Webster. This, however, is one of the least important of his six
pictures, which comprise two other interiors, two heads, and a
Jewish festival. This last is perhaps the best picture he has
painted. The MSS. of the Pentateuch are being carried round the
synagogue at Leghorn, amidst chanting of hymns. There is a strong
devotional character in many of the faces; and, as a work of art,
the picture is more than respectable. The interest of the subject is
a question of taste. For us, we confess, it possesses very little
attraction; and the Jewish physiognomy, so strongly marked as it
is in all the occupants of the synagogue, is, to our thinking,
incompatible with beauty. We do not much admire either _A Virtuoso
or Arnolfo di Lapo_. The latter is the best of the two: the former,
carefully painted, is merely an ordinary-looking Jew.
What can we say of Mr Turner? Perhaps we had better content
ourselves with mentioning that he has four pictures in the
Exhibition, all in his latest manner, all illustrative of that
far-famed, but, unfortunately, unpublished poem, _The Fallacies of
Hope_, and all proving the fallacy of the hope we annually cherish
that he will abjure his eccentricities, and revert to the style
which justly gained him his high reputation. It were absurd of us
to attempt to criticise his present productions, for to us they are
unintelligible; and, judging from the extremely puzzled looks we see
fixed upon them, we suspect that not many of those who pause for
their examination are more successful than ourselves in deciphering
their meaning, and in appreciating the beauties which a few stanch
adherents pretend to discover in those strange compounds of red,
white, and yellow. What if Mr Turner were to seek his inspirations
elsewhere than in the aforesaid MS.? Can it be that the poet's
halting verse influences the painter's vagaries? From the specimens
afforded us, we are not inclined to think highly of _The Fallacies_
_of Hope_. Take the following, _exempli gratiâ_:--
"Beneath the morning mist
Mercury waited to tell him of his neglected fleet."
And this--
"Fallacious Hope beneath the moon's pale crescent shone,
Dido listened to Troy being lost and won."
Enough of such poetry, and enough, as far as we are concerned, of a
great painter's unfortunate aberrations.
Apropos of aberrations, we have a word to say, which may as well be
said here as elsewhere. Affectation, however, is a more suitable
word for the mountebank proceedings of a small number of artists,
who, stimulated by their own conceit, and by the applause of a few
foolish persons, are endeavouring to set up a school of their own.
We allude, to the pre-Raphaelites. Let not Messrs Millais, Hunt,
Rosetti, & Co. suppose, because we give them an early place in this
imperfect review of the exhibitions, that we concede to them an
undue importance. As to admiration, we shall presently make them
aware how far we entertain that feeling towards them. Meanwhile,
let them not plume themselves on a place amongst men of genius.
Just as well might they experience an exaltation of their horns,
because their absurd and pretentious productions get casually
hung next to pictures by Landseer or Webster. It appears they
have got into their wise heads certain notions that the ideal of
expression is to be found in the works of the artists who flourished
previously to Raphael. And they have accordingly set to work to
imitate those early masters, not only in the earnestness of purpose
visible in their productions, but in their errors, crudities, and
imperfections--renouncing, in fact, the progress that since then
has been made; rejecting the experience of centuries, to revert for
models, not to art in its prime, but to art in its uncultivated
infancy. And a nice business they make of it. Regardless of anatomy
and drawing, they delight in ugliness and revel in diseased aspects.
Mr Dante Rosetti, one of the high-priests of this retrograde school,
exhibits at the Portland Gallery. Messrs Millais and Hunt favour the
saloons of the Academy. Ricketty children, emaciation and deformity
constitute their chief stock in trade. They apparently select bad
models, and then exaggerate their badness till it is out of all
nature. We can hardly imagine anything more ugly, graceless, and
unpleasant than Mr Millais' picture of Christ in the carpenter's
shop. Such a collection of splay feet, puffed joints, and misshapen
limbs was assuredly never before made within so small a compass. We
have great difficulty in believing a report that this unpleasing and
atrociously affected picture has found a purchaser at a high price.
Another specimen, from the same brush, inspires rather laughter than
disgust. A Ferdinand of most ignoble physiognomy is being lured by a
pea-green monster intended for Ariel; whilst a row of sprites, such
as it takes a Millais to devise, watch the operation with turquoise
eyes. It would occupy more room than the thing is worth to expose
all the absurdity and impertinence of this work. Mr Hunt's picture
of a Christian Missionary sheltered from Druid pursuit is in as
ridiculous taste as any of the group.
From such monstrosities it is a relief to turn to Mr Frank
Stone's graceful creations. He also has taken a subject from the
second scene in the _Tempest_, No. 342, Miranda's first sight of
Ferdinand. Compared with Mr Millais' Ferdinand, that of Mr Stone
is a demigod. Estimated by its intrinsic merits, it strikes us
as a little theatrical--rather too much of the stage-player in
the air and attitude. Miranda has a sweet and youthful face;
Prospero is too young, and does not look his part. This is not
one of Mr Stone's happiest efforts, but it is a nice picture, and
we prefer it to his other in the same exhibition, _The Gardener's
Daughter_, a young lady attitudinising under a rose-tree, with a
pair of admiring swains in the distance. This artist is too apt
to give his male lovers a sickly look, as if their love disagreed
with them. The best picture he has shown this year is one in the
British Institution--_Sympathy_--two very pretty maidens, with an
expression of pleasing sentiment in their faces. Barring a little
occasional mannerism, Mr Stone is a very delightful painter; and in
our opinion, if he had had his deserts, he would some time since
have been a member of the Academy. Were it not invidious, we could
cite a few, who write _Associate_ after their names, who have less
claim than he has to that honorary distinction. Mr Stone has a great
deal of fancy, a fine feeling for the beautiful, and we are indebted
to him for many charming compositions and lovely female faces. And
certainly if popularity be a test of merit, which we admit is not
always the case, he ought years ago to have figured in the list of
Academicians.
That very conscientious and careful artist, Mr Charles Landseer,
has a pretty and well-painted _Girl in a Hop-garden_, and a larger
and still better picture--perhaps the best he has for some years
produced--of _Æsop_, surrounded by several of the animals celebrated
in his fables. There is a great deal of quiet humour and nice
finish in this picture: the figure and face of the hump-backed
fabulist, and those of a girl, who seems admiringly to listen to
his allegorical wisdom, are exceedingly good. Mr Dyce has only one
picture, and really that had been as well away. An ugly Jacob is
protruding his lips to kiss a vulgar Rachel. The colouring is hard
and bad, and there is a pervading gray tint which is not natural.
We hope Mr Dyce, R.A., can do better things than this. We prefer
Mr Cope's _King Lear_, which has considerable merit. There is fine
expression in the old monarch's head. Cordelia pleases us less;
and perhaps, upon the whole, the best figures in the picture are
those of the musicians and singers. There is a something in this
painting that reminds us of Maclise. Of Mr Cope's other pictures,
_Milton's Dream_ has a nice tone of colour; and the two sketches
for fresco of Prince Henry's submission to Judge Gascoigne, and
the Black Prince receiving the order of the Garter, are spirited
and good. Mr Redgrave's principal picture is No. 233. _The Marquis
having chosen patient Griselda for his wife, causes the court ladies
to dress her in her father's cottage._ Griselda has a pretty face,
and sits in an easy, graceful attitude: the ladies are coarse,
and the expression of scorn upon their countenances is theatrical
and affected. The heads of some of them are too big, and out of
proportion with their bodies. _The Child's Prayer_, by the same
artist, is a pleasing picture; well painted, particularly the
woman's head and hand, which latter has a look of Rubens. Mr E. M.
Ward has two pictures of very different subjects. _Isaac Walton
Angling_ hardly claims any particular notice; _James II. receiving
the News of the Landing of the Prince of Orange in 1688_, has more
pretension and greater merit. It certainly contains good painting:
the grouping of the figures and the expression of some of the faces
are also praiseworthy; but yet it hardly satisfies us. The queen's
face and attitude, as she advances, already sympathising with the
agitation visible on his countenance, to her husband's side, are
very charming. James's physiognomy is almost too much discomposed
to accord with the passage from Dalrymple quoted by Mr Ward. And
it strikes us, although this may seem hypercritical, that there
is something ludicrous in the eternal suspension in the air of
the letter that he has just allowed to escape from his fingers.
Upon the whole, however, this is a clever picture, and, as far as
we had opportunity of observing, it attracts a very full share of
public attention; although that is no criterion of merit, so large
a proportion of the loungers through an exhibition being more
readily attracted by a piquant subject than by artistical skill. And
probably no subjects are more generally popular than those that may
be styled the homely-historical; scenes in the private apartments of
royalty; the personal adventures and perils of princes, whether in
the palace or the prison--on the steps of the throne or the verge
of the scaffold. There is a fair sprinkling of such pictures in the
four exhibitions now under notice; and as we have no pretension
to be otherwise than exceedingly desultory in this article, whose
limits, and the heterogeneous subject, preclude our being otherwise,
we will at once dispose of such of them as deserve notice, and have
not already received it, commencing, in order of catalogue, with
Delaroche's picture of _Cromwell looking at the dead body of
Charles I._ This is a picture concerning which the most conflicting
opinions have been uttered. It has received fulsome praise and
unwarranted abuse. Some have lauded it as perfection merely because
it is by Paul Delaroche; others have decried it with a virulence
and injustice warranting the suspicion that some envious brother
of the brush had temporarily abandoned the palette for the pen,
and applied himself to slander merit he himself was hopeless of
equalling. We are aware but of two valid objections that can fairly
be made to the picture. The subject is certainly ghastly and horrid;
but, on the other hand, it has been rendered as little so as
possible by the consummate skill and good taste of its treatment.
And none, we think, but the very fastidious, will dwell upon this
point. The other objection (technical only) is to the coppery tone
of colouring of certain parts of the picture, particularly of the
flesh. This premised, we are aware of little else that can fairly be
alleged against this very fine picture. The countenance of Cromwell
certainly does not agree with the most authentic portraits that
have been handed down to us, or with the written and traditional
accounts of his features. The artist has idealised his hero--has
abridged his nose, increased his under jaw, and thrown nearly the
whole expression of the face into and around the mouth. M. Delaroche
having taken such liberties, we ought to be particularly grateful to
him that he has not gone farther, and, in aiming at a great effect,
fallen into exaggeration. Out of twenty French artists, nineteen,
we suspect, would have given us, with the strong and dangerous
temptation of so striking a subject, an unpleasant caricature.
It has been objected that the face is deficient in character
and expression, and would perfectly suit any one of Cromwell's
Ironsides, who through curiosity should have lifted the lid of the
deceased monarch's coffin. It is, to our thinking, an evidence of
skill on the part of the painter thus to have left the expression
doubtful--a matter of speculation to the beholder. We interpret it
as merely meditative. Any emotion it includes is one of exultation
at the great and important step the Usurper has made in his upward
progress. Of pity or remorse there is no trace.
The next picture in the Exhibition of the Academy, of the class
at present under notice, that particularly caught our eye, is No.
491, _The Burial of the two sons of Edward IV. in the Tower_, by
Mr Cross, whose painting of Richard Coeur-de-Lion, exhibited at
Westminster Hall, will be remembered by many of our readers. The
present picture does not redeem the promise of its predecessor.
It has a washy, fresco-like look, and a great want of light and
shade, which is the more striking because the subject is one
particularly favourable to the display of a Rembrandt-like vigour
in that respect. The arrangement of the dead bodies is very bad,
and they have an emaciated look which was quite uncalled for. On
the other hand, the faces of two of the murderers, (one sustains
the stone beneath which the grave is dug, and the other grasps the
arm of one of the children,) and that of the turnkey, are very
expressive. The chief of the gang and the grave-digger are rather
strained and theatrical. Upon the whole, the picture disappoints us
much. A report, however, has reached us, that it was painted under
the disadvantage of ill health, so we will hope that Mr Cross may
yet do better things. No. 569, _The Abdication of Mary Queen of
Scots at Lochleven Castle_, by J. Severn, is a very tame affair.
And we do not greatly admire Mr Lucy's _Parting of Charles I. with
his Children_. The subject has been better treated before. But
we delight in Mr Joy's conception of Cromwell coveting, and yet
daring not to grasp, the crown of England. A bilious misanthrope,
with flabby cheeks and lacklustre eye, is seated beside a table on
which stands the crown, whose covering he has partly withdrawn.
The notion is amusingly matter-of-fact. Does Mr Joy really suppose
that such a man as Cromwell could find enjoyment in the deliberate
physical contemplation of the jewelled bauble--the substantial
crown--the mere emblem of the dignity and sway for which he
thirsted? We cannot compliment this artist on either the conceit or
the execution. We prefer his picture in the British Institution,
although that is not very remarkable. The subject is the interview
between James IV. of Scotland and the outlaw Murray on the banks
of Yarrow. In this Exhibition we find another Cromwell, of a very
different cast from the one just referred to. The Lord Protector
of England dictates to John Milton his celebrated despatch in
favour of the persecuted Piedmontese Protestants. Here there
is a fire and energy mingled with the coarseness of Cromwell's
physiognomy, which gives the character of the man as we read of
him and believe him to have been. Milton's face wears a look of
gentle enthusiasm and approval, as he admiringly weighs the words
that fall from the lips of his great patron. In his eyes there is
a sort of haziness that seems to foreshadow the darkness which
later is to come over him. The picture does great credit to a very
rising artist, Mr F. Newenham, who also exhibits a painting at the
Portland Gallery, which we like quite as well as his Cromwell.
The subject, _The Princes in the Tower_, is not a very new one,
but there is imagination and novelty in its treatment. It is just
the same point of time that Delaroche has chosen in his painting
of this subject, but there is nothing like an imitation of the
great Frenchman. Here the younger child still sleeps, whilst the
elder, a princely-looking lad, roused by the noise at the door,
gazes anxiously, rather than fearfully, at the shadow cast upon the
wall by a hand bearing a lantern. The picture is suggestive and
interesting, and in an artistic point of view, also, it merits high
praise. In this Portland Gallery (which we may observe, by the way,
is most excellently constructed and lighted for the advantageous
exhibition of works of art) is a painting by Mr Claxton, _Marie
Antoinette with her Children, escaping by the Secret Door from her
apartment in Versailles, when the palace was attached by the mob_,
which we mention rather on account of the interest of the subject
than of its merits as a work of art, these being but of a negative
description. Marie Antoinette, dressed rather like a fashionable of
the year 1850, is accompanied by a terrified lady, who looks back
at the door, half-masked by smoke, through whose broken pannel the
bayonets of the rebels cross with those of the loyal grenadiers.
Another picture from French history, but selected from a much
remoter period, is that of _The Excommunication of Robert, King of
France, and his Queen Bertha_, (No. 159 in the Portland Gallery.)
which Mr Desanges has executed with some skill. The king, having
married his cousin in defiance of the Pope, but with the sanction of
three prelates of his kingdom, incurs the pontifical anathema, in
common with the prelates and royal family. In the picture, the fiat
has just been pronounced, and the extinction of their torches by the
officiating priests symbolically completes their mission.
This is not one of Mr Clarkson Stanfield's best years. We prefer
this careful and able artist on a grander scale than that of the
comparatively small pictures he this year exhibits. Nor do we
think he has been particularly happy in his choice of subjects.
His scene from Macbeth, viewed as a landscape--for we do not take
into account the figures, which are insignificant, and might as
well have been left out--is a good picture, but not in his happiest
taste. We prefer his _Scene on the Maas_, and his _Bay of Baiæ_,
which are both excellent. No. 288, _Near Foria_, is not a very good
subject. But Mr Stanfield is a pleasant, natural painter, quite
free from affectation, and a most excellent representative of the
English school. Mr Roberts is another favourite of ours. Belgium and
the East, Egyptian temples and Catholic shrines, furnish subjects
for his seven pictures. What we particularly like in him is the
strong impression of correctness and fidelity conveyed by his
representations of distant scenes. Without having seen the places,
one feels convinced of the accuracy of his delineations, and that he
gives the real effect of the objects depicted--just as, in certain
portraits, one feels certain of the resemblance without knowing the
original. The subjects of his pictures this year do not demand
any detailed criticism, and his good qualities are so universally
appreciated as to render general commendation superfluous.
Before passing on to landscapes and portraits we will glance at a
few pictures of various classes, which happen to have attracted
our attention, and which deserve better or worse than to be left
unnoticed. Diving into the gloom of the Octagon, we are struck by
the very remarkable merit of two pictures, which ought never to
have been placed there. Only by kneeling or sitting upon the ground
is it possible to examine Mr Van Schendel's poacher detected,
No. 633, _Un Braconnier au moment qu'on vient le prendre_. Of
ordinary visitors to the Exhibition, not one in five will notice
the existence of the picture--not one in twenty, probably, will go
through the painful contortions requisite to get even a bad view of
it. Very few, if any, critics will have sought it out or written a
comment on it. Yet this is a picture on which greater talent and
labour have been expended than on dozens that hang in conspicuous
places and good lights. A dark picture, too--a night scene--it
required a strong light; and it was most unjust to put it thus in
the very darkest nook, and in the lowest range of the whole Academy.
For hospitality's sake to a foreigner, this excellent painting
should have been differently placed. The only other picture which
we noticed in the Octagon--there may be others of great merit, but
we never have patience to linger long in the gloomy closet--is No.
586, _Flowers and Fruit_, by T. Groenland--an artist far superior to
Lance, who seems to us to fall off instead of improving. Fruit and
flower pieces are things that few people care much to look at--and,
for our part, we confess that we seldom afford them more than a
very cursory glance; but our attention was seriously and pleasingly
arrested by both of those exhibited this year by Mr Groenland,
remarkable, as they are, not only for the accuracy with which he
imitates the texture of the different fruits--whether pulpiness,
bloom, or transparency be their chief characteristic--and for the
admirable delicacy of his flower-painting, but also for his skill
in elevating and giving interest to the walk of art he has chosen.
This is strikingly the case in No. 1254, apropos of which we have
another piece of injustice or carelessness--let them call it which
they like--to notice on the part of the Hanging Committee. Of all
the seven rooms of the Academy, not one is so little visited as that
which, in the catalogue, is headed Architecture. Accordingly, the
hangmen have placed at one end of it five as pleasing pictures--each
in its own style--as any in the Exhibition. Here we have the _Vierge
Route du Simplon_, a charming airy landscape by Harding; _Esther_,
by O'Neil, one of the best, perhaps, he ever did; _The Port of
Marseilles_, by E. W. Cooke, very like and very well painted, with
excellent water; _A Winter Evening_, by H. Horsley, a most clever
piece of snow scenery, with a cold look that makes one shiver, and
a capital effect of setting sun through an archway; and, last in
our enumeration, but not in merit, Mr Groenland's second fruit and
flower piece, with a landscape background, a gorgeous and life-like
peacock, a flush of rhododendrons, and painstaking and talent in
every leaf and flower. Another picture in the same vicinity, by W.
Fisher, _The Coulin_, a subject taken from Moore's melodies, is
rather affected, but by no means destitute of merit.
Mr Martin's picture, _The Last Man_, is far from one of his
best. The subject is unpleasing, and there is a decided fault of
perspective; the human corpses and carcasses of strange beasts, in
the foreground, being much too small in proportion with the figure
of the man, who stands on an elevation which is doubtless intended
to be much in advance of, but which in reality is almost on a line
with, the spot where they are spread pellmell in grisly confusion.
Mr Hannah's _Lady Northumberland and Lady Percy dissuading the Earl
from joining the wars against Henry IV._ is oddly coloured, and
acquires a cold, insipid look from the profusion of blue and gray;
but it is a good and clever picture. A similar class of subject has
been selected by Mr T. J. Barker, from Professor Aytoun's ballad
of _Edinburgh after Flodden_. Randolph Murray, bearing news of the
defeat, is the centre of a throng anxious even to agony.
"Why art thou alone, unfollowed?
Is it weal, or is it woe?"