New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1908-06-07
A HOUSE BEAUTIFUL
The Fine Arts Palace-Britlsh and
French Styles.
London. Nav 81

The Fine Arts Palace is the real House Beau
tiful at Shepherds Bush. The architecture may
not be as decorative as that OF the nlHdIl0
plaster palaces with domes and mnarels WITH
which it is surrounded; but the walls ana noors
contain a MAGNIFICENT display of the art or
England and France. 1t is friendly coflPetl-
ton, with the space equally divided between
the two countries, the nave and transept III
the centre if ecclesiastical terms be en-
ployed for so secular a structure, peihg re-
served for sculpture, and the galleries on either
side being filed with pictures and prints, old
and new In each section there has been q
deliberate attempt to illustrate art as it has
been on either side of the Channel. and art as
it is to-day. The retrospective exhibit Is more
satisfactory on the British than on the Frencn
side; contemporary art is likely, when all the
works are hung, to be shown more compre-
hensively in the French than in the British
section; and in sculpture the advantage VIII rest
with the older and more classical school. There
are wide gaps in the historical display OF
French art, especially in the eighteenth century
decorative group which is so admirably Illus
trated in the Wallace collection.
Mr. Temple the director of the Guidhau
shows has been in charge of the historical ex-
hibits of British art, and, as he has the keys
for unlocking the private collections in England
and is in the habit Of getting whatever he hap
pens TO want, this section is thoroughly repre-
sentative. There few isolated examples
Of what was done during the seventeenth CEN
tury and there is a splendid array of eighteenth
century work worthy of the golden period OF
British art Hogarth can be accurately judged
from the Card Party and "Ranelagh": Will
son never painted a richer subtler classical
landscape than "On the Arno' Gainsborough's
Blue Boy has a fresh triumph among master
pieces of his day, and his Lady Bate Dudley
is a noble painting. Reynolds had works of
greater dignity but not of more bew1tchlng
charm than Diana, Lady Crosbie' and Mob
Cap; Romney's pair of portraits of Lady Ham
ilton might have been improved upon, but no
fault is to be found with the Hoppners, Rae
burns, Lawrences, MOrlands Landseers and
Turner's and Constable's Vale of Dedham" is
one of the best of his landscapes, with a beau
tiful moonlit Crome, brilliant Bennington and
fine Cotman near by. Constable had to be
worthily represented because he powerfully in
fuenced Finch landscape art; but other paint
ers needed to te rescued from neglect at home
notably Etty, with his brilliant portraiture,
Ruskin's pet-John Lewis, and Miller, with his
realistic Chess players
The most original group in the exhibition is
the medieval work OF the pre-Raphaetes and
their successors. It is fairly comprehensive.
with Ford MADDOX Browns Work" Millais' S
'HuguenOtS, The Blessed DamOZeI' and sew
eral we'll known Rossettis, Holman Hunts
isabella" William Morris's Queen Guene-
we're" Burne-Jones's lovely Chant d'AmOur"
and gitterng Golden Stairs and many more.
One may ransack the French galleries with
out finding works to correspond to these prirni-
tive pictures in design or composition. The
French school, with all it's vagaries and eccen-
tricities, has cast off the influence of the
Italian Renaissance, whereas this English group
abandoned the conventions which Reynolds and
the eighteenth century masters reverenced
Watts is well represented a Venetian color
list by "Fata Morgana" and as a portrait painter
by his "Tennyson" Millais's Autumn Leaves"
is of his most beautiful landscapes and
Brett's Val dAosta' is not a picture easily
to be forgotten. Wilkes Penny Wedding is
lent from the palace-a singular choice when the
royal collections rich and varied-and
there famous pictures which have had their
day-John Phillipss La Bomba,' Leighton's
academic works and Blake's Canterbury Pill
grims."
Sargent leads the living painters of the Brit
ish section with two of his best known groups
the Hon. Percy Wyndham's daughters and the