The Press. — London, England, 1858-05-08 00:00:00

lint arts ROYAL ACADEMY. (Second Notice.) N o me, we imagine, will complain of this year's exhibition either as poor or uninteresting ; and yet those painters who have already made their reputa tion, have seldom done so little to justify it. Among the Academicians, Frith is really the only one who can be said to have gained higher rank by his recent labour; no other has done better than before, few even so well. There is more life among the Horsley and and Phillip, have e lates ; wad Hooky been thinking, and working, and winning their way. But it is largely owing to the younger men—the artists who can write no letters after their names— that we find on the walls so much to admire, so much to reflect upon, so much heartily to approve. A change is coming over our English school, and change is always urged on by the young, and checked by the old. "Those young men have such a fancy for everything new," is the continual complaint of elderly gentlemen ; and if they cannot prevent inno vating, they will, at all events, take no part in them. The minds of most men seem to become stiffened soon after the period of middle life; their duty is no longer to give motion, but to regulate it. And we ought not to think lightly of this duty. We are apt to fancy it would be a grand thing if in any degene rate period of art we could get hold of leading men —men of trained eye and practised hand—men who could draw after them the consent of others—and convert these men to better principles. but it can not be done ; it never is done ' • perhaps we may co nclude that it would not be well if it could be done. The change would be too sudden ; and a revolution is a desperate remedy, often worse than the disease. The child that grows rapidly is not the strong child ; the gourd that comes up in a night perishes in a night. It is good for the truth to be afflicted, and to force its way through neglect, contempt, and opposition. There is no faith in this world that can afford to do without persecution. This change in our English school made a disturbance at first, but it is growing quietly and prosperously now. The Pre.Raffaelite principles when first asserted were received with every kind of ridicule and contempt; but they have made their way. The elder artists stand aside, it is true ; they will have nothing to do with these inno vations themselves ; hut they offer no active opposi tion, and, greatly to their own honour, they did not allow differences of opinion to exclude from their body such a man as Mr. Millais. The change is ap parent to every one, the cause only to some ; the principles are still but half understood, but their re sult is enjoyed by all. And who will say that the opposition by which they were met has answered no purpose? Was it not well for young artists to be taught that in studying the merits of the early painters they must not be led by a blind admiration into copying their faults ? And what could teach this well and so quickly as ridicule They have learnt the lesson ; here, too, is a result evident to all. Look round the walls of the Academy for Pre- Raffaelite pictures and you will say there are scarcely any; look into the pictured and you will find dozens : there is liardly a rising artist who does not belong to a higher school of painting than we have ever had before. It is the number of such works that is the principal feature of the present collection. The pictures exhibited by Mr. Hart, the Academy's Professor of Painting, and by Mr. Leslie, who lately held that office, are two notable examples of the school which is now passing away, never, we devoutly trust, to return. Both have been daring in their choice of subjec:s. Mr. Hart has painted " Athaliah's dismay at the coronation of Joash," and Mr. Leslie has attempted even higher things, nothing less than a scene from the Gospels. A minute examination of either of these productions would be disagreeable task, but it is quite unnecessary. The faults of Mr. Hart's picture are so glaring that there no need to p o i n t a t th em ; an utterly theatrical scene, badly dr awn an d v ill a i nous ly coloured—what can we say about it? There is no beauty-Worship about Mr. Hart; he abjures truth, but he sells him self for no t h ing ; hi s wor k i s f a l se, an d ug ly too — monstrously false, and preposterously ugly—truly an unhappy man!! Fewer words are enough for Mr. Leslie ; h e h as taken such a subject, and treated it , in such a manner—so mean, so unworthy is his pic ture that we cannot stay to examine it. Our criti. elms begins and ends w ith " Pooh ! " WI nwe M think of what r. Leslie has done in years gone by we wish he had sent nothing rather than that. Com pare with these the three pictures by Wallis, an artist who three years ago was unknown. What thought there is in them, and what work! What endea vour, and what achievement ! With what strength does be grasp hi s su bject, and with what strength d oes he portray it ! how deeply does lie feel it, and how deeply does he make others feel it! In h,5 picture of "Sir Walter Raleigh in the Tower , " the window e of the cell and the little glimpse from are so well painted that, if the figure THE PRESS, MAY 8, 1858. were not there, they would be a picture in them selves. But they are not merely well painted, they are well thought of ; the buoks and the maps, the lute and the globe, the portrait of Queen Bess, ay, and the tobacco-pipe, have all a meaning; they all belong to Sir Walter—they cannot be spared, they must all be looked at. And yet, admirably painted as they are, they take nothing away from the force and nobleness of the central figure ; we know the knight's thoughts as he gazes so gravely nt the soap•bubble which the boy his blown from one of his pipes, and we look at him first and last. There is one blemish in this fine picture—the tapestry is roughly painted, scarcely defined at all, and no doubt intentionally so. But if Mr. Wallis considered that the bright colours and sharp angular forms would interfere with the head of his figure, he should have substituted some other background. " Henry Martin in Chepstow Castle" is a good picture, too, but not so good a subject. The old regicide is not familiarly known to us, nor does he hold much place in our sympathies. But the " Stonebreaker" is perhaps the most original work which Mr. Wallis has yet pro duced. It is easy to pity poor young Chatterton dead on his bed, or gallant old Raleigh waiting for his death ; but who cares for an old stonebreaker by the roadside ? Who cares ? Mr. Wallis cares, and those who look at his picture care—those who look at his picture, we say ; not those who pass it by with a careless glance. The okt body, weatherbeaten and toilworn, lies in the twilight on a heap of broken granite ; whether asleep or dead we can hardly tell ; resting from its labour either• for awhile or for ever, it does not greatly matter which. It leans against a bank covered with turf and mosses, and the roots and twigs of slender trees ; a polecat is creeping about in the dim light, and beyond is a river with wooded banks and a sky full of the purple and the daffodil which follow the setting of the sun. The passage from Carlyle's " Sartor Resartus," which is the motto of the picture, gives us words to tell its meaning to those who have not seen it, but the picture itself wants the help of no wcrds. " Hardly "ntreated brother ! For us was thy back so bent, for us were thy straight limbs and fingers so deformed: thou wert our conscript, on whom the lot fell, and fighting our battles wert so marred. For in thee, too, lay a god•created form, but it was not to be unfolded ; encrusted must it stand with the thick adhesions and defacements of labour; and thy body, like thy soul, was not to know freedom." Mr. Egg has another picture from Thackeray's " Esmond," the same characters and nearly the same scene as that which he exhibited last year. " Kneel down," says Mrs. Beatrix, "we dub you knight with this." Trix is handsome enough, and young enough, and saucy enough ; Esmond is sufficiently enamoured and only too handsome, and the old Dowager is as red as could be wished ; but we cannot tolerate for one moment the person who stands for Lady Rachel. Mr. Egg's second picture, which has no title, is one of the greatest objects of curiosity in the room ; the subject is not clear at. first sight, and certainly re quires a little consideration ; but it seems to baffle many people altogether. It is divided into three compartments, of which the centre is marked " Past," and those to the right and left "Present." The " Past" is, of course, to be looked at first, and no one can be at a loss to understand the scene there represented. A man holds in his hand a letter which has revealed to him the infidelity of his wife ; the wife has flung herself at his feet with her face to the floor. The hat on the table, the carpetbag and umbrella, seem to indicate the sudden arnval which has brought about the disclosure. Two children in the corner, building a house of cards, look wonder ingly at their mother. Over the mantelpiece hang portraits of the husband and wife, and on the wall is the picture of a shipwreck : a divided apple is on the table, rotten at the core. The other two scenes happen years after, but both at the same moment ; there is the same moon in each, with the same light fleecy cloud below it. On one side it looks down upon the outcast mother, who sits with a wretched infant at her breast beneath an arch on the banks of the Thames; on the other side its light falls upon the two children, now several years older, and in mourning for their father. One sits at her bedroom window gazing at the moon ; the other in her night dress is praying at her knee. Over the dressing table hang the two portraits. This story is told with great power ; it is not a didactic poem, but a tragedy. It is not intended to tell us what ought to happen or what ought not to happen, but what does happen. The actors are not personifications, but persons— real, living, acting, suffering beings, not to be whony pitied nor wholly blamed. Whether guilt should be thus ruthlessly punished or not, the artist does not attempt to say ; be does not tell us whether these things ought to be or not ; ho gives us no hint of his own opinion ; he only trie3 to make us feel, and feel deeply too, that these things are. He has given us a most true picture of sin and sorrow, and a most painful one. if we can so far forget the subject as to examine the execution, we shall find some excellent painting. Nothing can be truer or no ve conclude The chs is a d disease. strong night p truth through There i! without school quietly principl every k made tl true ; t vations tion, ai allow d body SI parent princip suit is opposit purpos taught painter into co this vn learnt Look Rafael scarcel dozens belong ever h that is The Proles held tl school devour their " Atha Mr. L less tt exami a disa faults is no scene, Can w about self Cc mons+ untie' LeMhE in suc ture t CISm think we wi pare artist thou; ender stren stren feel i In h the i the 443 better than the expression of the husblnd in the centre picture, or than the moonlight on the river in that on the left. The idea, too, of the mother and chill utterly separated, ignorant, perhaps, of each other's existence, but gazing up at the same instant at the same moon, is singularly fine in itself. Near this picture hangs O'Neil's " Eastward Ho !" a sad subject too, but not so hopelessly sad—a healthier, happier sorrow, if we may use such a phrase—husbands and wives separated by duty, not by sin. The troops em barking for India are crowding to the side of the ' transport to catch a last glance of their mothers and sisters, their wives and children, who, absorbed by their grief and blinded by their tears, are slowly de scending the steps of the ladder. It is a picture of hard hands and tender hearts ; and we may congratu late ourselves that now•a-days hard hands find their way into pictures ; it is not long since everything of the kind was carefully cleaned up and smoothed down. There is no nonsense of this sort here: the sailors are real sailor., rough and ready, not dandies in checked shirts and blue trousers; and the ship is not idealized at all, but a very palpable mass of wood and tar and rusty iron. And the expression is not less genuine; there is no puling sentimentalism about it, all is true and hearty. We are inclined to consider this the best picture which our late wars and fightings have produced for us; far better cer tainly than Mr. Paton's "In Memoriam.' This is a scene from the Indian rebellion—armed sepoys rushing in upon a group of terrified ladies and chil dren. Of this subject Mr. Paton has made—what shall we say ?—a very disagreeable picture; we can not use a stronger word. It is not terrible, it is not pitiful, it is not pathetic; it is merely disagreeable. And there is nothing in the execution to compensate for other faults; we can hardly believe tbat the painter made use of any models—that it, was painted from the life at all. _ "Flower-girls in Town and Country" is the title of two pictures in one frame by Mr. Horsley. The first shows withered, sickly girls offering bouquets to the roysterers at the door of a bal masque, and the second a group of healthy, comely, country children gathering wildflowers in the hedges. The idea is not particularly striking ; there is contrast enough between happy life in the country and beggary in London, but the flowers are a mere accessory ; the girls who sell flowers one day would deal in oranges or matches, or anything else, the next. The pictures, however, are very good in themselves ; there is more life and vigour in the revellers than is common with Mr. Horsley, and his country scene is painted with his usual grace and delicacy. The contrast of lights is not so strong as it should be; it would be impos • sible to ascertain from the picture that theatres are usually lighted up with gas. Next week we may be able to give some account of Mr. Frith's large painting. At present it is hardly possible to get near it, and the protection of a police man is considered necessary to preserve it from injury. In the meantime let us draw attention to two pictures in the north room round which no crowds assemble—" The Stonehreaker," by J. Brett, and " The Hayloft," by Rosarius. Both are perfect marvels of accuracy and finish. MR. Ctruacn's picture of the Falls of Niagara is at present on ♦iew at the German Gallery in New Bond-street. It represents the beauty rather than the grandeur of the celebrated cataract; and is painted with a patient labour and quiet truthfulness very different from the crudity and exaggeration we are accustomed to look upon as characteristic of American art. The broken rainbow formed by the sun upon the spray which fills the air, is painted with extraordinary success ; it is bard to believe that anything so radiant can be produced by opaque colours. Landseer's portrait of the Princess Royal in her baby days is also exhibited at the some rooms. Both pictures are being reproduced in chromolithography by Messrs. Day and Son. HER MAJESTY'S THEATRE.—In the ensuing week Mlle. Titiens will impersonate the dramatic part of Donna Anna in Don Giovanni, and Piccolomini will be the enchanting Zerlina. The Trovatore, which with its superb cast has attracted overflowing audiences during the past week, will be repeated on Thursday next. MR. CHARLES DtCKENS gave a reading of his " Chimes," at St. Martin's-hall, on Thursday evening, and the large room was tilled to overflowing. He explained in a few words the circumstances under which the little book was written, and read the well known tale with such earnestness and such vivacity, that no costume or scenery could have added to the effect. Such reading is as good as acting. The " Chimes " is one of the most painful of all his smaller works, and if most of the audience testified their approval with their hands, some also "applauded with their eyes." MADAME SZARVADY.This admirable better known to our readers as Wilh el m ina make her first appearance in London this' first Matinee Musicale, at Willis's-rooms, morning next. Dle pianiste, IS Clauss, will ,seuson at he r , on Monday ”•7.."11