The Press. — London, England, 1853-06-25 00:00:00

188 'dowdy, which his young and lovely wife approaches an tiptoe to seize from him. In so striking a por trait we are reluctant to descend to minute criticism, but we must observe that the coarseness of the painting in , the great actor's face hardly corresponds with the light and graceful touch with which the artist has painted the playful bride. " Sir Francis Burdett" (No. 136), and " Lady Burdett " (No. 148), by Sir Thomas Lawrence, are no bad specimens of the earlier manner of that popular painter. A more natural style of portrait-painting has succeeded the conventional manner then in fashion, and a little more attention is now paid to costume and accessorial details. Sir Francis is represented standing out of doors in an evening dress, with tightly-drawn black silk stockings (the least picturesque costume that ever puzzled a painter), one hand resting on the bust of King John, the other reaching across his body, and unrolling Magna Charts, and to which he seems appealing. The taste of the composition, sentiment, and attitude, we will not pause to question. As a work of art we think we may congratulate the public on seeing far superior merit in many of the portraits by living artists at present exhibited in the Royal Academy. Lady Burdett is seated in a woody landscape—her straw hat filled with flowers, a single rose in her bosom, and her rich brown hair overshadowing her hand some features. Her dress resembles a modern bed gown. and was never such, we imagine, as ladies walked abroad in. Her figure is singularly ill-drawn, her extremities are far too small, and her feet are thrust into a pointed slipper of white satin. (To be continued.) TURNER'S PICTURES. Os Monday last there were sold by Messrs. Christie, at their rooms, five pictures by Turner, described in the catalogue as " superlative works of the great master." They are painted in his latest manner, and were knocked down at prices which prove that his works of recent date have not sunk in the estimation of at least a portion of the public. They were sold as follows :- 1, " Venice--Evening : Going to the Ball," exhi bit3cl in the Royal Academy, 1846, No. 117, 540/. 2. "Morning : Returning from the Ball—S. Mar tino," exhibited in the Royal Academy, 1846, No. 162, 0401. 10s. 8. "Dawn of Christianity : Flight into Egypt," exhibited in the Royal Academy, 1841, No. 532, 7451. lOs. 4. " Glaucus and Scylla--' Ovid's Metamorphoses; " painted on panel, exhibited in the Royal Academy, 1811, No. 542, 7:151. 5. "Approach to Venice," 850/. lOs. During a part of Turner's career there is no differ ence of opinion as to his merit. We have never heard any one deny the genius and knowledge dis played in his "Libor Studiorum." AU agree in ex tolling the truth and beauty of the two magnificent specimens of his powers in the National Gallery, which, according to his own request, hang in juxta position with two Claudes, and winch might have occupied the same position without suffering by the comparison even if the Claudes had remained un cleaned. But at a certain epoch which it would be difficult to fix precisely there took place in his style a change— and as ordinary critics say—for the worse. His compo sition, they complain, became exaggerated; his chiar oscuro inconsistent; and, above all, his colouring false and extravagant. Others, on the contrary, who claim to possess a deeper knowledge of nature, and a more refined appreciation of art, and at their head the ingenious author of " Modern Painters,"—all these contend that each successive burst of his seem ing extravagance must be received as a revelation which it is our duty not to creation but to reverence and to study. We do not in the least overstate the "undergraduates"' language, and where the diffi'rence of opinion is so irreconcilable it may seem useless to provoke a discussion. " Non noir/run tot tantas componere lites." But, as the eloquent and ingenious critic maintains that, by a careful examination of nature, the painter's truth will in all cases be triumphantly made manifest, we accept the issue he proposes, and will proceed to try by the test of nature the five pictures recently exhi bited in Messrs. Christie's auction-room. The selection will not be objected to av unfair. No. 5, the catalogue tells us, "is described by Ruskin in Modern Painters,' vol. i., as one of the most beautiful bits of colour ever done by any man, by any means, at any time." The motto explains the effect which the painter meant to represent : " The moo n is up, anti yet it is not night; The sun as yet disputes the day with her."—Dyres. Many of our readers may have enjoyed such an hour on the lagunes of Venice or the cliffs of Sor rento, and will remember how solid under these eir eurnstances is the landscape, how rich in colour, how clearly defined is the outline of objects against the luminous sky. Exhalations arising at such a time are cold and heavy ; if distant and partial s they are THE PRESS. clearly marked and opaque ; if general and near, they blot out the view altogether. Let the traveller compare his recollections with "The Approach to Venice." In the centre of the picture the luminous orb which is struggling through the bright mist is, we suppose, intended for the full moon ; but the sea, the sky, and the town, as far as each is distinguish able from either, are illuminated by a sun which, if we had not learnt the painter's intention by his motto, we should suppose to be still high in the heavens. In No. 1, "Evening," the same treatment is adopted ; yet surely we see in naure that as the sun sinks the landscape gains in solidity and substance. While the shades of evening gather fast over the earth, the light lingers in the sky, and the horizon remains strongly defined : it is only when the light is finally fading away that earth and sky are blended together in one common obscurity ; but at what pe riod of the evening are they confounded in a semi luminous haze ? In No. 2, " Morning," the sun shows half its disc above the horizon. But surely the town behind which it rises would be in deep shadow, except where the light catches and gilds some bold projection or some tall tower; and the outline, except in the im mediate vicinity of the sun's orb, would be well defined and clear. Softened, indeed, it may be by the dazzling haze of morning ; but how cool and grey are the shadows of the early dawn—how bright, though colourless, are the tremulous lights ! At such a time Venice might seem (according to a fan ciful description we have read somewhere) a town of silver reflected in a pavement of polished pewter. Yet in Turner's picture the rising sun has no influence on the shadows or tone of colour. The light green sea and the Egyptian pyramid and martello towers (of which the painter's " Venice " is strangely com pounded) are lighted and coloured by another sun high up in the heavens ; and so also is the bank of clouds which is spread immediately above the rising luminary, and is shadowed just where we should ex pect it to be gilded by his rays. In the representations both of morning and even ing the shadows of the figures and boats are scarlet and orange. Now, it must be remembered that sha dows are warmed only by the light reflected from some illuminated object. The light reflected from the sky is always cool, and the feebleness of the re fleeted light is one of the characteristics of the early morning. Moreover, in all these pictures the out lines even of objects in the foreground are equally and universally hazy and indistinct. Nothing can be finer than the delicacy of observation with which Turner in his earlier works leaves undefined all that nature blends together. But in his later works, for the most part, and certainly in the present speci mens, there is sharpness nowhere, and, where all is indistinct indiscriminately, the propriety and beauty and even meaning of indistinctness are lost. It seems to us there is but one portion of the day when the effect which Turner is so fond of repre senting has anything like a prototype in nature. In a southern climate the summer sun near its meridian blurs the landscape with an excessive glare of light; there is little shadow, and consequently but little outline ; objects seem melting in a brown and white haze. The elastic air visible to the eye, and floating (or palpitating, in Mr. Ruskin's phrase) in countless undulations, seems to affect the regularity of the out line by its tremulous motion. But it would be a poor defence of the painter to say that he combines noonday effects with rising and setting suns ; and even thus, another great inconsistency, remains un explained. If the sun is behind the spectator the objects are in light ; but their indistinctness ceases. If the sun is in front of the spectator the indistinct ness of objects returns, but they are seen in shadow. Where, but in Turner's pictures, shall we find the union of universal mistiness and universal light? We admit, indeed, that in London, where the at mosphere thickened by smoke seems to hold the sunshine (when there is any) as it were in solution, objects sometimes appear shadowy and confused, when, under the same circumstances, in any natural atmosphere, they could show themselves sharp and distinct. But this, though it may help to explain, will hardly excuse the licence of the painter, which far exceeds any precedent that London smoke can sacra him ; and what. can be said for the transfer of London smoke to a Venetian sunset? The author of "Modern Painters" summons to his bar all who have painted Venice, from Canaletti to the most recent of modern exhibitors, and, with a word or two of commendation, dismisses them all as having failed to do justice to the Venetian atmosphere ; but, after describing one of Turner's later pictures, lie exclaims, " Yes, Mr. Turner, this is Venice!" The picture may, perhaps, have all the merits which we have failed to see in it, but Venice most assuredly it is not ; and we well remember the unfeigned astonishment with which Venetians in the year of the Great Exhi bition gazed at the heaps of "most admired confusion," which they were assured were intended for represen tations of their beautiful capital by the first of English SATURDAY, No. 3, a circular picture, represents " The Dawn Of Christianity." As the subject is allegorical, the treat ment may, perhaps, be allowed to be preternatural ; but, if the painter is allowed to transgress the limits of nature, he is bound to respect her analogies. The centre of the canvas is occupied by a white haze, which is quite incompatible with the intense garter blue of the upper part of the sky, as that' is in its turn with the lurid red of the dawn to which it is most inartiticially and clumsily patched. In the midst of the white fog is seen a group representing the " Flight into Egypt ;" the figures of, which, by comparison with the surrounding objects, may be estimated at about 50 or 04) feet high. In "(ileums and Scylla," No. 4, the figures are not less colossal in their dimensions, and are more preposterously absurd in their drawing. Turner's figures, which were always bad enough to injure the effect of his best pictures, exhibit still more careless ness in his later works. He seems to have thought, because they were slightly indicated, they might be incorrectly drawn, forgetful that the fewer the touches with which he expresses his meaning the more needful it is that those few should be faithful and correct. This picture forcibly illustrates to our minds the chief defect of Turner's latter system of painting. Mr. Ruskin somewhere says, if Mr. Turner could put on light instead of mere paint, all would be right. Precisely KO ; the defence and the accusation may be expressed in the same words. It is because Turner will not submit with a good grace to the poverty and inadequacy of his materials that we censure him. With the scanty means at his disposal the painter can give the relative but not the actual effect of light. And, if lie insists upon having one part of his picture abso lutely true, he must be content to have the rest both absolutely and relatively false. To imitate the bril liancy of a bright foreground, he will need to exhaust all the pigments of thelpalette. What, then, is left to paint the monarch of light and the gorgeous tints that surround his throne? It is in vain that in the present picture Turner heaps on red and yellow and orange; he hardly arrives at Falstaff's flame-coloured taffety, and with every fresh accession of strong colour only approaches nearer and nearer to brickdust and gravel. It is only on the point of Turner's fidelity to nature that we think the dispute with his indiscrimi. nate admirers admits of any decision, or can be dis cussed with any profit. If it is asserted, as his advo cates sometimes do assert when inconveniently pressed, that his pictures are an improvement on nature, and that, like the artist in Scribe's play," Loin d'imiter la nature, it en a invents une beaucoup plus belle, que vous ne trouverez nulle part," we will not enter into a discussion which can only lead to an end less waste of words. We leave the result to posterity. In time the opinions and the feelings of mankind are sure to gravitate to a right decision. Meanwhile we are quite willing to admit that all his pictures painted during the period of extravagance are by no means equally extravagant, and that in his wildest extravagances there are to be found qualities which may be studied by the man of taste and the artist with pleasure and profit. srinut nub g ittraturt ;throb. SANSCRIT AND PANSLAVISM.—Professor Schleicher, of Prague, who has made the Lithuanian language his especial study, lately read his report thereon before the philological section of the Czechian Society of Science. According to the professor's opinion the Lithuanian is no Slavic dialect (?), and has only a sound-relation to the Sanscrit; while the Slavic lan guages, if considered in all their combined dialects, have retained a greater similitude of form with the Sanscrit than the Lithuanian. MOST RARE BOOKS ON AMERICA.—The great com mercial and literary activity now prevailing in the social system of Europe brings forth and congregates books rarely to be met with even in the greatest libraries. Thus, an Augsburg antiquarian lately advertised the famous cosmographic tract of Hyla comylus, where the name of Anteriga was first foisted on the continent of Columbia, the editions of lan and 1509 ; the first edition of the third letter of Amerigo Vespucci, Paris, 1503; the Mundus Novus, Augsburg, Otmar, 1504; and the Neven Welt of Ruchhammer, 1507 ; to which invaluable rarities the attention of amateurs is now directed. It has been calculated that collectors from the United States pay a crown (55.) for each leaf of every rarity relative to their native country. MINISTER FRANCIS COrNT STADION, one of the Coriphees of the Vienna revolution of 184$, has died, and his funeral was attended by a large concourse of all classes of society. His taking office at the above period so shook his nerves that he lingered ever since, and never recovered. MUNICH ART EXHIBITION.—M. de Kaulbach has just issued a notice, in his capacity of director of the Royal Art Academy, relative to the exhibition to be held in the Bavarian capital from the 25th of August