The Press. — London, England, 1853-05-14 00:00:00

44 worse still, ungracefully drawn : the head ill joined to the shoulders ; the attitude i . stiff, the lower limbs are too short, the waist divides the person too nearly iuto equal portions, and the foot is turne i inwards in a manner singularly ungraeeful, and which could hardly render the necessary support to the figure. The blue dress, with its heavy black shadows, neither har monises nor contrasts with the blue water and blue distance, from which it is very insufficiently relieved. The portrait of Mr. Ward's three children, by Sir W. S. Newton (721), is gaudy in colour and hard in execution ; unskilful, moreover, in composition, and deficient in expression. We regret that an artist once so promising, and still so popular, should have so fallen oft in taste and execution. These observations apply with still greater force to Sir Charles Moss ; his portrait of Lady Ashur Hervey and her children (753) is the most ambitions and the worst of his mi niatures—that of Mr. Lewis (777) is, perhaps, his best. Mr. H. T. Wells is an artist of pr. mise, but we would recommend him to study anatomy : a portrait painter is apt to suppose that when he can draw the face with tolerable accuracy, and perhaps the hand, his task is completed. The " drawing" of the English artists is painfully inaccurate, and, in this respect, our exhibitions show a decided inferiority to those of foreign capitals. Our portrait-painters have neglected the study of drawing ; in the next generation, when the interest of resemblance is gone, their works will become mere lumber, or at best objects of curiosity, banished from the saloon to the antechamber and bedroom. Among Mr. Wells' pertOrmances, N 0.083, entitled " Portraits," is perhaps his best. The portrait of Mr. Henry Phillips, by Mr. C. Con yers (720), is clever and well drawn ; the likeness is strong and the colouring rich. The expression in the countenance, however, is exaggerated, and indicates a degree of intensity which requires explanation. The Venetian painters, the greatest masters of por trait painting, always avoid this fault ; they invariably represented both figure and face in a state of perfect repose, with no more expression than habitually be longed to them, and thus they preserved that air of calm dignity and sedate simplicity which constittous their greatest charm. We have already exceeded the utmost. limits to which we had proposed confining tow remarks. We must now hasten to the room (or shall we say the cellar?) in which the sculpture is contained. As far as the narrow space allotted to this interesting de partment of the tine arts permitted us to judge, we should say that " Pandora" (13•21), by Mr. W. C. Marshall, and the " Day-t[• cant" (13414), by Mr. P. Milowell, are among the best statues the collection can boast, though neither lay any claim to extraordi nary originality or vigour of conception : they are both pleasing and well-executed spechnens of decorative sculpture. The present exhibition of sculpture contains a lower average of merit than we have lately been used to, and it cannot boast. a single statue of the higher order of excellence. No. 1334, " Eva," by Mr. E. G. Pop worth, sen.; No. 1335,'' Religion consoling Justice in her grief," by Mr. .1. Edwards: and N 0.13341, the mo del of Colonel Delap's monument, by Mr. E. Davies, are all in the same style of mawkish imitation of the early period of the arts, and all exhibit fresh instances of the extravagances to which effect ation and conceit will lead men of talent and ingenuity. No. 1310, " Sampson and the Lion," modelled by Mr. Westmacott and Mr. Hacknel, is a subject un fitted for sculpture, which prohibits all sudden, vio lent. and complicated action, and from which the pic turesque should be banished. The encients have left us but few instances of deviation from this rule, and those which could be quoted, are certainly Lot among their happiest effints. There are, as usual, long and double rows of smirking ladies and frowning gentlemen of every age and all dosses, each, according to sex soil condition, trying to look log ely, , wise, grave, or benign, and all in t heir several ways reminding us how unfit a medium marble is forpre • seising a likeness in this age of external smoothness and changeable fashions. unr,ls et passe' WATER-COLOUR EXHIBITIONS. (Second Notice.] is one of the most satisfactory features of the present Exhibition thnt. there is a considerable display of talent on the port of its junior members. We have been much struck with two pictures by Mr. Atickson—(No. 0) " A Wreck on the Coast. of Wales," and (No. 105) " Aberystwitb, from the Sea," the one representing a storm with all its fearful ac companiments, the other a sunset, on " An evening calm and 1.M." In both pictures, however. the execution of the fleecy clondF., and sometimes of the curling foam of the wave, is too angular and solid ; and in both. espe cially the latter, there is a certain opacity of the atmosphere which we are inclined to attribute to the injudicious employment of white. Indeed, the abuse of " body colour " appears to us the beset ting sin of the Eiltibitionconsidered as a whole. We THE PRESS.. willingly admit that its occasional use is productive of good effect; nor should we be willing to embarrass the artist by conventionsl limitations as to material or method. But the facilities which body colour affords ere very seductive, and few have the resolution to stop short at the right point. Thus, the transparency of water colours is lost ; but the strength of oils is not gained, and the freshness of nature is exchanged for the dull powdered heavy look of discoloured plaster. The works of Mr. Palmer, and of many other ex hibitors, look as if they were painted in distemper. In No. 18, " The Rustic Dinner," the distance is carefully studied and admirably drawn, but the land scape wants substance, the sky wants atmosphere and light. The foreground trees painted in body colour are defective in truth of form and of colour. Mr. Naftel's employment of body colour is not happy. It adds to the violence of contrast and spot tiness of effect, which are the defects of No. (14, A well-known Spot in North Wales." The execution, indeed, of this drawing is vigorous, but there is a want of distance and aerial perspective. "A Church at Treves," by M.. J. Burgess, shows great talent, but the figures are too large, too attrac tive, and not well placed for the purpose of giving effect to the architecture. This error is avoided by Mr. C. Smith in his tine drawing of " The Tomb of the Black Prince" (No. UM, and is much amended by Mr. Burgess in " The Tomb of the Due de Brizi" (No. 135). But how, we must ask in a parenthesis, could Mr. Burgess expect to give the rich transparent hues of stained glass with body colour ? It is, in fact, the common detect of" landscape and figure" pieces to distract the attention between the landscape and the group offigures, and, when neither is kept subordinate to the other, the effect of both is injured by the combination. Let it not be supposed, however, that, if the figures are to be of secondary importance, they should there fore be executed carelessly. On the contrary, the less they are made out in detail the more necessary it is that their general outline and air should be faithful to nature. It was in the clumsiness of that draw ing that consisted the true defect of Turner's figures, not in the want of detail. Far from it :he was often obliged improperly to insert detail in order to show that the uncouth amorphous mass was really intended ter a human being. Among the veteran exhibitors we fancy we see many indications of a desire to avoid re peating their favourite subjects. The accomplished president, Mr. Copley Fielding, has fewer of his grey storms, and scuds of w indand rain—against which, how ever, we have not a word to say except their too fre quent recurrence. 'We think his representations of clear summer skies, in a northern latitude, with a cold air and bright sun, very true to nature, and brilliant in effect (Nos. Ott, 117). In a large drawing, " Windsor" (No. 27), we ob ject to the blueness of the sky and distance. In na ture both are often of an intense hue, which for want of a more precise nomenclature we must call blue ; but the blue of the atmosphere, whether peering through the rents of the rolling clouds of an English summer, or graduating from horizon to zenith in one unbroken sheet of intense colour in an Italian tra montane, is not the blue of raw cobalt nor of French blue, nor of any pigment of the colour-box. Artists, when their blues aro found fault with, are apt to appeal to the intensity of the blues of nature. We also appeal to nature. It is not the quantity of their colour that we censure, but its quality. Mr. D. Cox seems to have modified his style, as he certainly has changed his paper. We have no longer the fresh greens of his dewy foregrounds, aud middle distances partially overshadowed as the fleecy clouds hurry across the bright blue of the sky. In No. ss, " Barden Castle," he has " Breathed a browner horror o'er the woods." -- - There is a lowering darkness, which we know not whether to attribute to a coming stoi m or the deepening shades of evening. In No. 110 (" View of the Coast of Cumberland") be has exchanged his usual pastoral landscape for huge piles of granite rock wreathed in va pour. But throughout the picture there is a want of re lief andcontrnst. The lines all run the same way, the colour wants variety, and the gloom is equable and monotonous. No. 175. by the same artist—" The Challenge"—so called because two bulls are pre paring for nn encounter—is a noble drawing. The sentiment is highly poetical. and the effect is very tine. It is not. however, free from what we con sider the usual fault of Mr. Cox's manner. He has a ten dency to substitute clumsiness of execution for vigour, and this defect, under the influence of the coarse ab sorbent paper above alluded to is much exaggerated. These coarse papers are admirably adapted for showing with what slight labour an accomplished ar tist may, by a Judicious employment of means, pro duce a brilliant result. But the facilities they ntford hold out strong inducements to carelessness and man nerism. and we could gladly see them employed only for rapid sketches and studies of effect. SATURDAY, The Cathedral of Abbeville, by Mr. W. Callow, is a very tine drawing, but we observe a poverty in the details cf the principal mass 4 buildings in the middle distance ; the artist will no doubt tell us that he feared to break up his shadow and injure the gran deur of his composition. We admit at once the taste and good sense of his intention, we demur only to the skilfulness with which it is carried into execution. ln the depth of the shadow, architectural details would naturally be blended and lost; but in retiring from the eye they would not leave behind them. as the only indication of their existence. a slight. sketchy outline. On the contrary, it is the outline that would first be blended and lost, while the sub stance of the object remained distinctly visible. It is this mode of handling which gives an air of sketch iness to Mr. Callow's most tinished works. [The pr,!ss of other matter obliges us to postpone our further remarks on " The Water-colour Exhibi tion' till next week.] lilt Drama. ROYAL *ITALIAN OPERA. No lIVENT of sufficient. importance has this week occurred to justify any special notice. Verdi's opera, Riyoletto, i 5 announced for this evening (Saturday). The published playbill shows a strong cast, and the announcement of Mr. Beverly as the scene-painter is a feature of some interest. if Verdi, supported by all the resources of this theatre, fails to obtain suc cess, his chance of ever attaining popularity in this country is gone for ever. FRENCH PLAYS. THE engagement of 31. Regnier, of the Theitre Francais, which commenced on Friday week, forms one of the most important and attractive features of Mr. Mitchell's theatrical season. From some cause, often referred to his provincial accent, 31. Replier is, to a great extent, free from the conventional inflection and emphasis which, to oui• mind, is the principal defect of the French actors. His easy natural manner, and his peculiar accentuation, which marks the sense of French sen tences in a manner approximating to that which the spirit of the English language amands, impart a truth and reality to his performance that have rarely seen equalled, and never smrssed by any foreign actor. We have no hesitation in saying that M. Regnier possesses all the qualifications of a first rate artist. His talent for impersonation is very great, and so wide is the range of character which his versatility enables hint to portray, that it is a matter of doubt whether he appears to most advantage in comic and eccentric characters or in plays of a serious interest. Le Bonhontine Jadis, selected for representation the first night of his engagement, is the merest trifle. Au elderly gentleman invites a student and a grisette to dine with him on his birthday, and finding that his guests, though unacquainted, have fallen in love with each other, makes up the match before the con clusion of the dinner. M. Regnier's talent works these materials, so slight that they can scarcely be called a sketch, into a most perfect and finished pic ture. His impersonation of the lively and convivial Bonhomie Jadis, occasionally relapsing into sadness at the recollection of the scenes and exploits of his youth, and a tale of disappointed love, is highly artistic, and his deep and genuine pathos formed a striking relief to the laughter which his comic humour constantly provoked. Maurivaux's comedy, Un jot d'Amour et du Hazard, produced the same night, is hardly suited for repre sentation at the present day. The brilliancy of the dialogue is no compensation for the absurd improba bility of the plot. In spite of the meritorious exer tions of the actors, its effect upon the audience was highly soporific, and the curtain fell to an empty house. M. Regnier and 3111 e. Ilmhan have also appeared during the week in Les Demoiselles de St. Cyr, and in Mlle. de Seiglihe. Madame Armand, a Midwife in the latter piece, will claim attention. THE THEATRES. 'Norm' the time of the year has hardly arrived when the exertions of the London managers begin to wax faint, the theatres have, during the last fortnight, been singularly barren of interest. The Critic, revived on Wednesday last at the Lyceum, gives an opportunity to Mr. C. Mathews to exhibit his versatility by doubling the characters of Puf and Sir Fretful Plagiary. The rapidity with which he effects his change of dress and appearance is quite startling. Mr. Buckstone produces a new comedy this e‘enin s at the Haymarket. Mr. Kean, as his Whitsuntide attraction, speculates upon a series of performances by tit? veteran actor, Mr. T. P. Cooke. Mr. Cooke, who, though sixty seven years of age, is said to be as vigorous as ever, carries us back to the play-going days of our child hood. and we are curious to see whether the stage sailor will, at this day, have the same hold upon an