Exhibition of modern pictures at the Royal Academy, was one of satisfaction with the general effect of the arrangement of the pictures upon the walls. It was evident that much care had been taken to secure suitable juxtaposition, and to obtain, as far as possible, a pleasing symmetry, as well as a harmonious disposition of colour and subject on every side.

Much consideration

too, has been shown in bringing forward the works of lesser known men; and thus doing justice to merit unsupported by the prestige of a great name. Scanning the walls rather more closely, the next matter of remark with most people would probably have been the absence of any large number of works of the highest pretensions; more so indeed than was the case in last year's Exhibition. The quantity of excellent work is doubtless large; and if there are few pictures of exceeding mark, so on the other hand, there are also few, if any, decidedly inferior in point of execution. In fact, the average of merit is high; but it is rather a table land of uniform mediocrity, than a range of lofty peaks rising from intermediate lowlands. This is, in some sense, a hopeful state of things, in so far as it indicates the existence of considerable technical proficiency, and of much real hard work. The class of pictures, however, which are chiefly produced are without either historic or imaginative interest. They are of such a nature as not to depend for their success upon any appeal to cultivated tastes or well informed minds. There is little poetry in them, and little to recall to recollection the events of history, or the achievements of literature. The artist must not be altogether

blamed for this; the public too

share in the prevalent want of elevation. An article has to be furnished which will please the buyer of pictures, or it will remain unsold. This is, at least, the reason or one of the reasons, mostly assigned as an excuse for the poverty of subject, and vulgarity of feeling in so many of the pictures of the modern working painters. But we venture to doubt whether it is entitled to be entirely received as such. Whenever a work of first-rate excellence appears, it is secured with avidity, and at a price which only a few years since would have sounded fabulous; and this, not only by amateurs, but by shrewd dealers, who buy to sell again, and always do sell again at a considerable profit. True, however, again, as this may be of the very highest class of works, it will hardly apply to the far larger number of paintings which are within the reach of ordinary purchasers, and it is to meet the market demand by them, that, as we conceive, the great mass of ordinary and common place pictures is manufactured.

It is indeed discouraging to have to confess that London, of all the capitals in Europe, is the one where this neglect of the highest orders of art should be so conspicuously exhibited. For there is no city where the assemblage of art treasures, both of painting and sculpture, is more varied and magnificent. The disregard of these by residents in the metropolis is perhaps one of the most remarkable features of English national character. Well educated and leisurely people who profess to be fond of art, and who have time and means at their disposal to enable them to gratify their tastes with ease, will be found familiar with the contents of all the most famous

galleries of Europe; while they are content to remain in ignorance of the great works to be seen within a mile or two of their own houses. They will travel on the Continent, visit the great collections, and go long distances to see single celebrated pictures. But at home they seem to know of no pictorial attraction but that of the annual Exhibition of modern paintings at the Royal Academy. They seldom enter the National Gallery. The very locality of the British Museum is an undis. covered problem to them. Yet it may be stated with confidence, that at least north of the Alps, there are no such opportunities for the convenient study of the highest specimens of art as are now afforded in London. Our National Gallery contains a selection of pictures admirably adapted for the purposes of instruction, with a better catalogue than that of any foreign collection -in itself a Hand-book for the study of the different Schools of Art. It is no less distinguished for the variety of schools and painters represented, than for the excellence of individual works. There is no needless multiplication of duplicate specimens, and there is no accumulation of worthless canvas. We have no Madonna del Sisto, but also, we have no rooms full of secondrate pictures of the Bolognese school, and we have not upwards of seventy pieces by Wouvermans on the walls, as is the case at Dresden. Our British pride may be even more gratified by dwelling with complacency on the remains of Egyptian, Assyrian, Greek, and Roman Art contained in the British Museum. The marbles from the Parthenon, from the Mausoleum, and from the Lycian Temples, have for long afforded the finest opportunities of study; while the recent acquisition of the Castellani collection has placed within the walls of the Museum the very choicest specimen

of Greek art which has yet been discovered. We allude, of course, to the female bronze head, said to have come from Thessaly, which, for the perfection of its art can only be compared with the Venus of Milo in the Louvre; and which forms the most precious object among the many valuable ones so wisely secured for the nation by the present Government.

Whatever deficiencies therefore may exist in the English schools of art, it cannot be said that they depend on the want of means and opportunity for the study of the highest examples. It may be that art is suffering from the same arrest of productive power which may be considered to threaten the original literature of the country, endangered as it is by the overwhelming mass of matter of ephemeral and secondary interest, which absorbs the attention of so many readers, and employs the pens, and affords remunerative occupation to so many writers. Upon this point Mr. Gladstone well remarked in his speech at the last Literary Fund Dinner that the growth of the critical faculty is out of proportion to the constructive faculty. doubt the stage and the highest forms of literature and art are suffering from the enormous pressure of occupation under which both the business and pleasure of life are now carried on. Time is a necessary element for the due and full appreciation of any really fine work of art; and who now can find such time in the whirl of engagements ? Masterpieces of writing in prose or verse are tasted in hasty morsels from a volume snatched up for a moment from the table; or only known from the fragments quoted in reviews, daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly. A visit to the theatre or opera is crammed in between other amusements; and an Exhibition of 1601

No

objects of painting and sculpture is done in no time at all, with an interval for refreshments.

Those who have taken the trouble

to examine the walls of the present Exhibition of the Royal Academy will have found, after the first disappointment at the absence of much very striking work, a great deal to admire, and good promise among the rising men. We still think the Academy might do more than it has done for the general cultivation and education of its students. Perhaps, when it comes into the enjoyment of the whole of its share of Burlington House, means and ways may be found for this, and an elevation of tone and purpose in British art may ensue as a future consequence.

It is time, however, to take our own turn through the galleries; and we may commence our discursive survey with a glance at some of the portraits in the present show. Mr. Watts is not at his best this year. Mr. Millais has several works, all indicating, as usual, the possession of enormous power, but not used in a way to promote his future fame. We must, however, except the figure of a nameless lady, which is unquestionably a performance worthy of a great artist. motive of the picture is explained by the lines from Moore, in the catalogue:

The

Oh! that a dream so sweet, so long enjoy'd, Should be so sadly, cruelly destroy'd.

Here is none of that indolent handling which occurs in his other pictures. There is a grand simplicity in the treatment of the subject, and a fine evolution of the feeling to be conveyed. A girl stands idly plucking at a flower she holds in her hands, the emblem of vanished hopes. She has begun by looking fondly at it, but her thoughts have wandered far away and back to the times whose

The

true spirit of tragic poetry in the fixed look of the eyes-the look of one who can as yet scarcely believe in the reality of the crushing blow which has fallen upon her. half-dejected, half-indignant pose of the head and figure are finely conceived, and are put on the canvas with all the skill of the painter's hand. Here the face is not overpowered by the dress, and there is a deep meaning and interest underlying the surface, beyond that which can in general be given in a mere portrait. In the charming subject of the girl taking the eggs, the effect would be better, either if the face were made more important or the basket were made less important. The pictorial reproduction of the wicker-work is so marvellous that it rivets the eye upon itself, and, to use a wellknown phrase, it 'baskets the rest of the picture.' Mr. George Richmond has his full complement of portraits. His Chancellor of the University of Oxford is worthy of its subject, and of the position it is destined permanently to occupy. A portrait of Mrs. Hartwell by G. Pope is a most interesting performance, and deserves especial notice. Mr. Ouless has vigorously followed up his success of last year, and now exhibits four portraits, which have obtained for him an amount of well-deserved praise, such as is seldom won so early in a career, and which seems to leave no room for doubting what his future position is to be.

Mr. Rivière does not quite sustain his place. In his picture of Argus and Ulysses, the attitude of the dying dog, the upward glance of recognition, the mingled expression of joy and sorrow in the eyes, are all excellently rendered; but with the man it is otherwise.' There is interest in the figure and bearing of

character, showing a great deal of thought and study. It represents a group at tea, in the costumes rendered so familiar by the old Dutch painters, collected in an old panelled room, with open window and garden seen through it at the back. In the foreground are a couple : man and woman deep in some scandalous tale which seems to concern them nearly. Another group is formed by a young man speaking to a deaf lady (with a trumpet), across another, in an arm-chair: a gentleman and lady are entering the door, whose faces betray their eagerness to join in recounting or receiving some new tale. The picture is thoroughly Flemish in tone and feeling, and the faces have much character and humour in them. But the man with a tea-cup in his hand in front has a blur on his face as if the features were running together, and the lady at the tea-table looks at one as if through a veil of gauze. This same fault of uncertainty may be found with the hair, and with the hair only of the same painter's Mistress Dorothy, a half-length of a girl in black, with a beaver hat, certainly one of the prettiest pictures of the year. There is a captivating and caressing air about her, mixed with a perfect dignity which, with the little coquetry shown in the act of drawing on her gloves, and her look out at one with the solemn gaze of seventeen, have a most pleasing impression.

the returned exile from his home, but it is not appropriate to Ulysses. The worn and weary tramp, apparently only a few degrees farther from his last gasp than the dog at his feet-the man with the bowed head and sunk shoulders, can never have been the great Ulysses who doubted in his swift mind whether he should slay his foe outright, or only injure him for life. His figure, too, bears a strange resemblance to that which stood last year as Daniel in the lions' den; while in the left hand corner may be seen the same trailing vine plant, remarkable for its crude and disagreeable green which did duty in the same artist's Circe a couple of years ago. To show how little response the artist sometimes receives from some of the visitors to the Exhibition when treating a classical or historical subject, we may add that we have stood before this picture of Mr. Ce Rivière's, and seen well-dressed people with catalogues in their hands turn to the number, and then wonder who Ulysses was. This, however, was surpassed in the early days of the opening of Sir Richard Wallace's collection at the Bethnal Green Museum. A large picture, described as Bacchus and the Nymphs, is there placed in the immediate neighbourhood of a portrait of the Queen. The god is, of course, an infant in his cradle, and the most conspicuous figure in the composition is one of his nursing nymphs, clothed as much-or rather as little-as is usual with her race. A party of men and women were carefully going through the pictures, and duly consulting their catalogues, when one of them exclaimed, I don't think that Miss Bacchus looks like a fit person to be so near our good Queen.' O shade of Lemprière! O living presence of Dr. William Smith!

Carer's

is

Mr. Storey's picture called Scandal is one of much cleverness and

Mr. Leslie's Fountain appears in agreeable relief to the host of imitations of his style produced by painters who think apparently that, because they are afraid to vary with one touch of warm colour the vapid paleness of their designs, they must, therefore, have as great a claim to admiration as Mr. Leslie. Nevertheless, the picture is not a satisfactory one. The figures are graceful and tender; and many an artist might well take a lesson from

the care and skill expended on the foliage in the back ground, but one seems to want a raison d'être for the whole thing; and as it is quite evident that the picture is not intended to fold up, the framing of it as a triptych is a piece of affectation, which the painter might well afford to despise.

Mr. Leighton's one contribution in oil shows how a picture may be low in tone without being cold, and have its outlines clearly made out without their being hard. In the face and form of the girl who sits Weaving the Wreath there is no blurred line, no careless or hasty touch; and it would be difficult to select from Mr. Leighton's works, one, which, without handling a subject of any deep interest, is a better specimen of his pure, classic, and withal tender method.

Another picture, although of a very different class, is remarkable for its great clearness of draw. ing and colouring, for its wonderful atmosphere, and perfect finish. This is The Ornithologist, by Mr. Marks. The stuffed birds and the glass cases are rendered with as much care and minuteness as the pots and pans of Gerard Dow, and there is character in every detail. The eyes of the birds, although they are clearly eyes of glass, have yet all of them an individual expression, and the contrast between the caressing hands with which the ornithological enthusiast holds his latest acquired treasure, and the dull grasp of the old servant, who looks up half amused at his master's hobby, is finely touched. The picture by Mr. Marks, called What is it? is also full of character and care. The houses seen across the water in the background stand out well against the sky; and the different expressions in the individuals forming the party who are looking over the parapet of the bridge at some strange, but un

known object in the water, have much quiet humour. The inquisitive longing indicated in the back of the old gentleman with the green appendage hanging from his cap is especially quaint. Indeed, for complete exposition of character, we can only compare this back to that of the great French comedian, M. Got, so wellknown for its power of expression: and this is no small praise.

The same attention to detail, down to the very smallest things is, although exercised on very different subjects, remarkable in M. Tadema's pictures. His principal work, The Death of the First-born, is no doubt finely conceived, and there is much. power in the somewhat too Sphinxlike head of the woman in the centre, holding the dead child across her knees. But we cannot help feeling that the canvas is too small for the figures. It is far too closely packed for the limited space; there is here a head, and there an arm or shoulder protruding, all bodiless for want of room, in every corner; until at last one comes to regard the whole thing as a dreadful nightmare of lifted hands and dusky bowed heads, with a hideous impression left on the mind of a wailing crowd, squeezed together like negroes in the hold of a slaveship, in the worst horrors of the middle passage. It is impossible, however to deny the force displayed in this work: the only question is, whether the effect produced is not beyond the limit of true art. It is also open to enquiry whether the extraordinary accuracy of archeological knowledge possessed by M. Tadema is not made too dominant an element in his pictures. In his other paintings of this year, representing the three stages of a Greek dinner, there is more food for the antiquary than for the lover of art. In spite of their accuracy (which might satisfy the most learned commentator on Athenæus), and their masterly treatment, the result is singularly