Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-10-23 00:00:00

LIVERPOOL AC A.DRRY'S EXHIBITION.

T,A7RIII NOTICE.

" A Village Holiday," by W. T. F. harshen, is a large
picture full of vivasity and characteristic life The subject
is oee of which many artiste are enamored, sted there is
therefore little new in the components of this painting.
We hare the usual group of merry makers in the booths,
the dancing and fiddling, and drinking; the q iietly-
amused lookers-on ; the hawkers praising eel selling their
lac-s and trinkets ; the redcoat displaying his eve, and
his uniform to dazzle rust's beauty. All this 11103 t of us
have seen before on canvas as often as in life, huh
nevertheless, few can help being gretifie I by the repetition
of the sight which this picture press its. Tee g eeaps are_
depicted with natural COO and simplicity, as wail as wi,h
vigorous and hearty humour.
Close beside this painting it one entitled " A flee:m.les
Afternoon." The name has nothing:, to ettrae: bsyeed
any of the " thoumnd as i one" samtnese eftesnoses which
every year produces us Pe:heps the visitor. if h©
glances at the picture at all, is repelled at fi-nt by 01113-
th,Pg staelitig and giariog in its general elect.
But if he will look Cl.M6lf, ate think he
will discover a work having:faults indeed test nevertheless
of no common degree of math. The hed' which drew
that pebbled and shingled beach. with the roske and
headlands in. the dis secs purpling in the light. and
suffused the whole with su 3h re sense of heat end almost
painful brightness. must have wsetight in obedience to eyes
which looked at nature for theraeeives. and received her
impressions feithfeily. The hills rising immediately
b hied the strand, covered with grasses and heather, a-a
painted with as much minuteness as 1113 stony strand on
which the nets are- drying and at the same time :vide as
full an effect of trathfulnes: and fhleliry to nature in the
general aspect. Perhaps the greateet,defeet is the manner
in which the realest'. waves of the Sin breaking on the
beach are painted Thee is a heery, untran-p vent,
almost immoveable elpserence in them which coatrasts
very' unfavourably with the bright, lering colon-a and
outlines of other objects. But we must think highly
of this artist (Ur. A. J. Lewis) and believe one
who has shown so full a capacity- for receiving
the art-teachings of nature easily capable of over-
comingevon greater defcts of detail and w)rk uanship
than he has evinced here. The picture is likely to recei:e
much disparagement, and its first effect dees not, as we
helm mina Iced, please the eye, but we cannot help
recording our high opinion of the talent aceltruth which
produced it.
A view on the Rhore, at Avignon (No 3: ihr. H.
J. Johnson) is exquisite as a piece of scenery, and painted
with much beauty. A aqua-e tower rising sheer from
the water with its batt'ements steeped in sunshine, and
the cistant glimpses of mountains and turrets blue or
g'itterieg white over the stream, are set in e sky whose
soft richness is worthy the atmosphere said the scenes of
the southern /slimes° in rhich the artist found hie subject.
No 5 : " Old Mdl at Hembrook, near Bristol—Winter
Evening." This picture, by Mr. E F. DePritchard, has
much attractiveness of a very different kind from that of
which we have just spoken. It is a faithfully
painted sketch of a p;cturesque scene under the
influen a of a rut ly, glowing • winter evening sky,
with good healthful white frost spit kling over •
stones and brambles. Few landscapes in the
exhibition give 1.1.3 more pleasure than this little oval
painting, of whose general effect, however, we can only
speak, as it is hung where critical eyes, exe,pe the
very keenest, cannot read its details. This room, what-
ever fault may be feend wish some of its contents, certainly
encloses a variety of charming landscape., exquisitely
wrought upon canvass. Such, for instance, is
" A Summer Bvening." by Mr. Thomas Dunby. One
mus withdraw to a considerable&sten is from this picture
to become aware of- the full mallow richness of the sunset
haze which suffices it in softened br'ghtnese. Tee visitor
wan not fail to observe haw distinctly the da'k foliage
outlines itself against the evening sky. and what a sense of
calm and slence pervades the whole. We do not pretend to
any deep criticism of the technically-artistic merits of this,
or, indeed, of any other picture. It h;gh art be not in this
and some other pein.ings of ilia same kind, we are inclined
to be rather sorry for nigh art. Few uatechnical visitors
can look at this picture without feeling some sensation, at
least, of that soft indescribable feeling, which "sinks like
a weight" upon the minders we lo 'k upon such a scene as
this painter had beteie him when he sketched the outlines
of this summer landscape.
No. 205 —By Mr Janes Andrews—is the fig ire of what
we would call a modern young lady, were it net th.t her
ample beauties are di covered here with a liberality
beyond that of even fashionable feminine evening costume
of the pres'nt era. She hells in her hand a small hex,
like a jewel Case. which she is opening with a penalierly
dainty touch, looking all the whole whh a lang aid and,
indeed, somewhat VA21.10116 expression of easy expectancy.
But for the catalogue we shoals scercely have guessed,
notwithstanding the casket, that this ayes ,he acquaintance
of our scholastic yaush-time, Pandora. Ole might have
imagined that the remarkable incidents of this nymph's
eeisteace had hal already a suffic:enly of illuetratiene
The lovers of classic art will probaely recellest having read
of a certain Theban reg aletieu which prescribed and
proscribed ce tein subjects to painters. Tae greatest
of modern cridea is not quite certain that we
are right when we laugh at the idea of the fine arts
being subjected in their scope to the regulations of
municipal law, and thinks there is a goed-deal to be said
on both sides of the subjec'. One feels very much inclined
to think with him, when tecollecting hotegr.at a waste of
talent and good paint upon subjects exheested utterly be-
yond revival by any power of genius or c ileum, might be
saved by the exercise of same good netureclly tyrannical
mandate after the Theben fashion. Tee Thebics, indeed,
only prohibited c;sricatuses and the representation of
hideous objects. These, hoe ver, were the happy days
before any kind of art had grown classic and had become,
therefore, doomed to eternal imi-ation• and spiritless

mimicry.
Of the subject of No. I, "Bacchus and Bilenus,"by Mr.
George Patten, A.R A , the same might be said es of that
we have just mentioned, whlle the rich flesh colouring and
vigour of expression make one regret even more tha,t the
artist's choice did not fall upon some sultjtct which could.
appeal to the living heart of the present
29. " Christ Betrayed,"—R.. S Lander, R.S.A.
Attention is inevitably called away at the first
glance from the splendidly painted baekgronnd
of this pic'.ure, tnd the animates stoup- of figures
whic's fill the greater part of the foreground,
to the one figure with which the gatz.”. must be
satisfied, or will hardly ref ain from condemning the
whole. This central figure surely is net a fitting repre-
sentative of that form and' face which symbolize to us such
a blending of human sympathy and Borrow, with an
exalted tranquillity and sublime resignation not of this
earth In these scared and. pallid features, livid with a
fanatic wildness, we cannot see the face of the betrayed
Christ. It is not perhaps eurpri.ing, that one so seldom
sees in art anything even rem Aely approaching our ideal.
of this form gad face. Painters seem for the most part
divided into two classes—one which depicts the Saviour
with a face of womanish softness and were beauty;
another which produces the lineaments and form of soma
half-distracted fanatic preacher We cannot ad.ni-e the
repterentation, which this picture gives us, and with this
central error and defect before us cannot bring ourselves
sufficiently, to appreciate the many prints of high 'merit
which other portions of the painting unquesti nably
exhibit. Some of the startled faces in the group of disci-
ples are fall of artistic power and vivi 1 life.
Mr. Clt Leslie's " Hart:atone," is a remarkable picture
—statuesque, as befits the incident depicted—drasaatio
even, as it ought to be, but not thea'ric which is precisely
what in the hands of an ii.ferior artist it would inevitably
have been. There is majesty in the form of Hormione,
sueh as a statuary might have given, but the face- is filled
with the melancholy hues of true human sorrow.
0 Musidora" (go. (3) is one c a kind of paintings made
very famiiiar to the frecrienters of all art-exhibitions. It
represents a young lady in h.e chemise brushing her hair,
and gazing vacantly forward.
60 "English Autumn Aternoon—Hunpstaal Scenery."
Mr. Ford Madox Brown will be considered a man
of mark by siost persons, and in Live pool is entitled
to especial attention f,'otn the fact that last season he
carried off our Acaleasy's prize amid nunph vehement pro-
test on the part of the public. This picture is of the same
style as his works in general, but it has. many merits which
the prize picture of las:, year did not 486.711 to 11i tO possess,,
and from the nature of the subject,, it could not possibly
offend public taste to the same degree. We can all be
more patient with the peculiarities of a school making free
with beauty of English latdecape scenery, then
pre-Raphaelite
urea, pre-Raphaelite red hair given
utteyfeat
to us as a representation of Christ. But indeed, aril
much that is not pleating to look at, there is no small:
degree of skilful, rich colouring in tlrj.e picture, not un-
worthy the exquisitely soft and beautifyil scenery it imitates.
It has the painful minuteness of online, and marvellous
effects of perspeeive, common to many of its
compeers, but the artist has. not failed in,
fixing on his canvass much of the delicious var.,
dure and foliage-richness of the scene he painted.
Of the figures in the foreground—the lady with her back
turned to the spectatoz and the cavalier who points to
some future of the landscape with his whip —vio, ors
lay that they are fully up to the mark of the aehool ; that
their clothes are very like real clothes ; the whip a pedestal;
likeness ; and thrall they do not AU Dalich
the picture.