The Sun.
London, England, 1860-05-04 00:00:00

PRIVATE VIEW.-THIS DAY.

A thought from Plato (Vol. x., p. 329, ed.
Bipont) is the motto for the current (92d) cata-
logue of the Royal Academy Exhibition. It is to
the effect that " Beauty alone has this characteris-
tic, that it is at once the most visible and the most
pleasing of qualities." Of the charming truth thus
sententiously enunciated, the walls of the Aca-
demy still, in the recurring spring season, afford
as usual a most brilliant illustration. Not that
there is, to our thinking, one solitary Great Picture
in the whole display. There are several works
undoubtedly very remarkable, some that are very
beautiful, but not one that, according to our
notion, can be absolutely designated as
Great. Mulready, for one, makes no ap-
pearance whatever. His eagerly anticipated
picture this year is—non iraventus. Maclise again
has nothing. Ward has nothing. Eastlake
nothing. Sir Edwin Landseer, however, has one,
a large painting, hung in the place of honour (106),
a " Flood in the Highlands." The readers of the
closing scene of " The Mill on the Floss" will look
with interest to the great animal painter's repre-
sentation of that wild and chaotic spectacle of ruin
—a localised deluge. P. F. Poole has, in (40), an
exquisite work of art, a picture demonstrative of
the fact that the artist is in truth in the meridian of
his powers. It is a poetic embodiment in lustrous
colours of that closing scene in Sir Bulwer Lytton's
classical romance of" The Last Days of Pompeii"
the escape of Glaucus and lone with the blind girl
Nydia from the appalling outbreak of Vesu-
vius. The three figures in the boat are
there revealed floating ever and ever in the very
atmosphere of Dreamland to the sound of the lyre of
Nydia, in the more golden than silvery beams of
the Italian moonlight. J. E. Millais has also a
single picture of rare excellence, too, of its kind
—(29) " The Black Brunswickcrs," a companion
painting to the famous and popular chef d'ceuvre
of the artist, "The Release of the Huguenot."
Here, however, it is a parting, not a meeting.
Several of the details are really marvellous—the en-
graving of Napoleon le Grand on the wall—the
white satin of the lady's dress—the pet spaniel.
S. A. Hart is prolific in his contributions con-
sidering the elaboration of the scenes depicted ;
the most ambitious of them being (74)—" A
historical limning illustrative of the origin of
Magna Charta and of the patriotic glory of Arch-
bishop Langton. W. C. T. Dobson, the new Asso-
ciate, has several graceful works, each of them
being instantly recognisable—instance (81) "Die
Heimkehr !" F. Grant's happiest portrait is in-
comparably, out of the six he exhibits this season,
(72) the life-like effigy of the Right Hon. J. W.
Henley. Charming is J. C. Horsley's (87)
" Showing a Preference"—a love-glimpse under
a white umbrella or rather a parar-sol. The
taste for umbrellas this year on the walls of
the Academy is something grotesque. It is of course
just a coincidence, but the oddest of coincidences in
its way—like the shower of apple; blossom sprink-
led on the walls last season. What shall we say of
J. C. Hook's noble picture (186) " Stand Clear !"
What ? But that it is an instant justification of
his election to the dignity of Royal Academican !
W. P. Frith has in (162) a painting in every re-
spect worthy of the artist whose hand gave us the
microcosm of " The Derby Day." The subject
here however is wonderfully different—an in-
cident in the lawless career of that courtliest
of highwaymen Claude Daval—an incident
commemorated in his History of England,
(Vol. 1., p. 383) by the late Lord Macaulay. The
fine lady who ransoms the bulk of her father's
waylaid treasures by getting out of the travelling-
carriage to dance a cotillion, or rather a coranto,
with Claude Duval, upon the heath, possesses a
sweet, startled face that, once seen, will not readily
be forgotten. The whole picture is a work of admi-
rable merit. H. O'Neil, the other newly-elected
associate, has a very daring and remarkable paint-
ing (223), simply entitled " A Volunteer." It is a
representation of the wildest terror and anguish,
huddled together upon the deck of a wrecked vessel
at the moment when one of the brave tars, with a
rope girt about his waist, is about to plunge into
the raging waters : bent upon opening thus, if pos-
sible, a communication between the shore and the
shipwrecked—those appalled men and horror-
stricken women and children. J. Sane contributes
to the collection several of his child-portraits—
those almost angelic delineations of infantine grace,
a grace with him almost always (by a chance of
rare good fortune) golden-haired. One of these is
the likeness (309) of the youthful Lord Clifton.
G. Lance, again, in (317), squanders marvelously
in the early spring time a store of "Full Ripe" fruit
from his inexhaustible cornucopeia. Poor Frank
Stone has left behind him, to adorn the walls of the
Academy Exhibition, thus posthumously (409), a
French illustration of the truth sung by our Eng-
lish Shakspere in the gay ditty of the rogue Auto-
lycuS—

" A merry heart goes all the day,
Your sad one tires in a mile-a!"
Miss Mutrie this year far surpasses herself
in her delicious flower picture, ex. gr. (460),
the hank of " Heather" and trailing honeysuckle.
A. Solomon's (478) " Drowned ! Drowned !" is a
wonderful shadowing forth upon canvas of Hood's
Bridge of Sighs," with the additional ghastliness
(we eau hardly say the supplementary pathos) re-
sulting from the introduction upon the scene of a
throng of haggard masqueraders. The unwhole-
some wretchedness of the whole scene is almost
too much to admit of our according to
this really fine work what it so well deserves—our
earnest admiration. We have not yet mentioned
J. R. Herbert's (128) " The Lily among the Lilies,"
and we have delayed doing so because, in spite of
the genius of the distinguished artist, of which
genius it is the latest manifestation—a genius,
moreover, that will not be looked for here
in vain—we are not satisfied. The orchids
and the other blossoms embroidering the ground
are wonderful—the atmosphere of the pic-
ture is wonderful—but the_countenanee of the "Lily of
Israel" is altogether without a touch of all those
exquisite charms of expression which beamed from
the same countenance of divine maternity in the
same eminent painter's indisputable mas-
terpiece. Regarding the present picture in
the vivid recollection of that great work, we are
disappointed. T. Webster—to turn from the
representative of the highest school in English art
to one of the chief glories of the more modest genre
school—Webster has two small pictures in
the present year's Exhibition—(l2l) Autumn
and (133) Winter, neither of them above aver-
age specimens of our pictorical humourist. W.
Dyce has three paintings in this 1860 collec-
tion, about the smallest of these being to our mind
the most successful in every particular, certainly
the most impressive (122), " The Man of Sorrows"
—a miniature representation of our Lord seated
musing, in awfullgrief, in the midst of a rocky wilder-
ness A word must be written en passant in regard
to the best court picture ever painted—J. Phillips
(58) perfectly truthful and exquisitely beautiful
painting of "The Marriage of the Princess Royal
with Prince Frederick William." For a master-
piece like this, one might almost look as a
matter of course for the artist's knighthood.
Our hurried survey of the gallery, however,
is abruptly closed, from the necessity of our re-
marks at once going to press. The present is but
an evidence of our first hasty impression after
sauntering round the rooms of the Academy on
the day set apart for the Private View. Yesterday
was the Royal visit to the Academy. To-morrow
will bring the annual dinner in the evening. On
Monday the public will at length be admitted.
Among the more distinguished of those who
thronged the Gallery this afternoon at the Private
View we observed his Grace the Archbishop of
Canterbury, his Grace the Duke of Argyll, the
Right Hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord
J. Russell, the Marquis of Lansdowne, the Bishop
of Oxford, the Dean of Westminster, Clarkson
Stanfied, R.A., E. M. Ward, R.A., and Mrs. E. M.
Ward, W. E, Frost, A.M.A.,

LATEST

NEWS.

The following telegrams were received at Mr.

Reuter's office :

BOLOGNA, MAY 3.

The Syndics of the Romagna have presented
addresses to the King, adding 5,000,000 f. as a
voluntary contribution to the expenses of the State.
The clergy of Bologna have also presented an
address to his Majesty.
To-day his Majesty will review the troops and
receive two other addresses from the clergy of the
Rom agna.

BERLIN, MAY 3.

In to-day's sitting of the Chamber of Deputies a
debate took place in reference to the Schleswig
Holstein question. The Minister of Foreign
Affairs, Baron von Schleinitz, in his speech on this
subject, said :—" Having in view the prosent state
of things in Schleswig, the Federal Diet could
hardly neglect any further its duty of examining
what Germany is entitled to demand in conse-
quence of the Conventions concluded in 1851 and
1852. We cannot accept the acts of Denmark as
a fulfilment of the obligations she had undertaken.
Prussia takes the interests of the German Duchies
to heart, and, both as a Federal and a European
Power, she will do for them all that lies in her