The Sun.
London, England, 1856-04-22 00:00:00

NEW SOCIETY OF WATER

COLOURISTS.

Oa Saturday afternoon, at the well-known
gallery of the New Society of Painters in Water
Colours-53, Pall-mall—we had the satisfaction
(according to custom) of attending the " private
view" of their Annual Exhibition. It is the
twenty-second collection displayed year after year
since the date when the society was first incorpo-
rated. The specimens hung round the four walls
of the apartment, and upon the two screens flank-
ing the table of the Secretary and Treasurer, num-
' her just 349 altogether, landscapes, sea views,
`genre pictures, historical paintings, scriptural corn-
Positions, flowers, fruit, in fact (as ever) works of a
Character the most miscellaneous. The President
Henry Warren—is still, after nil, about the most
conspicuous among the contrihutors. Apart from
his official pre-erninence—by reason of his very re-
raarkable powers as a water colourist, aided as
those powers are, in their claims upon popular
`attention, by the admirable selection of the subjects
usually adopted by this master for illustration.
gr. 77, and 191—the latter a representation of
nagar and Ishmail going forth into the wilderness
--the former au ambitious delineation of " Rebe-
kah first beholding Isaac." This last mentioned
being in effect a work of art of reallyremarkable ex-
- cellence, and one which the discerning majority will
not fail to recognise on the instant as something
extraordinary. The grouping of the figures in the
foreground—conspicuously elevated as the heroine
of the painting is upon the apex of the hous-
ings of the camel —is contrived at one and
the same time with consummate adroitness
and infinite originality. The distant form of the
advancing Isaac indicates with wonderful effect
the perspective of the sterile waste—while the green
and orange haze of sky and sand suffuses the whole
scene with a marvellous intimation of the sultriness
of the Oriental atmosphere. An intimation not
slightly aided in its general forcefulness by the very
act of Rebekah daintily veiling herself from the
view of the approaching son of Abraham. Another
"try noticeable contributor to the gallery of the
New Society of Water Colourists, Louis Haghe,
favours us with productions the like of which we
have seen, over and over again, we don't know how
Many seasons in succession. In merit as always
remarkable but in subject and general
treatment, for the most part, exceedingly monoto-
nous. No. 50, an " Antichamber of the Tribu-
nal of the Inquisition," reveals to us the same pen-
sive lady hanging in the same attitude of anguish
about the neck of the same ill-fated nobleman—
the same supplicative little boy in the same minia-
ture trunk and hose and the same satin-slashed
velvet doublet, on his knees, pleading in the same
utterly futile manner to the same inexorable old
curmudgeon, who stands forth as a type of the
ghastly, ghostly, grimly, ghoul-like Inquisition.
Again, No. 64, the "Town Hall of Oudenarde—
Meeting of the Corporations"—Don't we know it
all by heart at a glance ? The stupendous chim-
ney-piece with its gothic carvings and those
burly, old, red-faced, purple-nosed, slouch-hatted,
short-cloaked, gesticulating, theatric, burgomasters,
Who appear to be always conspiring in full fig
against a De Witt, or getting ready with corporate
Pomp to " put down" like Dutch Lauries, some in-
surrectionary movement some where or other out-
side that big Town Hall, with its ornate monster
of a chimney-piece. Edward Corbould—one of the
Most charming, as he is one of the most popular of
slur water colourists—appears this last year to
have been in a merry mood enough, all things
considered. No. 211, his mist elaborate and pre-
tentious composition, entitled for the Mane " Ye
tymnere hys Dreame," being proof positive of the
fact, as the artist's own explanation of it in the
catalogue will sufficiently well indicate—that ex-
Planation being as follows :—" Falling into a fitful
and uneasy sleep, after a long-protracted reading of
varied and antagonistic character, he dreams of
Patrons of art departed to the Crimea, of himself—
as not having a leg left—of falling into the waters
of oblivion,' and vainly struggling to call for the
drags of the Humane Society, whose men are gone
to Greenwich Fair." There, on one side, is "ye
I'Ymnere" himself—Ed ward H. Corbould—as sound
as a church door, with his nose in the air, his meer-
schaum smoked out lying beside him on the littered
table at his elbow, and the air full of all imaginable
and unimaginable shapes, kings and goblins, mailed
knights and pretty girls in J enny Lind wide-awakes,
gorgens, chimaeras, the heroic, the homely, the
beautiful, and the grotesque. tis a very " painted
nightmare"—a dream that might have been dreamt
Partly by Ariel and partly by Caliban. Talking of
which Shaksperian personages—yonder, in No. 96,
will be found Corbould's capital delineations of
Goodman "Bottom, the Weaver," carolling about—
" The ousel cock, so black of hue,
With orange tawny bill,
The throstle with his note so true,
The wren of little quill : "
The singer's ass-head plaintively lipping the words
With a relish, and his sturdy legs staggering in the
ecstasy of his song—Titania (or as the cata-
logue has it, " Titiana,") coming forth be-
witched from among the flowers. The same
artist has a pretty graceful " Griselda," in No. 27,
and a humorous illustration of the old song about
the milkmaid, ending " Nobodie axed you, Sir"
"—for the Knight's visage, in which J. B.
Buckstone might have sat—in a daze ! Plea-
santest, however, and at the same time most
prolific among the contributors to the Gallery,
this season is an old favourite—John Absolon.
There "Kiss" (No. 16) to greet the young
lady visitors delightfully, almost the instant they
nave crossed the threshold.. There are the four
sweet little pictures grouped together in one frame
property of Herbert Ingram, Esq., M.P.),
'Os- 70, 71, 72, 73, rather unaccountably entitled
"Norfolk, Derby, Sussex, Rutland"—as if that
Prettygleaner with her sheaf of corn, that piquante
beauty in her striped si!k, that dainty damsel with
the antique coiffure, and so fortl, got christened
somehow strangely each like a pet racer ! However,
narnes and all, delightful symbols may be for the
Four
Counties, there they are—" the cynosures of
neighbouring eyes." And so too with the "Baptism'
(-LN 0. 105) from the salmi hand, and again with
"• Dora',
(No. 202), the gentle, genial, pensive
Dora of Tennyson. There are one or two exe-
crable things in the gallery—say, for example, that
wretched daub "On Leave" (No. 259), by G. B.
uanciPion—oe that ridiculous " Eventide " (No.
.„
"11.), with its leopard skin sky—or that absurd
• Judy Callaghan' (No. 165), by W.H. Kearney
or, Worst of all, that horrible representation by the
arne artist of "The Fululurent" (No. 121), with
its sacred faces tear-bedabbled, blowsed, and drivel-
ling,l., Quite refreshing it is to turn from things
like these to scraps of natural beauty like (No.
295) " Lilac and Hedge Sparrow's .N est," by Mrs.
Margetts—moss one can almost handle, lilac one can
alnaost scent the fragrance of ! Charming, too, for a
similar reason, the "Dead Birds" (No. 325) and the
ripe " Fruit " (in 332) by the camel hair brush of
that
whilome mythic being—Mrs, Harris ! Exqui-
site, too, in their way are Robert Carrick's two lit-
tle pictures, one (313) "Boys Fishing," the other
(331) " Boy at Prayer," with all the truth of Hunt
--truth howbeit seen through a medium of grace
rather than through one of grotesqueness. The
landscapes and sea views—generally the glory of
the Gallery,—appear to us this season somewhat
deficient both in variety and excellence. Among
the happiest efforts in this branch of the art, to
our thinking, are two, by S. Cook—(No. 44), a
"Morning Breeze," and (No. 83), " Sunset after
a Gale"—the latter, especially, beautiful in its
healthful freshness. Aaron Penley has a noble
view of the "Back of Skiddaw, with Bassenthwaite
Lake in the distance," and Edmund G. Warren,
a wonderful picture (No. 262) of "The Wye at
New Weir"—wonderful in many ways, from the
very apple-gathering in the foreground, to the dim
beauty of the far-stretching perspective. Turning
from which with gladdened senses, we pass out
again into the streets from the crowded Gallery.