The Sun.
London, England, 1870-02-22 00:00:00

HAMERTON'S PORTFOLIO.

We fear that neither Mr. Sydney Covlin's eulogium
nor Mr. Burne Jones's own sketch will make the majority
of art lovers really love Mr. Burne Jones's art. His
friendly critic admits that he does not paint every-day
nature, but urges that he paints the quintessence of nature
when nature is loveliest ; and that to ask " why does not
this gentleman drop his affectations, and paint real nature
and real life ?" is precisely as if one who did not know what
stinging was were to be taken to hear a Nilsson
for the first time, and to say " confound the woman ! why
does she make that noise instead of talking like you and
me." This is neatly put but it seems to us very wide of
the mark. Mr. Jones's forte is not loveliness but ugliness,
not nature but conventionalism—the conventionalism of
the middle ages. It is simply absurd to speak of the dis-
located limbs and the impossible attitudes in which
media val glass-painters and Mr. Burne Jones delight as
either beautiful or natural. No maker of penny Dutch
dolls would venture to give one of his productions such
a foot as Mr. Jones has given to his CEnone. Mr.
Hamerton pursues his canoe voyage down the unexplored
Avroux, and very charming are the etchings with which
he illustrates his letter-press. Charming, too, in another
way, is the lithographic view in three tints of the staircase
of Jean Cousin's house at Sens. Mr. F. T. Palgrave, who
fluttered the Volscians of our last International Exhibi-
tion, by his trenchant hand-book, has an article on the
Louvre collections.

THE AXPOSITION OF CATHOLIC ART.

ROME,. Feb. 12.
The Exposition of Catholic Art which the Pope
opens on Tuesday, the 15th, can be easily found
in the common maps of Rome. It occupies the
great cloister of the Carthusians, behind the im-
mense Church of S. Maria degli Angeli, and close
to the temporary station which is the terminus of
all the Roman railways. The cloister, the monas-
tery, the church, and the station are all within the
thirty acres of stupendous ruin formerly the Baths
of Diocletian. They lie beyond an open and ele-
vated region, destined to be new Rome, and laid
out already for streets and boulevards. I may add
that the site is near the Praetorian Camp. Within
a stone's-throw both of the railway station. and
the Exposition is Villa Grazioli, where Dupanloup
lives and where Keats died. The Bishop of Orleans
only shares the house with half-a-dozen other
lodgers. The cloister, from which the poor monks
arc driven by the invasion of science and art, was
designed by Michael Angelo, with Doric columns
and arcades, and is a hundred yards every way, so
that the whole space actually covered by the Expo-
sition, exclusive of offices and approaches, is 10,000
square yards, or two acres and a quarter. In the
centre is a fountain and four cypresses planted by
Michael Angelo ; one of an immense size and hardly
past its prime ; a second as large, but going ; a
third once larger, but now a wreck ; and the fourth
younger by two centuries. Round these trees a
beautiful little garden has been laid out, with
beds, walks, and an open-air altar for ceremonials.
Round the garden, and radiating from the centre,
are 16 spacious and lofty halls, with a circular
promenade running through them, receiving their
light from above. Each hall is more than 60 feet
loug, about 50 feet wide at the end near the clois-
ter, and 25 feet at the end near the central garden.
A few of these halls are divided, with a view to more
wall specs. The four halls that communicate di-
rectly with the cloister have also doors and windows
looking upon the cypresses. The whole structure
has been brought well within the open space, and
several yards clear of the cloister, so as to leave
room for passages, refreshment-rooms, and gardens
in the corners between the outer square and the
inner circle ; there are also refreshment-rooms,
walking-grounds, and space for everything in the
surrounding world of ruins. It will be sLen that
the plan is very simple ; but it has two great de-
fects, if defects they be. All the halls are alike,
and there is no such thing as a right angle or two
parallel lines n the building, excepting, of cjurse,
the outer wails, which follow the line of the clois-
ters. Fontana made a plan which \would have given
more variety, and also more picturescpie effects. It
includA a wide circular colonnade round the
garden, four large rectangular halls, and eight more
is long but not so wide, and also four semicircular
hails, each with a radius of 50 feet. The differ-
ences in favour of his plan appeal so strikingly to
the imagination that the rejection of it has been set
down to a want of Court favour. For my part, I
cannot help thinking that the plan adopted, not-
withstanding a certain monotony, is the better, and
certainly the more convenient, of the two. The
circular colonnade round the small garden would
have had too small a radius for a promenade and
too many side openings for any other use. It would

also have wearied one at last of the fountain and
cypresses. In the plan adopted, which is that
of Professor Virginio Verpignani, the promenade
has a larger radius, and takes 1 cope through
the middle of the halls containing the objects
exhibited. Upon the who's‘, the structure has
sroeg family resemblance to those of London
and Paris, and the scene to-day did just re-
call the recollections of Hyde Park and South
Kensington. The exhibitors were all busy, some
opening packages with fear and trembling, some
conferring with very polite officials, some running
here and there for counsel or aid, and one tall,
elderly artist, in a frock caat, perched on steps, was
delicately filing a crown of thorns. The Zoteives
were working everywhere as if tie fans of Rome
depended on it. One poor lad wa, in a fainting fit
as we entered, and remained so long insensible that
1. hope it was no worse with him. But there were
not many things of great bulk. As my friend and 1
neark.d the scene of aciion a large body of men were
movingan immense block of white marble, Coll tai ning
at least 400 cubic feet, and therefore weighing near
20 tons. As this is one of the marvels of old Rome
—in the Colonna Gardens there is a block of marble
from the Temple of the Sun, weighing wore than a
hundred tons—l was curious to see how it was
lone. The block was on a sledge, which moved
over cross sleepers, the surfaces of both of them
hardened and smoothed by use. Every hundred
yards the men took up the paved road and fixed in
the ground a very strong windlass. It must he slow
work, and only possible with hard roads. We were
disappointed. The block was not for the Exposi-
tion, but a studio, where it would be good for a
hero or a saint 15ft. high. I don't know whether I
have succeeded in bringing the Exposition building
before you. Imagine the " Tom Quad" of Christ
Church at Oxford, with its cloisters as originally
intended, filled with glass roofs and wooden parti-
tions. The halls are spacious and airy, the light
pleasant and cheerful. It did occur to me that it
was all promenade, and consequently all motion,
and that there would be no retreat from the stream.
I must also say that, for a month or so, I would
advise anybody who can catch a cold not to
remain more than twenty minutes at a time in
Michael Angelo's cloister, or more than five
minutes in that most stupendous, most magni-
ficent, and most perishingly cold of all cel-
lars, the adjoining Church of St. Maria degli An-
gell. Westminster Hall could stand easily under
that enormous vault, and there would be room to
drive a carriage round it. But for the cold it might
be a cavern iu an iceberg.
The Exposition is about half filled, and no more.
They have had to wait for possible contributions,
which have not come, and will not. The pro-
gramme itself is very restricted. This is a Univer-
sal Exposition of the Fine Arts, and of the Catholic
industries, in their present state of progress, and
so far as they have some special bearing on the
(Ecumenical Council. Of course the Expositio,,
shares the fate of the Council, having no more
friends, and at least as many enemies. At a very
early day it occasioned a passage of ameaLies be-
tween Italy and Rome. The people here sent cir-
culars to the clergy and others throughout Italy
inviting them to send objects for exhibition. There-
upon the Italian Government sent counter circu-
lars, not exactly prohibiting, but quietly suggest-
ing that home was notoriously selfish and dis-
honest, and was now also very needy. She did
not want other cities to have any art treasures, and
it was also certain the I.l;xposition was only a design
for getting teem into her hands, when beyond a
doubt she would ship t hem off to foreign countries.
and pocket the proceeds towards the expenses of
,rie Couucil. The Pope's people replied chat the
Italian Government was only true to its own char-
acter and practice in discouraging religious art ;
that notoriously it took no care of what it had, and
that it had destroyed more than the barbarians ever
had done in Italy. Everywhere the most beautiful
works of art had been demolishe 1, sold for a
trifle, or thrown away. Lieraries, MSS., and
archives had been soft! for w ate piper ; sacred
itnagrs robbed of jewels and sent to tile curiosity
shops ; the illuminations and arabesques cut out of
the missals, which were left to rot in corners; whole
galleries of pictures had been sold by auction for a
few sous a piece to persons who ripped out the can-
vas and only wanted the frames. How all this
may be I know not, for how could I pretend to say
that on any given occasion it is Rome that speaks
the truth, and .not the other side? however, there
is not much from Italy here. The most conspicuous
contributors are Lyons (I think first and foremost),
Paris, Malines, hatisbon, Tournay, Mon tpellier, Co-
logne, and the Rhine. There is a great show of church
ornaments, sacred vessels of all kinds, candelabra,
shrines, coffers,yeetinents, wax candles,aud every kind
of thing one sees in these churches; indeed, more than
one sees at Rome itself. Collected, as they are in
the Exposition, they surfeit with their gorgeousness.
There:are models of churches—a very large and
beautiful one of St. Peter's itself ; there is a great
number of splendid new works from the press of
Didot and other Great French and German pub-
lishers, with beautiful illustrations, and magnificent
bindings. But the rule of selection must have been
relaxed sometimes, for there is a Greek Thesaurus
in nine volumes, Plolenzy's Geography, Virgil,
Horace and Anacreon, and books of maps. There
is a Dictionary of time Fine Arts, Guillaboud's
Ancient Monuments, and, from Didot's press, I be-
lieve, a facsimile publication of a MS. from Mount
Athos. There is also a French translation of the
New Testament, handsomely got up, and very
popular in France. The rule restricts to modern
works; but there are some inediwval bronzes, wood-
work, majolica, old German coloured glass, plans
and drawings of the Catacombs, and, iu fact, what-
ever is likely to interest anybody. The Exposi-
tion was announced, to illusrate the progress of
Catholic science as well as art, but as nothing
appears under that bead in this building, I
presume that it is to be looked for in due
time from the Council Hall. The Roman jour-
nals, indeed, talk of a new discovery which
is to make forgeries and interpolations impos-
sible for the future. They say nothing of one
for the detection of old forgeries and interpola-
tions. There are a good many church mosaics,
such as the medallions of Pope's heads. One thing
every visitor will notice and examine. It is a
Lord's Supper, about two yards lung, and one high,
in square tesserte, of- a good size. The effect pro-
duced is miraculous. Though done with such in-
convenient and intractable means, it has the deli-
cacy and expression of a picture. The faces show
through the hard lines of the tesserm as through
a screen. Of course, the work would defy any
amount of damp. But I grieve to say, first, that
the work is priced—very likely underpriced--at
£l6O ; secondly, that the marvel is one I should

not care to possess. It does not strike ; it does

not please; it is only most curious and incredible.
The Pope contributes three tiaras—that presented
by Napoleon 1., that by Queen Christina, of which
I saw the first appearance in St. Peter's twelve
years ago, and that by the Palatine Guards ; also
some chalices in rock crystal, and historic vest-
ments and ornaments, such as the Dalmatic of
Charlemagne and the Cross lately presented by the
Marquis of Bute.
It is necessary co hasten over the ground, for
there remains the sculptures and the pictures. The
former have one or two of the halls, and also share
with the pictures the four hundred yards of cloister
wall. We must bear in mind that the sculpture
must be strictly Catii,)lic. The most striking objects
are a set; of pairs—the IVisz; and Unwise Virgins,
Joseph and Potiphar's Wife, the Saviour and Judas,
the S tviour and Pontius Pilate, and the Saviour
and Pius IX. The Wise Virgin is not content with
refusing her oil bottle ; she won't let the other
even take a light of her. Potiphar's wife does not
look so bad a woman as she ought, nor Joseph so good