The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1877-07-21
SATURDAY MORNING, JULY 81.

lievsd il Victory; others huntress drawings
pow otners Venus at toilet; others still, one
ngure OF group representing Venus appeas-
ing ana dlsarming Mars; and yet others, ave
nus Vlctrixy at the moment when Paris has
given her the apple inscribed ssTo the most
beautiful" 1t all depends upon the way these
ders.
Death and Love-" by G.. F. Watts, which
conway calls the best picture in the Royal
academy exhibition, he thus describes: HE
who looks on this picture looks as if through.a
pane in mans breast. To door where lust
now roses were climbing and doves nesting.
the great white-draped form of Death has ap-
preached. We do not see the face of Death;
his back is toward us, and we only see that he
is giant whose heavy foot is planted on the
doorstep, his pallid, powerful arm is stretched
out till his hand rests on the door that must
open to him. Already torn and fallen branch
OF an outer climbing rose marks where has
passed the power that spares no beauty, and
near his feet crouches poor dove with torn
feathers-one dove alone. At the door Love
has planted himself to defend the entrances
slender, naked boy, as it might be, of ID or IA
summers: One slender arm is strained against
the giants breast, another small hand is thrown
BACK over the shoulder as if to try and clutch
the door which Deaths hand has reached over
his (Love's) head. In the struggle the wings of
Love nave become many-colored tangle of
broken feathers. But it is the face of the boy
that is most pathetic. Amid the struggle he
gazes up into the face of his dread antagonist
with an EXPRESSION blended of fear and piteous
anguish. There is also look SOf the exhaus-
ZION OF strength b, and the last pleading for mer-
cy. The head of Death is gently inclined
downward toward Love, but the form stands
hrm as marble; the outstretched arm is inexor-
able.
Burne Jones, the pre-raphaelite, is placed by
good critic, Prof. Colyin, at the very head of
British art in such words as these: "We have
among us genius, poet in design and color,
whose like has never been seen before 'Mr.
Burne Jones stands forward both as great in.
ventive genius and as one of the most COM
plete masters among draughtsmen.'' In the
Grosvepor gallery he had several pictures; one
striking work representing the six days of
creation, in which in separate COMMITMENTS
each day is personated by a sci aph, holding in
one hand a crystal sphere in which the days
creative art is Swallowed FORTH The angel of
each new day is accompanied in the back.
ground by the angels of the days preceding
and last, the angels of the five days forming
an intricate base of feather and color, the sixth
angel stands forth, in his sphere the vision Of
the man and woman in Paradise, but with the
serpent also, and in the foreground crouches
the Wlstful angel of the future. OF this series
Prof. Colvin says: 'Since painting was ar
art it is probable that no poetry so intense as
this, no invention so rich and unerringly lovely
was ever poured into form and COLOR" Anoth.
er of this artists works in the same gallery is
The Beguiling of Merlin. the old legend
vaguely Swallowed in Tennyson's idyi of
Vivien. The enchantress is pacing around her
victim with the open book of incantation; on
him the magic sleep has fallen, in the fork OF
the hawthorn, but his eyes cast toward Viyien
look of bitter yearning and reproach, while
in hers there is an answering look of remorse
These countenances are "passion incarnate."