekers, andwork-shunners, and helpless children. Not one ofthese is a mere stock personage, a lay figure. Eachone comes living from the painter's mind. We dwellespecially on the admirable truth of out-door lightbecause it is a quality which can only be got, to thisdegree, by really painting each figure and accessoryfrom nature, and out of doors. Contrast this with theconventions of studio light and asphaltum, into whicheven such a painter as Wilkie coud fall in his open-airpictures, and then say whether the extra labour ofthe painter is not repaid by the increased delight ofthe spectator. This picture is, we understand, al-ready sold to Mr. Windus, of Tottenham, the pos-essor of many leading works of the English school,both old and new.

We shall not dwell upon the other picture to whichwe have alluded, although it is in some respects moreimportant than that which we have described. This,the subject of which is “,” was exhibited some years back, and was thesubject of much attention at the time. Althoughvery unfairly hung, it attracted much admiration asa work of great originality and deep as well as bril-liant colour. The author has bestowed furtherthought and labour upon it, and has removed thegrounds for some objections made to it. The tri-umph of the picture is the noble embodiment of apowerful and reverent nature in the figure of Peter.

We have not spoken of Mr. Brown's landscapes,two of the most exquisite specimens of which we sawin his studio. They are thoroughly English in theircharacter, and are finished with a degree of truthfulelaboration which we have never seen surpassed.The works we allude to are entitled, “,” and “.”The former of these works, which is the smaller ofthe two, is remarkable for the accuracy of its details,the evident approach of the twilight, the deep reposewhich is stealing solemnly and slowly over the wholescene. The sun has set, but his light has not yet alldeparted, and the cold bright moon in the blue skyhas not yet taken the lights and shades entirely underits own keeping. The effect is perfect. The “,” painted during two autumns in the openair, is distinguished for the richness of colour andabundance of all the elements of a land-scape perfectly English. The sun-light effect ispeculiarly admirable. The way in which the painterhas managed large rich flashes of brilliant colour isartistic in the highest degree. Scarcely less worthyof remark is a “.” The largemass of green in the foreground is dotted with cattle,and the waters of the lake spread smoothly away inthe distance, almost blending with the sky. One ofthe leading features of these pictures is their intenselyEnglish character.

The Liverpool Academy, to which the works firstalluded to have been sent, may be congratulated onits present position in relation to the rising art of theday. Its independent homage, in the award of itsprizes, to the merits of some of our younger artists—such as Holman Hunt and Anthony—at a time whenthe tide of prejudice seemed to have set in againstthem pretty strongly in London, has directed atten-tion to the Liverpool body as possessing both judg-ment and fairness, and will serve no doubt, as in thecase of Mr. Madox Brown, to draw annually totheir exhibition some of the best works producedamong us.