John Ruskin Criticism of the Royal Academy of Arts

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At no very great distance from that jumbo fabric whose novelty and splendour are the pride of England and the marvel of Europe, another exhibition claims our notice, with merits differing in every way from those of the vast drove in Hyde Park. There ingenuity and industry have arrayed their conveniences and their wealth, here genius and feeling address themselves more exclusively to the impressions of fancy and the powers of sentiment; at that place the broad day beam pours its universal low-cal over the miscellaneous produces of the world, here the ray is refracted and dissolved in the prismatic colours of graphic art. The ane is an exhibition first, and all the same sole, of its kind—a numbering of the tribes and a gathering of the nations; the other is the 83d display of the works of the Royal Academy of the Arts of United kingdom, which interests u.s. especially past the indications it affords in the progress in the highest branches of taste. It was no doubt a judicious determination of the Royal Commissioners to exclude painting from the halls of the Palace of Manufacture, although sculpture, which is an fine art of a more than hardy and decorative graphic symbol, figures to and so large an extent in that extraordinary edifice. Painting retains with more than propriety her separate abode and her defended temple; for although her place exist not marked in the turmoil and the competition of national industry, she will exist sought for in her appropriate haunts as the complement of that bang-up assemblage of the works of peace.

We therefore entered the private view of the Royal University yesterday with more than than usual interest and solicitude, and though information technology would be piece of cake to take brought together a more striking collection even of the works of living artists, to illustrate the peculiar merits of the English school, we look without disappointment upon the result of the past year, which will on Monday be open to the public. A French critic of cracking feel and ingenuity recently fabricated some melancholy calculations on the fate of the paintings which have at present year after yr crowded in hopeless array the portals of fame and the walls of the Salon in Paris. I per cent. on the whole number of works exhibited seemed to him a fair allowance for fame, duration, and existent success; the rest passes into the shadowy realms of disfigured canvass. Probably such computations were suggested by the exhibition of the nowadays twelvemonth in Paris, where the merit of the works produced has declined as much as their numbers take increased. By such a standard the exhibition of the Royal University may exist called a expert one, though it certainly cannot exist ranked higher up the average. The English language school may be accused of want of elevation and dignity, for information technology has never reached the heights of ideal grandeur, and its about successful performances are confined to truthful or humorous fake of domestic life, a true-blue and sometimes assuming reflection of the accidents of nature, and a reality of sentiment which extends fifty-fifty to the lower animals and the inanimate world. If efforts take of belatedly years been fabricated to raise a more potent historic school, their results must exist looked for elsewhere than in this exhibition. Our artists and their patrons are less addicted to paintings of history than to paintings of anecdote; but, without applying the severer laws of criticism to the majority of such productions, we are content to admit that they succeed since they please.

The present exhibition corresponds to this description. We miss in information technology those works of inspiration which have sometimes washed laurels to the Academy. Several of the best painters take not produced their all-time works, and some honoured names are entirely absent; but without entering on the present occasion in to very close examination or criticism, nosotros shall succinctly point out the leading features of the collection. The identify of honour has naturally been assigned to the new president of the University, Sir Charles Eastlake, but he contributes but one motion-picture show, an Italian female head (No. 135), bearing the name of "Ippolita Torelli," painted with his usual delicacy of expression. To laissez passer at once to the well-nigh striking works of the year, we must identify in the first grade Mr. Maclise's peachy picture (No. 67) of "Caxton'south Press-office," as equally remarkable for vigour of handling, ingenuity of composition, and amazing industry of item, which contribute to render it one of the most successful pictures of the master. The scene lies in that ancient almonry of Westminster to which the press-press of England traces its glorious origin, and the skill of the artist has combined with consummate ability the varied elements suggested by the birth-place of that mighty ability—the ecclesiastical character of the building—the magnificence of the mediæval Court of Edward IV., surrounded with personages to whom the genius of Shakspeare has given perpetual life—the jealous aspect of Churchman and Monk—the robust handiscraftsmen, from astute boyhood to the mature vigour of the strong unconscious servants of the art—and in the midst of this varied circle the sedate intelligence of William Caxton, conscious that he is presenting to his Sovereign and bequeathing to his land the greatest discovery of time. The pictorial treatment of the field of study has all Mr. Maclise'due south excellencies with a marked diminution in the ungenial harshness of his style. The cartoon is singularly bold and vigorous, the figures have, as usual, as well florid a tone, merely the endless item of the composition, equally correct and minute in every part, demands the well-nigh careful exam to do justice to the research and fidelity of the creative person. Mr. Maclise's portrait of Mr. Macready in the character of Werner (No. 644) has already been privately exhibited in one of the printshops, and is a powerful dramatic impersonation of the great tragedian.

From Mr. Maclise nosotros laissez passer at one time to the spot where we last year think to accept seen Mr. Dyce'southward charming "Jacob and Rachel," merely which is not occupied by a deplorable failure of the aforementioned creative person. He has converted the nobility of Lear defying the storm into the distraction of an onetime-clothesman, and the biting jests of the Fool into a bestial caricature of humanity. Nosotros can hardly suppose that an creative person of Mr. Dyce's taste and effeminateness of feeling will sink into the study of the loathsome and the simulated, which have been deified of late, as nosotros shall run into, by some of the younger painters; but his film this twelvemonth is a painful blot in a very fair and promising reputation. His colleague, Mr. Herbert, has pursued a different course, and exhibits a finished study of a single figure (No. 84), belonging to a large composition of the Judgment of the Prophet Daniel, at present in progress for the new Houses of Parliament, which can hardly be surpassed for forcefulness, dignity, and simplicity. Information technology represents the boy Daniel, already armed with a Divine ability of judgment beyond his years, and irresistibly condemning the Elder before him. English language art has produced zero of more grandeur and truth than this picture, and though it is but a fragment of a far more considerable piece of work information technology ranks with the best contents of this exhibition.

Sir Edwin Landseer exhibits half-dozen pictures. Nosotros have the Monarch of the Woods springing from his lair in Glen-strae (No. 112), being, if nosotros error not, the heart of the group of stags which the House of Eatables refused to purchase for the New Palace of Westminster; a group of animals' heads (No. 134) synodically employed over a truss of cabbage leaves; a Highland "lassie" (No. 369), and a Highland keeper in the snowfall (No. 365), illustrating to perfection the Highland climate; and a fob in the terminal 10 minutes of the "terminal run of the season" (No. 538); just these are paintings of

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far less originality and skill than Sir Edwin's charming version of the celebrated scene from Midsummer Night'due south Dream of "Titiana and Lesser with the donkey's head and the attendant fairies" (No. 157), which is to course part of the Shakespeare Gallery of Mr. Brunel. It is i of Landseer'south happiest efforts—imaginative, fantastical, and elvish, yet full of natural grace and reality. Bottom retains his native stupidity without coarseness; his long-eared head has all the patience of asinine suffering, while the mental attitude of his legs suggests with extreme drollery the domestic habits of the Athenian journeyman. Titiana is not a fairy out of a melodrama, but the graceful cosmos of a poet—doating, deluded, but non impure; and the attendant elves, striding on the downwards of snow-white rabbits or tossing to and from the summer blossoms, are the very creatures of merriment and delight.

Among the pictures which aspire more strictly to the character of history, or at least of historical anecdote, that of Mr. E. M. Ward, representing the Royal family of French republic during their confinement in the Temple (No. 135), is the virtually careful and the nearly effective. The unfortunate Louis XVI. Lies comatose, his effigy finely foreshortened and his face up in shadow, while the illustrious partners of his captivity sentinel for him over their humble and unwonted tasks. Merely what unrest and pain in those broken slumbers! what misery in the clasped hands which take borne the spectre of France! The boy-Dauphin, who sits at the feet of Marie Antoinette, holds in his shuttlecock an emblem of his fate. That fair-haired girl who places the broken lily in the glass withal survives, sole heiress of a doomed family, for she bears to this hour the proper name of the Duchess of Angoulême. The residual are on the brink of the about terrible catastrophe in mod history. If the pathos of Mr. Ward's flick were less complete and the bailiwick less powerfully rendered, we might possibly object to the Hogarthian minutiæ of some of his details; merely these enhance an effect though they cannot create it, and they have been introduced with consummate skill and accuracy. Her Majesty was understood to have expressed a wish at the private view to place this film in the Royal collection. To the same class of paintings we may assign a clever work of Mr. Frith's (No. 204), founded upon the anecdote of "Hogarth brought before the Governor of Calais as a Spy;" Mr. Elmore's "Hotspur and the Fop" (No. 487); and Mr. Egg's "Pepys introduced to Nell Gwynne," which struck united states of america as fibroid and affected. Mr. Frank Stone's Scene from the Merchant of Venice, when Bassanio receives the announcement of Antonio'due south losses (No. 606) is painted in the customary manner of the artist, but with a singular absence of dramatic power, both in the arrangement of the figures and the expression of the personages. Mr. Hook has given us (No. 535) a version of the judgment scene in the same play, by no means deficient in originality. His Shylock is a creation of his own—his Portia, dressed in reddish physician's robes, forms an admirable piece of color, and though the outcome of the picture show is non entirely pleasing it is novel and meritorious. "The Rescue of the Brides of Venice," by the same creative person, is a piece of work of great and increasingly promise.

Since the death of Mr. Etty, the most remarkable of his immediate followers must be considered to be Mr. Frost. In spite of a tendency to degenerate into softness, there is considerable grace in his composition and beauty in his colour. The "Forest Nymphs" (No. 407) are certainly one of his all-time pictures, and preferable in some respects to the "Hylas" (560). Of a higher society still, however, both in colour and in expression, is Mr. Cope's large moving-picture show of "The Sisters" (No. 161) in the corner of the great room, to which we shall revert more fully in a future detect. We are compelled in like way to pass summarily to-day over Mr. Poole's classical limerick (No. 344) of "The Goths in Italy," where the rude conquerors of the Southward are carousing on the shores of Campania; over Mr. Horsley's "Allegro and Penseroso" (No. 592), painted for Prince Albert; O'Neil's "Ahasuerus" (No. 514); and Mr. Unwins' mannerly piffling gems of colour, "The Parasol" (172), and "Hop-picking" (175), which make us forgive him for having planted an unhallowed human foot on the "Isle of Calypso," (No. 35). Mr. Goodall's "Raising of the Maypole" (552), is the finest specimen of his talents we accept had since the start precious display of them—nothing tin be more than blithe and brilliant, or more carefully and skillfully managed in particular. Among names which are new to us that of Mr. T. Faed, a Scotch artist of promise in the manner of Wilkie, who exhibits "Auld Robin Gray" and "The First Step" (811), deserves to be noticed.

We cannot censure at nowadays, equally handsomely or equally strongly as nosotros desire to do, that foreign disorder of the mind or the eyes which continues to rage with unabated absurdity amidst a class of juvenile artists who way themselves "P.R.B.," which being interpreted ways Præ-Raphæl-brethren. Their faith seems to consist in an absolute contempt for perspective and the known laws of light and shade, an aversion to dazzler in every shape, and a singular devotion to the infinitesimal accidents of their subjects, including, or rather seeking out, every backlog of sharpness and deformity. Mr. Millais, Mr. Hunt, Mr. Collins, and in some degree Mr. Brown, the writer of a huge picture show of Chaucer (No. 380), have undertaken to reform the arts on these principles. The Quango of the Academy, acting in the spirit of toleration and indulgence to immature artists, accept at present immune these extravagances to disgrace their walls for the last three years; and though nosotros cannot forbid men who are capable of better things, from wasting their talents on ugliness and conceit, the public may fairly require that such offensive jests should not continue to be exposed as specimens of the waywardness of those artists who accept relapsed into the infancy of their profession.

Amongst the landscape painters Mr. Stanfield takes, without a rival, the atomic number 82 in his large work of "The Battle of Roveredo" (196), and in his lesser pic, in the small North Room, of "The Great Tor" (No. 742). Mr. Witherington has several pure English language scenes of smashing natural truth and beauty, from the lanes of Middlesex to the beeches of Knowle and the fells of Northern England. A slight further modification may exist traced in the style of Mr. Creswick, who produces nothing quite equal to his large landscapes of concluding twelvemonth, but has aimed at certain effects of evening, full of great solemnity and beauty, but more familiar to us from the canvass of other artists. Mr. Danby has several works of boggling vividness and dioramic illusion, borrowed from the trigger-happy furnishings which he imitates with so much brazenness and success. Lee and Cooper produce, with something of monotony, their sunlit meadows, shallow streams, and stately cattle; Linnell, some English scenes of more than his usual excellence; Redgrave, a delicious woodland glen, where Southey and Wordsworth were wont, it is said, to wile away the sultry days of June; and Roberts, ii fine paintings of Dutch churches, with a vast Syrian landscape, somewhat as well much expanded for the incidents and subjects introduced on the canvas. Mr. Melt, who has passed the autumn at Venice, exhibits a group of "Bragozzi" or line-fishing vessels of the Lagunes, and a fine luminous picture show of the "Salute and the Dogana." Mr. Harding has a pleasing picture of the "Tournon on the Rhone" (641). Amidst the works of men less known in London, 2 modest pictures of Welsh scenery by Mr. Oakes, of Liverpool (No. 186 and No. 208), were much admired.

The portraits of the year have not any high pre-

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tentions to merit, and they accept non usurped an immoderate infinite on the walls; indeed, in female portraits the nowadays exhibition is somewhat deficient. Those of Miss Lygon, Mrs. Philip Myles, and Miss Malin, and Lord Truro, and Mr. Justice Erle, past Mr. Frank Grant; Lord Brougham, by Pickersgill; Lord Overstone, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Bishop of London, by Eddis; a charming head of Mrs. Richards by herself; and some vigorous Scotch portraits of the Knuckles of Argyle and Professor Wilson, by Sir Watson Gordon, may be noticed favourably; while it appears that a Mr. Brigstocke has undertaken to avenge the Papal assailment after his own fashion, past hanging upwardly Key Wiseman in such a costume and with such an expression that no greater affront has still been offered to the Romish prelate. His Eminence, nevertheless, who attended the private view, seemed in no way abashed by the painful advent he is making on the walls.

But in the walks of portrait painting Sir. W. Ross and Mr. Thorburn reign supreme in their own branch, not only over their contemporaries, only over the miniature painters of whatever age. Zippo can be more exquisitely wrought than the dress, colour, and expression of the Princess Purple in a fancy dress by Sir W. Ross, and several other works of the same artist; while Thorburn aims with success at a mode of grandeur and expression never before attempted on ivory. The pictures of Prince Albert, and the Duke of Saxe-Coburg in armour (987), and those of Lady Melbourne, Mrs. Yorke, and Mrs. Upton, are each of themselves masterpieces; and we wish the same perfection were more frequently attained in the larger productions of our school art.

The Sculpture Room is for once non overloaded with marbles, many having been sent to the Exhibition in Hyde-park; but it contains two charming statues of Hebe and Psyche, by M'Dougall, and some admirable busts, especially that of Prince Albert, in a reduced size, by Baron Marochestti—the same eminent sculptor whose Richard Cœur de Lion points his ponderous sword to heaven with such colossal strength and devout energy on the sward at the western end of the Crystal Palace.

Nosotros shall accept an early opportunity of reverting with greater detail to many parts of the Exhibition of the Academy, which we have passed over too briefly or omitted to notice birthday.

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Some comeback has been effected in the distribution of the cramped and inconvenient apartments now allotted to the annual exhibition of modern pictures by removing the architectural drawings birthday to the Octagon-room, and devoting the northward room to paintings of more than full general interest. In fact this room, which, though small, is well lighted, now contains some of the all-time works in the collection. The visitor will observe in information technology Mr. Stanfield's fine marine view of the ocean breaking upon the mountainous and iron-leap coast of South Wales (743); two works of Mr. Ansdell, "Turning the Collection, with Aveimore and the Grampians in the altitude" (692), and a scene of Scotch peasantry (751), in which the written report of animal life is carried to cracking perfection, and the landscapes, though comparatively feeble, are genuine Highland scenes. We are hither tempted to notice besides M. Gudin's "Vesuvius by Night" (759), which, like his bold marine view from Lord Averdeen's cottage at Peterness (500), is remarkable for luminous result and original power. The "Vesuvius," indeed, reminds us, by its assorted lights, of the forced furnishings of Loutherbourg; simply the Scotch scene is full of existent grandeur, and volition sustain M. Gudin's reputation in both the countries to which he belongs. Mr. Brocky's "Phaon and Venus (714), to pass to another foreign artist adopted by this country, is well placed, and presents a fine female study, with keen richness and purity of colour, though the effect is somewhat impaired by an ineffective background and an inexpressive subject.

In the north room volition exist institute, too, Mr. Millar's picture of "the Woodman'south Girl," from some versus by Mr. Coventry Patmore; and, as the aforementioned remarks will apply to the other pictures of the aforementioned artist, "the Render of the Dove to the Ark" (651), and Tennyson's "Mariana" (561), also as to similar works by Mr. Collins, as "Convent Thoughts" (493), and of Mr. Chase, "Valentine receiving Proteus" (594), nosotros shall venture to express our stance on them all in this place. These immature artists have unfortunately become notorious past addicting themselves to an antiquated style, and an affected simplicity in painting, which is to 18-carat art what the mediæval ballads and designs in Dial are to Chaucer and Giotto. With the utmost readiness to humour even the caprices of fine art, when they bear the stamp of originality and genius, we can extend no toleration to a mere servile imitation of the cramped way, simulated perspective, and crude colour of remote artifact. Nosotros desire non to see what Fuseli termed curtain "snapped instead of folded," faces bloated into apoplexy, or extenuated to skeletons, colour borrowed from the jars in a druggist's shop, and expressed forced into extravaganza. It is said that these gentlemen have the ability to practise ameliorate things, and nosotros are referred in proof to their handicraft to the mistaken still with which they have transferred to sheet the hay which lined the lofts in Noah'south Ark, the brownish leaves of the coppice where Sylvia strayed, and the prim vegetables of a monastic garden. But we must doubt a capacity of which nosotros accept seen so niggling proof, and, if whatsoever such capacity did ever be in them, we fear that it has already been overlaid by mannerism and conceit. To become great in art, information technology has been said that a painter must get as a little child, though not childish; but the authors of these offensive and absurd productions have contrived to combine the puerility or infancy of their art with the uppishness and self-sufficiency of a unlike period of life. That morbid infatuation which sacrifices truth, beauty, and genuine feeling to mere eccentricity, deserves no quarter at the hands of the public; and, though the patronage of fine art is sometimes lavished on oddity as profusely as on higher qualities, these monkish follies have no more real claim to effigy in whatsoever decent collection of English paintings that the aberrations of intellect which are exhibited nether the name of Mr. Ward.

We turn with pleasure from these subjects to works similar those by which Mr. Cope sustains his reputation. His large picture, "The Sisters" (161), illustrated by some versus which are not very intelligible, represents the unconscious rivalry of his heroines. The treatment of the subject suggests rather than tells its own story. Between these two sisters, seated on the marble basement of an Italian palace, difficult past the blue southern sea, in that location lies a romance which the artist has left to the penetration and sympathy of the spectator. The one all gaiety and promise, fair, joyous, and breathing the pleasure of the hour, hangs upon the neck of the other and bids her join that gay company which is already embarking in the gilded pleasure-barge only pushing from the shore. The other, meditative, and conscious of deeper thoughts and emotions which mingle in her affection, pauses and hesitates with a look which conveys the unseen history and the unaccomplished sacrifice of their lives. It is a masterpiece of expression and of beauty. Perhaps a reminiscence of the well-known High german moving-picture show of "the 2 Leonoras" detracts a footling from the originality of the composition, but the attitudes and the expression of the two picture are entirely unlike. Mr. Cope's color and drapery are rich without excess, the design flowing and harmonious, the details of the background conscientious and judicious, and the work deserves to become popular, though the position in which it hangs is not favourable to its effect. In Mr. Cope's second film, representing iii passages in the life of Master Laurence Sanders, 1 of the English Reformers who suffered under Queen Mary at Coventry (No. 381), Mr. Cope has retained more of the frigidity and grey of tint which characterized some of his earlier productions, but at that place is an absenteeism of exaggeration which gives this creative person peculiar merit as a painter of historical subjects.

We have already cursorily alluded, in our notice of the private view, to Mr. Stanfield'south large moving picture, entitled "The Battle of Roveredo" (No. 196), which takes the first rank amidst the landscapes. It is a noble specimen of the artist's treatment of distant mountain scenery. Goose egg tin be more m and vast than the huge snow-capped Alps, which look down from their serene and inaccessible heights on the strife and bloodshed raging below. The depths of the valley, the broad flanks of the mountains, on which forests and cliffs are softened into moss-like smoothness past the enormous distance, and the picturesque towards of Roveredo, are finely rendered. This painting, still, claims rank not only as a fine landscape, but as a military machine and historical picture, and on that ground it invites some farther criticism. The foreground is occupied by the passage of a detachment of French Republican troops over water for the purpose of storming the heights, from which their comrades are driving the Austians on the right, and the battle is raging with great fury on the outworks of the castle which crowns the position. It might be remarked that the figures are entirely deficient in the energy of men rushing to battle, and the only blow we run into struck is from the uplifted arm of an Artillery driver, one of whose horses has fallen into the river. But we have no more than serious objections to the entire composition as a military painting. The stream, or brook, which the French are in the act of crossing, is, in truth, the river Adige, which at Roveredo is imprisoned betwixt two mount gorges, and forms a very deep and rapid torrent of considerable breadth. The French divisions under Vaubois and Victor did undoubtedly act on both sides of the river, but we can discover no prove at all that either of them crossed it, and we exceedingly dubiousness the fact, hither represented by Mr. Stanfield, that they could have forded such a river with artillery and in so leisurely a manner. The boxing of Roveredo consisted in the successive storming of two gorges, both of which were dedicated past Davidowich; the lower gorge of San Marco is beneath the town, and was carried by Full general Dubois, who was killed on the spot; the town was and so entered and taken, and the French ground forces rushed onwards with its usual impetuosity and forced the defile of Calliano, a tremendous pass crowned by the Castle of La Pietra, situated in a higher place the town. We are not informed by the catalogue which of these two incidents in the battle Mr. Stanfield proposed to himself to represent—the castle on the correct of the picture would seem to exist La Pietra, only the relative situation of the town above the pass belongs to San Marco; and at whatever rate the passage of the Adige, without the to the lowest degree attempt at any of the dispositions such a movement would require, is a war machine absurdity which in fact never occurred at all. We are thus detail in the test of this motion-picture show, because when war machine subjects are selected by artists, and designated by names, dates, and places, they are bound to something like historical fidelity, and a battle which is accurately described in every narrative of the campaign of

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1706 cannot be treated as a pure work of imagination.

Among the landscape painters, Mr. Cooke'south two pictures of scenes in Venice will repay a second visit, and the handling of the luminous reflection on the white cupola of the Salute (in the north room) is particularly bold and felicitous. The real aspect of Venice itself and of the K Canal has never been more faithfully rendered, even by Canaletti, than by Mr. W. Linton (No. 510). Nosotros admire the breadth, tranquility, and sobriety of tone which are so favourable to architectural effect in his pictures, and Mr. Linton never resorts to those artifices of light by which so many modern artists attempt to throw a strained and unnatural involvement over their compositions. Mr. Linnell displays from year to year a slap-up increment of power and natural feeling in the style of landscape painting he has latterly adopted. His picture "Woodlands" (No. 559) is an beauteous specimen of English scenery; and, though starting from very different points, Linnell and Creswick have reached a great caste of resemblance in their treatment of extended champaign country. On the right of this picture we are detained past Mr. Boxall's slight but exquisite portrait of "the Hon. Mrs. Boyle"—a charming subject area, treated with the hand of a primary. Nor is inferior praise due to Mr. Boxall'south fine portrait of Gibson, the sculptor (180); it is one of the few elevated and intellectual portraits of which this exhibition can boast; and, though nonetheless unfinished in parts, and with besides youthful an attribute, the head has extreme fire, free energy, and thoughtful power. Having touched in one case more than upon the uninviting theme of the portraits, we may here correct an mistake that we fell into in our former notice past attributing Mr. Frank Grant the very pleasing portrait of Miss Lygon, which is in fact due to Mr. Swinton. Information technology is, we remember, the lady's all-time portrait of the twelvemonth, and must be restored to its proper author. Though in a different fashion, we have been scarcely less pleased with the portrait of the "Duchess of Manchester," by M. Desanges (No. 119). In connexion with this branch we must here point out three or 4 drawings of heads by Mr. Watts, in the miniature-room, which, though not all as felicitous in point of resemblance, are really masterpieces of cartoon—they have the mingled softness and strength of drawings past the former masters, and are indications of great hope.

Among the painters to whom a secondary rank may be assigned, nosotros have omitted to mention Mr. Lejeune's "Sermon on the Mount" (678), conceived in the spirit of Sir Charles Eastlake'southward scripture subjects and executed in obvious imitation of his manner, simply with a feebleness of expression in the principal figure of the limerick which mars the result of the whole, though the accessory figures are pleasing. Mr. Hook'southward pictures are as well affected by too dandy a resemblance to the before works of the President, and we nevertheless hope, from the vigour of his productions last year, to see him pursue a walk of his own. Mr. O'Neil'southward "Ahasuerus" is, on the contrary, extremely powerful, and is esteemed past some artists his all-time work; but it is bogus and theatrical, though not scarce in grace of arrangement, and the glare of the concealed torch, though ingeniously diffused over the Assyrian'southward tent, is far from pleasing. Mr. Armytage has also pursued the vein of Oriental subjects equally illustrated past the late discoveries at Nineveh, and his pic of "Samson in the hands of the Philistines" (631) is very preferable to his strange product of last year. Mr. Horsley has attempted, in a pic originally designed for a compartment in the Business firm of Parliament, and after executed for Prince Albert, to represent in ane composition the contrasted groups of Milton's "Penseroso" and "Allegro" (No. 592); we are non sure that the upshot is as successful every bit the idea seemed promising, and at whatever rate we prefer the playful group which is retiring in the distance to the austere postulants who occupy the foreground similar an avenue of cypresses.

A more careful examination of these productions will doubtless serve to discover some works of merit which nosotros accept unavoidably passed over in silence, and we get out a more minute word of their beauties of our weekly and artistic contemporaries. Just upon the whole we are led unwillingly to the conclusion that this exhibition is in no caste above the average, and considerably below the degree of excellence attained in the last ii years. We are reminded by their absenteeism of the not bad and original artists who are no longer amongst our contributors, for their work is done, and their place will neither be filled past the class of second-rate talents, nor past the extravagance which distorts originality into the loathsome and the grotesque. We may dwell with entire satisfaction on some noble exceptions, such equally Mr. Ward'due south "Purple Family of France," Sir. E. Landseer'south "Midsummer Night'south Dream," Mr. Maclise's "Caxton," and three or four of the landscapes of Creswick, Stanfield, and Danby; merely such exceptions are non sufficiently abundant to reverse our full general impression, that this exhibition is non one of the most favourable displays we have witnessed of British art.

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We accept received the following remarks upon our criticism of the pictures exhibited at the Regal Academy by Messrs. Millais and Hunt, from Mr. Ruskin, the author of many well-known works on art:—

"Sir,—Your usual liberality will, I trust, requite a place in your columns to this expression of my regret that the tone of the critique which appeared in The Times of Midweek last on the works of Mr. Millais and Mr. Chase, now in the Royal Academy, should accept been scornful likewise as severe.

"I regret information technology, starting time, considering the mere labour bestowed on those works, and their allegiance to a certain order of truth (labour and allegiance which are altogether indisputable) ought at once to have placed them above the level of mere contempt; and, secondly, because I believe these young artists to exist at a most critical menstruation of their career—at a turning point, from which they may either sink into nothingness or rise to very existent greatness; and I believe also, that whether they cull the upward or downward path may in no small degree depend upon the character of the criticism which their works have to sustain. I practise not wish in any fashion to dispute or invalidate the general truth of your critique on the Regal Academy; nor am I surprised at the estimate which the writer formed of the pictures in question when speedily compared with works of totally unlike style and aim; nay, when I outset saw the chief picture by Millais in the Exhibition of last year I had nearly come to the same conclusions myself. Simply I ask your permission, in justice to artists who have at least given much fourth dimension and toil to their pictures, to plant some more than serious research into their claim and faults than your general notice of the Academy could possibly accept admitted.

"Let me state, in the showtime place, that I have no associate with whatever of these artists, and very imperfect sympathy with them. No one who has met with any of my writings volition suspect me of daring to encourage them in their Romanist and Tractarian tendencies. I am glad to run into that Mr. Millais's lady in blue is heartily tired of her painted window and idolatrous toilet-table, and I have no particular respect for Mr. Collins' lady in white, because her sympathies are express by a dead wall, or divided between some gold fish and a tadpole (the latter Mr. Collins may, peradventure, let me to propose, en passant, as he is already half a frog, is rather too modest for his age). But I happen to take a special acquaintance with the h2o found, Alisma Plantago, amidst which the said gilded fish are pond; and, as I never saw it so thoroughly or so well drawn, I must accept leave to remonstrate with you when yous say sweepingly, that these men 'sacrifice truth, as well as feeling to eccentricity.' For as a mere botanical written report of the water lily and Alisma, besides as of the common lily and several other garden flowers, this moving-picture show would be invaluable to me, and I heartily wish it were mine.

"Simply, before entering into such particulars, let me correct an impression which your article is likely to induce in most minds, and which is altogether false. These pre-Raphaelites (I cannot compliment them on common sense in selection of a nom de guerre) practice not desire nor pretend in any way to imitate antique painting, equally such. They know little of ancient paintings who suppose the works of these young artists to resemble them. As far as I can judge of their aim—for, every bit I said, I do not know the men themselves—the pre-Raphaelites intend to surrender no reward which the knowledge or inventions of the nowadays time tin afford to their art. They intend to return to early days in this one indicate only—that, as far as in them lies, they will draw either what they see, or what they suppose might take been the actual facts of the scene they desire to stand for, irrespective of any conventional rules of picture making; and they have chosen their unfortunate though not inaccurate proper noun because all artists did this before Raphael'south time, and after Raphael's fourth dimension did not this, but sought to paint fair pictures rather than represent stern facts, of which the consequence has been that from Raphael's time to this day historical art has been in acknowledged decadence.

"Now, Sir, presupposing that the intention of these men was to return to primitive art instead of to archaic honesty, your critic borrows Fuseli's expression respecting ancient draperies—'snapped' instead of folded,' and asserts that in these pictures there is a ' servile imitation of false perspective.' To which I accept merely this to answer: —

"That there is not ane unmarried mistake in perspective in iv out of the five pictures in question, and that in Millais' 'Mariana' there is just this one—that the tiptop of the green curtain in the distant window has too low a vanishing point; and that I will undertake, if need be, to indicate out and prove a dozen worse errors in perspective in whatever 12 pictures containing architecture, taken at random from among the works of the most popular painters of the day.

"Secondly: that, putting aside the small Mulready and the works of Thorburn and Sir W. Ross, and perhaps some others of those in the miniature room which I have not examined, there is not a single report of curtain in the whole Academy, be it in large works or small, which for perfect truth, power, and finish, could be compared for an instant with the black sleeve of the Julia, or with the velvet on the chest and the chain mail of the Valentine of Mr. Hunt's movie; or with the white draperies on the table in Mr. Millais' 'Mariana, ' and of the right hand figure in the same painter's 'Dove returning to the Ark.'

"And further: that as studies both of drapery and of every pocket-size item, in that location has been nothing in art and then hostage or and then complete as these pictures since the days of Albert Durer. This I assert more often than not and fearlessly. On the other paw,

I am perfectly ready to acknowledge that Mr. Chase'south 'Silvia' is non a person whom Proteus or anyone else would have been likely to have fallen in love with at starting time sight; and that one cannot feel any sincere delight that Mr. Millais' 'Wives of the Sons of Noah' should have escaped the Deluge; with many other faults also on which I will not enlarge at present, because I accept already occupied too much of your valuable infinite, and I hope to be permitted to enter into more specific criticism in a futurity alphabetic character,

"I have the award to exist, Sir, your obedient servant,

"THE Author OF 'MODERN PAINTERS.'

Kingdom of denmark-hill, May ix."

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TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.

Sir,—Your obliging insertion of my former letter of the alphabet encourages me to trouble yous with one or ii farther notions respecting the pre-Raphaelite pictures. I had intended, in continuation of my outset letter, to institute as close an inquiry as I could into the character of the morbid tendencies which prevent these works from favourably arresting the attending of the public; simply I believe at that place are then few pictures in the University whose reputation would not be grievously diminished by a deliberate inventory of their errors, that I am disinclined to undertake so ungracious a task with respect to this or that detail work. Three points, all the same, may be noted, partly for the consideration of the painters themselves, partly that forgiveness of them may be asked from the public in consideration of high merit in other respects.

The most painful of these defects is unhappily also the most prominent—the commonness of feature in many of the principal figures. In Mr. Hunt's "Valentine defending Sylvia," this is, indeed, nearly the only fault. Further examination of this picture has even raised the estimate I had previously formed of its marvellous truth in item and splendour in color; nor is its general formulation less deserving of praise; the activity of Valentine, his arm thrown circular Sylvia and his paw clasping hers at the same instant every bit she falls at his feet, is most faithful and cute, nor less so the contending of doubt and distress with awakening hope in the half-shadowed, half-sunlit countenance of Julia. Nay, even the momentary struggle of Proteus with Sylvia, merely past, is indicated by the trodden grass and cleaved fungi of the foreground. Simply all this thoughtful conception, and absolutely inimitable execution, fails in making immediate appeal to the feelings, attributable to the unfortunate type chosen for the confront of Sylvia. Certainly this cannot be she whose lover was—

• "Equally rich in having such a jewel,
• "Every bit 20 seas, if all their sands were pearl."

Nor is information technology, mayhap, less to exist regretted that while in Shakspeare's play in that location are nominally "2 Gentlemen," in Mr. Hunt's picture in that location should exist i—at least, the kneeling figure on the right has by no means the look of a gentleman. But this may exist on purpose, for any one who remembers the acquit of Proteus throughout the previous scenes will, I think, be tending to consider that the error lies more in Shakspeare's nomenclature than in Mr. Hunt'due south ideal.

No defence force can, however, be offered for the choice of features in the left-manus figure of Mr. Millais' "Dove returning to the Ark." I cannot understand how a painter so sensible of the utmost refinements of beauty in other objects should deliberately cull for his model a type far inferior to that of average humanity, and unredeemed by whatever expression except that of dull self-self-approbation. Yet let the spectator who desires to be merely turn away from this caput, and contemplate rather the tender and beautiful expression of the stooping figure, and the intense harmony of color in the exquisitely finished draperies; let him notation likewise the ruffling of the plume of the wearied dove, i of its feathers falling on the arm of the figure which holds it, and some other to the ground, where, past the by, the hay is painted not but elaborately, but with the most perfect ease of affect and mastery of outcome, especially to exist observed because this freedom of execution is a modern excellence, which it has been inaccurately stated that these painters despise, only which, in reality, is one of the remarkable distinctions between their painting and that of Van Eyck or Memling, which caused me to say in my start letter that "those know little of aboriginal painting who supposed the work of these men to resemble it."

Next to this simulated choice of feature, and in connection with information technology, is to be noted the defect in the colouring of the flesh. The hands, at to the lowest degree in the pictures of Millais, are almost always ill painted, and the flesh tint in general is wrought out of crude purples and dusky yellows. It appears merely possible that much of this evil may arise from the attempt to obtain too much transparency—an attempt which has injured also non a few of the best works of Mulready. I believe it will be by and large found that close study of small-scale details is unfavourable to flesh painting; it was noticed of the drawing by John Lewis, in the quondam water-colour exhibition of 1850 (a work which, as regards its handling of particular, may be ranged in the aforementioned class with the pre-Raphaelite pictures), that the faces were the worst painted portions of the whole.

The apparent want of shade is, however, perhaps the fault which most hurts the general centre. The fact is, still, that the fault is far more in the other pictures of the University than in the pre-Raphaelite ones. It is the former that are simulated, not the latter, except then far as every picture must be fake which endeavours to correspond living sunlight with dead pigments. I think Mr. Hunt has a slight trend to exaggerate reflected lights; and if Mr. Millais has ever been almost a piece of good painted glass he ought to have known that its tone is more dusky and sober than that of his Mariana'south window. But for the well-nigh function these pictures are rashly condemned, because the only lite which nosotros are accepted to meet represented is that which falls on the artist's model in his dim painting-room, not that of sunshine in the fields.

I exercise not call up I can go much further in fault finding. I had, indeed, something to urge respecting what I supposed to exist the Romanizing tendencies of the painters; simply I have received a letter assuring me that I was wrong in attributing to them anything of the kind, whereupon, all I tin can say is, that instead of the "pilgrimage" of Mr. Collins's maiden over a plank and round a fishpond, that old pilgrimage of Christiana and her children towards the place where they should "wait the Fountain of Mercy in the face up" would take been more to the purpose in these times. And and then I wish them all heartily good speed, believing in sincerity that if they temper the courage and free energy which they take shown in the adoption of their system with patience and discretion in pursuing it, and if they practice non endure themselves to be driven past harsh or careless criticism into rejection of the ordinary means of obtaining influence over the minds of others, they may, as they gain feel, lay in our England the foundations of a schoolhouse of art nobler than the earth has seen for 300 years.

I accept the accolade the be, Sir,

Your obedient retainer,

THE Author OF "Modernistic PAINTERS."

Denmark-hill, May 26.  

[We should detect it no hard chore to destroy the web which the paradoxical ingenuity of our contributor, the "Author of Modern Painters," has spun, but we must confine our respond within narrower limits than the letters with which he has favoured us. If we spoke with severity of the productions of the immature artists to which this correspondence relates, it was with a sincere desire to induce them, if possible, to relinquish what is cool, morbid, and offensive in their works, and to cultivate whatever higher and better qualities they possess; but at present these qualities are wholly overlaid by the vices of a mode which has probably answered its purpose by obtaining for these young gentlemen a notoriety less hard to bear, even in the shape of ridicule, than public indifference. This perversion of talent—if talent they have—nosotros take to exist fairly obnoxious to criticism: and we trust the say-so of the "Author of Modern Painters" will non accept the reverse upshot of perpetuating or increasing the defects of a style which, in spite of his assertions, we hold to be a flagrant violation of nature and truth. In fact, Mr. Ruskin'due south own works might show the best antidote to any such false theory; for (if we call up rightly) he has laid information technology down, in his defence of Mr. Turner'south landscapes, that truth in painting is not the mere imitative reproduction of this or that object, equally they are, only the reproduction or prototype of the general effect given by an aggregation of objects as they appear to the sight. Mr. Millais and his friends take taken refuge in the opposite extreme of exaggeration from Mr. Turner; but, as extremes meet, they both find an apologist in the aforementioned critic. Aërial perspective, powerful contrasts of light and shade, with form and colour fused in the radiance of the temper, are characteristics of Mr. Turner. The P.R.B.s, to whom the "Author of Modern Painters" has transferred his angel, combine a repulsive precision of ugly shapes with monotony of tone in such works as "Sylvia" or "Convent Thoughts," or distorted expression, as in "Mariana" or the "Dove in the Ark." Mere truth of imitation in the details of a flower or a lock of pilus ceases to be truth in combination with the laws of issue. Nobody compares the pimples on a face by Denner with the broad flesh of Titian. Many of our contributor'due south assertions may exist more than summarily tending of past a reference to the pictures

in question than past discussion in this identify; simply though he has carried the rights of defence to their utmost limits, we submit that plenty remains, even on his own admissions, to condemn these unfortunate attempts, and that the mere expression of a difference of taste does not suffice to milk shake whatsoever of those established rules of art and criticism upon which such works accept been tried and found wanting. It will give us great pleasance if we observe next year that these young painters are able to throw off the monkish disguise in which they have been fooling, and stand forth as the founders of the illustrious schoolhouse which our correspondent announces to the world.]

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Source: http://www.rossettiarchive.org/docs/n.gb1.1851.may.rad.html

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