The Press.
London, England, 1854-05-06 00:00:00

exhibit the most exquisite feeling for beauty of lines and
effect of lighting : at the same time he has the power of
making them express the most varied moods of nature—
* lofty grandeur, a deep and gloomy melancholy, a sunny
cheerfulness and peace, or an uproar of all the elements.
Buildings he also treats with peculiar felicity ; while the
sea, in its most varied aspect, is equally subservient to his
magic brush. His views of certain cities and localities
inspire the spectator with poetic feelings such as no other
painter ever excited in the same degree, and which is
chiefly attributable to the exceeding picturesqueness of the
paint of view chosen, and to the beauty of the lighting.
Finally, he treats the most common little subjects, such
as a group of trees, a meadow, a shaded stream, with
inch art as to impart to them the most picturesque charm.
We inspected lately the landscape of
Turner hung between the precious Claudes in
the National Gallery, and cannot help think-
ing that in poetic feeling, and even in some of
the higher technicalities of art, it surpasses
them, though falling far short of their finish.
How exquisitely beautiful the sentiment and
grand the effect, yet on inspection how easy
and careless seem the touches of his brush!
The character of Landseer's genius does not
satisfy us, nor does Dr. Waagen seem to com-
prehend the versatility of this first of our
living artists, or do justice to the force and
variety of his invention, or to that profound
and sympathising sentiment which invests
each one of his pictures with an eloquence of
its own, appealing to thoughts and feelings
lying deep in the breast of universal hu-
manity.
We have thus far glanced at some of the
principal results of Dr. Waagen's labours, as
they show his great diligence. But it is to be
lamented that his criticisms are too often so
hasty as to he of little value. His visits to
this country were of limited duration, and in
his rapid run through galleries he was often
only able to make insignificant and superficial
notes.
A. more serious fault is the want of arrange-
ment and the clumsy manner in which por-
tions of Dr. Waagen's former work are
incorporated with the present. Fugitive
notes from his diary are out of place here.
After an account of the Museum and National
Gallery, which nearly fills a volume, and must
have taken months to pen, we do not expect
to meet with " yesterday," and " a few days
since." All personal details might have been
omitted with advantage. We have no doubt
that Sir Robert Peel did tell the author that
his first book was the best on art in England,
but it does not show good taste to print it.
Dr. Waagen rarely appears to advantage when
he quits pictures. His attempt to connect
the progress of art in England with that of
literature (1. 300) is sadly deficient in know-
ledge. We cannot agree that Shakspeare has
been reinstated in the national feeling by the
influence of Tieck and Schlegel, nor that Lord
Byron was the first in modern day to renew
the taste for genuine poetry. His compari-
son'of painters with musicians 144), apropos
of a concert at Lord Lansdowne's, is too
laboured to please. There may be some
analogy between the genius of masters in
various lines of art and science, but to rcgu
larly pair off artists and musicians, Michael
Angelo and Bach, Haydn and Correggio,
Mozart and Raffaelle, Giulio Romano and
Beethoven, is mere pedantry. The same turn
of mind prompts him to use terms of art
where they are anything but appropriate.
English cookery is not to be compared with
that of the French in " the lighter arabesque
" style." The " invention of our fancy is neither
" rich nor happy " in culinary matters. Roast
beef brings to his mind Homer, the son of
Telemon, and Agamemnon ; and such geologi-
cal terms as " petrified fluid mass," and
"conglomerate of the mountains," are dragged
in to describe a plum-pudding. In the mere
notes of a German tourist such oddities might
be amusing, but they ought to have been ex-
punged from a work of so much importance as
this.
We must complain, too, of the general
arrangement. A classification of schools and
artists would have been every way more con-
venient than catalogues of collections. The
spacegiven to illuminated MSS. ifs quite dis-
proportioned to their worth, and, if published
at all, might advantageously have been thrown
into a distinct work. The press of Albemarle-
street is, in general, so attentiVe to details, and
we are accustomed to see Works issued from it