The Press.
London, England, 1858-05-22 00:00:00

THE PRESS, MAY 22, 1858.

tint 4 rts

ROYAL ACADEMY.
(Fourth Notice.)

WE have not yet mentioned Mr. Paton's picture of
"The Bluidy Tryste"—a picture which contains so
much that is good and so much that is faulty that to
give a general opinion of it in a few words is not
easy. It has one fault which is frequently found in
paintings of the Pre-Rapbaelite school. Though
the detail is painted with great care and minuteness,
the general effect is unnatural and unreal. But the
story is impressive and the design striking. The
lady turns away with violent show of grief from the
body of the knight whom she has stabbed ; the
knight, lying on the turf, gazes with dead eyes upon
the lady. Though the figures are on a small scale,
not only are the heads and hands painted with great
delicacy, but the very textures of the draperies—
velvet, silk, and cloth—are most accurately distin-
guished ; and the turf and the flowers, the broken
rocks and the running water, and the little adder in
the corner, have all been studied from nature with
most patient labour. And yet look at them all together,
and the result is most untrue. It seems as if the
artist bad collected all his models together—his
figures, and dresses, and rocks, and turf, and flowers
—and painted from them in his studio with the very
light and shadow which he found upon them there.
There is the clear sky of a summer-day, but neither
sun-light nor sun-shadow. Nor is the story perfectly
well told : without the quotation in the catalogue we
should hardly know whether the knight were dead
or not; his face is not paler or more ghastly than
the lady's. His hands, too, are white and unstained :
does not a man when stabbed strike his hand at once
upon the wound Yet there is a passionate feeling
about the picture, which, combined with the very
dexterous execution, obtains for it a great deal of
admiration in spite of all its faults.

The pictures of the two Landseers, of Mr. Elmore,
and Mr. Pickersgill we have already mentioned by
name. They are all in the well-known manners of
their respective authors, but scarcely of average
merit; any detailed notice of them seems unneces-
sary. Mr. Phillip and Mr. Lewis, on the other
hand, though they still occupy themselves upon their
favourite subjects, both contribute so largely and
display so much vigour that they claim more than
ordinary attention. The subjects chosen by these
two artists belong nearly to the same class, though
no two modes of treatment can be more utterly
unlike. Tbeir pictures are little more than studies ;
action is very sparingly introduced. Mr. Lewis still
attaches himself to the East. In the mosques, the
harems, the kibab.shops, the turbans, and shawls,
and pipes. and coffee-cups he finds all the light form
and gay colour in which he delights ; the clear
atmosphere and quiet, sleepy life suit him exactly,
and he makes from these materials such pictures as
no one else can. He has no occasion to hunt for
striking effects, much less to invent anything of the
kind ; the truth of his works gives them greater force
than can be produced by any artificial means. We
cannot say that in Mr. Phillip's pictures action is
altogether wanting, but it is not the main thing. He
does not paint the whole truth like Mr. Lewis, and
so he requires bolder forms and richer colour, and
these he finds in Spain. Ladies with fan and man-
tilla, dark faces and darker hair, gentlemen with
beard and cloak, beggars with their coloured blankets
and mules with their gay trappings—these are the
picturesque figures which serve to display his pecu-
liar power. And when he paints a prisoner kissing
his child, or a woman begging of a priest, as last
year ; or the death of a contrabandista, as this year,
though the appropriate feeling and expression are
not wanting, yet the bold execution of these pic-
turesque figures is still the principal merit of the
picture. Both of these artists, as we have said, are
in more than usual force this year. Mr. Phillip
seems to have been stimulated by his new rank of
A.R.A., and Mr. Lewis shows that he has not
resigned the presidency of the Water-colour Society
with any idle intentions. The latter exhibits five pic-
tures, the former no less than seven.
Mr. Poole still occupies his accustomed place ;
his function as an artist seems to resemble
that of the helot whose business was to in-
dulge in vice for the warning and edifica-
tion of the Spartan youth. It is well that vice
should sometimes be visibly hideous—that all
idolatry should not be dignified with beauty. We