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

WATER-CoLOUR EXHIBITIONS.

Our notice of the water-colour exhibitions comes
somewhat late; lint Mr. Puff's hero was unable to
answer questions before the play began, and even
Tristram Shandy protests against being obliged to
record his opinions before he was born. We plead
the same excuse for our tardiness. Both water-colour
exhibitions opened some little time before the period
of our corporate existence; we shall, accordingly, not
attempt to point oat the most striking pictures, which
are already familiar to most of our readers, lint shall
confine our attention for the most part to such as
present any feature% of novelty, or suggest matter for
discussion of the principles of all.

We always enter the water-colour exhibition with
much pleasure and with some pride. The urt of
water-colour painting. as there displayed, is of
English origin, and of very rapid and vigorous
growth. Man of our readers may remember the
time when water-colour painting was taught and
practised by a regular receipt. The blue of the sky
was laid in by a wash of indigo. The landscape was
then finished in neutral tint, the grey blue of the
distance graduatilig into tones successively warmer till
it became reddish grey in the foreground. little colour
was then washed on the landscape aecordhig to the
receipt. The clouds were warmed with yellow ochre ;
the man fishing was brought out with red ; the

woman carrying sticks. with blue ; and the drawing
was complete.
This style had at least the merit of being easily
imitated in coloured mezzotints and the prints of
the huge quarto books of travels then in vogue may
boast of being quite as good as the drawings from
which they AVIV
In Itch, a here first the art of water-colours was
extensiyely practised for sale. the early attempts dis-
play 44 something more of sparkle and originality. In
the latter halt' of the lust century. when "my lord"
made the " grand tour" with his " goyernor " t the
word was not then slang). and in hi. "
the painters who made preparing tier
him pictures of the principal ruins began to di.
coyer that their sketches Math. OA the spot in water
colours. as mere memoranda of 1•44011 r, were more
popular, And met A All a readier sale mote than their
finished produetions. Hatt this discovery led, as it
miturnllY ought, to a frequent and close study trim
nature. II Mai 114hAlli'e ill art would 1111%0 Will Mat.
A SWI..; I. tin principal professiir ill dila new
art, as n HAM or talent. lint. unf4 r
fimately, the temptation of making money easily was
irresistible. The " studio - was fitniisheil with a cer
tain number of patteni.drawingm. Froa ehr.r dui
tourist made his seleetion, and copies, slightly
touched by the master, wen. furnished hint by the
apprentices seeretly employ IA in this 11110111f1WtOr
of art.

In one respect the English school had the advan-
tage of the Italian. The necessity of breadth"
and effect " wens earl• perceived ; and, indeed. these
qualities were sometimes pursued (as in the case of
black nml ontn;te chiaroscuro!: ► to the neglect
of all others. tlistin. who is sometimes called the
father of modern water-colours, wits the first to give
more substance to his landscape. In looking over
the ter) earl• works of Turner. it is curious to see
how long this giant was mainlined by the leading-
strings of his early ellucati • it may be, by the
necessities of his poveny ; but very earl• in his career
we perceive a longing for more variety of tone, and a
gradual intmiluetion of warmth and local colour into
his shadows. . _

Their contemporary. Glover, now neglected and
forgotten, endem•inre.l not to change the 8, stem or
neutral tint, hut to improve it, and so missed his way.
He worked much from nature ; ho made the skies
more 'brilliant and more varied; his tints were more
vivid ; and sometimes, in his representations of early
morning. where the shadows of nature are cold and
colourless, ho is very successful. We remember
with pleasure his sunlit rocks, gleaming through the
monting mist, and reflected in the leaden-coloured.
glassy lake.
A great change was now at hand. Turner roan to
his full powers; John Farley, with many other
artists, began to take their efliiiiirt out of doors, and
on the spot, to try to render the tints of the landscape,
not according to any pteeoncrivedtheoly, but as they
appear under the sorbing eiremustanees of nature.
The result is the water-colour exhibition such as it,
has been for many years past.
lint the mote triumph with which we ...included
the last lairngraph suggests a word, if not of censure,
nt least of caution. The grotind which has been
gained by a cor..ful study of nature must he main
tained by a Maude nu 14.. s
And this is a matter of some prnetical difficulty.
The artist's summer blur is usually arranged for the
purpose of recruiting health, enlarging observation,
and collecting fresh subjects. To engraft on this a
close study of nature, with a slew not merely to catch
her passing effects, but to realise her minute details,
is often very inconvenient, and quite as often very
distasteful. To relinquish the consciousness of power
with which the accomplished artist dashes off his
memoranda of form and effect for the Inunbler
earnestness with which he sits down to realise some
morsel of nature, and feels himself (as who does
not') a mere tyro, is no small sacrifice, and it is no
wonder the easier course is so often adopted.
In going round the present exhibition we see indi-
cations that many of the pictures have been finished
from slight sketches, and the result of this is feeble-
ne-s, a feebleness nut arising front the want of ismer,
hut rmiti the want of information. Hence not merely
poveliy of detail, but a poverty of colour. The
artist's imagination cannel tetrlaY the varieties 01.
nature; nor, withont indure before hint, can he bring
himself to believe what strong colour% may be intro-
duce(' into the distance, and yet fifty he made to keep
their plan; or, in the foreground, what endless
varieties of tint fluty be nominee.' without destroying
bre.ollll. It is to the deficiency of study that we
attribute the front truth whirl' is the Insetting sin
of !ma n. art. We .10 not now wan " truth" in the
technical sense in which it is used by the artist, but
troth of fact, 01 ...minute, of accessories. When an
artist's materials are defective he seems to think no
farther restraint on his imagination is necessary than
t., (wke care that what he introduces should" compst,
well." Ina fine drawing which bears the name of
" Amalfi " ( No. MO, Mr. Richardson has enlivened
the plain walls of an Italian backyard with the