“For human nature’s daily food,”
“For human nature’s daily food,”
“For human nature’s daily food,”
“For human nature’s daily food,”
and yet she is sympathetic. To be that, she must be poetic also.
589.Burchett—Measure for Measure.—Mr. Burchett follows up his remarkable work of last year with another of corresponding importance. Matured consideration, and strong powers of working and of development, have gone to the making of this picture; which represents the great crisis in the action ofMeasure for Measure, where the Duke of Vienna, disguised as a friar, is revealed by the unwitting Lucio to the eyes of the abashed Angelo and Escalus, and of the now almost hopeless Isabella and Mariana. The story is told with much judgment and penetration (so far as such a complicated storycanbe told) by the Duke’s vacated chair of state, with coronet and sceptre laid upon it, between the seats of Escalus and Angelo; the young courtier, facing the just uncowled Duke, and recognising him on the instant, and raising his cap; the frothy bluster of Lucio dying out on his scared visage as he gasps to see whom he has been mauling and traducing; and other well-chosen and well-combined incidents. The countenance of the Duke is German and searching; that of Escalus true to the good-natured cynicism of the substantially upright old man; Isabella has much of the nun about her. Angelo is, I think, too much the burly insolent oppressor; for we must understand from the drama that he really looked and was an abstinent Pharisee, led on by temptation and opportunity into vilenesses quite unlike the man that all others and himself supposed him to be. There is much able and accurate painting in this work, though it would benefit by more breadth of general harmonizing.
600.Parsons—The Wayfarer.—A peculiar and delicate piece of subdued execution, deserving of inspection;sopeculiar in itsgranulated texture that it hardly proclaims itself to be oil-painting.
613.Hicks—Escape of the Countess of Morton to Paris, with Henrietta, infant Daughter of Charles I.—The most important and best production of Mr. Hicks. Like Mr. Burchett’s picture, its incidents require to be analysed one by one: when that process has been gone through, one finds a great deal of ingenious skill standing to the painter’s credit.
614.Prinsep—A Study of a Girl Reading.—Mr. Prinsep deserves real thanks for this painting. The girl is an exquisite person, and the picture also may without flattery be called exquisite. It has a most charming sense of the womanly in the maidenly. The fair one is about to sit down to luncheon, but holds and reads her book up to the moment of drawing in her chair. Perhaps she will violate etiquette by persisting in “reading at meals:” and who will not forgive her?
621.A. Moore—Azaleas.—This will be remembered as one of theillustrations(as the French phrase it) of the Exhibition of 1868. It presents, in life size, a Grecian lady (or at any rate Grecian-robed), at a pot of azaleas, some of which she plucks and drops into a basin. Whether or not azaleas were known to Grecian ladies, whether or not they came from America, are questions not difficult of solution, but of sublime indifference to Mr. Moore. (The flowers in Mr. Watts’s Grecian picture, No. 323, are also, I apprehend, azaleas.) The study of the blossom-loaded plant is most delicate and lovely; and the lady has elevated classic grace, though her face hardly sustains comparison with the rest of the picture. For a sense of beauty in disposition of form, and double-distilled refinement in colour, this work may allow a wide margin to any competitors in the gallery, and still be the winner. On the other hand, it is proper to remember that such a painting as this presupposes certaindatain art, whichdatasome people not wholly unworthy of a hearing demur to: chiefly, it presupposes once for all that that innermost artistic problem of how to reconcile realization with abstraction deserves to be given up. How much could be said on this question from differing points of view, I need not here indicate. You linger long to look at Mr. Moore’s picture, andreturn to it again and again: and that justifies him in taking, individually, the benefit of one of those points of view. He unites with singular subtlety of grace a phase of the evanescent to a phase of the permanent: colour and handling which withdraw themselves from the eye with a suggestion (or, as one might say, with a whisper), to statuesque languor and repose of form.
624.Brett—Christmas Morning, 1866.—In scale combined with subject, this is far the most important picture Mr. Brett has produced. We see a manned boat and a wrecking ship upon the immense ocean, with its swirling drift blown across like a tongue of tormented flame; and huge volumes of grey cloud over the horizon, walling out from the sea the gorgeous dawn of a new day, on fire with the blaze of sunlight. The painting of the vast sea-surface is a very great effort of knowledge and mastery, and a very successful one.
629.A. Goodwin—The Dead Woodman.—A picture of highly remarkable effect, and poetic perception. A blue-grey bloom of sunset broods luminously over all. The work has a kind of intellectual analogy to theDead Stonebreakerwhich Mr. Wallis painted years ago: but in all points of externals it is entirely different.
632.Millais—Souvenir of Velasquez(Diploma-work deposited in the Academy on his election as an Academician).—It is not for an outsider to surmise whether or not the Academicians court the deposit of diploma-pictures which may have cost their painters, working with the quick-handedness of a Millais, perhaps a couple of days’ labour. However this may be, they have here got a diploma-picture of that description, and an admirable one in its way it certainly is. The resemblance to Velasquez is hardly such as to justify the title.
685.Watts—A. Panizzi, Esq.—That this is about the finest portrait of the year need scarcely be specified, Mr. Watts being its author. It was presented to Mr. Panizzi by the Officers of the British Museum, on his retirement; and happily expresses, in the sitter, great powers of work, long in active exercise, and now in well-earned repose. A sketch-plan of the Museum reading-room forms an appropriate and not undecorative device in the right-hand upper corner.
735.Sandys—Study of a Head.—We have now got out of the oil-pictures, and have come to the drawings. This is an excellent study of a wilful, tameless-spirited beauty, who bites her hair in her gathering mood. Further on (816) is an equally well-done head ofGeorge Critchett, Esq., a head that seems to teem with defined calculation. It will be known to many besides myself that Mr. Sandys sent to the Academy an oil-picture of Medea in an act of incantation, not only worthy, but more than worthy, of his highly disciplined powers and determined accomplishment. It has dropped out of the Exhibition when the pictures came to be actually hung; leaving some food for pondering to those who care for the higher and completer forms of pictorial work. They may feel—and the feeling would be only enhanced by some other things they may have heard, and a great deal of what they see on the Academy walls—that an off-hand style of painting, now predominant, has interests of its own clashing with those of some graver phases of art; and that judicial equity in adjusting these interests may sometimes be in default. Sir Francis Grant, detailing after-dinner statistics, may fancy that the whole question is settled by saying that there is space for so many pictures only, and that so many more were sent in; but this is far from being thedernier mot. Efficiency No. 1 and semi-efficiency No. 2 may be contending for a residue of space, and the admission of either is obviously the exclusion of the other; but he would be a very innocent President, non-academician artist, or private and unprofessional person, who should thence conclude that the Pompey and the Cæsar have coequal claims, especially the Pompey. Anybody, who has experienced, written, read, heard, or seen, even a little of this ever-recurrent hanging controversy, loathes its very atmosphere, and gladly retreats from it, seldom without a sense of protest, and a chafing at injustice.
753.J. F. Lewis—Bedouin Arabs.—One of the very finest studies of the kind produced by a hand unrivalled in its own way.
943.Munro—The Sisters.—We are now in the Sculpture Room. Mr. Munro has earned great popularity and a defined position by works of this class, in which groups of children aretreated with some graceful incident and execution, and very genuinely graceful feeling. The present group counts among the best of them.
948.Woolner—Elaine with the Shield of Sir Launcelot.—The maiden loves and muses, and pines as she muses; but as yet her doom only hovers over her pityingly. The feeling of reserve and purity, of the new experience of love timidly entertained, and yet already permeating her whole life, and absorbing all her forces into its own surging and resistless current, is predominant in this figure. Along with this, and with much simplicity of pose and motive, one readily perceives that the whole thing is uncommonly treated—uncommonlyrather thanunusually. The face has more of personal individuality, the turn of the figure more shades of variety within unity, the execution throughout more distinction, than British sculpture accustoms us to. So also with the hands and feet: their peculiarities are all significant and forecast, though to my eye they do not sufficiently partake of the beauty of delicacy. Compare—or contrast would be the word—this statuette with
981.J. S. Westmacott—Elaine.
984.Armstead—Astronomy.—A bronze colossal figure, destined for the Prince-Consort memorial in Hyde Park. It has a good decorative look, and adequate grandeur of pose and line. It might fairly (so far as one can judge before it is placedin situ) be termed aproportionalwork; one, that is, in which the conception, treatment, and general force of impression, have relation to its scale, and to its destination as one in a series of impersonating figures.
987.Leifchild—The Dawn.—The sentiment of this figure is well expressed in two lines from the MS. quotation:—
“The Dawn, whose splendour is a promise still,Heralding more than Day can e’er fulfil.”
“The Dawn, whose splendour is a promise still,Heralding more than Day can e’er fulfil.”
“The Dawn, whose splendour is a promise still,Heralding more than Day can e’er fulfil.”
“The Dawn, whose splendour is a promise still,
Heralding more than Day can e’er fulfil.”
It is the sentiment of an ushering-in, an announcement, something to come. Mr. Leifchild has produced several sculptural works eminent for thoughtfulness in concentration. The present figure belongs to a different order of work, yet something of the same spirit can be traced in it.
1007.Woolner—Thomas Carlyle.—The strong, emphatic, penetrating style of Mr. Woolner, who searches under the surface of his sitter’s face, and records on its surface what he has found beneath, gave him the best of rights to deal with such a magnificent head as Carlyle’s—marked as that is by a most powerful dominating expression, with abundant points of subordinate detail and individuality. Mr. Woolner had, indeed, done a medallion of the great writer many years ago; now we get a bust worthily recording so memorable a man.
1027.Woolner—Reliefs from the Iliad(pedestal of the Bust of the Right Honourable W. E. Gladstone).—Here are three subjects executed on a small scale, with a singular amount of original force. The third,Thetis consoling Achilles, does not appear to me, in composition and suggestion, so remarkable as the other two.Pallas and Achilles at the Trenches, where the hero shouts to the Greeks a superhuman cry, while Pallas overshadows him with her ægis, is a most vigorous and admirable composition; indeed, but for its small size, one would be minded to call it the finest thing Mr. Woolner has yet exhibited.Thetis praying to Zeus on behalf of Achillesis hardly second to it. The sea-goddess rises on tiptoe to stroke the beard of the omnipotent cloud-compeller; and no single touch perhaps could have given the amplitude and primitiveness of the Homeric Pantheon more keenly than this. It is not exactlynaïveté, and still less exactly humour, but something happily between both.
1053.Watts—Clytie;Marble Bust, unfinished.—This is an experiment in sculpture by our distinguished painter. I find it a very interesting one, and (pacethe professional sculptors) a remarkable success. The head reverts over the right shoulder with a graceful and energetic turn; and these qualities, especially that of energy, are preserved in all points of view. The modelling of the bust and arms is pulpy and creased—more comparable in tendency to that of the Elgin Marbles than of later Greek sculpture. Indeed, I should surmise that the thoughts of Mr. Watts, as he worked, were mostly shared between Phidias and Michael Angelo. The spectator who finds some parts lumpy or rude should bear inmind that the work is avowedly “unfinished”—even if he does not deem the general conditions under which the experiment has been made sufficient to abate the picking of holes.
Possibly some readers of this pamphlet may use it to be referred to as they range through the Academy rooms, examining their contents. If this is the case, I should regret to pass over without a word of mention several works which, according to the scope and limitations of the pamphlet, I have not found an opportunity of reviewing in any detail in their proper order. After all, a great number of works against whose skilfulness and merit I neither raise nor suggest any imputation will be remaining totally unnamed. Meanwhile, a simple numerical list of contributions may be added to which I would rather direct attention thus barely than not at all. Some of them are productions of leading importance: others have modest graces which should not pass unobserved. The visitor must form his own opinion of whether and why they deserved specification.
28.Swinton—The Earl Bathurst.29.T. S. Cooper—Descending from the Rock Grazing, East Cumberland.49.Mac Whirter—Old Edinburgh, Night.67.Grant—Miss Grant.68.Fleuss—G. Makgill, Esq.120.Grace—The Curfew tolls the Knell of parting Day.124.Grant—The Earl of Bradford.158.Eden—On the Thames near Pangbourne.160.Harveymore—The Point, near Walton on the Naze.168.J. B. Burgess—A Portrait.170.H. Moore—Ebb-tide, Squall coming on.176.Cathelinau—The Nurse.184.Halle—Miss Jessie.199.E. Gill—Storm and Shipwreck on a Rocky Coast.205.Elmore—“Two Women shall be grinding at the Mill.”206.Zuccoli—Wine Gratis.208. Ditto—Preparing to cook Indian Corn.222.Yeames—The Chimney-Corner.241.Lehmann—Portrait of a Gentleman.251.Nicol—A China Merchant.267.Goodall—Mater Purissima.272.Archer—Burial of Guinevere.290.Watts—The Meeting of Jacob and Esau.298.V. Cole—Sunlight Lingering on the Autumn Woods.303.Wells—James Stansfeld, Esq., of Halifax.321.Pott—The Minuet.322.G. D. Leslie—Mrs. Charles Dickens, Jun.327.Prinsep—A Portrait.340.Frith—Scene from “She Stoops to Conquer.”344.Perugini—Daphne.345.Mrs. Robbinson—The Firstborn.346.Radford—“No Man that Warreth” &c.348.Lucy—The Forced Abdication of Mary Stuart.367.Miss A. Thornycroft—Study of a Head.378.Boughton—A Breton Pastoral.387.Wyllie—Dover Castle and Town.390.Calthrop—The Last Song of the Girondins, 1793.400.Orchardson—Scene from “King Henry IV.”403.Stanhope—The Footsteps of the Flock.416.Whaite—Harvest on the Mountains.420.Wade—A Stitch in Time.452.H. Moore—Weather Moderating after a Gale.467.Mrs. Ward—Sion House, 1553.474.Crowe—A Chiffonnier.478.Wells—The Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne.490.E. Frère—La Sortie de l’Ecole des Filles.503.Hemy—By the River Side, Antwerp.504.Nicol—Waiting at the Cross-roads.520.Armitage—Herod’s Birthday Feast.521.Lidderdale—The Exiled Jacobite.523.Prinsep—A Greek Widow at a Tomb.529.Hillingford—Before the Tournament.531.Armstrong—Daffodils.532.Opie—The Musical Genius.542.Hayllar—Midsummer, Parham Hall, Suffolk.551.Gale—Nazareth.552.Goldie—A Child Martyr borne across the Roman Campagna to one of the Catacombs.571.Miss Sandys—Enid.579.Calderon—Whither?580.Mason—Netley Moor.615.Hodgson—Off the Downs in the Days of the Cæsars.616.A. Hayward—The Haunted House.636.J. E. Williams—The Bishop of Gloucester.646.Archer—Bringing home Fern, Evening.648.McCallum—Near the Buck Gates, Sherwood Forest.656.Tourrier—The Cloisters.657.G. D. Leslie—The Empty Sleeve.671.Brennan—Via della Vita, Rome.673.Crowe—Mary Stuart, February 8th, 1586.683.A. Hughes—Mrs. Edward Rhodes.689.Lobley—Fancies in the Fire.727.R. Doyle—The Enchanted Tree.754.A. C. H. Luxmoore—Searching for Treason.763.J. F. Lewis—Camels.764.Count G. V. Rosen—A Street in Cairo.833.Hardwick—The Woods in Early Spring.908.E. Edwards—Four Etchings, Wells, &c.915.C. N. Luxmoore—Pen and Ink Sketches from Nature.1001.Woolner—Hon. W. E. Frere, late of Bombay.1029. Ditto—The late Robert Leslie Ellis.1040.Böhm—Miss Cumberbatch.1052.Ap Griffith—Cain preparing his Sacrifice.1106.G. A. Lawson—The Maiden’s Secret.1164.Tupper—Dr. Hyde Salter.1169.G. Morgan—Study of a Head.1194.Leifchild—The Rev. Thomas Jones.