The Press.
London, England, 1853-05-07 00:00:00

MAY 7, 1853.

surround the heavenly choir. This is a hazardous
experiment, though the Venetian masters have left
us some successful examples of it, but they would
never, under such circumstances, have clothed the
figure in blue robes, which must nece,sarily appear
black in the shade ; and, though many of the Italian
painters have represented the Magdalen contem-
plating the vision of the Cross, none of them would
have combined her beatific dream with an action so
ordinary as laying down the price of the spikenard
which she destined for her pious ministry.

Though we are much pressed for space, we cannot
mold noticing the very remarkable performance of a
young amateur. Mr. J. Leslie. we understand, fol-
lowing the bent of his own inclinations, and abandoning
the career for which his friends bad destined him,
quitted the army and retired to Germany, where he
studied painting with an ardour that few professional
'students possess, and with a success that out Many
attain. His picture represents an aged peasant in-
structing her grandchildren in the mysteries of their
faith. Her attitude is good, but. her hands are too
delicate in form and texture, and not absolutely cor-
rect in drawing. The expression of the two elder
children is admirable in its fixed and reverential
attention ; it is so happy, indeed, that it can only have
been the result of the closest observation of nature.
The expression of the youngest child has perhaps
too much of active terror; we think something of awe
and perplexity would have been in better accordance
with its age and condition.

Mr. Overheck, though neither an Englishman nor
residing in England, has exhibited a picture repre-
senting " The Incredulity of St. Thomas"(3o). We
notice his performance because he is one ofthe founders
of that school which has at last found admirers in
England, and has driven some of our young painters
into affectation and extravagances. Mr. Overheat
is, we suppose, a man of talent ; at least he and his
countrymen have the merit of originating an absurdity
which we have only imported. His picture, exhibiting
a cold correctness of design, and an impassive hard-
ness in execution, is painted in a solution of brick-
dust, and touches neither eye nor heart. Such as it
is, it is a specimen of that style which the artists we
are about to notice profess to admire and imitate.
Mr. W. H. Hunt is one, we presume, of the pre-
Rafthelite brethren of the nineteenth century. One
of his pictures, designed, we suppose, as a practical
joke, is styled "New College Cloisters" (5:4), and re-
presents the half-length portrait of a clergyman in his
scarf and surplice. The other is more ambitions---
the subject is taken from Shakspere's Measure for
Measure (441, and represents the dialogue between
Claudia and Isabella. The figures are stiff, the design
affected, and the action inexpressive. We own we
were principally attracted by the inscriptions in red
Gothic letters which adorn the frame---a style, by the
bye, which no more belonged to the age of Shakspere
than to our own. Mr. Hunt is a man of talent': we
hope he will pardon us if we advise him to study
nature as the a ply true model, to observe the works
of the great masters of his art, and to abandon all
attempt to paint on his present false system.
Mr. Millais possesses superior claims to our ail en-
tiou. He has already made himself remarkable for
the controversial works he has exhibited on former
occasions, and in which it is said he aimed at restoring
the art of painting by reviving the method as prac-
tised before the birth of Ratfaelle. We are willing
to hope that. lie has abandoned this ill-judged
attempt---au attempt that must inevitably fail, silica.,
though the defects of these masters may be imitated,
the ignorance which excused them cannot be as-
sumed. Mr. Millais has still, however, much to
learn and not a little to forget. He is a young man,
however, of much talent and promise, and with the
industry he possesses, and with the taste we hope he
will acquire, we cannot doubt of his ultimate success.
He will find the greatest stumbling-block in his path
is affectation: men of genius have sometimes not
been exempt from it, but to it all their defects may
be traced.

The two pictures by this artist which the exhibition
contains are of most unequal merit. If we noire
one of them at all (No. :'eto), it is a tribute to the
merit of the other. " The Proscribed Royalist"
represents a fugitive gentleman sheltering himself
in the hollow of a tree---an operation for which the
intervention of his female protectress seems wholly
unnecessary. The cotuntenance of the lady expresses
neither hope, fear, ndr anxiety. Her right hand is
thrust into her pocket-hole (an action we are at a
loss to explain ), while the cavalier kisses her left
with the air of Don Basilio in the opera. The arms-
sories are painted with a laborious exactness, in which
all the true principles of the imitation of nature are
violated, and which, if not otherwise objectionable,
distracts attention from the principal objects. Sheri-
dm said of Mr. Whitbread's It rjected Address" for
the opening of Drury-lane Theatre, that he had in-
troduced a ph(vnix which he had described like a
poulterer: not the colour of a feather had been
omitted. Mr. Millais paints landscapes like a natu-
ralist ; we have butterflies, foxgloves, fern, and every