The Sun.
London, England, 1856-03-26 00:00:00

sociErY OF BRITISH ARTISTS.

-~--.:

THE SUFFOLK-STREET EXHIBITION.

On Saturday afternoon, according to annual cus-
tom, we duly wended our way along Suffolk street,
Pall Mall East, to the private view of the paintings,
displayed somewhere about spring- time, year after
year, by the Society of British Artists—the first
privileged glimpse of one of our most popular
London Exhibitions. The collection fer 1856 now
hanging upon the walls of the Gallery, is that of
the thirty-third season, it appears—the association.
having been originally founded and incorporated
by Royal Charter in the year of grace 1823. As
many as 843 pictures in oil and water colours
adorn the sides of the five apartments en suite,
only three specimens of sculpture decorating the
floor of the outer room, the room just within the
vestibule. Among the rather numerous contribu-
tors the most industrious, at least so far as we can
estimate the amount of his industry by the variety
of his productions, appears to be Mr. J. J, Wilson
of Folkestone. The most conspicuous among the
exhibitors being as usual the very men whose
names have long been the chief boast of the society,
not forgetting among these, altogether apart from
his official position, the painter whom the British
artists have long ago selected, and since then
retained, as their. President. To a certain
extent, consequently, the general character of
each year's exhibition preserves, season after
season, a strong and unmistakeable sort of a family
resemblance. Entering the Gallery, in Suffolk-
street, any fine Saturday morning in March, you
may be certain that, while making the circuit of the
four inner rooms, your eyes will be greeted by
some sly-looking Italian boy, with an olive com-
plexion, instantly recognizable as a Hurlstone !
By a chalky-coloured landscape, or a milky-hued
sea view, such as Pyne's brush alone could by any
possibility delineate ! By a Clint, blushing all
over with the gorgeous dyes of sunset By. the
prettiest, daintiest, sweetest, freshest, rustic girl,
or stripling, with (be sure of that) a little child
introduced somewhere or other; to stand upon tip-
toe and drink out of a'pitcher, visible at the first
glance as another. chatthing moreeau from the
easel of Hill ! Yonder, again; a Woolmer, painted
in splotches and blots of gamboge, white, and car-
mine, out of which grows upon your view some
partially nude and very voluptuous figure, stand-
ing, or sitting, or kneeling, or lying in most
unaccountable nakedness in the midst of the most
amply flowing and voluminous of draperies
While every now and then, as *we saunter on,
past picture after picture from very various
hands indeed, we come most refreshingly upon
some delicious little peep of river scenery, some
side view down a rural English lane, some casual
glimpse through the cool and shady perspective of a
pleasant greenwood shaw—instantly and gladly
welcomed as a new boon of natural beauty from
the familiar and honoured brush of Boddiugton !
Such, wei take it, is the agreeable average of the
annual exhibition in Suffolk-street, Pall-mall East,
opened to the public view by the Society of British
Artists in the sweet spring season. The exhibition
there for this present year of grace 1856, iseall
things considered, about the average ; and as such,
therefore, we regard it as eminently well entitled
to our commendations. Eight seems to be the
favourite number attained by the Chief Exhibitors.
Mr. Hurlstone, the President, has eight "---Mr.
Alfred Clint, the Hon. Secretary, has " eight "
and Mr. Woolmer has " eight "—scattered here
•
and there in the ample catalogue. Mr. J. J. Hill
contributes, on the contrary, only three pictures
altogether, but all three of these pictures we
found (and lot us add, with no surprise whatever)
pleasantly marked with the little green ticket
"Some," even before the vulgar roXXot were ad-
mitted to the chance ofcom petition. Mr. Pyne, on the
other hand, exhibits thiA year as many as "seven,"
and Mr. Boddington as many as " nine" (some of
these, in each instance, very remarkable) produc-
tions. Exquisite, for example, to our thinking, is
(No. 11) " Streatley M 11, ou the Thames—a Sum-
mer's Neon," from the hand of the last men-
tioned—lovely, too, is (Nth .136) "An. English
Lane" of hise-and yet. mere lovely (No. 420) "'A
SUiruner's Morning, • North Wales," this. latest- to
our mind a very jewel -of a Boddington. There
are especially noticeable moreover,' in their way-.-
(No. 39) "Summer Evening, Bantry," and -(N-o'
335) "Storm, Fishing Beatsruu wing into Harbour,"
both by Alfred, Clint, and "Worthy' of him—the
rolling storm and the ruddy evening ! Mr. Pyne
has brought home once more from Italy " things
of beauty," which milt continue " joys for ever,"
so long at least 'as the 'threads of the canvass upon
which he has painted hang together. Now that Tur-,
nor is gone, there is scarcely a Man who can approach
. him, ai a delineator of Nature. Witness this (No.
38) " Bathing Buffaloes in the Pontine •Marshes "
(iu itself a most luscious studyof colour !)—and (No.
65) " Castello d'Ostia, Cempagna di R.nna
and (No, 83) "Venice from the Lido" (a Venice
like the Fairy D kydream descubed as sueh in
that magical vision of the floating city, seen and
tohL of, once upsu a time, by Biz !)—and, besides
these, gleams of wonderful power and 'beauty from•
the last awful eruption of Meant Vesuvius, that
of May, 1855, such for example as that presented
by (No.. 626) " Cescata Idioms le" a rolling cataract
of red hot lava that (thas depicted) .would have
givers joy to the heart, and eyes, and brain of Tur-
ner. " The Hay Field" (No. 25) a 1201. picture
by Mr. Hill, is this year, beyond all doubt, Mr.
Hill's happiest effort—wonderfully preferable at
once to (No. 281) his " Shepherdess,' and to (No.
580) his " Galway Rustice.' This sweet and must
delicious Hay Field of his, being a scene altogether
of happy rustic love, and health, and' incrustry.
Mr. Wooliner's worst picture, for a long time past,
we. conceive to be the monstrosity .entitled (No.
109) " Christ in the Wilderness," with a gigantic
Seville Orange shining through the contorted
boughs of the bare wool in the background ! As
a matter of course, he gives us (No. 239) a " Doro-
thea, vide 'Den Quixote.' " His two most sen-
suous, or rather we should perhaps say of them his
two most sensual pieces, this year, are (No. '273)
. " Lady Godiva," and (No. 435) " Return from the
Ball, Sunrise"—both pourtraying the female form in
the very act of stripping into stark nakedness ! Mr.
Hurlstone's most characteristic work for the pre-
sent season is, perhaps, of all, (No. 199) " Tenants
of the Forum Romanum in the Nineteenth Cen-
tury," three dark-eyed, brown-skinned, white-
toothed laughing Italian children, eating fruit and
maccaroni. The President, it should be observed,
however, appears to have been latterly more
titan ordinarily industrious as 'a portrait painter,
chiefly in the family of " Sir William E len,
Baronet," as Mr. Bucket would call him,
see Nos. 187, 306, and 131, one only of these, viz.,
(No. 306) " Blanche," being to ourselves, as dis-
passionate spectators, in any way satisfactory—the
,prettiest little baby-trot imaginable, with its eyes
laughing, and its hands full of grapes ! One of
the most interesting portraits in the Gallery,is
(No. 88.) Mr. Swinton's portrait of "Sir John
M'Neil," a truly noble classic profile. (No. 14) Mr.
Bell's portrait of "Professor Farraday" having an
attraction of its own in the mere name of the illus-
trious philosopher—possibly, however, in all re-
spects, the best portrait in the entire collection
Wine. (No. 150), Mr. Westcott's life-like portrait of
a lady, mentioned in the catalogue as "Mrs. Jas.
H. Hulme, Cliffe House, Ballow, Derbyshire."
Besides other large pictures in the gallery, otherwise
distinguishable as in soiiier Viay meritorious, there are
several big, execrable paintings, such as (No. 201)
" The Golden Age," by Mr. Underhill, with its
brawny clown dancing in a leopard skin--sor as
(No. 174) "False Security," by Mr. Bullock, with
a most extravagant Terror sprawling out upon us
with her arms outspread ! Mr.
Pidding's (No. 233). " The Meriy Thought"
is the silliest, vapidest thing .conceiv-
able. Very different from Mr. Fitzgerald's
(No. 243)." Youth," with mirth in her eyes, and
freak, and fun, and frolic in every outline of her
gay, gliding figure—a merry country lees, • sliding
to us upon tho ice with a laugh all but audible.
Horrible is (No. 372) Miss Emily Saiith's " Sailor
Boy's Early Dream I" Capitalis (No. 459) the little
"Country Boy," sketched fromnature by Mr. Hems-
ley—with visible weight in his pitcher, and muscle
under his shirt sleeves, and a totter in his little boots!
Mawkish is (No. 467.) Mr. Egley's " Honey-
moon"—the very type of your ballad frontisp'ece
in coloured lithography Aud such for the most
part are -the chief themes for praise or dispraise
noticed by us during the course of our first visit
thisseason to the annual Suffolk-street Exhibition.

COVENT•GARDEN TEEEATRE.—Her Majesty the Queen
has, we understand, offered to head a subscription list
for the rebuilding of Covent-garden Theatre, with a con-
tribution of 1,000/.

The, Sardinian Government has moved a body of
troops to the frontiers of Parma. Fears are entertained
of further disorders in that quarter.
A. SUBURBAN NEWSPAPER.— An Ingenious little subur-
ban contemporary, entitled The Chelsea and Kensington
Weekly Observer, has recently made its appearance.
Assuming, by reason of the very modesty of its donii-
nion—(after the fashion of the Elector of one of your
small German principalities)--a grandiose title as long
as one's arm, " Tout pour deux sous, M'sieur!" it under-
takes to circulate in Chelsea, Battersea, Wandsworth,
Putney, Fulham Hammersmith, Pimlica, Brompton,
Kensington, and Knightsbridge ! It affects in every
way the manner and appearance of a French journal,
beginning with its poli ical articles and ending with its
advertisements—not forgetting even the feuilleton ruled
off at the bottom of the page, and which sets out with
a tale of the reign of Charles the Tenth, rather uncom-
fortably entitled " The Lost Finger a contribution,
by the way, au henticated with the name of the indus-
trious reckcteic.- of our little west-end contemporary.