The Express.
London, England, 1867-05-03 00:00:00

EXHIBITION OF THE ROYAL
ACADEMY.

PRIVATE VIEW.-!THIS DAY.)

The academicians have rarely been more fortu-
nate in the day for their annual testa than in the
splendid May morning that shone upon them to-day,
as the first burst of summer. The private view is
really the most attractive affair of the whole season,
and we never see the galleries to such advantage
as when covered with the cool green carpet-
ting, and filled with all the beauty, rank,
and fashion of the day, as well as the
aristocracy of art and literature. It is a happiness
to see so entirely a mixed assemblage meeting on
neutral ground, and all with one wooed bent upon
admiring the beautiful. Even at an hour in the
forenoon when ladies might be forgiven for pre-
ferring the sofa and the last novel to all the modern
pictures in the world, and when politicians, one
would think, must still be a little milled from the
defeat of the night before, we are pretty certain to
find the leader of the opposition or the Chancellor
of theExchequer,or some equally distinguished lady
leader of fashion and ton, early in the field. Thus
we noticed amongst the company in the brief
survey we were able to spare from the beauties on
the walls, the Countess Spencer, and the Earl and
Countess Percy, Lord Overstone, Lord Russell,
Lord Grosvenor, The Chancellor of the Exchequer,
and the Speaker, and by the afternoon we feel con-
fident a large contingent will arrive from " both
Houses" with a brilliant array of virtuosi to feast

over the pictures.
Of course the first question asked by everyone is,
Well, what do you think of the Exhibition 1 I
think it is a very good one at the first blush," and
this is we think a very lair opinion. There is no
picture of startling pre-eminence it is true, and
there are a rather unusual number of portraits—
enough to place a full-length as sentry in every
corner of the galleries—but neverthleas when we
come to look above and below there are many good
works to be found, and these it is satisfactory to say
are generally from the younger artists, who are
either not yet associated with the Academy, or who
are only down in the list for promotion from the
ranks. Some of the more eminent academicians
exhibit pictures after a considerable silence, as Mr.
Charles Landseer, in his picture (55) of Oliver
Cromwell visiting the house of Sir Walter Stewart,
on the Ist May, 1651 ; and Mr. Maclise has a
highly finished picture of " Othello and Desde-
mona " (123) hung at one angle of the great room.
Mr. Webster also has a rather important work (371)
of a party of village musicians practising for a village
concert; while Mr. Hart has ventured upon a larger
and more ambitious canvas, in his " Emperor Bar-
banana submitting to Pope Alexander III." (378).
Mr. Cope's " Shylock and Jessica" (312), a small
work, by no means in his happiest mood ; and Mr.
Horsley's " Lady Jane Grey and Roger Ascham"
(143), with " The Duenna and her Cares" (338),
the last a better painted and much more charac-
teristic picture—may be mentioned amongst the
works of the academicians which are neither the
most striking nor the best which these painters
have achieved. On the other hand, Sir Edwin
Landauer has dealt very effectively with a subject
which must be viewed as " a command," in his large
picture of the Queen on horseback in deep mourn-
ing, which occupies the centre of the left-
hand side of the great room. The likeness ap-
pears to us excellent. Her Majesty is reading
a letter, apparently brought to her by the
favorite "guile," who holds her horse, and
taken from the red leather despatch-box on
the ground, the only spot of colour other than
black or grey in the whole picture, which contains
as a background a view of Osborne in 1866. Land-
seer has, however, vindicated his higher powers in
a subject more after his own heart, the cream-
coloured wild cattle and deer of Chillingham (144
and 124).

The post of honour at the top of the great room
is filled, and very ably so, by Mr. Frith's large pic-
ture (132), " King Charles the Second's last Sunday,"
which displays before us to the life that loathsome
scene described in Evelyn's diary when the dissolute
King, in purple velvet, lounged on the sofa between
the notorious Ladies Portsmouth and Cleveland,
surrounded by French musicians and a crowd of
demireps, while a party in the ante-room are deep
in card-playing with a heap of gold before them.
The picture recala Mr. Ward's well-known work,
pourtraying a similar epoch of profanity. Mr.
Ward only contributes one subject picture, and
this by no means fully representing his ability, in
the " Juliet in Friar Lawrence's Cell (80)."

Mr. Herbert also has only one picture (158), " St.
Edmund, King of East Anglia, praying before the
battle with the Danes in A. u. 870"--a figure not
very remarkable for expression or fine painting.
The interest of the Exhibition will, we think, be
found to centre in a few pictures, of which we shall
name as one of the foremost Mr. Millaiis
1" Jephtha" (289), which is hung in the middle
room—a work that strikes us as by far
the most thoroughly wrought out and
conceived in a far higher feeling than any
that we have seen from our eminent young
painter. Mr. Millais contributes also two
very sweetly painted pictures of children-0o
asleep, and the other just waking (65 and 74)—
which will rival in popularity his " First Sermon
and " Playing at Wolf." Next to this in interest,
perhaps, should come the large picture by Mr.
Poynter, " Israel in Egypt." (434, west room), le
which the artist has represented the slaves drag-
ging a colossal lion across the Desert to the Egyp-
tian temple, with extraordinary power and a variety
in the groups of half naked men, displaying great
knowledge, and a facility of drawing quite re
markable. Mr. Prinsep, another of the outsiders,
for the time, also contributes a picture of the
highest merit in his " Venetian Gaming-house in
the Sixteenth Century " (573) ; while Mr. Frede-
rick Leighton, A.R.A., has five pictures, the m.st
noticeable of which is the life-size figure, perleetlY
nude, of a " Venus Disrobing for the Bath"—e
work that, though it will be a constant
source of dispute and question, is undoubtedly
a picture of great beauty. His minor subjects
of " The Greek Girl Playing Diba," " The Spanish
Dancing Girl in the Olden Times" (405), and " The
Shepherd Teaching the Girl to Play his Pipe" 0),
are all deserving of the highest praise for the tine
feeling for beauty that is stamped on every one.
Mr. Elmore, RA., has only one picture (It 4)
taken from life, showing us the proclaiming of news
and gossip, or scandal from the housetop, by as
Algerian woman, who stands clapping her hand'
to attract the attention of the neighbours. Ti"
is painted in the artist's best feeling for coloir,
and is further interesting as an episode draws
front nature. Near to this picture hangs one of
the three works exhibited as a memento of the late
John Phillip, R.A. -a portrait study of a dark
Spanish lady, called " Antonia" (191), extremely
rich and grave in colour.
Mr. O'Neil's "Incident in the Life of Luther'
is a picture that cannot be paned without a cord