E.BIBL. 
 
 D.THO. EDW. WINNING TON. BAR. 
 

 
 
(La p?th>*+* »*src-^ 
 
 
 
 ev\g^ 
 
 
7o its c-\ TTL p 
 
 ~~K > cyi( t/TCat(i*i s y~ /&*>? 
 
 / 3 f > \ ~ o.tt/- 
 
 S;4* /* Cih ti / Al't/rc+ff e- 
 
 -3 0 
 
 C.ei/^1 /e> quG 
 
 * ' «- 
 
 /i 
 
 /■^ ra . 
 
 ,««* <sf -ftr 
 
 e/a/(tJhy- /SI'S- 6 
 
 e ► 
 
 ex ( ■/- 
 
 
NOTES 
 
 ON SOME OK 
 
 THE PRINCIPAL PICTURES 
 
 EXHIBITED IN THE ROOMS OF THE 
 
 ROYAL ACADEMY: 
 
 1855. 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF “MODERN PAINTERS.” 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 SMITH, ELDER, AND CO., 65. CORNTIILL, 
 
 1855. 
 
P R E F A C E. 
 
 I am often asked by my friends to mark for them 
 the pictures in the Exhibitions of the year which ap- 
 pear to me the most interesting, either in their 
 good qualities, or their failure. I have determined, at 
 last, to place the circular letter which on such occa- 
 sions I am obliged to write, within reach of the gene- 
 ral public. Twenty years of severe labour, devoted 
 exclusively to the study of the principles of Art, 
 have given me the right to speak on the subject with 
 a measure of confidence; but it will be found that 
 in the following pages, few statements are made on 
 my own authority, and that I have limited myself 
 to pointing out simple facts with respect to each 
 picture, leaving to the reader the power of verify- 
 ing such statements for himself. No criticism is of 
 any value which does not enable the spectator, in his 
 own person, to understand, or to detect, the alleged 
 merit or unworthiness of the picture ; and the true 
 work of a critic is not to make his hearer believe 
 him, but agree with him. 
 
 A 3 
 
6 
 
 Whatever may be their abstract truth, the follow- 
 ing remarks have at least in them the virtue of entire 
 impartiality. Among the painters whose works are 
 spoken of, the greater number are absolutely un- 
 known to me ; some are my friends; and some quite 
 other than friends. But the reader would be strangely 
 deceived who, from the tone of the criticism, should 
 endeavour to guess to which class the painter be- 
 longed. It might, indeed, be alleged, that there is 
 some unfairness in fastening on the faults of one or 
 two works, not grosser in error than many around 
 them; but it would have been tedious to expose all 
 the fallacies in the Academy, and I believe it will be 
 found, besides, that the notice of the particular picture 
 is nearly always justified, if not by excess of demerit, 
 at least by excess of pretension. 
 
 I have been hindered, by unforeseen pressure of 
 work, from noticing, this year, any but pictures in 
 the Academy ; and have perhaps missed several there 
 which ought to have been favourably distinguished ; 
 but I hope henceforward, to furnish, every year, in 
 the same form, some notes on the leading pictures in 
 all the Exhibitions, which may be of use in guiding 
 the public to the discernment and acceptance of those 
 unobtrusive truths of which our modern Idealism 
 has so long repressed the pursuit, and withheld the 
 appr eciation. 
 
 May 29th, 1855. 
 
NOTES, 
 
 &c. 
 
 No. 35. Flowers. (Miss A. J. Mutrie.) 
 
 There are two other works by this artist in the 
 rooms, Nos. 304. and 306. It would be well to 
 examine them at once in succession, lest they should 
 afterwards be passed carelessly when the mind has 
 been interested by pictures of higher aim ; for all 
 these flower paintings are remarkable for very lovely, 
 pure, and yet unobtrusive colour — perfectly tender, 
 and yet luscious — (note the purple rose leaves 
 especially), and a richness of petal texture that seems 
 absolutely scented. The arrangement is always 
 graceful — the backgrounds sometimes too faint. I 
 wish this very accomplished artist would paint some 
 banks of flowers in wild country, just as they grow, 
 as she appears slightly in danger of falling into too 
 artificial methods of grouping. 
 
 G8. El Pasco, the property of Her Majesty the 
 Queen. (J. Philip.) 
 
 76. Mrs. Coleridge. (W. Boxall.) 
 
 The juxtaposition of these two pictures looks very 
 
 A 4 
 
8 
 
 like deliberate malice ; but it may read an excellent 
 lesson to the two artists. Mr. Philip’s fault is excess 
 of decision and force ; Mr. Boxall’s, excess of deli- 
 cacy and tenderness. Mr. Philip’s work, by the 
 contrast, has become vulgar, and Mr. Boxall’s, eva- 
 nescent. 
 
 Looked at separately, there is much merit in both 
 paintings ; but the truth, so painfully brought out, is 
 still a truth with respect to both. Mr. Philip has 
 much to subdue, and much to refine, before he will 
 be able to represent not merely the piquancy, but 
 the wayward, half melancholy mystery of Spanish 
 beauty ; and Mr. Boxall has much to complete, much 
 to c/dine, before he can hope that his graceful idea of 
 the English lady will be in anywise justly expressed. 
 The same may be said of all his works in this exhibi- 
 tion. Refined in expression, though in some cases 
 looking too stiffly straightforward, the faces he paints 
 are still little more than shadows — the reflection of 
 the truth in a cloudy mirror. The dresses are even 
 less than this ; in fact nothing more than a filling of 
 the canvass with vague sweeps of the brush, issuing, 
 when there is any momentary distinctness, in pure 
 fallacy ; as in the portrait before us, where the shadow 
 of the chain on the neck, which, to accord with the 
 faintness of the rest of the drawing, should have been 
 so tender as hardly to be perceived, is nearly as black 
 as the chain itself — and this equally on the flesh tint, 
 and on the white dress ! 
 
 Mr. Boxall will never satisfy himself, nor do his 
 real talents justice, until he is content to paint, un- 
 
9 
 
 affectedly, as far as lie is able, things as they are. 
 It is not time nor labour that is wanting : there are 
 as many touches on this ghostly gown as there are 
 on one of Velasquez’s portraits, head and all, which 
 looks living enough to stalk the next moment into the 
 middle of the room. 
 
 77. Colin. (J. C. Hook, A.) 
 
 There is a sweet feeling in this choice of landscape 
 subject, as in most of the other works of this painter. 
 The execution is flimsy and imperfect, and must be 
 much bettered before his pictures can rank as works 
 of any importance. He has, however, a very inte- 
 resting figure-subject in the middle room, of which 
 more in its place. 
 
 78. The Wrestling in “As you like it.” (D. 
 Maclise, R.A.) 
 
 Very bad pictures may be divided into two prin- 
 cipal classes — those which are weakly or passively 
 bad, and which are to be pitied and passed by ; and 
 those which are energetically or actively bad, and 
 which demand severe reprobation, as wilful trans- 
 gressions of the laws of all good art. The picture 
 before us is of the last class. Mr. Maclise has keen 
 sight, a steady hand, good anatomical knowledge of 
 the human form, and good experience of the ways 
 of the world. If he draws ill, or imagines ungrace- 
 fully, it is because he is resolved to do so. He has 
 seen enough of society to know how a Duke gene- 
 rally sits — how a young lady generally looks at 
 
10 
 
 a strange youth who interests her; and it is by 
 vulgar choice, not vulgar ignorance, that he makes 
 the enthroned Duke straddle like a village actor, and 
 the young lady express her interest by a cool, un- 
 restrained. and steady stare. It is not worth while 
 to analyse the picture thoroughly, but let us glance 
 at the two opponent figures — Charles and Orlando. 
 The spectator can certainly see nothing in this 
 “ Charles ” but a grim, sinister, sinewy monster, 
 wholly devoid of all gentleness or humanity. Was 
 Shakspeare’s Charles such an one ? So far from it, 
 that into his mouth is put the first description of the 
 love of Rosalind and Celia — “ The Duke’s daughter, 
 “ her cousin, so loves her, being ever from their 
 “ cradles bred together, that she would have followed 
 “ her exile, or have died to stay behind her — never 
 “ two ladies loved as they do.” So far from it, that 
 he comes to Oliver especially to warn him against 
 allowing his brother to wrestle with him. “ Your 
 “ brother is but young and tender; for your love, I 
 “ would be loth to foil him.” Then, on Oliver’s exe- 
 crable slander of Orlando, poor honest Charles is 
 “ heartily glad I came hither; if he come to-mor- 
 “ row, I’ll give him his payment;” this being not 
 in cruelty, but in honest indignation at Orlando’s 
 ascribed villany ; nevertheless, when the trial comes, 
 although flushed with victory, and haughty in 
 his supposed strength, there is no bitterness in his 
 question — “Where is this young gallant?” Poor 
 Charles is as much slandered here by the painter as 
 Orlando was hy his brother. Well, but what of 
 
11 
 
 Orlando himself? He folds his hands, and turns up 
 his eyes like a lover in his last appeal to his lady’s 
 mercy. What was the actual fact ? Orlando had 
 been but that instant called before the princesses; 
 he had never seen them before in his life. He is a 
 man of firm, calm, and gloomy character — the sad- 
 ness having been induced by injustice; he has no 
 hope, no thought of Rosalind or her love, at this 
 moment ; he has challenged the wrestler in quiet 
 resolve to try with him the strength of his youth — 
 little caring what comes of it. He answers the 
 princesses with deep and grateful courtesy, but with 
 a despairing carelessness of his fate — “ If I be foiled, 
 “ there is but one shamed that was never gracious ; if 
 “ killed, but one dead that is willing to be so. I shall 
 “ do my friends no wrong, for I have none to lament 
 “ me — the world no injury, for in it I have nothing.” 
 Imagine the calmness and steady melancholy of the 
 man who would speak thus, and then compare the 
 sentimental grimace (as of a fashionable tenor in a 
 favourite aria) of the Orlando in the picture. 
 
 Next to pass from imagination of character, to reali- 
 sation of detail. Mr. Maclise is supposed to draw well, 
 and realise minute features accurately. Now, the fact 
 is, that this work has every fault usually attributed 
 to the pre-Raphaelites, without one of their excel- 
 lences. The details are all so sharp and hard that 
 the patterns on the dresses force the eye away from 
 the faces ; and the leaves on the boughs call to us to 
 count them. But not only are they all drawn dis- 
 tinctly, they are all drawn wrong. 
 
12 
 
 Take a single instance in a simple thing. On the 
 part of the hem of the Duke’s robe, which crosses his 
 right leg, are seven circular golden ornaments, and two 
 halves, Mr. Maclise being evidently unable to draw 
 them as turning away round the side of the dress. 
 Now observe, wherever there is a depression or fold 
 in the dress, those circles ought to contract into nar- 
 row upright ovals. There is such a depression at 
 the first next the half one on the left, and that circle 
 ought to have become narrowed. Instead of which 
 it actually widens itself! The second is right. Then 
 the third, reaching the turn to the shade, and all 
 those beyond it, ought to have been in narrowed per- 
 spective — but they all remain full circles ! And so 
 throughout the ornament. Imagine the errors which 
 a draughtsman who could make such a childish 
 mistake as this must commit in matters that really 
 need refined drawing, turns of leaves, and so on ! 
 
 But to pass from drawing to light and shade. 
 Observe, the light falls from the left, on all the 
 figures, but that of the two on the extreme left. 
 These two, for the sake of effect, are in “ accidental 
 “ shadow.” Good ; but why then has Oliver, in 
 the brown, a sharp light on the left side of his 
 nose ! and on his brown mantle ? Deflected lights, 
 says the apologist. From what? Not from the red 
 Charles, who is five paces at least in advance of Oliver; 
 and if from the golden dress of the courtier, how 
 comes it that the nearer and brighter golden dress of 
 the Duke casts no reflected light whatever on the 
 yellow furs and red hose of the wrestler, infinitely 
 
13 
 
 more susceptible of such a reflex than the dress of 
 Oliver ? 
 
 It would be perfectly easy to analyse the whole pic- 
 ture in this manner ; but I pass to a pleasanter sub- 
 ject of examination. 
 
 90. An Armenian Lady. (J. F. Lewis.) 
 
 It is very instructive to pass immediately from 
 Maclise’s work to this. Both propose the complete 
 rendering of details ; but with Maclise all is inhe- 
 rently wrong 5 here everything is exquisitely, in- 
 effably right. I say ineffably — for no Avords are 
 strong enough to express the admirable skill and ten- 
 derness of pencilling and perception shoAvn in this 
 picture. It is one of the first that I have seen by 
 this master in oil, and 1 am rejoiced to find it quite 
 equal in precision and purity to his best Avork 
 in Avater colour, Avhile it is in a safer medium. 
 The delicacy of the drawing of the palm in the dis- 
 tance — of the undulating perspective of the zigzags 
 on the dress, and of the deep and fanciful local colour- 
 ing of the vase, are all equally admirable. The face 
 — infinitely laboured — fails slightly. The flesh tint is 
 too blue — a fault into which the master has lately 
 fallen from trying to reach impossible delicacy. 
 
 It is only to be regretted that this costly labour 
 should be spent on a subject devoid of interest. 
 
 94. The Liver’s Bank. (T. Creswick, R.A.) 
 
 This, like most other of the landscapes hung on 
 the line, is one of those Avorks so characteristic 
 
14 
 
 of the English school, and so little creditable to 
 them, in which everything is carelessly or ill 
 painted — because it is in a landscape. Nothing is 
 really done. The cows have imperfect horns and 
 hides; the girl has an imperfect face, and imperfect 
 hands; the trees have imperfect leaves; the sky im- 
 perfect clouds ; the water imperfect waves. The 
 colour, of a heavy yellow with dim green, is worse 
 than imperfect ; for colour must either be right — 
 that is, infinitely beautiful ; or wrong — that is, less 
 than beautiful. All tame and dead colour is false 
 colour. 
 
 120. Beatrice. (C. L. Eastlake, P. R. A.) 
 
 An imitation of the Venetians, on the supposition 
 that the essence of Venetian painting consisted in 
 method : Issuing, as trusts in Method instead of Fact 
 always must issue, — in mere negation. Sir Charles 
 Eastlake has power of rendering expression, if he 
 would watch it in human beings — and power of 
 drawing form, if he would look at the form to be 
 drawn. But when, because Giorgione and Titian 
 draw broadly, and sometimes make their colours 
 look broken, he supposes that all he has to do is 
 to get a broken breadth ; he ends, as all imitators 
 must end, in a rich inheritance of the errors of his 
 original, without its virtues. Titian and Giorgione 
 have a slight tendency to flatness ; but Giorgione’s 
 G Flat has accompaniments, Sir Charles’s C Flat 
 stands alone. 
 
 The real source of the error may be sufficiently seen 
 
15 
 
 in the distance; Titian paints his distances in pure 
 colour — but at least indicates what is grass, and what 
 is stone. The distant ground, here, with its white spot 
 for a castle, is a mere space of dim brownish-green 
 paint, which can by no possibility stand for grass, or 
 moss, or any other natural thing. It seems to me, 
 however, that there are some points in the execution 
 of the picture, considered as an example of certain 
 textures, which are instructive. The whole is care- 
 ful, and the draperies well cast. But who is the lady? 
 Dante’s Beatrice, or Benedict’s ? She can hardly be 
 either: her face indicates little piety, and less wit. 
 
 121. Flitting Shadows. (II. Jutsuin.) 
 
 Not particularly remarkable; but good as an in- 
 stance of tolerably clear and firm drawing. The 
 clouds and ferns are both exceedingly well articu- 
 lated. 
 
 136. “Come, rest in this bosom,” &c. (A. Egg.) 
 
 Mr. Egg has considerable power of expression, and 
 though this subject of prison sentiment is both painful, 
 useless, and hacknied, he appears to have something 
 like serious purpose in his work. But he will never 
 be a great painter until he has a greater respect for 
 plain truth. There is in this picture one of the most 
 wonderful fallacies that ever painter ventured. Ob- 
 serve the shadows of the bars of the window. They 
 fall with intense sharpness on the Avail at the back of 
 the bed. Now, to get there, the sun must have come 
 in at theAvindoAv; it did not get through the keyhole. 
 And as it came in at the AvindoAV, it must have cast 
 
16 
 
 the first portions of those shadows from the ends of 
 the bars themselves. But, actually, at the bars there 
 are no shadows at all! It is dim daylight, shadow- 
 less, at the window itself. Hot sunshine, ten feet 
 within the prison ! The state of mind in which a 
 painter could firmly carry out such a fallacy is 
 wholly adverse to all real progress. 
 
 It is better to walk at once into the next room, in 
 order to examine the more important work by this 
 artist, The Life and Death of Buckingham, No. 349. 
 The story is worth telling, and there is vigorous 
 painting in both pictures ; but the figures which 
 surround Buckingham in his riot are not of the class 
 which could have entertained a man either of wit or 
 breeding. Vice, unhappily, is not always repulsive 
 at first sight, and the Tempter has not usually his 
 bargain quite so cheap as he would have had of the 
 Duke on such terms. The head of the dying Buck- 
 ingham is forcible, but quite unfinished. 
 
 141. The Mitherless Bairn. (T. Faed.) 
 
 The story is well told, and the figure of the orphan 
 child very affecting. But the painting is throughout 
 the most common-place Wilkieism — white spots every- 
 where. I expected far higher things from this painter, 
 whose work eight years ago was more modest and 
 powerful than it is now. 
 
 142. Dutch Boats. (C. Stanfield, R.A.) 
 
 A fair example of Stanfield ; but I never under- 
 stand, in the accepted types of marine painting, why 
 there is ntf distinction between the Foam and the 
 
17 
 
 Water. In the sea there is either yeasty foam or 
 smooth surface; but in all marine paintings the waves 
 are merely touched upon with little oblong strokes 
 of white, which express neither water nor spray. 
 Observe those in this picture at the boat’s bow. 
 
 149. Lear recovering his reason at the sight of 
 Cordelia. (J. R. Herbert, R. A.) 
 
 As No. 78. furnished us with an instance of the 
 class of picture which is Actively bad, we have here 
 an equally important instance of the Passively bad ; 
 which, had it been in a less prominent place, might 
 kindly have been passed without notice ; but, since it 
 is thus recommended to the public by its position, it 
 must needs be examined. 
 
 In the whole compass of Shakspeare’s conceptions, 
 the two women whom he has gifted with the deepest 
 souls are Cordelia and Virgilia. All his other women 
 can speak what is in them. These two cannot. The 
 “ Nothing, my lord,” of Cordelia, and the “ gracious 
 silence ” of Virgilia, are the everlasting seals set by 
 the Master of the human heart upon the most sacred 
 writing of its folded and golden leaves. Shakspeare 
 himself could not find words to tell what was in these 
 women. And now, cast down at her father’s feet, the 
 alabaster vase is broken — the house of life is filled 
 with the odour of the ointment — all Cordelia is poured 
 forth in that infinite “ I am” of fulfilled love.* Do but 
 
 * “I think this lady 
 
 To be my child, Cordelia. 
 
 Cordelia. And so I am ; I am.'' 
 
 11 
 
1 8 
 
 think of it for one quiet instant. Think of the re- 
 jected creature, so long disallowed from daughter’s 
 word and act ; unsistered also — all her sisterhood 
 changed into pale flame of indignation — now at last, 
 in consummation of all sorrow, and pity, and shame, 
 and thankfulness, and horror, and hope long delayed, 
 watching the veil grow thin, that in those eyes, wasted 
 with grief, was still drawn between her father’s soul 
 and hers. Think of it ! As for imagining it — per- 
 haps Dante might have imagined it, with the winds of 
 paradise yet upon his brow. As for painting it 
 
 And yet, in the midst of the Royal Academy 
 Rooms of England, and in the midst of the nine- 
 teenth century, that profile of firwood, painted buff, 
 with a white spot in the corner of the eye, does 
 verily profess to be a painting of it. 
 
 It is a thing not a little to be pondered upon, that 
 the men who attempt these highest things are always 
 those who cannot even do the least things well. 
 Around the brow of this firwood figure there is a 
 coronet, and in the coronet four jewels. I thought 
 that, according to Royal Academy principles, in a 
 “ High Art ” picture, this Rundell and Bridge por- 
 tion of it should have been a little less conspicuous. 
 However, as we find these unideal emeralds and 
 rubies thus condescendingly touched, let us see how 
 they are touched. Each stone has a white spot, or 
 high light, upon it. Now, that flash is always the 
 reflection of the highest light to which the jewel is 
 turned ; and here, in a tent, it must be of an opening 
 in the tent on the left-hand side. Now, as the jewels 
 
19 
 
 are set round the brow, each in a different position, 
 eacli would reflect this tent door from a different spot 
 of its surface. This change in the position of the 
 reflection would be one of the principal means by 
 which nature would indicate the curve of the co- 
 ronet. Now, look at the painting. Every gem has 
 actually the high light in the same spot, on the left- 
 hand side, all round the brow ! 
 
 The dimness of pictorial capacity indicated by such 
 a blunder as this, is very marvellous. For a painter 
 of the slightest power, even though he had not drawn 
 the gems from nature, would infallibly have varied 
 the flash, for his own pleasure, and in an instinctive 
 fulfilment of the eternal law of change. 
 
 It is nevertheless a fact that, although from some 
 peculiar idiosyncracy not comprehending the passage 
 in King Lear, Mr. Herbert has feeling ; and if he 
 would limit his work to subjects of the more symbolic 
 and quietly religious class, which truly move him, 
 and would consider himself by no means a great 
 master, but a very incipient student, and paint every- 
 thing from the fact and life, faithfully, he would be 
 able to produce works of some value. 
 
 159. Sir Robert Harry Inglis. (G. Richmond.) 
 
 A very interesting portrait of a good man by a 
 good painter. The attitude, as characteristic of Sir 
 Robert, is admirably chosen ; but the face, though it 
 has all the gentleness, has hardly the vivacity, of 
 Sir Robert’s look of welcome. The chief fault of this 
 portrait is the mistiness of the accessories on the 
 
 i? 2 
 
20 
 
 right hand. I am sorry to see Mr. Richmond 
 countenancing the false, though of late Parliamentary, 
 persuasion, that every statesman’s proper element is 
 Fog ; and it was a poor compliment, both to Sir 
 Robert Inglis and to himself, to suppose that the 
 portrait would not be sufficiently interesting, unless 
 he subdued the collateral interest of the joint-stool. 
 
 161. Royal Prisoners. 1650. (C. W. Cope, R.A.) 
 
 A very beautiful and well-chosen subject, not ill 
 painted. The spectator will see it to better advan- 
 tage, if with his hand he will hide the guard’s helmet, 
 which projects into the light like the beak of a canoe, 
 and appears, for a moment, to be the principal sub- 
 ject. 
 
 181. Christabel. (W. Dycc, R. A.) 
 
 An example of one of the false branches of Pre- 
 Raphaelitism, consisting in imitation of the old 
 religious masters. This head is founded chiefly on 
 reminiscence of Sandro Botticelli. The ivy leaves 
 at the side arc as elaborate as in the true school, 
 but are quite false both in colour and shade. There 
 is some sweet expression in the face. 
 
 199. A Church Door. (J. D. Luard.) 
 
 A faithful little study, very refreshing among the 
 artificialnesses with which it is surrounded. 
 
 201. Penserosa. (C. W. Cope, R.A.) 
 
 The young lady appears to be reading, may 
 possibly be thinking, is certainly passing under a 
 
21 
 
 Norman arch, and is very pretty. This ensemble is 
 interesting, but had better have been put into the 
 architectural room, as it may materially promote the 
 erection of Norman arches in the gardens of the 
 metropolis, for the better performance of pensive 
 appearances to morning visitors. 
 
 228. In Betchworth Park. (W. F. Witherington, 
 R. A.) 
 
 240. The Bird Keeper. (R. Redgrave, R. A.) 
 
 We have here two interesting examples of another 
 fallacious condition of landscape — that which pretends 
 to pre-Raphaelite distinctness of detail; but is in all 
 detail, industriously wrong. In Creswick’s work the 
 touches represent nothing ; here they represent per- 
 petual error, assuming that all leaves of trees may be 
 represented by oval, sharp-pointed touches of yellow 
 or green, — as if leaves had not their perspectives, 
 shadows, and changes of hue, like everything else ! 
 There is great appearance of fidelity to nature in 
 these works, but there is none in reality ; they are 
 mere mechanical accumulations of similar touches, 
 as a sempstress mechanically accumulates similar 
 stitches. If the spectator desires to know the differ- 
 ence between right and wrong in this matter, let 
 him first examine Mr. Witherington’s oval touches, 
 and then cross the room to No. 321., in which the 
 flowers in the window are truly and properly painted, 
 and look at the way the leaves are set and worked 
 there ; and if it be supposed that this is oidy to be 
 done in a cabinet picture, the question is well worth 
 
 D 3 
 
22 
 
 settling at once by merely walking out of the Aca- 
 demy into the National Gallery next door, and look- 
 ing at the leaves which crown the Bacchus, and the 
 little dancing faun, in Titian’s Bacchus and Ariadne, 
 in which every turn of the most subtle perspective, 
 and every gradation of colour, is given with the co- 
 lossal ease and power of the consummate master. 
 Examine further, the vine-leaves above on the right, 
 and the flowers in the foreground, and you will re- 
 turn to the Academy with an eye so instructed, as 
 hardly thenceforward to accept, in such matters, 
 fallacies for facts. 
 
 239. The Broken Window. (W. II. Knight.) 
 
 This picture does not catch the eye at a distance, 
 but, on looking close, there will be found exquisite 
 and careful painting in it. The fish on the tray on 
 the boy’s head are amongst the best bits of cabinet 
 painting in the room. 
 
 214. The Moorland. (J. W. Inchbold.) 
 
 This is, as far as I have seen, the only thoroughly 
 good landscape in the rooms of the Academy. It is 
 more exquisite in its finish of lichenous rock painting 
 than any work I have ever seen. Its colour, through- 
 out, is as forcible as it is subtle and refined ; and 
 although it appears as yet to display little power 
 of invention, the appreciation of truth in it is so 
 intense, that a single inch of it is well worth all the 
 rest of the landscapes in the room. It may well be 
 supposed that my knowledge of this picture was not 
 
23 
 
 obtained by study of it in its present position. Those 
 who happen to be interested in the system of hanging 
 now pursued in the Academy, will do well to verify 
 my statement by an examination of the picture after 
 the Exhibition closes. 
 
 There are two other works by this artist, in the 
 outer rooms ; 1075., ineffective, but yet full of excel- 
 lent work and right feeling; and 1162., exceedingly 
 beautiful. 
 
 282. The Rescue. (J. E. Millais, A.) 
 
 It is the only great picture exhibited this year ; 
 but this is very great. The immortal element is in it 
 to the full. It is easily understood, and the public 
 very generally understand it. Various small cavils 
 have been made at it, chiefly by conventionalists, 
 who never ask how the tiling is, but fancy for them- 
 selves how it ought to be. I have heard it said, for 
 instance, that the fireman’s arm should not have 
 looked so black in the red light. If people would 
 only try the experiment, they would find that near 
 black, compared with other colours, is always black. 
 Coals do not look red in a fire, but where they are 
 red hot. In fact, the contrast between any dark 
 colour and a light one, is always nearly the same, 
 however high we raise the light that falls on both. 
 Paul Veronese often paints local colour darker in 
 the lights than in the shadow, generally equal in 
 
 both. The "low that is mixed with the blackness is 
 © 
 
 here intensely strong; but, justly, does not destroy 
 the nature of the blackness. 
 
 D 4 
 
24 
 
 The execution of the picture is remarkably bold — 
 in some respects imperfect. I have heard it was 
 hastily finished ; but, except in the face of the child 
 kissing the mother, it could not be much bettered. 
 For there is a true sympathy between the impetuous- 
 ness of execution and the haste of the action. 
 
 305. At the Opera. (W. P. Frith, R.A.) 
 
 There is great cleverness and successful realisation, 
 up to a certain point, in this picture, the work being 
 very thoroughly done, as far as the painter sees what 
 is to be done, and all very skilfully handled, down to 
 the utjnost seam of the white kid gloves. It is not a 
 kind of painting which will ever bring great fame, or 
 deserve it ; but it is better than spurious “ High Art.” 
 
 321. The Writing Lesson. ( J. Colli nson.) 
 
 This is a very careful and beautiful study — the 
 subject not interesting enough to render the picture 
 attractive ; but it is a good piece of work through- 
 out, and there are not many pictures in the room of 
 which this can be said. 
 
 355. A Contrast. (A. Solomon.) 
 
 It is difficult to see this picture at the height at 
 which it is placed, but it seems to me better than 
 most of its class in the rooms ; and the face of the 
 invalid is very beautiful. 
 
 357. Scottish Presbyterians. (J. Stirling.) 
 
 A very noticeable picture, showing careful study, 
 
25 
 
 and good discrimination of expression. But the 
 painter cannot yet do all he wants to do ; he should 
 try to work more delicately, and not attempt so 
 much at once. 
 
 471. Fowl and Figeons. (W. Huggins.) 
 
 There is excellent painting in pieces of this study ; 
 but as a whole it is incomplete, the background being 
 wrong, and the parts out of harmony. The painter 
 ought to work with the sternest self-denial, from 
 corner to corner of his picture, completing every- 
 thing from nature, near or distant, to the best of his 
 power. 
 
 486. The Mother of Moses. (J. C. Hook, A.) 
 
 I alluded to this picture in noticing the landscape 
 works by the same artist. This is very truly and 
 thoughtfully conceived. It is interesting to con- 
 sider how many “findings of Moses” have been painted, 
 not one of which ever attempted to express this, the 
 deepest note of passion in all the scene. The princess 
 and her maidens pleasantly surprised at finding a 
 child among the reeds ! this was all that the so-called 
 great masters ever dreamed of. The modern painter 
 is to be deeply thanked for his true and earnest 
 thought ; above all for the little Miriam, trotting by 
 her mother’s side with her rough harp, and pitcher 
 hung by it, looking back, in her childish wisdom and 
 fear, to see that the princess is not watching the burst 
 of passion which might betray her mother. 
 
26 
 
 545. St. Sebastian. (C. Stanfield, R. A.) 
 
 A careful and good example of Stanfield’s work. 
 But persons who accuse the Pre-Raphaelites of faults 
 in aerial perspective, may perhaps be able to account, 
 better than I can, for the fact that the foreground, 
 and the hill three miles off, are precisely of the same 
 colour. 
 
 569. Cimabue’s Madonna carried in Procession 
 through the Streets of Florence. (F. Leighton.) 
 
 This is a very important and very beautiful picture. 
 It has both sincerity and grace, and is painted on the 
 purest principles of Venetian art — that is to say, on 
 the calm acceptance of the whole of nature, small and 
 great, as, in its place, deserving of faithful rendering. 
 The great secret of the Venetians was their simplicity. 
 They were great colourists, not because they had 
 peculiar secrets about oil and colour, but because 
 when they saw a thing red, they painted it red ; and 
 when they saw it blue, they painted it blue ; and 
 when they saw it distinctly, they painted it distinctly. 
 In all Paul Veronese’s pictures, the lace borders of 
 the table-cloths or fringes of the dresses are painted 
 with just as much care as the faces of the principal 
 figures ; and the reader may rest assured that in all 
 great art it is so. Everything in it is done as well 
 as it can be done. Thus, in the picture before us, in 
 the background is the Church of San Miniato, strictly 
 accurate in every detail ; on the top of the wall are 
 oleanders and pinks, as carefully painted as the church ; 
 
27 
 
 the architecture of the shrine on the wall is well 
 studied from thirteenth-century Gothic, and painted 
 with as much care as the pinks ; the dresses of the 
 figures, very beautifully designed, are painted with 
 as much care as the architecture ; and the faces with 
 as much care as the dresses: that is to say, all things, 
 throughout, with as much care as the painter could 
 bestow. It necessarily follows, that what is most 
 difficult (i. e. the faces) should be comparatively the 
 worst done. But if they are done as well as the 
 painter could do them, it is all we have to ask ; and 
 modern artists are under a wonderful mistake in 
 thinking that when they have painted faces ill, they 
 make their picture more valuable by painting the 
 dresses worse. 
 
 The painting before us has been objected to, because 
 it seems broken up into bits. Precisely the same ob- 
 jection would hold, and in very nearly the same degree, 
 against the best works of the Venetians. All faithful 
 colourists’ work, in figure-painting, has a look of 
 sharp separation between part and part. I will not 
 detain the reader by explaining why this is so, but 
 he may convince himself of the fact by one walk 
 through the Louvre, comparing the Venetian pictures 
 in this respect with those of all other schools. Al- 
 though, however, in common with all other works of 
 its class, it is marked by these sharp divisions, there 
 is no confusion in its arrangement. The principal 
 figure is nobly principal, not by extraordinary light, 
 but by its own pure whiteness ; and both the master 
 and the young Giotto attract full regard by distinction 
 
28 
 
 of form and face. The features of the boy are care- 
 fully studied, and are indeed what, from the existing 
 portraits of him, we know those of Giotto must have 
 been in his youth. The head of the young girl who 
 wears the garland of blue flowers is also very sweetly 
 conceived. 
 
 Such are the chief merits of the picture. Its defect 
 is, that the equal care given to the whole of it, is not 
 yet care enough. I am aware of no instance of a 
 young painter, who was to be realty great, who did 
 not in his youth paint with intense effort and delicacy 
 of finish. The handling here is much too broad ; 
 and the faces are, in many instances, out of drawing, 
 and very opaque and feeble in colour. Nor have they, 
 in general, the dignity of the countenance of the early 
 fourteenth century. The Dante especially is ill con- 
 ceived — far too haughty, and in no wise noble or 
 thoughtful. It seems to me probable that Mr. 
 Leighton has greatness in him, but there is no abso- 
 lute proof of it in this picture ; and if he does not, in 
 succeeding years, paint far better, he will soon lose 
 his power of painting so well. 
 
 594. Rome. (D. Roberts, R. A.) 
 
 This is a large architectural diagram, with the 
 outlines executed sharply in black, the upper half 
 being then painted brick-red, and the lower green- 
 grey. (Note the distinctness of the mannerism in 
 the outlined statues and pillars of the chapel in shade 
 upon the right.) I can hardly understand how any 
 man, devoting his time to painting, ever comes to sup- 
 
29 
 
 pose that a picture can be right which is painted in two 
 colours! or by what reasoning he persuades himself 
 that, because seen under the red light of sunset, the 
 purple trunk of a stone pine, the white stucco of house 
 walls, the scarlet of tiles, and the green of foliage, 
 may all be of the same colour. Imagine a painting 
 of a beautiful blue-eyed female face, by sunset, which 
 represented its blue eyes, its nose, its cheeks, and its 
 lips, all of the same brick-red ! 
 
 Mr. Roberts was once in the habit of painting care- 
 fully finished cabinet pictures, which were well com- 
 posed (in the common sense), and fairly executed in 
 the details. Had he continued these, painting more 
 and more, instead of less and less, from nature, he 
 might by this time have been a serviceable painter. 
 Is it altogether too late to warn him that lie is fast 
 becoming nothing more than an Academician ? 
 
 686. Trout Stream in Wales. (J. Dearie.) 
 
 Mr. Dearie’s painting, considered as mere laying of 
 colour, is perhaps better than that of any of the land- 
 scapists whose works are low enough to be visible, 
 but his drawing of foliage is mannered and false. 
 These trees are far more like moss than trees. He 
 appears also to be confining himself to one kind of 
 scene — an indolent habit, which can end in nothing 
 but mediocrity. His river scene last year was good, 
 for once ; a duplicate of it is too much. 
 
 1334. The Good Harvest. (C. A. Collins.) 
 
 There is much careful painting in this little study, 
 and it was a wicked thing to put it into a room in 
 
which, while its modest subject could draw no at- 
 tention, its good painting was of necessity utterly 
 invisible. 
 
 1359. Dressing for the First Party. (A. C.Chisholme.) 
 
 A very spirited picture, the best in execution (of 
 its school) in the rooms. 
 
 1405. The “ London Gazette” 1854. (F. B. Barwell.) 
 
 The Academy is of course filled w r ith pictures of 
 this kind of subject. This is, I think the most 
 earnest. It seems to be the only one which takes 
 grief out of the drawing-room, and conceives it as 
 independent of miniatures by Sir William Ross. 
 
 There are several other pictures in the rooms re- 
 specting which I should have been glad to say a few 
 words; but I have no time to pursue the subject 
 further, and must here leave the reader to his 
 own investigations, only expressing my regret that 
 absence from London prevents, for the present, my 
 seeing a picture, of which a friend, in whose judg- 
 ment I have great confidence, speaks with unusual 
 enthusiasm, — No. 514. Early Spring Evening. (W. 
 Davis.) My friend says it contains the “unity of 
 perfect truth with invention.” I cannot answer for 
 its doing this, which would place it in the first rank 
 of works of art ; but, as it is hung in a place where 
 it is not easily caught sight of, I have little doubt 
 it must be a work of merit. 
 
NOTES 
 
 ON SOME OF 
 
 THE PRINCIPAL PICTURES 
 
 EXHIBITED IN THE BOOMS OF THE 
 
 ROYAL ACADEMY, 
 
 AND THE 
 
 SOCIETY OF PAINTERS IN WATER COLOURS: 
 
 No. II— 1856. 
 

 
 ' 
 
 ' 
 
 
NOTES 
 
 ON SOME OF 
 
 THE PRINCIPAL PICTURES 
 
 EXHIBITED IN TIIE ROOMS OF THE 
 
 ROYAL ACADEMY, 
 
 AND THE 
 
 SOCIETY OF PAINTERS IN WATER COLOURS. 
 
 go, II— 1856. 
 
 By JOHN RUSKIN, M.A., 
 
 AUTHOR OF “ MODERN PAINTERS,” “ STONES OF VENICE,” “ SEVEN LAMPS OF 
 ARCHITECTURE,” ETC., ETC. 
 
 THIRD EDITION. 
 
 WITH POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 SMITH, ELDER & CO., 65, CORNHILL. 
 
 1856. 
 
By the same Author, 
 
 NOTES ON TIIE PRINCIPAL PICTURES EX- 
 HIBITED IN THE ROOMS OF THE ROYAL 
 ACADEMY, 1855.— No. I. 
 
 Third Edition, with Supplement. 8 vo. Price Cxi. 
 
PREFACE, 
 
 In presenting the second number of these “Notes” to 
 the public, distinguished as they are from most of the 
 criticism brought under their notice, by the writer’s 
 attaching his name to them, I may perhaps be per- 
 mitted one or two words respecting the probable dif- 
 ference, in aim, between anonymous and acknowledged 
 criticism ; and this the rather, that I found, last 
 year, the offence which the work, in its very nature, 
 could not but give, seemed to be deepened instead of 
 diminished by the fact of its being openly owned to ; 
 and I was bitterly accused of malice or unkindness, 
 as if malice were usually the most outspoken passion 
 in the world, and unkindness always the greater 
 when it was ready to answer for itself. 
 
 It is evident that there can be but three reasons 
 for a writer’s concealment of his personality. Either, 
 firstly, having confidence in what he has written, 
 he must have none in his name (as I wrote the first 
 
6 
 
 volume of “ Modern Painters,” sure of the truth of 
 what I wrote, but fearing that I might not obtain fair 
 hearing if the reader knew my youth). Or, secondly, 
 he may know that his name would carry some weight 
 with it, but may be ashamed of what he has written. 
 Or, thirdly, there may be dangers of private loss or 
 inconvenience, which he cannot speak openly without 
 incurring, and which to avoid, he must get his 
 opinion uttered as best he may, namelessly. Gene- 
 rally, I believe, the last reason to be the only legiti- 
 mate one ; and that, though in rare instances it may be 
 wisdom to try to obtain a hearing under a masque, 
 which would be refused if the face were shown, in all 
 ordinary cases it should be not only with the voice, 
 but with the eyes, that men should address their 
 fellows. I never felt at ease in my “graduate” 
 incognito, and although I consented, some nine years 
 ago, to review Lord Lindsay’s “ Christian Art,” and 
 Sir Charles Eastlake’s Essay on Oil Painting, in the 
 “ Quarterly,” I have ever since steadily refused to write 
 even for that once respectable periodical.* 
 
 * It has lately, I observe, in consequence, sought to amuse its readers 
 by some account of my private affairs ; of which — if the writer of the 
 article in question is not ashamed of his name — I shall be happy to fur- 
 nish him with more accurate details, as well as to recommend him to a 
 school where he may learn what will not in future be disadvantageous to 
 his writings — a little more astronomy and optics. 
 
/ 
 
 But, as touching these “Notes,” of which I hope to 
 continue the series yearly, I trust that the reader will 
 feel that I have given him the best guarantee in my 
 power of their sincere purpose, in signing them. If 
 he thinks I always see the brightest colours in the 
 works of my friends, or that it can only be in rooted 
 malice that I point out an error in perspective, I have 
 put it in his power to inquire into these matters, and 
 to ascertain for himself whether indeed it is always a 
 friend’s work that I praise, or whether the transgres- 
 sor of perspective law is conscious of any personal 
 enmity between himself and me. And truly, it is 
 a sorrowful thing to me, and one bearing witness, 
 very bitterly, to the dishonesty of criticism in general, 
 that people should be so ready to call every kind of 
 faultfinding “ hostility,” the moment they can bring it 
 home to a known person. One would think, to hear 
 them, that there was no right or wrong in art; that 
 every opinion which men formed of it was dictated by 
 prejudice, and expressed in passion ; that all praise 
 was treacherous — all rebuke malignant — and silence 
 itself merely a pause of hesitation between Flattery 
 and Slander. 
 
 That it must sometimes be so, I am forced to 
 believe, since the imputation of such dishonesty is 
 constant ; and it is strange, as well as frightful, to 
 
8 
 
 reflect how many forms of guilt are involved in one 
 dishonest criticism. A common thief steals only 
 property — a dishonest critic steals property, together 
 with Fame, and the power of being useful. A 
 common thief steals, for the most part, in imperfect 
 knowledge of right. But a dishonest critic steals 
 wittingly, and with all advantages of education. A 
 common thief steals “ to satisfy his soul when he is 
 hungry;” but a dishonest critic, to satisfy his soul 
 when he is envious. A common liar risks the dis- 
 covery, and bears the penalty, of his own falsehood ; 
 hut a lying critic shrinks behind his associates, and 
 diffuses the discredit of his falsehood, while lie 
 multiplies its influence. A common liar, being 
 discovered, leaves other men’s honour unscathed. 
 A lying critic, discovered, has infected with his 
 own disgrace the men behind whom he stooped, 
 and cast suspicion over the general honour of his 
 race. 
 
 This, and much more than this, is the real charac- 
 ter of all anonymous writers against conscience ; and 
 the evil of it would be too great to be, with a 
 remnant of charity, imputed to any human being, 
 were it not that men continually commit their most 
 blameable acts in the mere dullness of habit, and are 
 like dogs taught to pilfer, in whom we pardon, to the 
 
9 
 
 imperfect nature, what would be unpardonable in a 
 rational one. 
 
 It is little to say that I am free from guilt such as 
 this. I have striven, from the first day when I began 
 to write, to reach an impartiality far beyond that of 
 mere uprightness. It is possible to be thoroughly 
 upright, and yet unconsciously partial — continually 
 deceived by personal associations or instincts. I have 
 striven for that higher impartiality, which can only 
 he obtained by labour in conquering predilections, by 
 toil in the successive study of opponent schools, and 
 earnest endeavour to sympathize with the separate 
 spirit of each master I approached. And I can say 
 fearlessly, that although it is not possible, in the time 
 I am able to give to this work, to enter as I should 
 desire into the consideration of every picture 
 examined, yet I approach each of them with a dis- 
 tinct effort to gain the point of aspect by which its 
 painter intended it to be commanded, and with a 
 personal experience of the difficulties of various art, 
 which renders me as charitable to true effort as 
 disdainful of attempts to be great without labour. I 
 say this, once for all, and the reader will perhaps 
 pardon me this length of preface, since it is to assure 
 him that I do not write these notes carelessly; nor 
 look upon them as things of little importance. I look 
 
upon them, on the contrary, as one of the chief works 
 which I have henceforward to do ; and though, from 
 its very nature, it must always be done hastily, it 
 never will be done thoughtlessly, nor without the 
 earnest hope that the pain I may have to give by 
 unwilling blame, may be more than counterbalanced 
 by the help which I know even the best painters may 
 derive from the expression of an eager sympathy, and 
 a faithful praise. 
 
NOTES, 
 
 £c., 4-c. 
 
 EXHIBITION OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY. 
 
 If the reader, before fixing his attention on any par- 
 ticular work, will glance generally round any of the 
 rooms, he will be struck by a singular change in the 
 character of the entire exhibition. He will find that 
 he can no longer distinguish the Pre-Raphaelite works 
 as a separate class ; but that between them and the 
 comparatively few pictures remaining quite of the old 
 school, there is a perfectly unbroken gradation, 
 formed by the works of painters in various stages 
 of progress, struggling forward out of their con- 
 ventionalism to the Pre-Raphaelite standard. The 
 meaning of this is simply that the battle is completely 
 and confessedly won by the latter party ; that ani- 
 mosity has changed into emulation, astonishment into 
 sympathy, and that a true and consistent school of 
 art is at last established in the Royal Academy of 
 England. 
 
 Such an exhibition I have never yet seen, and the 
 excellence of it is all the more to be rejoiced in, 
 
12 
 
 because it is every whit progressive. It docs not 
 consist merely in the splendour of the work of one 
 noble artist, urged to unusual exertion (though this 
 it can boast), nor in an accidental assemblage of the 
 happiest efforts of several (though by this also it is 
 adorned) ; but in the achievement which has rewarded 
 the steady effort of all, now at last turned in the right 
 direction, and ensuring for each, in process of time, 
 such utmost success as his genius is capable of. 
 There is hardly an exhibitor this year who has not 
 surpassed himself, and who will not surpass himself 
 again in every subsequent effort ; and I know that 
 they must feel this, and must be as happy in their 
 sense of sudden power, and in the perception of the 
 new world opened to their sincerity, as we spectators 
 have cause to be in the gifts of art they offer us. 
 
 As for my own special work, I look upon it as now 
 almost supererogatory — I have little to do but to 
 multiply monotonous terms of praise ; for, now that 
 nearly every picture in the room has a meaning, and 
 the observer is thus led to expect one, and to exert 
 his attention, I believe that people will easily distin- 
 guish such meanings for themselves, without the 
 impertinence of explanation ; and as for minor fault- 
 finding, I hold it generally useless in the cases of 
 artists who mean well, and are painting from Nature. 
 They will gradually find out their faults for them- 
 selves, and the spectator ought seldom to have his 
 attention withdrawn from the real merits by any 
 carping at passages of failure. Last year several 
 pictures, in which to point to anything was to point 
 
13 
 
 to an error, were put into the best places, when it 
 was right at once to mark their demerit, in order to 
 check this system of complimentary precedence. But 
 this year, the worst pictures are, for the most part, in 
 retired places, and there I shall have pleasure in 
 leaving them. If I find fault with any others, it is 
 either to help the observer in forming his judgment 
 of art in general, or to suggest a possibly better mode 
 of practice to the painter. 
 
 10. Christmas Day in St. Peter’s, at Rome, 1854. 
 (D. Roberts, R.A.) 
 
 The change above spoken of is very manifest 
 in this, the first picture of importance enough to 
 attract the eye. It is both careful and brilliant ; and 
 though I do not myself like the subject (caring 
 neither for the architecture, nor the pomp, of St. 
 Peter’s), I can answer for the faithful delineation of 
 what must be to most people a striking scene. The 
 effect of light and shade in this picture was very diffi- 
 cult, and is studiously wrought — note, for instance, the 
 pretty and true change in the colour of the red cross 
 in the dome, where it is half in shade and half in sun. 
 
 8. The Roadside Spring, Yorkshire. (E. C. 
 Booth.) 
 
 From the pomp of marble and strength of multi- 
 tude, let us turn back to this quiet nook beside the 
 wild Yorkshire road, and consider a little whether 
 the truer grandeur is in those lifted aisles or in this 
 fragment of grey wall, overwaved by its few ears of 
 
14 
 
 corn, and ringing to the low voice of its lonely 
 brooklet. The picture is not a first-rate one — it is 
 not even a very special example of the advancing 
 school ; but the mind of the painter has been in 
 happy tone when he chose his subject, and if you 
 examine it, kneeling (there is no other way), as per- 
 haps you would those flowers and grass by the roadside 
 itself, I think you will have pleasure in watching the 
 delicate tracery of the bush leaves, and the stoop of 
 the poppy over the wall, and the soft moss and grass 
 in its crannies, and the clear water, just making the 
 road a little browner where it spreads over it. I 
 cannot answer for the feelings of others, but I think 
 there is more benediction to be had here than out of 
 the magnificence of St. Peter’s. 
 
 17 “Love’s Labour Lost.” (F. R. Pickersgill, A.) 
 
 This picture presents the same elements of advance 
 in a yet more curious and striking w r ay. Mr. Pickers- 
 gill is already a Pre-Raphaelite in purpose, and only 
 fails, as when artists first begin to work thoroughly 
 from nature they always fail, by painting the easiest 
 things too definitely better than the rest. I do not 
 mean that they ought to paint the easy things worse ; 
 but only that a discordance is always felt in this stage 
 of their study between the good accessory parts and 
 failing principal ones. It is to be mended by con- 
 quering the difficult, not by surrendering the easy. 
 If we examine the jewellery of the lady dressed in 
 blue, in the centre, or the golden brocade of the one on 
 the left, we shall find them very nearly right : the 
 
grass is also coming fast right ; but Mr. Pickersgill 
 cannot yet paint a face. A little more hard work, 
 taking his models just as they come, without any fear 
 or flattery, and he will win his spurs. 
 
 35. Home. (J. N. Paton.) 
 
 A most pathetic and precious picture, easily under- 
 stood, and entirely right as far as feeling is concerned. 
 Mr. Paton must have had more pleasure in painting 
 this picture than in those fairy assemblies of his ; and 
 though the cottage details here are not so attractive 
 as those nightshade and woodbine convolutions of 
 leaf scenery, they arc in reality better painted, and 
 serve to better use. Mr. Paton has, however, a good 
 deal yet to learn in colour. He should for this spring 
 paint nothing but opening flowers, and, in the autumn, 
 nothing but apricots and peaches. 
 
 39- The Stream from Llyn Idwal, Carnarvonshire. 
 (A. W. Hunt.) 
 
 The best landscape I have seen in the exhibition 
 for many a day — uniting most subtle finish and watch- 
 fulness of nature, with real and rare power of 
 composition. The mass of mountain in the centre is 
 grandly arranged, so as best to set off the action of its 
 contour, and contrasted with the diagonal cleavages of 
 rock on the left : note how they run from the fore- 
 ground up to the crest of the hill. The rents of 
 cloud, and fading or forming of the hill shadows 
 through them, are magnificently expressed. It only 
 wants a little more subtlety in the finish of the gra- 
 
16 
 
 dations : portions of those clouds ought to be stippled 
 so delicately that the eye could not trace the outmost 
 touches — this would also give them more depth and 
 unity. Seen a little way off, the work is spotty, at 
 present, and wants bringing together ; the worst part 
 being the dappled blue sky on the left, in which the 
 blue is not pure, nor the clouds soft, nor well set. 
 The sheep in the foreground look too small — not but 
 that real sheep in a Welch foreground often do; 
 but it is the painter’s business to avoid this, and make 
 everything look of its real size. 
 
 58. Cinderella, after her Sisters have left for the 
 Ball. (Miss E. Turck.) 
 
 Very pretty, and well studied; but Cinderella 
 does not look like the lady of a fairy tale. I am 
 rather puzzled myself to know how her relationship 
 to her remarkable godmother could best be indicated, 
 so as to leave her still a quite real little lady in a real 
 kitchen. But I am glad to see this sternly realistic 
 treatment, at all events. 
 
 59. The White Owl. (W. J. Webbe.) 
 
 A careful study — the brown wing excellent. The 
 softness of an owl’s feathers is perhaps inimitable ; 
 but I think the breast might have come nearer the 
 mark. 
 
 68. Little Red Biding Hood. (R. Redgrave, R. A.) 
 
 Mr. Redgrave has, as far as I know, never painted 
 so good a landscape. The ferns in the centre are 
 
17 
 
 beautiful ; and there is evidence of painstaking and 
 of good feeling everywhere. 
 
 75. The Last Parting of Marie Antoinette and her 
 Son. (E. M. Ward, It. A.) 
 
 I fear this picture must be excepted from the 
 progressive list, and marked as one of the representa- 
 tions of the old school ; but it is not a bad one. 
 
 94. The Abandoned. (C. Stanfield, It. A.) 
 
 Perhaps this also is rather a fortunate example 
 of the artist’s w T ork than a new phase of it. But I 
 never saw a Stanfield I liked so well : the sea is 
 superb — quite Turnerian in the mystery of the 
 farther waves — and the sentiment of the picture very 
 grand ; and that not by means of twilight, or sunset, 
 or moonlight, or any strangeness of arrangement or 
 elaboration of idea, but by simple fact of deserted 
 ship and desert sea. 
 
 101. The Greetings in the Desert, Egypt — 
 “ Selamet” Teiyibeen. (J. F. Lewis.) 
 
 The superposition of this picture to “ West 
 Australian ” is the first glaring piece of bad hanging 
 I note in the Academy this year. Mr. Cooper’s 
 picture, whatever its merits may be, is executed so 
 as to have been seen quite as well in the upper place ; 
 while Mr. Lewis’s cannot be seen in the least but on the 
 line. It would take no trouble, any afternoon when 
 the Academy closes, to change the places ; and I am 
 sure that Mr. Cooper would, in enforcing such an 
 
 B 
 
18 
 
 arrangement, be felt to have paid a just tribute to 
 the talents of a great brother artist, and to have 
 done himself little injury, and much honour. 
 
 Of the style of Mr. Lewis’s picture I need only say 
 that it is like that of his work in general, and refer 
 the reader to the note on the example of it in the 
 rooms of the Water Colour Society. There is, 
 however, a very curious and skilful circumstance in 
 the composition here ; the neck of the camel was too 
 serpentine, and stopped too abruptly after suggesting 
 this undulation of line. The white cloud beyond at 
 once varies, and continues, this serpentine tendency, 
 leading it away towards the upper edge of the picture, 
 while the straight flakes of cloud, descending obliquely 
 to the right, oppose the two upright peaks of the 
 saddle. 
 
 I may as well refer at once to Mr. Lewis’s other 
 work, 336 (the Academy is rich in possessing two). 
 How two such* pictures have been executed, together 
 with the drawing for the Water Colour Society, all 
 within the year, is to me wholly inconceivable ; there 
 seems a year’s work in 336 alone. Yet it is not a 
 favourable example of the master ; the toil being too 
 palpable and equal on the stones in the reflected 
 light ; where also there is neither colour nor form of 
 interest enough to justify it. The draperies and 
 trelliswork are faultlessly marvellous. 
 
 131. “ Many Happy Returns of the Day.” (W. P. 
 Frith, R.A.) 
 
 A taking picture, much, it seems to me, above Mr. 
 
19 
 
 Frith’s former standard. Note the advancing Pre- 
 Raphaclitism in the wreath of leaves round the child’s 
 head. One is only sorry to see any fair little child 
 having too many and too kind friends, and in so 
 great danger of being toasted, toyed, and wreathed 
 into selfishness and misery. 
 
 138. Mr. David Cox. (Sir J. W. Gordon, R.A.) 
 
 A very noble portrait, and, in the unassuming hut 
 powerful features, thoroughly characteristic. I am 
 heartily glad to see this work of honour to a good 
 painter so well accomplished. 
 
 145. Geraniums. (Miss Mutrie.) 
 
 146. Roses. (Miss A. F. Mutrie.) 
 
 I cannot say more of the work of the two Misses 
 Mutrie than I have said already. It is nearly as 
 good as simple flower -painting can be ; the only 
 bettering it is capable of would be by more able 
 composition, or by the selection, for its subject, of 
 flowers growing naturally. Why not a roadside bank 
 of violets? 335 and 342 are the best examples, by 
 these artists, in this exhibition. 
 
 147. Saved! (Sir E. Landseer, R.A.) 
 
 I wish this picture had not been put so high, 
 for the bolder Landseer is in handling, the more 
 interesting his work becomes, under close observ- 
 ance : nor does his peculiar system of clay-colouring 
 gain at all in effect by distance. I never saw a 
 child fall into water, nor a dog bring one out ; 
 
20 
 
 but under such circumstances are not its clothes 
 usually wet? and do not wet clothes cling to the 
 limbs ? 
 
 155. Her Majesty the Empress Eugenie. (E. 
 Boutihonne.) 
 
 This would have been a really admirable portrait 
 but for its foggy and slovenly distance. Complete 
 that, and the work would look almost like life. 
 
 160. The Letter. (E. Delfosse.) 
 
 A fair example of a peculiar, and very clever, though 
 perhaps I should hardly call it meritorious, style, lately 
 much adopted by French artists. It is a mannerism of 
 softness, and subduing of all very bright colours — more 
 or less successful in result, of course, according to 
 the painter’s general powers ; but yet seeming to be 
 taught in schools of art so extensive and so popular as 
 to assimilate a large number of painters not only in 
 style, but in aim, and prevent their emerging from a 
 charmed circle of subjects — consisting usually of 
 pretty women, sprightly in expression, but rather 
 blunt in chiselling of features, wearing prettily brocaded 
 dresses, and doing nothing, prettily. These works seem 
 to be gradually constituting a species of manufacture, 
 which supplies the French drawing-rooms with pic- 
 tures, as Sevres docs with china. Nevertheless, one 
 very original painter belongs to this school, of whom 
 more presently.* 
 
 * See Notes on French Exhibition at the close of the pamphlet. 
 
21 
 
 162. The Graces. (W. E. Frost, A.) 
 
 I believe Mr. Frost might be a painter if he chose ; 
 hut he will not become one by multiplying studies of 
 this kind ; looking like E tty’s with all the colour 
 scraped off. Everybody knows well enough, by this 
 time, that Graces always stand on one leg, and bend 
 the other, and never have anything to fasten their 
 dresses with at the waists. Cannot Mr. Frost tell 
 us something new ? 
 
 175. The Emperor Charles V. at Yuste. (A. 
 Elmore, A.) 
 
 One of the works still belonging wholly to the old 
 school : there is a good deal of fair painting in it, 
 hut an extraordinary missing of the main mark 
 throughout. Sec the second paragraph of the long 
 quotation in the catalogue : — 
 
 “ Again the afternoon sun was shining over the great walnut-tree, full 
 into the gallery. From this pleasant spot, filled with the fragrance of 
 the garden and the murmur of the fountain, and bright with glimpses of 
 the golden Vera, they carried him to the gloomy chamber of his sleepless 
 nights, and laid him on the bed from which he was to rise no more.” 
 
 Naturally we expect the painter to take some pains 
 (as he has given this quotation) in the expression of 
 verdure, fragrance, and sunshine. But the walnut- 
 tree is grey, not green; the air, judging by the look 
 of it, cannot be perfumed by anything but paint ; and 
 there is no sunshine anywhere, while the whitish 
 light, which is given for it, shines not over the tree 
 into the gallery, hut from the back of the spectator. 
 The exhibited pictures, by Titian (!) are greyer than 
 
22 
 
 all the rest. Charles must have bought them from 
 an exceedingly dishonest dealer. 
 
 200. Peace concluded, 1856. (J. E. Millais, A.) 
 
 I thought, some time ago, that this painter was 
 likely to be headed by others of the school ; but Titian 
 himself could hardly head him now. This picture 
 is as brilliant in invention as consummate in executive 
 power ; both this and Autumn Leaves, 448, will rank 
 in future among the world’s best masterpieces ; and I 
 see no limit to what the painter may hope in future 
 to achieve. I am not sure whether he may not be 
 destined to surpass all that has yet been done in 
 figure-painting, as Turner did all past landscape.* 
 
 221. The Breakwater at Plymouth. (F. R. Lee, 
 R.A.) 
 
 •It is long since Mr. Lee painted such a picture as 
 this ; nor, as far as I recollect, has any one else yet so 
 faithfully rendered the sweep of large waves over level 
 wall. The sense of space is very great throughout, 
 and there is really fine feeling and treatment in the 
 dying away of the successive spray-clouds at the end 
 of the long path of stone. There are several studies 
 of sea by Mr. Lee this year which seem to me to 
 mark quite a new energy in his mind : all of them are 
 earnest, and entirely separated from the usual types 
 of conventional gale and wave. This is the best, but 
 
 * Note the hint for bringing more of nature into our common work, in 
 the admirable modelling of the polar bear and lion, though merely 
 children’s toys. 
 
23 
 
 3)8 is another good example. Its rock foreground is 
 evidently painted from nature, and is very fine in 
 form ; though there arc awkward flaws here and 
 there, the consequence seemingly of prolonged habits, 
 hardly broken off, of working without reference to fact. 
 For instance, in the calm pool of water on the left, 
 the stones on the left side have reflections, but those 
 on the right side, none. 
 
 230. Master Isaac Newton in his Garden at 
 Woolsthorpe, in the Autumn of 1665. (R. Hannah.) 
 
 One of the somewhat incipient pictures of the 
 rising school, but of considerable merit. The 
 Nemesis of Pre-Raphaclitism is its way of fixing on 
 precisely the ugliest things it can find to paint. I 
 don’t believe there is such another uninteresting tree- 
 trunk within a circle of ten miles round London, as 
 the one in the centre of this, Sir Isaac’s garden. 
 The execution is also hard, though careful : one of 
 the most successful bits is the head of Diamond ; not 
 content with “ amusing himself with a book,” but 
 having also half a mind to the apple ; and proposing 
 speedily to interfere with, if not prevent altogether, 
 the discovery of the solar system. 
 
 262. The Village Postman. (J. M. Carrick.) 
 
 If the reader glances along the various pictures 
 hung near the floor, in any of the rooms, he will find 
 that nearly every other one consists of an attentive 
 study ; there is, indeed, so much care taken with so 
 many minor works, that it becomes impossible to 
 distinguish all as they deserve ; and I may, perhaps, 
 
24 
 
 have missed some that contain more than study — real 
 achievement. But I can only name this one, as a 
 leading specimen, out of a large number not by any 
 means perfect, but presenting many interesting 
 natural scenes and thoughts, and highly conscientious 
 in execution. There has been immense labour in 
 this picture, and it is very genuine throughout : the 
 old stone-slated roof and ivy are first-rate, and the 
 figures of the child and its grandfather coming out 
 slowly to see if there is indeed a letter, wrought with 
 more than usual fidelity to rustic character. 
 
 29o. “ And the Prayer of Faith shall Save the 
 Sick.” (J. Phillip.) 
 
 I never yet saw so much progress made hv any 
 painter in one year as Mr. Phillip has made, from his 
 stiff black and red figures and fans of last year, to 
 this very sweet picture : the principal head, with its 
 opalescent earring, is quite beautiful. There are 
 several other works of great character and power by 
 this painter. 
 
 300. An Interior. (F. D. Hardy). 
 
 An exquisite little piece of interior painting ; 
 hurt only by some conventionality in finishing. For 
 instance, how is it possible that, the sunbeams entering 
 only by that one small w indow, the principal figures 
 should be in full light, or the shadow fall at a steep 
 angle from the knife-handle over the block in the 
 left-hand corner ? But, with his powers of execution, 
 a little more faithfulness will make Mr. Ilardy a 
 perfect painter in this kind. 
 
25 
 
 311. The Novice. (J. C. Horsley, A.) 
 
 There is always a sweet feeling in Mr. Horsley’s 
 pictures ; this is an old story, but prettily told- -the 
 elder nuns watching anxiously and pitifully, and the 
 dove seeking rest in the bosom. 
 
 312. Mid-Spring. (J. W. Inchbold.) 
 
 Though not a satisfactory picture, this is one of 
 the most curious efforts of the Pre-Raphaelites this 
 year. The place chosen has been a lovely spot, and 
 the execution of the hyacinths and grass is as close 
 and wonderful a piece of work as there is on the room 
 walls. Take a magnifying glass and look at the 
 squirrel and bird on the tree high up on the left, and 
 the two other birds flying in the wood beyond, and 
 give time to the whole, and it will please you. But 
 Mr. Inchbold must choose subjects with more mass of 
 shade in them ; this was, in its essential nature, 
 impracticable, the light being all too high for imita- 
 tion. Hence the apparent hardness of result. 
 
 It is quite worth while, some day, to bring a small 
 opera-glass with you into the architectural room, to 
 examine the exquisite painting of withered heather, 
 and rock, in Mr. Inchbold’s other picture, 1187. 
 
 320. The Glen, Chudleigh, Devon. (W. F. 
 Witherington, R. A.) 
 
 Here is another great advance on the picture of 
 last year : hurt a good deal by want of shadow-tone 
 on the figures, and perhaps also by too great richness 
 of subject. This excess of quantity is a grievous 
 temptation to all artists : many of Turner’s largest 
 
26 
 
 works were destroyed by it. Everything that is 
 beyond tho spectator’s power of easy attention, and is 
 yet not so perfectly painted as to call for his fully 
 excited attention, hurts a picture instead of help- 
 ing it. 
 
 352. Chatterton. (H. Wallis.) 
 
 Faultless and wonderful : a most noble example of 
 the great school. Examine it well inch by inch: it 
 is one of the pictures which intend, and accomplish, 
 the entire placing before your eyes of an actual fact — 
 and that a solemn one. Give it much time. Mr. 
 Wallis has another very wonderful effort, 51 6, hut it 
 is harder and less successful. I suppose tho face of 
 Marvell is a portrait, but he does not look to me like 
 a person who would return a bribe. 
 
 398. The Scapegoat. (W. H. Hunt.) 
 
 This singular picture, though in many respects 
 faultful, and in some wholly a failure, is yet the 
 one, of all in the gallery which should furnish 
 us with most food for thought. First, consider it 
 simply as an indication of the temper and aim of the 
 rising artists of England. Until of late years, young 
 painters have been mostly divided into two groups ; 
 one poor, hard-working, and suffering, compelled 
 more or less, for immediate bread, to obey what- 
 ever call might be made upon them by patron or 
 publisher ; the other, of perhaps more manifest 
 cleverness or power, able in some degree to command 
 the market, and apt to make the pursuit of art 
 somewhat complementary to that of pleasure ; so 
 
27 
 
 that a successful artist’s studio has not been in 
 general a place where idle and gay people would 
 have found themselves ill at ease, or at a loss for 
 amusement. But here is a young painter, the slave 
 neither of poverty nor pleasure, — emancipated from 
 the garret, despising the green room, and selecting 
 for his studio a place where he is liable certainly to no 
 agreeable forms of interruption. He travels, not 
 merely to fill his portfolio with pretty sketches, but in 
 as determined a temper as ever mediarval pilgrim, 
 to do a certain work in the Holy Land. Arrived 
 there, with the cloud of Eastern War gathered to the 
 north of him, and involving, for most men, according 
 to their adventurous or timid temper, either an 
 interest which would at once have attracted them to 
 its immediate field, or a terror which would have 
 driven them from work in its threatening neighbour- 
 hood, he pursues calmly his original purpose ; and 
 while the hills of the Crimea were white with tents of 
 war, and the fiercest passions of the nations of Europe 
 burned in high funeral flames over their innumerable 
 dead, one peaceful English tent was pitched beside a 
 shipless sea ; and the whole strength of an English 
 heart spent in painting a weary goat, dying upon its 
 salt sand. 
 
 And utmost strength of heart it needed. Though 
 the tradition that a bird cannot fly over this sea 
 is an exaggeration, the air in its neighbourhood 
 is stagnant and pestiferous, polluted by the decaying 
 vegetation brought down by the Jordan in its floods ; 
 the bones of the beasts of burden that have died by 
 
28 
 
 the “ way of the sea,” lie like wrecks upon its edge, 
 bared by the vultures, and bleached by the salt ooze, 
 which, though tideless, rises and falls irregularly, 
 swoln or wasted. Swarms of flies, fed on the car- 
 cases, darken an atmosphere heavy at once with the 
 poison of the marsh, and the fever of the desert ; 
 and the Arabs themselves will not encamp for a night 
 amidst the exhalations of the volcanic chasm. 
 
 This place of study the young English painter 
 chooses. IIo encamps a little way above it ; sets his 
 easel upon its actual shore ; pursues his work with 
 patience through months of solitude ; and paints, 
 crag by crag, the purple mountains of Moab, and 
 grain by grain, the pale ashes of Gomorrah. 
 
 And I think his object was one worthy of such an 
 effort. Of all the scenes in the Holy Land, there 
 are none whose present aspect tends so distinctly to 
 confirm the statements of Scripture, as this condemned 
 shore. It is therefore exactly the scene of which it 
 might seem most desirable to give a perfect idea to 
 those who cannot see it for themselves ; it is that also 
 which fewest travellers arc able to sec ; and which, 
 I suppose, no one but Mr. Hunt himself would ever 
 have dreamed of making the subject of a close 
 pictorial study. The work was therefore worth his 
 effort, and lie has connected it in a simple, but most 
 touching way, with other subjects of reflection, by the 
 figure of the animal upon its shore. This is, indeed, 
 one of the instances in which the subject of a picture 
 is wholly incapable of explaining itself; but, as we are 
 too apt — somewhat too hastily — to accept at once a 
 
29 
 
 subject as intelligible and rightly painted, if we 
 happen to know enough of tho story to interest us in 
 it, so we are apt, somewhat unkindly, to refuse a 
 painter the little patience of inquiry or remembrance, 
 which, once granted, would enable him to interest 
 us all the more deeply, because the thoughts suggested 
 were not entirely familiar. It is necessary, in this 
 present instance, only to remember that the view 
 taken by the Jews of the appointed sending forth of 
 the scapegoat into the Wilderness was that it repre- 
 sented the carrying away of their sin into a place 
 uninhabited and forgotten ; and that the animal on 
 whose head the sin was laid, became accursed ; so 
 that “ though not commanded by the law, they used 
 to maltreat the goat Azazel ; — to spit upon him, and 
 to pluck off* his hair.” * The goat, thus tormented, 
 and with a scarlet fillet bound about its brow, was 
 driven by the multitude wildly out of the camp : and 
 pursued into the Wilderness. The painter supposes 
 it to have fled towards tho Dead Sea, and to he just 
 about to fall exhausted at sunset — its hoofs entangled 
 in the crust of salt upon the shore. The opposite 
 mountains, seen in the fading light, aro that chain 
 of Abarim on which Moses died. 
 
 Now, we cannot, I think, esteem too highly, or 
 receive too gratefully, the temper and the toil which 
 have produced this picture for us. Consider for a little 
 while the feelings involved in its conception, and the 
 self-denial and resolve needed for its execution ; and 
 
 * Sermon preached at Lothbury, by the Rev. II. Melvill. ( Pulpit , 
 Thursday, March 27th 1856). 
 
30 
 
 compare them with the modes of thought in which 
 our former painters used to furnish us annually w T ith 
 their “ Cattle pieces,” or “ Lake scenes,” and I think 
 we shall see cause to hold this picture as one more 
 truly honourable to us, and more deep and sure in its 
 promise of future greatness in our schools of painting, 
 than all the works of “ high art” that since the foun- 
 dation of the Academy have ever taxed the winder, 
 or w’eariness, of the English public. But, at the same 
 time, this picture indicates a danger to our students 
 of a kind hitherto unknown in any school ; the danger 
 of a too great intensity of feeling, making them forget 
 the requirements of painting as an art. This picture, 
 regarded merely as a landscape, or as a composition, 
 is a total failure. The mind of the painter has 
 been so excited by the circumstances of the scene, 
 that, like a youth expressing his earnest feeling by 
 feeble verse (which seems to him good, because he 
 means so much by it), Mr. Hunt has been blinded 
 by his intense sentiment to the real weakness of the 
 pictorial expression ; and in his earnest desire to paint 
 the Scapegoat, has forgotten to ask himself first, 
 whether he could paint a goat at all. 
 
 I am not surprised that he should fail in painting 
 the distant mountains ; for the forms of large dis- 
 tant landscape are a quite new study to the Pre- 
 Raphaelites, and they cannot be expected to conquer 
 them at first : but it is a great disappointment to me to 
 observe, even in the painting of the goat itself, and of 
 the fillet on its brow, a nearly total w r ant of all that 
 effective manipulation which Mr. Hunt displayed in 
 
31 
 
 his earlier pietures. I do not say that there is 
 absolute want of skill — there may be difficulties 
 encountered which I do not perceive — but the 
 difficulties, whatever they may have been, are not 
 conquered : this may be very faithful and very 
 wonderful painting — but it is not good painting; 
 and much as I esteem feeling and thought in all 
 works of art, still I repeat, again and again, a 
 painter’s business is first to paint. No one could 
 sympathize more than I with the general feeling 
 displayed in the “Light of the World;” but unless 
 it had been accompanied with perfectly good nettle- 
 painting, and ivy painting, and jewel painting, I 
 should never have praised it ; and though I ac- 
 knowledge the good purpose of this picture, yet, 
 inasmuch as thero is no good hair-painting, nor hoof- 
 painting in it,* I hold it to be good only as an omen, 
 not as an achievement ; and I have hardly ever seen 
 a composition, left apparently almost to chance, come 
 
 * I believe, however, the painter was under worse difficulty in painting 
 this goat than even with his sheep picture, it being, of course, impossible 
 to get the animal to stand still for a moment in an attitude indicating 
 utter weariness. Observe also, that though heavily painted, yet being 
 done every whit from nature, the picture lights the room, far away, just as 
 Turner’s used to do (and compare the notes on Nos. 873 and 1002). Only 
 Turner never makes a reflection in water brighter than the sky above it, 
 which, unless the crystals of salt whiten the surface even of this glowing 
 water, seems to be the case here. I suppose the water was painted at 
 one season of the year and the sky at another — both from nature, but, 
 in result, discordant, and afterwards unalterable, as the complex hues of 
 those far-followed reflections do not admit of “ toning down,” but by 
 separately re-painting every one. Observe, finally, the picture should, 
 if possible, be seen on a dark day, or in twilight, when its fullest effect is 
 developed. 
 
32 
 
 so unluckily : the insertion of the animal in the 
 exact centre of the canvass, making it look as if it 
 were painted for a sign. I can only, therefore, in 
 thanking Mr. Hunt heartily for his work, pray him, 
 for practice sake, now to paint a few pictures with 
 less feeling in them ; and more handling. 
 
 413. Subject and painter not yet named in the 
 Catalogue. The former, not very intelligible ; the 
 latter is reported to be a younger member of the new 
 school — -Mr. Burton. His work is masterly, at all 
 events, and he seems capable of the greatest things. 
 
 448. Autumn Leaves. (J. E. Millais, A.) 
 
 By much the most poetical work the painter has 
 yet conceived ; and also, as far as I know, the first 
 instance existing of a perfectly painted twilight. It 
 is as easy, as it is common, to give obscurity to twilight, 
 but to give the glow within its darkness is another 
 matter; and though Giorgione might have come near 
 the glow, lie never gave the valley mist. Note also 
 the subtle difference between the purple of the long 
 nearer range of hills, and the blue of the distant 
 peak emerging beyond. 
 
 515. View on the Banks of the Thames at Maiden- 
 head. (J. D. Harding.) 
 
 A very beautiful and well composed Harding : but 
 not a view on the Thames at Maidenhead. The hills 
 in this picture vary from 1,500 to 2,000 feet in 
 height. The clouds are admirably arranged: it is 
 
33 
 
 the best composed sky, after Lewis’s, that I see in the 
 rooms. But, considering Mr. Harding’s well-known 
 skill in trees, I am vexed, partly with myself and 
 partly with him, because, after long consideration, I 
 am totally unable to form a guess as to the species of 
 tree meant in the group to the left. 
 
 532. The Prosperous Days of Job. (W. T. C. 
 Dobson.)' 
 
 One of the earnest readings of Scripture, which 
 are the truest pride of modern art. IIow often has 
 Job been painted with the look of a haggard, aged, 
 and despairing mendicant — how seldom, in this first 
 era of his life, the refined oriental lord ; leading a 
 life of mercy, and judgment, and truth. The despair 
 indicated in the writhe of the lips and pressure of the 
 knit hands on the head, in the fallen figure, is tho- 
 roughly grand ; and the watching female figure above 
 is very tender and lovely. All Mr. Dobson’s works 
 are good (though this is the best), as far as feeling is 
 concerned ; but their colour, or rather want of colour, 
 is deeply to be regretted. Does Mr. Dobson really 
 see Nature as always white and buff — or does he 
 think Buff a specially sacred colour ? In my mind, 
 it is associated chiefly with troopers’ jerkins. 
 
 542. Market Day. (G. B. O’Neill.) 
 
 Of the old school, but very delicately painted. 
 There is far too much in it to be natural. It is a 
 map of a market day, instead of a picture of one. 
 
 c 
 
34 
 
 578. April Love. (A. Hughes.) 
 
 Exquisite in every way : lovely in colour, most 
 subtle in the quivering expression of the lips, and 
 sweetness of the tender face, shaken, like a leaf by 
 winds upon its dew, and hesitating back into peace. 
 
 A second very disgraceful piece of had placing — 
 the thrusting this picture thus aside! 
 
 583. Chioggian Fishing Vessels, &c., running into 
 the Lagune of Venice, on the approach of a borasco 
 or violent squall, on the Adriatic. (E. W. Cooke, A.) 
 
 Another instance of the extraordinary good fortune 
 which characterizes the exhibition of this year, in 
 possessing the happiest efforts of almost every master. 
 Do any of us recollect so impressive a study of 
 shipping as this by Mr. Cooke, much as he has hunted 
 such quarries across the foam ? It is admirably true 
 to the Venetian boat — and the Venetian boat and all 
 the ways of it are beautiful. 
 
 592. Highland Mary. (T. Faed.) 
 
 Mr. Faed’s best work this year; very lovely in its 
 kind ; and the distance, though conventional, well 
 composed. Mr. Faed’s time for repentance does not 
 seem yet to have come — he will paint grandly, I think, 
 when it does. His other picture is a mere echo of 
 the popular one of last year. 
 
 615. Mary Magdalene at the Sepulchre. (H. Le 
 Jeune.) 
 
 Another earnest and most touching reading of 
 
 * 
 
Scripture. I never saw that gaze of Mary into the 
 sepulchre — just before she “ turned herself back, and 
 saw Jesus standing” — given so faithfully. Much fault 
 might he found with the mere painting ; but I will 
 find none ! for the main and moving facts are there. 
 Give the picture time, and it will bring tears. 
 
 1190. The Eve of St. Agnes. (A. Hughes.) 
 
 A noble picture, apparently too hastily finished, 
 and very wrongly put into this room. It looks too 
 blue ; but remember it is entirely a night piece, ad- 
 mitting moonlight into the chambers ; and if a piece 
 of real moonlight were seen, instead of the picture, 
 through the walls of the room, it would look just as 
 strangely blue : the fault which the eye catches is 
 chiefly that the blue glass casts a white light, and the 
 colours in the left hand subject are confused in 
 relation. The ivy on the tree trunk has clearly been 
 done without a natural model, and is not creditable 
 to the painter of the ivy in No. 578. The half 
 entranced, half startled, face of the awaking 
 Madeline is exquisite ; but the lover’s, in both the 
 centre and right-hand subjects, very far from satis- 
 factory. If, however, the reader knows the poem, he 
 will be grateful for the picture ; and there is promise 
 in it of high excellence. 
 
 873, 885, 1002 are three intensely faithful studies 
 in the East, by Holman Hunt. The gleam of the 
 Dead Sea in the distance of 873 is quite marvellous, 
 and the drawing of the Sphinx is an invaluable 
 
36 
 
 reecord. Probably the reader who has never studied 
 natural facts will think the colouring extraordinary, 
 as Turner’s used to be thought. It is, nevertheless, 
 precisely true — touch for touch. I have given the 
 reasons of its apparent want of truth in Modern 
 Painters, vol. iv., chap. 3, ss. 8, et seq. 
 
 I must here close my “ Notes” on the present exhi- 
 bition, though I know that I have missed count of 
 many good pictures ; hut I am somewhat tired with 
 previous work, and cannot meet the large range of 
 excellence in the Academy this year with correlative 
 exertion. One or two works, also, I have to note 
 in other exhibitions. 
 
 I 
 
37 
 
 SOCIETY OF PAINTERS IN WATER COLOURS. 
 
 The pictures in this pleasant room are so easily 
 distinguishable and accessible, that I think it will be 
 better to refer to them in the order of their import- 
 ance (or that which seems to me such), than in the 
 regular succession of the catalogue. 
 
 1. No. 134. 
 
 If this picture is painted in firm colours, and 
 will stand against time ; and if it gets into good 
 hands, and is safely kept, it will one day be among 
 things which men will come to England from far 
 away to see, and will go back to their homes 
 saying, “ I have seen it,” as people come back now 
 from Venice, saying they have seen Titian’s “ Peter 
 Martyr or from Milan, saying they have seen the 
 “ Sposalizio.” I have no hesitation in ranking it 
 among the most wonderful pictures in the world ; nor 
 do I believe that, since the death of Paul Veronese, 
 anything has been painted comparable to it in its own 
 way. 
 
 I rank it with Veronese’s work, because it is 
 painted on the same principles of colour and design ; 
 and shows just as much ease of hand, though the 
 execution is modified by the smallness of scale, and by 
 
38 
 
 the resolution to obtain certain effects of light which 
 the Venetian would not have cared for: but if this 
 picture were magnified so as to show T the figures the 
 size of life, it would be felt at once that no work but 
 Veronese’s could stand against it for a moment; and 
 I only regret that its admirableness of detail should 
 he concentrated so as to become, to most people, all 
 but invisible. If the reader will take a magnifying 
 glass to it, and examine it touch by touch, he will find 
 that, literally, any four square inches of it contain as 
 much as an ordinary water-colour drawing ; nay, he 
 will, perhaps, become aware of refinements in its 
 handling which escape the naked eye altogether. 
 Let him examine, for instance, with a good lens, the 
 eyes of the camels, and he will find there is as much 
 painting beneath their drooping fringes as would, with 
 most painters, be thought enough for the whole head : 
 or let him look at the cane-work of the back of the 
 chair on the right, and he will find as many touches 
 in one of its meshes as, according to the notion of water- 
 colour painting ordinarily, would suffice for the tracery 
 of a Gothic window. 
 
 Yet, marvellous as this quantity of detail is, the 
 quantity is not the chief wonder, but the breadth. 
 It is amazing that there should be so much, hut far 
 more amazing that this Much should all be Right. 
 Labour and delicacy we may find, unwearied and 
 unsurpassable, in missal painting, and in old Flemish 
 work of the Van Eyck school. But labour thus con- 
 centrated in large purpose — detail thus united into 
 (*ffect i vc mass — has not been seen until now. All 
 
39 
 
 minute work has been, more or less, broken work ; and 
 the most precious pictures were divisible by segments. 
 But here, gradations which are wrought out through 
 a thousand threads or meshes, are as broad and 
 calm in unity as if struck with a single sweep of the 
 hand. Look at the way the pale circle of the tent 
 is gradated, through its woven pattern, with the effect 
 of transparent light beneath. I have never seen any- 
 thing quite comparable to it reached by art.* 
 
 Let us, however, recovering as best we may from 
 our amazement at this toil, and this success, look for 
 a little while at the meaning of the picture — meaning 
 which we find indicated by the painter in the most 
 subtle way. The hand of the principal figure droops 
 negligently at its side, yet so as to point to an 
 unfolded map. The letters on this map are of course 
 reversed, as it lies open rightly for its owner, there- 
 fore upside down to the spectator ; but the title of it 
 is carefully made legible — 
 
 “ MAP OF” 
 
 “SYRIA 
 
 “ ANCIENT AND MODERN.” 
 
 and the picture itself is a map of antiquity and 
 modernism in the East ; the Englishman encamped 
 under Mount Sinai. 
 
 * Merely as a piece of technical composition, note the way in which 
 this canopy is repeated and balanced by the matting below ; hide the 
 matting with the hand, and see how topheavy the canopy becomes. The 
 dead fawn, in like manner, repeats and relieves the colour-mass of the 
 principal standing camel. 
 
40 
 
 The reader must pardon me a momentary allusion 
 to work of my own ; for it has not been without some 
 toil that I, also, have been lately endeavouring to 
 trace the kind of contrast which exists between the 
 ancient and modern temper of the human race. Mr. 
 Lewis was wholly ignorant of my work, and I of his. 
 In closing an inquiry into the modern feeling respect- 
 ing scenery consecrated by solemn associations, I 
 said, — 
 
 “ I do not know if there be game on Sinai, but I 
 am always expecting to hear of some one shooting 
 over it.” 
 
 Some of those semi-serious people who never know 
 earnest from jest, accused me of levity in saying this. 
 I said it not in levity, but in stern soberness ; yet 
 certainly it was with strange surprise that I saw that 
 this great painter had given his year’s labour to 
 develope a similar thought, and that, four months only 
 after the sentence was written, the most notable 
 picture on the exhibition walls of London was an 
 accurate fulfilment of its words : — Mount Sinai, with 
 a foreground of dead game. 
 
 Special examination of the points of various interest 
 in this picture is, of course, impossible — it would need 
 a separate essay. I shall only note one or two things 
 which, under any circumstances, the reader should 
 not miss. 
 
 Note first the labour in the sky. The whole field 
 of it is wrought gradually out with touches no larger 
 than the filaments of a feather. It is, in fact, an 
 embroidered sky — Penelope’s web was slight work 
 
41 
 
 compared to it ; — such a tiling, as far as I know, never 
 painter endured to do before. The purpose of this is 
 to get the peculiar look of heat haze, and depth of 
 colour, with light, which there is in all skies of warm 
 climates. It cannot be got otherwise : but, inasmuch 
 as whatever work may be given to it, it cannot, in 
 some respects, be got at all, the light of it being 
 unapproachable, it almost grieves me to see the 
 labour spent to obtain only an approximate result. 
 Still in this one picture, I feel that it ought to have 
 been done, in jirder that all might be as well as it 
 could be. 
 
 Secondly, Examine the rock drawing of the Sinai, 
 exquisite alike in hue and form, and conquering, stone 
 by stone, the difficulty which, to all landscape painters 
 but Turner, has been hitherto unconquerable, of ex- 
 pressing fallen masses of debris in their endless com- 
 plexity. 
 
 If I venture to speak of a fault in this part of the 
 work, it is only as acknowledging that human strength 
 must always fail somewhere : Veronese is sometimes 
 too flat — Tintoret sometimes too dark — Leonardo 
 sometimes too hard — Turner sometimes too mysterious 
 — Lewis sometimes too definite. Throughout this 
 picture we may trace, here and there, a slightly linear 
 violence ; as, for instance, in the black outline round 
 the lower part of the dead fawn in the foreground, 
 which is not entirely true, and gives the work, here 
 and there, a slight aspect of meagreness. The lines 
 of fissure and shadow on the rocks, and round the 
 stones of the distant Sinai, are thus a little too sharp 
 
42 
 
 and thin ; indicating some remains of the painter’s old 
 manner of using the pencil point, as in his sketches 
 in Spain. 
 
 The faces, however, as well as the draperies, are 
 entirely free from this fault, and the intensity of 
 character reached in them surpasses, I think, all the 
 painter’s former efforts. Even the more distant figures 
 are full of portrait character of the most perfect finish. 
 It may be useful to any reader who is himself fond of 
 drawing, to note the subtlety of truth on which all 
 depends. Take, for instance, the head of the Arab 
 between the Sheikh and the camel, and note the dim 
 sparkle of light in one eye, missed in the other. A 
 common painter would have put it into both ; but he 
 would have spoiled the head, for it could not have 
 been in both. The point of light in the right one is 
 the reflection, on the under part of the ball, of the 
 light from the nose, which could, of course, be seen on 
 the sunlighted side only. The Arab, whose face is half 
 seen behind the tassel of the housings of one of the 
 camels, which takes the place of his beard, is another 
 thoroughly grand piece of character. There seems 
 much difference of opinion as to the type of head 
 adopted for the figure of the Englishman. I think 
 it very right ; — quiet, delicate, firm, and Cceur-de- 
 Lion-like. The two dogs, like all Lewis’s animals, 
 arc inimitable. 
 
 I have nearly exhausted terms of praise, and have 
 none left, now, strong enough for the complexity and 
 skill of the composition. The deliciousness of some of 
 the bits of grey and pale flickering colour, and the 
 
43 
 
 way the innumerable lines and hues flow together, 
 without flaw or a fallacy anywhere, complete the 
 strange merits and marvels of this work. I trust, 
 whatever its destination, that measures may he 
 taken to preserve it from excess of light, and from 
 damp. Body-colour preserved (as in manuscripts) in 
 shade, and kept dry, has stood unchanged for six 
 hundred years ; but the slightest adverse influences are 
 to be dreaded for a work of this delicacy, when so 
 much depends upon so little, and when every gleam 
 of colour is precious. 
 
 It will be observed that on each side of this 
 brilliant and delicate picture is hung a drawing of 
 excessive darkness and boldness, by David Cox. 
 This was thoroughly well judged — there is no 
 rivalship — but a kindly and effective contrast. The 
 two drawings of English moors (128, 140), gain in 
 gloom and power by the opposition to the African 
 sunlight ; and Lewis’s finish is well set off by the 
 impatient breadth of Cox. No. 140 is a very 
 interesting example of this master : so also the 
 smaller ones, 234, 240. 
 
 83. Her Majesty the Queen inspecting the Wounded 
 Coldstream Guards in the Hall of Buckingham 
 Palace. 
 
 A very interesting and successful drawing, ap- 
 parently full of good portraiture, and certainly of 
 right expression. It is notable for its frank and firm 
 execution ; in general, artists are appalled by the 
 presence of Majesty, and in their earnest desire to 
 
44 
 
 do well, are apt to lose their power, and make their 
 work too soft or too polished ; but Mr. Gilbert has 
 retained his presence of mind, and has given an 
 effective rendering of a touching and memorable 
 scene. 
 
 23. Huntsman’s Boy and Bloodhounds. 
 
 This is the best drawing Mr. Taylor has produced 
 for some time, but best only inasmuch as it deals 
 with a subject familiar both to him and to us, on a 
 somewhat larger scale than usual. Indeed, as long as 
 Mr. Taylor persists in his faith that natural form and 
 colour are only to be represented by an ingenious 
 imposition of slops or blots, it is quite useless to 
 criticise his work. Beyond a certain point he cannot, 
 by any physical possibility, advance : that point he 
 had reached fifteen years ago, and it is not a high 
 one. 
 
 256, 271. “ An Itinerant.” “Devotion.” 
 
 Two superb drawings by Mr. Hunt — fortunate in 
 the features and expression of the models chosen, 
 and, like all the master’s work, consummate in 
 execution. As a piece of artistical handling and 
 dexterity, the woolly hair of the negro is a lesson 
 which cannot be too long studied. 
 
 The other drawings by this master, in the room, 
 are-, of course, all good ; but, perhaps, less delightful 
 than usual. I miss his hawthorn blossom, mossy 
 banks, and birds : there are two or three pounds of 
 grapes — those in 285 particularly good ; — but, when 
 
45 
 
 not on the vine, grapes are precisely the dullest fruit 
 that can be painted ; and I can only advise, or beg, 
 any reader who is inclined to attend to me, never in 
 future to buy any of Hunt’s grapes. He wastes an 
 inconceivable quantity of time on them, and this is 
 the fault of the public, for the grapes always sell. 
 
 1, 4. Studies of Lake Scenery (Mr. William 
 Turner). The w r orks of this painter are always 
 tender in feeling, but the larger of these is a strained 
 and mistaken effort ; the second is very true and right. 
 
 22, 167. Two very interesting studies of Sea. 
 (Mr. Jackson.) The breaking of the low waves in 
 167 is as true as can be ; and both pictures are 
 delicate and earnest in perception of phenomena of 
 sea and sky. The land is bad, in both. 
 
 20. Another study of the same class (Mr. Naftel) ; 
 not so good in execution, but well meant. It 
 looks as if painted on the spot, and the cirri in the 
 sky are very true ; there is a pleasant sense of the 
 evening wind whistling among the stones as the sun 
 touches their edges with its last gleam. The hand- 
 ling is, however, flat and coarse ; each of these stones 
 ought to have had nearly as much work on it as there 
 is in the whole picture. 52 is also an earnest effort, 
 though very faulty in the work on the water. Mr. 
 Naftel w T ill find, on testing his work accurately, that 
 he has cast the shadows inconsistently on the castle, 
 and they destroy the effect of its light. 
 
46 
 
 68. A quiet and unaffected study (Mr. Duncan), 
 remarkable for the absence of all meretricious 
 character. I love colour as well as most people, but 
 confess that a little less cobalt and vermilion would 
 better most of the pictures on the walls of this room. 
 
 90. “View in Glencoe.” (Mr. Rosenberg.) This 
 is one of the truest pieces of mountain study in 
 the room — evidently wholly from nature, and 
 though feeble in execution, satisfactory in general 
 effect. But Mr. Rosenberg may depend upon it, 
 mountains are quite as delicate as fruit, and he must 
 take not less pains with them. 
 
 112, 165. Studies from Nature. (Mr. Fripp, and 
 Mr. Glennie.) Very good in their way; yet rather 
 things to be kept in the artists' folios, for their own 
 use, than to be exhibited. 
 
 168. Sunrise on the Jungfrau. (Mr. Collingwood.) 
 Striking in effect ; and an attractive picture, but 
 sadly wanting in accuracy of detail. If the artist 
 would draw r the mountain carefullv, and then w'ork out 
 this same effect, with rock substance beneath it, he 
 might produce a valuable drawing. And the effect 
 itself, simple as it is, would have been twice as good 
 if the artist had not indulged himself with a bright 
 yellow light on his cow, and spots of pure white and 
 vcllow r about the roots of his pines, while the first rays 
 of dawn are still a mile or two above them, and can- 
 not get dowm to them for an hour and a half yet, at 
 
47 
 
 the very least. The picture, as it is, cannot he 
 considered a study from nature ; and it forms a 
 .connecting link between the works above noticed, 
 in which the artist’s intention , at least, is to be true, 
 and those forming the larger portion of the exhi- 
 bition, in which the intention is to be pretty, or clever. 
 These, though there is much dexterity in some of them, 
 need not separately be noticed, as they involve little 
 of interest, except variations in touch, or expedients 
 for getting opposition in blue and orange, yellow 
 and purple, according to the formula; of colour- 
 science. On the whole, the exhibition is greatly above 
 the average ; and the public seem to have discerned 
 this, for the little hits of blue which the artists like to 
 see completing their harmonies of colour, are now 
 wanting to very few of the pictures. I am heartily 
 glad to see this ; for of all modes of spending money 
 in self indulgence, none are perhaps so collaterally 
 kind, as the encouragement of an art so healthy and 
 pleasurable as Water-colour Painting. 
 
 I have no space left for detailed notice of the other 
 exhibitions, but cannot pass unnamed the very remark- 
 able picture in the rooms of the Society of British 
 Artists, No. 110, “Eavesdroppers,” by J. Campbell, 
 one of the most earnest pieces of domestic homely 
 truth I have ever seen : nor, in the French Exhibition 
 in Pall Mall, the series of cottage studies, by Edouard 
 Frere, 150 to 155, quite unequalled, it seems to me, 
 
48 
 
 in sincerity and truth of conception, though some- 
 what dimly painted. (Compare note on pictures in 
 Academy, No. 160.) I ought, perhaps, to have said, 
 truth of sight , rather than truth of conception ; for I 
 have been informed that this artist, rambling from 
 cottage to cottage, and telling the peasantry “ never to 
 mind him,” watches and seizes some real moment 
 of action in the undisturbed family ; recording, also, 
 with historical fidelity, the position of every article 
 of domestic furniture, and with such scrupulousness, 
 that being on one occasion requested to enrich a 
 somewhat blank piece of background by the addition 
 of some piece of delf or pewter which had caught the 
 purchaser’s eye in another study, “ No,” he replied, 
 “ I cannot do that : it was in another cottage.” 
 
 I consider these pictures, therefore, as examples of 
 true Historical Painting, and of very high value. It 
 is quite impossible to say what importance may, in 
 some future day, attach to such records of the French 
 peasant life of the 19th century. 
 
POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 Generally speaking, the arrangement of the pictures 
 in the Academy this year is better than usual : but 
 the errors which are usually notable in various parts 
 of the rooms seem to have been all concentrated 
 in the one crying error of putting No. 122 nearly 
 out of sight. I have a special dislike to pictures of 
 a slate-grey colour, as well as of girls in dresses of 
 pages ; for which cause, in glancing round the room, 
 I passed this “ Burd Helen” by, as one of the quaint 
 efforts of some younger member of the rising school, 
 neither deserving praise, nor warranting discourage- 
 ment. Further examination of it leads me to class it 
 as the second picture of the year ; its aim being higher, 
 and its reserved strength greater than those of any 
 other work except the “ Autumn Leaves.” Its white- 
 ness of colour results from the endeavour to give the 
 cold grey of the northern fall of day when the wind 
 
 D 
 
50 
 
 is bleak, and the clouds gathering for storm ; their 
 distant cumuli, heavy with rain, hanging on the rises 
 of the moorland. I cannot see, at the distance of the 
 picture from the eye, how far the painting of the pebbles 
 and heath has been carried; but I see just enough 
 of the figures to make me sure that the work is 
 thoughtful and intense in the highest degree. The 
 pressure of the girl’s hand on her side ; her wild, firm, 
 desolate look at the stream — she not raising her eyes as 
 she makes her appeal, for fear of the greater merci- 
 lessness in the human look than in the glaze of the 
 gliding water — the just choice of the type of the rider’s 
 cruel face, and of the scene itself — so terrible in hag- 
 gardness of rattling stones and ragged heath — are all 
 marks of the action of the very grandest imaginative 
 power, shortened only of hold upon our feelings 
 because dealing with a subject too fearful to be for a 
 moment believed true. There are one or two minor 
 faults in it — a horse nearly always stoops its head as 
 it approaches the edge of a ford, and the erectness of 
 its bearing in the picture takes away the look of truth 
 in the entire incident, more than one could have sup- 
 posed possible. I have some doubt also, whether, 
 unless the spectator were himself supposed to be wading 
 the ford, so as to bring the eye almost on a level with 
 the water surface, the reflection of the sky could so 
 
51 
 
 entirely prevent the appearance of the pebbles through 
 the water. They are rightly shown through the dark 
 reflection at the horse’s foot ; and rightly effaced, in a 
 great degree, by that of the sky ; hut I think they 
 should not have been entirely so. These are, however, 
 quite minor defects, and I merely name them lest they 
 should he brought forward by adverse critics as if 
 they were serious ones. 
 
LONDON : 
 
 rRINTED BY SMITH, ELDER AND CO., 
 15 , OLD BAILEY. 
 
NOTES 
 
 ON SOME OP 
 
 THE PRINCIPAL PICTURES 
 
 EXHIBITED IN THE BOOMS OP THE 
 
 ROYAL ACADEMY, 
 
 AND THE 
 
 SOCIETY OF PAINTERS IN WATER COLOURS, 
 
 ETC. 
 
 No. IIL — 1857. 
 
 ( Price One Shilling.) 
 

 
 
 London : 
 
 Printed by Spottiswoodk & Co. 
 New-street Square. 
 
 
NOTES 
 
 ON SOME OF 
 
 THE PRINCIPAL PICTURES 
 
 EXHIBITED IN THE ROOMS OF THE 
 
 ROYAL ACADEMY, 
 
 AND TITE 
 
 SOCIETY OF PAINTERS IN WATER COLOURS, 
 
 ETC. 
 
 gff. HI— 1857. 
 
 Bv JOHN RUSKIN, M.A. 
 
 AT7TIIOR OF “MODERN TAINTERS,” “STONES OF VENICE,” “SEVEN I AMTS OF 
 ARCHITECTURE,” ETC. ETC. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 SMITH, ELDER, & CO,' G5. CORN HILL. 
 
 1857. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 * 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 II 
 
 
NOTE 8, 
 
 ETC. ETC. 
 
 EXHIBITION OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY. 
 
 As year by year, in the Royal Academy, the prin- 
 ciples established by the Pre-Raphaelites are more 
 frankly accepted, and more patiently put in practice, 
 I observe that, notwithstanding all the substantial 
 advantage derived from them, two results must 
 necessarily follow, involving some disappointment 
 to the public, and great mortification to the artist. 
 I see that we shall have more wayside nooks, cor- 
 ners of green fields, pools of watercress streams, 
 and such like, than can, in the aggregate, contribute 
 much to the amusement of the restless and over- 
 excited crowd of London spectators ; and I see also 
 that there will be so high an average of perse- 
 verance and care brought to bear on every subject, 
 that both will pass unnoticed unless recommended 
 by more brilliant qualities ; and painters who 
 flattered themselves that the devotion of a year’s 
 honest labour could not but make their pictures 
 
 A 3 
 
G 
 
 conspicuous, and their names illustrious, will find, 
 with bitter disappointment, that patience and sin- 
 cerity are no longer distinctive, and that industry 
 will soon be less notable than sloth. 
 
 Respecting the approach of these inevitable ca- 
 lamities, it is only to be answered, to the complaint 
 of the public, that we ought no more to weary of 
 green lanes in Trafalgar Square than we do in Devon- 
 shire or Kent ; and, to the disappointment of the 
 artist, that although distinction cannot be, and should 
 not be, conferred by the practice of any particular 
 style, honesty of aim will always make his labour 
 useful, and his life happy. Distinction, if it is justly 
 won, can of course be won only by superior intellect ; 
 a change in the methods or objects of a school 
 does not raise the capacities of the scholars to 
 one level, nor render it more possible than it has 
 been hitherto to be illustrious in large companies. 
 But it ought to be a sufficient reward for much 
 painstaking, if the art we practise guides us into 
 continually greater sense of natural beauty, though 
 that beauty may be manifested to others as well as 
 to u« ; and enables us to gain an honourable live- 
 lihood, though one wholly independent of laurel 
 crowns. 
 
 The steady advance of just principles of painting 
 is, however, strangely complicated in the present 
 Exhibition with examples of error or of backsliding. 
 The Pre-Raphaelite cause has been doubly betrayed, 
 by the mistimed deliberation of one of its leaders, 
 and the inefficient haste of another; and we have 
 
7 
 
 to regret at once that the pictures of Holman Hunt 
 were too late for the Exhibition, and that those of 
 Everett Millais were in time for it. 
 
 We will, as before, glance round the rooms in the 
 order of the catalogue, sometimes breaking the line 
 to go in quest of such pictures as it may be desi- 
 rable to compare at once with that under consider- 
 ation. 
 
 8. Au Sixieme. (J. C. Horsley, A.) 
 
 A sweet sketch ; we can hardly, in the present stage 
 of general completion, call it more ; and 1 regret this, 
 for the subject is one which would have borne exqui- 
 site finish. The innocent life of the French grisette, 
 if we may suppose the “ Rigolettc ” of Eugene Sue 
 to be a type of a large class, is one of the pleasantest 
 to contemplate among all the conditions of labour 
 which are dependent on modern European luxury. 
 Surely, by the way, there should have been flowers at 
 her window, as well as that piece of extravagance, on 
 the table, into which she has been beguiled at the 
 March 6 aux Fleurs. The outlook of the window, 
 also, being “ au sixieme,” might have been made 
 very interesting ; views over Parisian roofs are 
 nearly always so. 
 
 14. Narcissus. (W. E. Frost, A.) 
 
 The young Dryad on the right gives us an inte- 
 resting example of ideal grace of action in “ finding ” 
 a daffodil. The bough which she raises with her 
 pretty arm has evidently been so extremely in her 
 
 A 4 
 
8 
 
 way, that the only wonder is how, under the oppres- 
 sive circumstances, she ever found the daffodil at all. 
 Dryads and Naiads are, I suppose, susceptible of 
 shadows only from themselves ; as I see the trees 
 cast none upon them. Mr. Frost knows best ; but if 
 it be so, Dryads and Naiads are bad models, and 
 mortal ladies, liable to chiaroscuro, would make 
 better pictures. 
 
 28. A Crab and Lobster Shore. (E. W. Cooke, A.) 
 
 This very careful study just misses being quite 
 right and quite beautiful for want of a very slight 
 degree of greater watchfulness — not greater labour. 
 Merely by way of an instance of the kind of comple- 
 tion wanted, note the shadow of the man most to the 
 right, leaning on the boat. It is a dark-brown shadow 
 on a violet boat ; in the probability of which, at that 
 distance, I do not believe, but let that pass; this dark- 
 brown shadow falls not only on the violet-coloured wood, 
 but on a stripe of red paint and on some seams of paler 
 colour. But it crosses all of them, remaining equally 
 dark-brown. Now, a shadow which was rich brown 
 on violet, would be orange-scarlet on crimson, and 
 deep golden-grey on white ; and all these changes 
 ought to have been shown in that shadow by separate 
 touches of pure colour. It is an infinitely more 
 important matter that these transitions of hue should 
 be given, than that mere force of chiaroscuro should 
 be reached. A similar though less demonstrable 
 monotony in hue causes all the careful work on 
 the shore to look coarse. Each pebble is painted 
 
9 
 
 with two or three touches of some unvaried colour 
 — usually about two for its bright, and one for its 
 dark side; whereas each side would, in Nature, have 
 been infinitely varied with hues either broken into 
 texture, or melting into gradation. No touch of 
 colour is or ever can be right, however small, if it 
 be monotonous ; and almost the first point of art 
 with a great workman is getting the colour to pal- 
 pitate within the touches, mingling it with endless 
 cunning, and never leaving one spot bare, or one hue 
 definable. 
 
 39. A Syrian Sheikh. (J. F. Lewis.) 
 
 When Mr. Lewis sends a picture to the Academy, 
 it ought not to be one which even his truest 
 admirers might easily pass without noticing. I 
 have seen many of his sketches, executed in about 
 three or four hours, which were more interesting 
 than this highly wrought painting, and I am quite 
 sure that he could paint a noble picture, rich in 
 composition, and powerful in rendering of human 
 character, in a couple of months, if he did not wil- 
 fully set himself subjects involving minuteness as 
 a chief part of their expression. He has much of the 
 power of Veronese and Tintoret; and yet he takes 
 Van Eyck for his model. Why not, if only by way 
 of practice, paint two bold pictures in the beginning 
 of the year ; one for the Water Colour Society, and 
 one for the Academy, and then devote the long days 
 to whatever finishing procedure he chose, on his pet 
 pictures ? — these last coming forth, in due or undue 
 
10 
 
 time, as it might be; but two vigorous works being, 
 without fail, produced annually. Many reasons occur 
 to me which might be urged in farther recommenda- 
 tion of such a plan ; one or two I will state presently, 
 with reference to Mr. Lewis’s drawing in the Water 
 Colour Exhibition. 
 
 41. Interior of Duomo, Milan. (D. Roberts, R. A.) 
 
 It must be, I think, nearly ten years, if not more, 
 since Mr. Roberts painted so careful a picture. It 
 is entirely true to the scene, and unusually forcible 
 and solemn in the effect of the painted window. But 
 why does Mr. Roberts always draw painted windows 
 lighter at the top than the bottom. I have often 
 seen them lighter at the bottom than the top : cer- 
 tainly I never saw them, as in No. 418., darker at the 
 bottom than the stone of their jambs; the whole 
 breadth of casement telling as a gloom instead of a 
 light. The tapestry about the pillars in this Milan 
 is thoroughly painted, and the whole picture very 
 enjoyable, as an expression of cathedral splendour, 
 though not of cathedral solemnity. 
 
 50. News from Home. (J. E. Millais, A.) 
 
 We will pass this for the present ; merely asking, as 
 we pass, whether Mr. Millais supposes this to be the 
 generally bright aspect of a Highlander on a cam- 
 paign ? or whether he imagines that Highlanders at 
 the Crimea had dress portmanteaus as well as knap- 
 sacks, and always put on new uniforms to read 
 letters from home in? 
 
11 
 
 78. Peter the Great. (D. Maclise.) 
 
 This is a less exaggerated and more conscientious 
 work than Mr. Maclise has yet produced. But 1 hope 
 his conscience will become keener yet ; for it is diffi- 
 cult to understand how a painter who goes through 
 so much hard work can persist in the idea that there 
 is no indistinctness in nature, or that there ought to 
 be none. I have heard it said that Mr. Maclise is 
 singularly far-sighted, and draws more decisively than 
 other painters, in the belief that he sees more clearly. 
 But though his sight had the range of the eagle’s, and 
 clearness of the lynx’s ; though it were as manifold 
 as a dragon-fly’s and as manageable as a chamaeleon’s, 
 there is a limit to his sight, as to all our sights. He 
 may perhaps be able to see that in Mr. Inchbold’s 
 “ Jungfrau ” (at the top of the room, No. 360.) the 
 foreground is covered with gentians and Alpine roses ; 
 but he cannot count the leaves of the roses, nor the 
 fdaments of the moss which embroiders the ground 
 with gold between the gentians’ blue. And, as far 
 as in his pictures I am able to compare his power 
 of sight with that of other people, he appears to 
 see, not more, but a great deal less, than the world 
 in general. When we commonplace people look 
 from Deptford to the other side of the Thames, we 
 do not see houses like these behind Peter the Great, 
 with blank square patches of grey for their doors and 
 windows. That appearance is precisely the one pre- 
 sented to us by the models of houses which children 
 buy to give their dolls dinner in. But when we look 
 
12 
 
 at real houses across the Thames, we see panes in the 
 windows (or rags in them, as the case may be) ; 
 bricks in the walls (or holes in them) ; planks in the 
 doors ; tiles on the roofs ; incidents of all kinds, in 
 form and colour, infinitely rich and abundant : more 
 or less confused, indeed ; but this confusion is not 
 with us, the unfortunate plurality, peculiar to distant 
 objects. All natural objects are confused to us, how- 
 ever near, however distant, because all are infinite. 
 Nay, I cannot but think, that if even Mr. Maclise 
 looks at a fly upon a wall ten yards from him, he may 
 see clearly that it is a fly, but he will not be able to 
 count the meshes in its wings ; and if he looks fairly, 
 and without any previous prejudice, at a girl’s hair, 
 however close to him, and however carefully curled, 
 he will find that it verily does not look like a piece 
 of wood carved into scrolls, and French -polished 
 afterwards, as the curls of these observant young 
 English ladies do. The stars, I think, are adverse 
 at present to the painting of hair, and all the immor- 
 tality that our pretty ladies can hope for in that 
 respect must be Berenice’s or Belinda’s ; for if Mr. 
 Maclise thinks that hair is made of brown wood, the 
 Pre-Raphaelites are all under the strongest conviction 
 that it is made of red sand, and pass great part of their 
 time in endeavours to enter Michael Scott’s service, 
 and make, if not ropes, at least locks, out of sea sand. 
 It is not often that I plead for any imitation of the 
 work of bygone days ; but, very seriously, I think no 
 pupil should be allowed to pass the examination or- 
 deal of our schools of painting, until he had copied, in 
 
13 
 
 a satisfactory manner, a lock of hair by Correggio. 
 Once let him do that with any tolerable success, 
 and he would know to the end of his life both what 
 the word “painting” meant; and with what flowing 
 light and golden honour the Maker of the human 
 form has crowned its power, and veiled its tender- 
 ness. 
 
 103. Sacred Song. (S. A. Hart, R. A.) 
 
 This is a good study ; better in many respects than 
 Mr. Hart’s larger pictures ; but these sacred singers 
 are not Dryads, are they ? or has Mr. Hart a spe- 
 cial theory concerning shadoAvs, — to wit, that fingers 
 may cast them on paper, but leaves cannot cast them 
 on foreheads ? 
 
 107. Titian preparing for his first Essay in Co- 
 louring. (W. Dyce, R. A.) 
 
 Well done ! Mr. Dyce, and many times Avell done ! 
 though it is of little use for any of us to say so to you ; 
 for Avhen a man has gone through such a piece of Avork 
 as this, he knoAvs he is right, and knoAvs it so calmly, 
 that it does not matter much to him Avhether people 
 see it or not. This is a notable picture in several 
 ways, being, in the first place, the only one quite 
 up to the high-water mark of Pre-Raphaelitism in 
 the Exhibition this year ; for, although Mr. Carrick’s 
 (No. 135.) is in several respects better painted, there 
 are no difficulties of form and distance presented by 
 his subject ; Avhile Mr. Dyce has encountered all 
 discoverable difficulties at once, and chosen a subject 
 
14 
 
 involving an amount of toil only endurable by the 
 boundless love and patience which are the first among 
 the Pre-Raphaelite characteristics. 
 
 In the second place, this is the first picture yet 
 produced by the school, in which the work has been 
 at all affect ed by a sculpturesque sense of grace in 
 form. Hitherto, every master who has ranked him- 
 self on this side, has been a colourist, and his 
 subject has been chosen and treated with chief 
 reference to colour, not intentionally, but because 
 a colourist can do no otherwise ; seeing, in all 
 that he has to show, effects of light and hue 
 first, and form secondarily. I cannot tell how far 
 Mr. Dyce is capable of becoming a colourist, but 
 he is not one yet ; and although this deficiency is 
 grievously hurtful to his work in many respects, in 
 one it has advantaged it: he has rendered more of 
 the finished grace and lovely composition of line in 
 that oak foliage than has yet been seen in oak; if 
 he could have coloured it better he would have 
 softened its edges, and carried the eye more to 
 gleams of green and shades of purple, slightly losing 
 the lines of leaf and branch ; for art always loses 
 something, or else we should not know it from 
 reality, and it is interesting to see, for the first 
 time, in the annals of the rising school, this inevit- 
 able loss taking place in colour instead of form ; 
 and the landscape painted with a sculptor’s precision, 
 and a sculptor’s love of grace. 
 
 Though, however, we may contentedly part with 
 a little green and purple in oak leaves for the sake 
 
15 
 
 of exquisiteness in delineation, we cannot part so 
 lightly with the blood of Titian ; no boy could ever 
 have coloured a Madonna’s face who had so little 
 colour in his own. And there was not the least 
 need for this failure ; because, though I do not think 
 Mr. Dyce will ever himself colour like a Venetian, 
 I see, by the way he has painted the flowers and 
 the boy’s dress, that he has quite as much eye for 
 colour as ever Leonardo had; and he may paint 
 flesh quite as well as Leonardo, if he likes. 
 
 Only one cavil more. Whatever Ridolfi may say 
 (I have not had time to look), Titian’s actual first 
 attempts must have been of a very different kind, 
 and in another order of landscape. It was not in 
 the green, delicate-leaved twilight of a lowland gar- 
 den, nor among its sweet measurements of level 
 grass, that the boy received his first impressions 
 of colour, but among the strong trunks and rugged 
 ground of the forests of Cadore, and in the dawns be- 
 yond its desolate mountains, when the massy clouds 
 stood quiet between the burning and the blue. Nor 
 would it have been a statue such as this which first 
 made him dream of the Madonna ; but rather some 
 fresco of a wayside chapel, where she stood with her 
 hands folded, and the moon under her feet, and the 
 companies of heaven around her, crown above crown, 
 circlet beyond circlet, — gleaming golden in the arched 
 shade. 
 
 Conceding, however, Mr. Dyce’s theory of the place, 
 and accepting, with perhaps a little farther demur, 
 the graceful and undisturbed dress of the boy for such 
 
1G 
 
 as the young Titian was likely to have worn to work in 
 (particularly if the work began with flower-hunting), 
 we may proceed to enjoy the picture heartily in all 
 other respects, — the expression of the boy being 
 excellent, and the flowers, grass, leafage, and dress, 
 down to the minutest fold of the purple lining of the 
 cap, painted so that no one need ever hope to do 
 much better. 
 
 It will take about an hour to see this picture pro- 
 perly. 
 
 135. Thoughts of the Future. (R. Carrick.) 
 
 Quite faultless, as far as I can see; and one of 
 the best, if not absolutely the best, examples of 
 balanced completion which the school has produced. 
 It is intensely difficult to put such finish into the 
 stripes of pillow and pattern of counterpane, and 
 yet not to let one thread become falsely conspi- 
 cuous. 
 
 It is not, of course, a work involving high powers 
 of invention, and therefore it does not yet place 
 its painter in the highest rank of artists ; but as 
 far as it reaches it is right : and I say little of it, 
 only because the subject is simple and the success 
 absolute: it is a picture of which explanation is 
 needless, and criticism impossible. 
 
 13G. The Mountain Path. (J. T. Linnell.) 
 
 Singularly luminous and full of air ; Mr. Linnell 
 seems to be making the most rapid advances ; and has 
 good cause to be happy in the general appreciation of 
 
17 
 
 his work ; for I notice that almost every person who 
 looks at this picture, enjoys, or praises it. 
 
 138. The young Brother. (W. Mulready, R.A.) 
 
 Without exception, the least interesting piece of 
 good painting I have ever seen in my life. I call 
 it a “ piece of painting,” not a “ picture,” because 
 the artist’s mind has been evidently fixed through- 
 out on his modes of work, not on his subject — 
 if subject it can be called. Is it not sorrowful to 
 see all this labour and artistical knowledge ap- 
 pointed, by a command issued from the grave, to paint, 
 — and employed for a couple of years in painting, — 
 for the perpetual possession and contemplation of the 
 English people, the ill-laced bodice of an untidy girl? 
 Yet the picture will be a valuable one ; perhaps the 
 most forcible illustration ever given of the frivolous 
 application of great powers. For this is not, observe, 
 the commonplace littleness of an inferior mind, nor 
 commonplace wantonness of a great one. We have 
 had examples enough of mean subjects chosen by 
 the trifling, and slight subjects chosen by the feeble: 
 nor is it a new thing to see great intellects overthrown 
 by impetuosity, or wasted in indolence ; stumbling 
 and lost among the dark mountains, or lying helpless 
 by the wayside, listless or desolate. All this we have 
 seen often ; but never, I think, till now, patience dis- 
 appointed of her hope, and conscientiousness mis- 
 taken in her aim ; labour beguiled of her reward, and 
 discretion warped in her choice. We have not known 
 until now that the greatest gifts might be wasted by 
 
 B 
 
18 
 
 prudence, and the greatest errors committed by pre- 
 cision. 
 
 For it is quite curious how, throughout this com- 
 position, the artist seems to have aimed at showing 
 the uselessness of all kinds of good. There is an 
 exquisite richness of decoration in the pattern of the 
 yellow dress, yet the picture is none the richer for 
 it; an exquisite play of colour in the flesh, yet 
 the girl is none the fairer for it : her dress is loose, 
 without grace ; and her beauty hidden, without de- 
 cency. The colour of the whole is pure, but it does 
 not refresh ; its arrangement subtle, but it does not 
 entertain : the child laughs without gaiety ; and the 
 youth reclines without repose. 
 
 We may be sure, however, — which is some com- 
 fort, — that failure of this total kind cannot take, 
 place unless there is somewhere a wilful departure 
 from truth : for truth, however ill-chosen, is never 
 wholly uninteresting. For instance, here, the sense 
 of country life is destroyed by the false forms of 
 the trees, which are only green horizontal flakes of 
 colour, not foliage ; and the dead blue dress of the 
 youth, though it seems at first well painted, is shaded 
 either with pure dark blue, dirty green, or violet, 
 wholly at random, and of course, therefore, with de- 
 struction of brilliancy as well as of relief; while the 
 folds of the girl’s gown, though they at first look 
 well drawn, are mere angular masses, without either 
 flow or fall. 
 
19 
 
 160. A Signal on the Horizon. (J. C. Hook, A.) 
 
 It seems to me that this is the sweetest and most 
 pathetic picture of an English boy that has been 
 painted in modern times ; and as for the thought, 
 and choice of scene, and rendering of expression 
 throughout the picture, they are all so true, so 
 touching, and so lovely, that I do not choose to 
 speak many words about them, lest I should do 
 the reader harm instead of good by some discordant 
 expression ; it would need a little finished idyl of 
 Tennyson to express them rightly. But when you 
 have made out all this design at your leisure, go at 
 once to the “ Ship Boy’s Letter” (545.) : for the whole 
 heart of rural England is in that, as of sailor Eng- 
 land in the other. Take care to read the direction of 
 the envelope on the ground with the Dover postmark, 
 
 “ William Dibble . . . Ongar Hatch, Surrey ; ” 
 and what is legible of the beginning of the letter, 
 
 “ Off Cape town. 
 
 “ My dear Father and Mother thank 
 
 God . . . dear sister.” 
 
 188. At Berncastle, on the Moselle. (G. C. Stan- 
 field.) 
 
 There are more signs of present progress and future 
 power in this painting, than in any I have yet seen 
 by the younger Stanfield ; it looks like an attentively 
 rendered portrait of the place. The hilly ground in 
 the distance is peculiarly well drawn (and was pecu- 
 liarly difficult to draw) ; and the shadow of the cross 
 on the ground is followed with care among the stones, 
 
 B 2 
 
20 
 
 instead of being laid in with random dashes to show 
 cleverness of touch. The place was worth drawing 
 too. That must be an interesting example of cross, 
 with the sculptured Madonna at the foot of it. But 
 Mr. Stanfield must either draw his figures better or 
 worse ; he must either make them agreeable, or leave 
 them slight. The oxen and their driver on the left, 
 and the figure with the basket, sitting at the foot of 
 the cross, are precisely types of the worst kind of 
 figure which it is possible to introduce in landscape, 
 — definitely ill- drawn, and pertinaciously repulsive. 
 
 201. A Swiss Meadow in June. (H. Moore.) 
 
 I cannot judge of this study, it gives me too much 
 pleasure ; but it seems to me very perfect in general 
 harmony of light, and in the sweet motion of the 
 clouds along the horizon. People are beginning, I 
 see, to feel Switzerland truly at last ; and how more 
 may sometimes be done by a single blue mound of 
 pines, like that on the right of this field, than by piled 
 pyramids of rock and snow. 
 
 204. Port na Spania. (C. Stanfield, R. A.) 
 
 I am very glad to see Mr. Stanfield’s work in this 
 exhibition on a little smaller scale than of late years; 
 and proportionally more careful. This is a most inte- 
 resting picture ; and quite notable for its new con- 
 ditions of cloud. Usually Mr. Stanfield gives us only 
 solid rolling clouds behind his hills ; I do not recol- 
 lect his ever before painting their floating films in 
 front of the crags, whose geology, by the way, seems 
 
21 
 
 rendered with the greatest care ; and beautifully pic- 
 turesque geology it is; the horizontal beds of the red 
 and black lavas opposing the pillared precipice at the 
 summit. Two points only seem to me to be regretted ; 
 the first, that the turf, half-way up the hill-side, looks 
 like a bank close to the spectator, the overhanging 
 edges having the aspect of one thickness of turf only, 
 though the little yellow and black figures below show 
 us that these turf edges are at least from twelve to 
 twenty feet high. The second, that the ship does 
 not look as if she struck with any force or weight : 
 I cannot get rid of the idea that she is a small model, 
 and, moreover, a small model drawn with no great 
 truth of perspective ; I am certain the curves of her 
 stern, where it rises from the deck, are false ; if she is 
 strained there, the strain should have been distinctly 
 shown, and if not, the error in the lines of the star- 
 board side would be demonstrable in a moment, 
 if it were worth while to give a diagram for the 
 purpose. 
 
 I like the black box particularly, though it does 
 not look like one that would float. How well Mr. 
 Stanfield could colour, if he liked, and took as much 
 pains always as he has with this one dark square ! 
 What a gain, too, would it not be to us all, if he did 
 take this trouble! The calm in the Gulf of Salerno, 
 for instance (371.), would be quite a delightful pic- 
 ture, if only the sails had a little sun upon them. 
 Even without sun, I wholly disbelieve in clay colour, 
 either in sails or seamen, or in anything whatever but 
 clay. 
 
 B 3 
 
22 
 
 213. Sir Roger de Coverley in Church. (C. R. 
 Leslie, R. A.) 
 
 Not attractive or interesting at first si"ht, it will 
 repay an attentive study with continual increase of 
 charm, and of wonderment. It is, of course, not well 
 coloured ; but though meagre and cold, it is not 
 coarse ; nor, in its own pale key, inharmonious ; while 
 the subtleties of expression are endlessly delightful 
 in their delicate mystery. This light touch of Leslie’s 
 seems to me to show an immense advance in power 
 since he gave us the somewhat laborious humour of 
 Sancho and the Duchess. 
 
 Do not miss the little girl holding up her hands 
 in awe, and delight, at the entire impropriety of 
 behaviour on the part of the swallow, neither by 
 servant nor knight to be touched on his wings, or 
 impressed in his mind. 
 
 219. Autumn Morning. (T. Creswick, R. A.) * 
 
 Well worked ; but too complex : the fallen trunk 
 with its bare branches on the right, though its lines, 
 in mere composition, are useful in repeating those of 
 the opposite bank, breaks up the picture by their 
 number ; we did not need so many straggling arms 
 there. Mr. Creswick is also always a little too heavily 
 green in foliage : when trees are green at all, they are 
 green to brighter and better purpose. 
 
 283. A Dream of the Past. (J. E. Millais, A.) 
 
 The high praise which I felt it my duty to give 
 to this painter’s work last year was warranted by 
 
23 
 
 my observing in it, for the first time, the entirely 
 inventive arrangement of colour and masses, which 
 can be achieved only by the highest intellect. I 
 must repeat briefly here what I have had occasion 
 hundreds of times to explain elsewhere, but never 
 yet often enough to get it generally understood, 
 
 — that painters are broadly divisible into three 
 classes : first, the large class who are more or less 
 affected or false in all their work, and whose pro- 
 ductions, however dexterous, are of no value what- 
 ever; secondly, the literally true painters, who copy 
 with various feeling, but unanimously honest purpose, 
 the actualities of Nature, but can only paint them 
 as they see them, without selection or arrangement; 
 whose works are therefore of a moderate, but ster- 
 ling value, varying according to the interest of the 
 subject : lastly, the inventive painters, who are not 
 only true in all they do, but compose and relieve the 
 truths they paint, so as to give to each the utmost 
 possible value ; which last class is in all ages a very 
 small one ; and it is a matter to congratulate a nation 
 upon, when an artist rises in the midst of it who 
 gives any promise of belonging to this great Ima- 
 ginative group of Masters. 
 
 And this promise was very visible in the works of 
 Millais last year ; a new power of conception being 
 proved in them — to instance two things among many 
 
 — by the arrangement of the myrtle branches in the 
 “ Peace,” and the play of the colours in the heap 
 of “ Autumn Leaves.” There was a slovenliness and 
 imperfection in many portions, however, which I did 
 
 B i 
 
24 
 
 not speak of, because I thought it accidental, — con- 
 sequent, probably, on too exulting a trial of his new 
 powers, and likely to disappear as he became accus- 
 tomed to them. But, as it is possible to stoop to 
 victory, it is also possible to climb to defeat ; and 
 I see with consternation that it was not the Par- 
 nassian rock which Mr. Millais was ascending, but 
 the Tarpeian. The change in his manner, from the 
 years of “ Ophelia” and “ Mariana” to 1857, is 
 not merely Fall — it is Catastrophe ; not merely a loss 
 of power, but a reversal of principle : his excel- 
 lence has been effaced, “as a man wipeth a dish — 
 wiping it, and turning it upside down.” There may 
 still be in him power of repentance, but I cannot 
 tell : for those who have never known the right 
 way, its narrow wicket-gate stands always on the 
 latch ; but for him who, having known it, has wan- 
 dered thus insolently, the by-ways to the prison- 
 house are short, and the voices of recall are few. 
 
 I have not patience much to examine into the 
 meaning of the picture under consideration. If it 
 has one, it should not have been disguised by the 
 legend associated with it, which, by the way, does 
 not exist in the Romance from which it professes to 
 * be quoted, and is now pretty generally understood 
 to be only a clever mystification by one of the artist’s 
 friends, written chiefly with the view of guarding 
 the awkward horse against criticism. I am not sure 
 whether the bitterest enemies of Pre-Raphaelitism 
 have yet accused it of expecting to cover its errors 
 by describing them in bad English. 
 
25 
 
 Putting the legend, however, out of question, the 
 fancy of the picture is pretty, and might have been 
 sublime, but that it is too ill painted to be dwelt upon. 
 The primal error in pictorial grammar, of painting 
 figures in twilight as bright as yellow and vermilion 
 can make them, while the towers and hills, far above 
 and far more exposed to light, are yet dark and blue, 
 could hardly have been redeemed by any subsequent 
 harmonies of tone, much less by random brilliancy : 
 and the mistake of painting the water brighter than 
 the sky which it reflects, though constant among 
 inferior painters in subordinate parts of their work, is 
 a singularly disgraceful one for a painter of standing. 
 
 These, and the other errors or shortcomings in 
 the work, too visible to need proving, and too many 
 to bear numbering, are all the less excusable because 
 the thought of the picture was a noble one, and 
 might seem both justly to claim, and tenderly to en- 
 courage, the utmost skill and patience in its render- 
 ing. It does not matter whether we take it as a fact 
 or as a type : whether we look verily upon an old 
 knight riding home in the summer twilight, with the 
 dust of his weary day’s journey on his golden armour, 
 taking the woodman’s children across the river with 
 him, holding the girl so tenderly that she does not so 
 much as feel the grasp of the gauntlets, but holds the 
 horse’s mane as well, lest she should fall ; or whether 
 we receive it as a type of noble human life, tried in 
 all war, and aged in all counsel and wisdom, finding 
 its crowning work at last to be bearing the children 
 of poverty in its arms, and that the best use of its 
 
26 
 
 panoply of battle is to be clasped by the feeble 
 lingers, wearied with gathering the sheddings of the 
 autumnal woods. It might bear a deeper meaning 
 even than this : it might be an image less of life 
 than of the great Christian Angel of Death, who 
 gives the eternal nobleness to small and great; 
 and clasps the mean and the mighty with his 
 golden armour : Death, bearing the two children 
 with him across the calm river, whither they know 
 not; one questioning the strange blue eyes which 
 she sees fixed on heaven, the other only resting 
 from his labour, and feeling no more his burden. 
 All this, and much more than this — for the picture 
 might be otherwise suggestive to us in a thousand 
 ways, — it would have brought heme at once to the 
 heart of every spectator, had the idea but been 
 realised with any steadiness of purpose or veracity 
 of detail : as it stands, it can only be considered as a 
 rough sketch of a great subject, injudiciously ex- 
 posed to general criticism, and needing both modi- 
 fication in its arrangement and devoted labour in 
 its future realisation. 
 
 I am sorrowfully doubtful, however, how far Mr. 
 Millais may yet be capable of such labour. There 
 are two signs conspicuous in his this year’s work, 
 of augury strangely sinister ; the first, an irregu- 
 larity in the conception of facts, quite unprecedented 
 in any work that I know in the Realistic schools 
 of any age ; the second, a warped feeling in the 
 selection of facts, peculiar, as far as I know, to 
 Millais from his earliest youth. 
 
27 
 
 I say first an irregularity of conception. Thus 
 it seems only to have struck the painter suddenly, 
 as he was finishing the knight’s armour, that it 
 ought to be more or less reflective ; and he gives 
 only one reflection in it — of the crimson cloth 
 of the saddle, that one reflection being violently 
 exaggerated : for though, from a golden surface, it 
 would have been, as he has rendered it, warmer than 
 the crimson, no reflection is ever brighter than the 
 thing reflected. But all the rest of the armour is 
 wholly untouched by the colour of the children’s 
 dresses, or of their glowing faces, or of the river or 
 sky. And if Mr. Millais meant it to be old armour, 
 rough with wear, it ought to have been deadened and 
 darkened in colour, hacked with edges of weapons, 
 stained with stains of death ; if he meant it merely to 
 be dusty, the dust should have lain white on some 
 of the ridges, been clearly absent from others, and 
 should have been dark where it was wet by the 
 splashing of the horse. The ripple of the water 
 against the horse itself, however, being unnoticed, 
 it is little wonder if the dash of the chance 
 spray is missed. A more manifest sign still of 
 this irregular appliance of mind, is in the fact 
 that the peacock’s plume, the bundle of wood, 
 and the stripes of the saddle-cloth are painted with 
 care; while the children’s faces, though right in 
 expression, are rudely sketched, with unrounded 
 edges, half in rose colour and half in dirty brown. 
 Vestiges of his old power of colouring, still un- 
 attainable by any other man, exist, however, in 
 
28 
 
 that saddle-cloth, and in the peacock’s feather. 
 But the second sign, the warping of feeling, is 
 a still more threatening one. The conception of 
 his second picture (408.) is an example of the dark- 
 est error in judgment, — the fatalest failure in the 
 instinct of the painter’s mind. At once coarse and 
 ghastly in fancy, exaggerated and obscure in ac- 
 tion, the work seems to have been wrought with 
 the resolute purpose of confirming all that the bit- 
 terest adversaries of the school have delighted to 
 allege against it ; and whatever friendship has mur- 
 mured, or enmity proclaimed, of its wilful preference 
 of ugliness to beauty, is now sealed into everlasting 
 acceptance. It is not merely in manifest things, like 
 the selection of such a model as this for the type 
 of the foot of a Spanish lady, or the monstrous 
 protrusion of the lover’s lip in his intense appeal 
 for silence; but the dwelling perpetually upon the 
 harshest lines of form, and most painful conditions 
 of expression, both in human feature and in natural 
 objects, which long ago, when they appeared in 
 Millais’ picture of the “Carpenter’s Shop,” restrained 
 the advance of Pre-Raphaelitism ; and would arrest 
 its advance now, unless there were other painters 
 to support its cause, who will disengage it from un- 
 naturalness of error, and vindicate it from confusion 
 of contempt. 
 
 For Mr. Millais there is no hope, but in a return 
 to quiet perfectness of work. I cannot bring myself 
 to believe that powers were given to him only to be 
 wasted, which arc so great, even in their aberration, 
 
29 
 
 that no pictures in the Academy are so interest- 
 ing as these, or can be for a moment compared with 
 them for occasional excellence and marvellousness of 
 execution. Yet it seems to be within the purpose 
 of Providence sometimes to bestow great powers 
 only that we may be humiliated by their failure, or 
 appalled by their annihilation ; and sometimes to 
 strengthen the hills with iron, only that they may 
 attract the thunderbolt. A time is probably fixed in 
 every man’s career, when his own choice determines 
 the relation of his endowments with his destiny; and 
 the time has come when this painter must choose, 
 and choose finally, whether the eminence he cannot 
 abdicate is to make him conspicuous in honour, or in 
 ruin. 
 
 355. Bon Jour, Messieurs. (F. Stone, A.) 
 
 Thank you, Frank ; very heartily thank you. 
 There has not been a greater benefit, in way of pic- 
 tures, bestowed on us this year. It is good for us, 
 after walking, as walk we must so often, up and down 
 the grey streets of London, watching the gay carriages 
 with the sorrowful faces in them, and the fading 
 beauties, and wasting pleasures, and yet more wast- 
 ing toils, to remember that within a bird’s flight of 
 us, along the top of Calais’ cliffs, the fisher’s cart- 
 horse trots to market through the morning air ; that 
 the idle fisher-boy tosses his limbs behind for glad- 
 ness ; and that fisher-girls are laughing, with a bird’s 
 song in every laugh ; — crowned with sacredness of 
 happy life, and strength of careless peace, and helpful 
 innocence. 
 
30 
 
 442. Morning after a Gale. (E. W. Cooke, A.). 
 
 Very awful, after we have looked at it a little 
 while ; at least that bronze vessel is so to me — a ship 
 that is not, and yet is, — the true spectre ship, whose 
 sight is destruction ; nor less so the skeleton of the 
 boat with the wild waves sifting through the bones of 
 her, and the single figure waiting on the desolate 
 ship’s deck, and saved by its faithfulness. Was 
 Mr. Cooke indeed a little inspired by Turner’s great 
 “Shipwreck;” or is the partial resemblance of ar- 
 rangement, in the position of the larger boat and 
 wreck, accidental ? I wisli he would try to beat 
 Turner in one thing, in which not only Turner, but all 
 marine painters whatever, to this day, are conquer- 
 able enough by a little pains, — sea foam , namely, 
 When shall we have foam as well as waves ? It can 
 be drawn, not quite rightly, but far better than ever 
 hitherto; and the first painter who succeeds with it, 
 provided he is at all a good artist in other respects, 
 and has not merely found out a trick of foam, will 
 make all by-gone sea pieces look like the worn-out 
 canvass waves of a theatre. 
 
 501. Montaigne. (H. Wallis.) 
 
 Not, I think, quite so successful as the “ Chatter- 
 ton ” of last year ; but it contends with greater dif- 
 ficulties, and is full of marvellous painting. It is 
 terribly hurt by its frame, and by the surrounding 
 colours and lights ; seen through the hand, the effect 
 is almost like reality. That is a beautifully character- 
 istic fragment of homely French architecture seen 
 through the window. 
 
3 L 
 
 I should think this picture required long looking 
 at, and that it is seen to greater disadvantage by 
 careless passers by than almost any of its neighbours. 
 
 542. Rydal. (S. M. Carrick.) 
 
 This is the most important of the various studies 
 from nature, all more or less successful, which sur- 
 round us in the Academy this year. I am heartily 
 sorry to pass them by, en masse, especially as most 
 of them, such as 214. 215. 268. 1136. and others, 
 are incomparably more elaborate and valuable than 
 any thing of the kind I have to notice in the water- 
 colour exhibitions ; only the water-colour draughts- 
 men have more power in educating public taste, 
 partly from reputation and partly from the pleasant- 
 ness of water-colour as a decoration of rooms ; so that 
 I can give no more time to these oil studies, various 
 and beautiful as they are. This large one is most 
 reverent in its fidelity to the reflections of the quiet 
 lake, most skilful in its rendering of the dim light 
 on the distant hills. I never have seen retiring dis- 
 tance, in light of this kind, so well rendered. The 
 stream has been studied with equal care ; but it is 
 impossible to paint clear running water ripple by 
 ripple: some conventionality of freedom must be 
 allowed always. 
 
 556. The going down to Nazareth. (AV. C. T. 
 Dobson.) 
 
 Very tender in expression, but commonplace ; and 
 in general idea more or less false or improbable. 
 Mr. Dobson must see to it, or he will be cast away on 
 
32 
 
 the rock of Purism ; he is already, both in this 
 picture and the “Reading the Psalms” (No. 63.), 
 more infected than he was last year by the great 
 Purist theory of the sanctity of clay colour. Now it 
 is precisely clay and its colour which are the least 
 sacred things in the world : because all heavenly 
 effort or action whatever is a conquest of the clay ; 
 from the first conquest of it by the breath of life, to 
 the last conquest of it by the baptism with fire ; and 
 in the least things as in the greatest, it is fire and its 
 colour which are sacred, — not dust. These imperfect 
 religious painters, headed and misguided by Ary 
 Scheffer, are all just like Naaman ; they think they 
 cannot worship rightly unless there “ be given unto 
 thy servant two mules’ burden of earth.” 
 
 562. Waiting for the Verdict. (A. Solomon.) 
 
 Very full of power; but rather a subject for en- 
 graving than painting. It is too painful to be in- 
 vested with the charm of colour. 
 
 597. Ploughing at Seville. (R. Ansdell). 
 
 More interesting than cattle pieces are generally ; 
 but without special merit of any kind, and quite cut 
 of its proper place. Why should work like this be 
 on the line ? — unless the pictures are treated as furni- 
 ture only, and the black masses in this case set off 
 the room : I believe there is an arbitrary rule about 
 the size of animals, which allows those drawn to 
 a diminished scale to be on the line, but mercilessly 
 raises those which like Landseer’s (77.) are of life 
 size ; T believe all such rules to be very harmful. 
 
33 
 
 Good work should be put near us, whatever its 
 scale ; and we ought to be able at our ease to study 
 the wonderful execution of the fur in Landseer’s 
 large grey mountain hare, and to see, without a tele- 
 scope, that there is a hare in Mr. Oakes’ exquisite 
 Welsh foreground (596.). How foolish we shall 
 think ourselves, when once we get rooms where 
 we can put our year’s pictures every one in a 
 good place, for ever having done painters all this 
 injustice, and brought upon ourselves all this dis- 
 comfort, merely for want of a furlong or two more 
 of wall, and Avaste ground ! 
 
 602. Autumn FloAvers. (Miss A. F. Mutrie.) 
 
 This lady’s work is always beautiful ; but there is 
 some incongruity between the luxuriant evidence of 
 education in the group of central flowers, and the 
 roughness ol the ferny bank they rest upon. All 
 true lovers of art, or of flowers, Avould rejoice in see- 
 ing a bank of blossoms fairly painted ; but it must be 
 a bank Avith its own blossoms, not an unexpected 
 picnic of polite flowers in the country. Neither 
 need the sky be subdued in colour. I believe the 
 most beautiful position in which floAvers can possibly 
 be seen is precisely their most natural one ; Ioav 
 floAA'ers relieved by grass or moss, and tree blossoms 
 relieved against the sky. IIow it happens that no 
 flower-painter lias yet been moved to draw a cluster 
 of boughs of peach blossom, or cherry blossom, or 
 apple blossom, just as they groiv, Avith the deep blue 
 sky betAveen every bud and petal, is more than I can 
 
 c 
 
34 
 
 understand; except that I know, in art, the likeliest 
 and properest thing for every body to do is almost 
 always the last that will be done. 
 
 614. Adopting a Child. (F. B. Barwell.) 
 
 A well considered and expressive picture ; some- 
 what hurt by the unmanageable phenomena of modern 
 life, in dress and book-cases ; which are the more to 
 be regretted, because the arrangement of purple and 
 green in the mother’s shawl shows that Air. Barwell 
 could produce majestic pieces of colour with other 
 materials. It tells its story plainly enough ; but if 
 the spectator passes hastily, he might nevertheless 
 miss the indication of the reason for the adoption, in 
 the portrait of their own lost child, which hangs 
 behind the parents ; and to which the girl, shrinking 
 from them to her mother’s side, evidently bears a 
 close resemblance. 
 
 994. "When the Leaves begin to turn. (A. W. 
 Hunt.) 
 
 Consummate in easy execution and blended colour ; 
 there is nothing else like it this year. The subject is 
 ill chosen, being confused in mass and incapable of 
 effective treatment ; but, taken merely as a study, 
 birch foliage and mossy stones cannot be done better. 
 I do not know what kind of feelings the inferior 
 painters of such subjects have, whose works, by 
 chance or right, are on the line this year in the 
 principal rooms ; but I think that if I had painted 
 some of those well-shown foregrounds I would 
 
35 
 
 rather have dashed my hand through my picture at 
 once, than have left it in a good place while such 
 a work as this was on the ground. No. 761., by 
 the same hand, is a very remarkable dratving, and 
 the best study of sky that I can find this year ; no- 
 table especially for its expression of the consumption 
 of the clouds, — not their driving aAvay, but melting 
 away, in the warmer air. A third work, 566., ap- 
 parently the most important of the three, is hung 
 out of sight. 
 
 The writer of the judicious and interesting cri- 
 ticism Avhich has this year given so beneficial a 
 direction to the authority of the “ Times,” in matters 
 of art, has anticipated nearly all 1 had to say on the 
 subject of Portraiture*, except in one particular. 
 Some expressions in the paper of Wednesday last, 
 respecting the tiresomeness of conventional back- 
 grounds, might be construed by a hasty reader into 
 general blame of distmetness or completion in back- 
 grounds ; and this Avas not, I believe, Avhat the Avriter 
 meant ; certainly not Avhat he ought to have meant. 
 The accessaries of a portrait should be completely 
 painted, both for the sake of their artistical use, and 
 explanatory power. Distinctness and force of col- 
 
 * My notes on the pictures of Millais might also have been 
 shortened, if I could have anticipated the careful analysis given 
 in the “ Times;” but as they were in corrected type before the 
 appearance of the Wednesday’s paper, I left them as they were 
 written, the coincidence in the points chosen for animadversion 
 being confirmatory of the justice of the independent criticisms. 
 
 c 2 
 
36 
 
 lateral masses are of the greatest use in relieving the 
 more delicate gradations of colour in a well painted 
 face ; and the greatest portrait- painters, Titian, 
 Veronese, Velasquez, and Raphael, introduce the 
 most trenchant, clear, and complete backgrounds. 
 Indeed the first three so rejoiced in quantity of 
 accessaries, that, when engaged on important por- 
 traits, they Avould paint large historical pictures 
 merely by way of illustration or introduction. The 
 priceless Veronese, which I rejoice to hear has been 
 just secured for the nation, the Triumph of Alex- 
 ander, was painted only to introduce portraits of the 
 Pisani ; and chiefly to set off to the best advantage 
 the face of one fair girl. Generally speaking, if a 
 painter is great, he will find his background ser- 
 viceable in proportion to its space ; and although, 
 in modern portraiture, splendour of background is 
 rarely possible or suitable, its definiteness should 
 always be insisted upon ; not only because it tends 
 to make the manner of the work better throughout, 
 but because accessaries, rightly designed, are ex- 
 planatory of character ; and Ave like, or ought to like, 
 better to see a man in whom Ave are interested, 
 sitting in his favourite room and accustomed chair, 
 than isolated among the sullen fogs or idle fancies 
 of idealism. 
 
 I cannot speak of Architecture, as it A\ r ould need 
 the dAvelling at length on almost inexplicable details ; 
 but I take leave to Avish the good people of Halifax 
 joy of their ToAvn-hall (1073.), that is to be, I hope, 
 pleading only Avitli Mr. Scott for a little interference 
 
37 
 
 of some sort with the lines of quatrefoils in its roof 
 (1067.); and I ought not to speak of Sculpture, 
 because I have little pleasure in it when unconnected 
 with architecture: so that I only go into the sculp- 
 ture-room to look at my friends’ works, — such as 
 Mr. Munro’s bust of Dr. Acland (1280.), which I 
 hope I am not wrong in thinking beautiful ; or 
 Mr. AVoolner’s medallion of Carlyle (1370.), which I 
 know I am not wrong in thinking like. It is much 
 to be regretted that Mr. AVoolner’s highly wrought 
 bust of Tennyson was not sent here instead of to 
 Manchester, as we might then have compared in it, 
 and in Air. Brodie’s (1354.), two conceptions of the 
 noble head, each containing elements which are 
 wanting in the other. 
 
 But what a dark sign it is of the state of our 
 architectural schools that there should never be seen 
 in this room one example of sculpture applicable to 
 external decoration, or subordinated to an architec- 
 tural use ! 
 
 c 3 
 
38 
 
 SOCIETY OF PAINTERS IN WATER COLOURS. 
 
 There is a general character manifested in the 
 pretty and richly decorated room of this Society, 
 which appears to me deserving of some serious 
 consideration before we take note of any of the 
 drawings separately. 
 
 Here are three hundred and four drawings by 
 forty-seven* painters, many of them elaborately 
 finished, all showing that the artists have given 
 their complete energy to them ; and among the 
 three hundred and four there is not one which 
 expresses, or summons, a serious thought. There 
 are, indeed, a few love passages, but they reach no 
 farther than an anxious look or a joyful hesitation. 
 There are the children in the wood, shown by 
 gaslight in the middle of moonlight ; and there is a 
 tearful pilgrim, with a superb scallop, and a staff which 
 it is to be hoped, as lie is an old man, that during 
 most of his pilgrimage somebody else has carried for 
 him. There is an angel under great difficulties in 
 appearing to the shepherds, in consequence of their 
 unanimously refusing to look at him : and there are 
 
 * Why I say three hundred and four instead of three hundred 
 and seventeen will appear presently. 
 
39 
 
 two pretty fancies, of a peasant’s return, in summer 
 night, to his cottage among the deep corn ; and a 
 fisherman’s, in stormy summer dawn, to his cottage 
 on the shore. I think these are all that are so much 
 as intended to be pathetic or suggestive. 
 
 Now there must be, of course, a certain proper and 
 healthy demand in London, every spring, for pictures 
 which mean nothing, just as there is for strawberries 
 and asparagus. We do not want to be always phi- 
 losophical, and may wisely ask for and enjoy a cer- 
 tain average number of paintings of roses and quinces, 
 of showers and sunbeams, of beaches where we 
 bathe, and glens where we shoot or clamber. All this 
 is perfectly right and refreshing ; nevertheless, a So- 
 ciety which takes upon itself, as its sole function, the 
 supply of these mild demands of the British public, 
 must be prepared ultimately to occupy a position 
 much more corresponding to that of the firm of Fort- 
 num and Mason, than to any hitherto held by a 
 body of artists; and to find their art becoming essen- 
 tially a kind of Potted Art, of an agreeable flavour, 
 suppliable and taxable as a patented commodity, but 
 in no wise to be thought of or criticised as Living 
 art. For living art, or art at all, properly so called, 
 never has been, nor can be, developed in answer to a 
 demand of this inferior kind ; nor is it possible even 
 for a simple landscape-painter to treat any of his 
 simplest subjects worthily, unless, as he passes 
 through the world, other things strike his eyes and 
 fancy than the mere pleasantnesses of its outward 
 aspect. Every form and colour bears new meaning to 
 
 c 4 
 
40 
 
 us, as soon as we begin to understand the greater 
 purposes of life, and to feel the interest of its events. 
 We may stand aside from both, set no hand to any 
 but our own quiet work, pass our days in happy 
 ramble or rest, sketch-book in hand, among the in- 
 nocent glens and by the silent, shores ; but if, mean- 
 time, we are incapable of such reflection as shall 
 make us know, in the depth of those glens, and in 
 the cry of'the herd of waves about the beach, their 
 true connection with the thoughts, and joys, and 
 sorrows of men, we never shall paint one leaf nor 
 foam-wreath rightly. 
 
 I said just now, that the drawings in the room 
 were three hundred and four only, because I wished 
 to make separate reference to those of Mr. David 
 Cox. I believe the health of this artist does not 
 admit of his now devoting much labour to his pic- 
 tures ; and therefore that we ought not to class 
 them among the other works, as representative of 
 effort, but rather as expressions of the feeling of a 
 painter’s mind at rest. Be this as it may, they form 
 a complete exception to the general law of failure in 
 sentiment, of which I have been speaking. They are 
 deeply pathetic ; and, as far as they reach, exquisitely 
 harmonious in tone : the Caernarvon, in its warm 
 grey walls and dark sea, and the Bolton Abbey *, in 
 its melancholy glow of twilight, are strangely true, 
 
 * No. 299. The degree of light and warmth obtained on the 
 ruins by the use of subdued colour is by much the most instruc- 
 tive thing, to me, in the exhibition 
 
41 
 
 and deeply felt. But there is not any other land- 
 scape which comes near these works of David Cox in 
 simplicity or seriousness. 
 
 Perhaps the Highland Scene, No. 11., by Richard- 
 son, may be taken as giving the clearest example of 
 this fault, in the work of a very clever artist. Mr. 
 Richardson is gradually gaining in manual power, 
 and opposes cobalt and burnt sienna very pleasantly. 
 But he seems always to conceive a Highland landscape 
 only as a rich medley of the same materials — a rocky 
 bank, blue at one place and brown at another ; some 
 contorted Scotch firs, some fern, some dogs, and some 
 sportsmen : the whole contemplated under the cheering 
 influence of champagne, and considered every way 
 delightful. The Highlands arc delightful, but, for the 
 most part, in another way than this. I do not re- 
 gret that Mr. Richardson has given this one reading 
 of them, the reading that pleasantly occurs to an 
 active youth in his long vacation ; but there ought 
 to be, on the walls, the other readings, too, of those 
 desolate glens, with the dark-brown torrents surging 
 monotonously among their lower rocks, cutting them 
 into the cup-like pools where the deep stream eddies 
 like black oil, and the moth, fallen weary out of the 
 wind on its surface, circles round and round, struggling 
 vainly ; of the little spaces under the fern where the 
 glen widens, and the sward is smooth as if for knights’ 
 lists, and sweet as if for dancing of fairies’ feet, and 
 lonely as if it grew over an enchanted grave ; of those 
 low alder thickets, set in soft shade where the stream 
 is broad by the stepping-stones — the drowned lamb 
 
lying on the bank, under their stooping leaves, since 
 the last flood ; of those sweet winding paths through 
 the oat-fields, and under the ash- trees, where the air 
 breathes so softly when the berries are blush- scarlet 
 in the setting sun ; and more softly still when the 
 cold, clear, northern light dies over the purple ranges 
 jagged and wild. Are not these seen everywhere ? 
 and seen day by day, and yet never thought upon ; 
 felt, I believe, more at his heart by the half-starved 
 shepherd boy, than by the skilfullest of our painters. 
 And I am the more sorry that Mr. Richardson does 
 not yet feel the expression in Highland scenery, 
 because I think there may be traced considerable 
 power of composition in the passages of these dis- 
 tant hills ; and the large piece of rock on the left is 
 very nearly well drawn : in fact, the old established 
 system of taking out triangles of light, and laying 
 on sharp edges of darkness, has been nearly per- 
 fected by Mr. Richardson, and does so much more 
 in his hands than most other people’s, that if he ever 
 determines to draw in a pure and right way, I should 
 think he would reach far. lie seems to have a 
 good eye for colour; there is a very pretty piece of 
 speckled grey in the square rock on the right at the 
 bottom ; but he is not at the slightest trouble to fit 
 the colours of shadows to the lights, or of dark sides 
 to light sides; and his ungrammatical brilliancy will 
 therefore always look only like what it is — very 
 pretty warm colour, but never like sunshine. It is 
 worth while to stand midway between the screens 
 on this side of the room, and look alternately from 
 
43 
 
 this drawing to Mr. Fripp’s (37.), which is very 
 true in relations of sun and shadow colour. Mr. Ri- 
 chardson’s Avill perhaps, even after many glances, 
 be thought the prettier drawing ; but only in Mr. 
 Fripp’s will be seen the Highland sun and air. 
 
 And Mr. Richardson is the less to be excused for 
 not entering completely into Highland character, be- 
 cause he can enter into no other. He has fallen so 
 passively into the habit of drawing rocks in sharp 
 angles, and a wild litter of fern and grass among 
 them, that he can compose a landscape of no other 
 materials ; and we find “ Catanzaro, the capital of 
 Calabria” (94.), looking like a number of models of 
 Italian buildings, erected by some imaginative High- 
 land proprietor in Rosshire. 
 
 18. Corn-field, near Hastings. (C. Davidson.) 
 
 Very true and modest; as are all Mr. Davidson’s 
 works. His companion picture (39.) gives me a great 
 desire to go hay-making in Sussex this summer. 
 What a lovely field that must be ! 
 
 37. Scene at the Head of Glencoe. (G. Fripp.) 
 
 This drawing has just missed being an exceedingly 
 fine one : the glow of red light on the hills on the 
 right is perfectly imagined ; the slightest more grada- 
 tion in it, and a purer touch or two at the brightest 
 part, would have brought it into great beauty. The 
 cows are individually stiff, but excellently put in 
 place. The whole is full of genuine work, and real 
 look of Highlands. 
 
14 
 
 12C. “ On the Derwent,” is also very warm with 
 sweet sunshine ; but Mr. Fripp lets his colours get 
 awkwardly entangled at the edges among his distant 
 hills : he ought to use them much more neatly, and 
 keep them purer, and draw more carefully. His aim 
 in drawing is very right indeed ; the rock structure 
 in those Glencoe masses being quite true, only messed 
 a little in the working. 
 
 45. Yal St. Nicolas. (J. D. Harding 
 
 I am glad to see the works of this master again 
 in this room ; but they do not look quite so distinct 
 from the rest as they used to be : they are, if I mis- 
 take not, looser and flatter in touch than in old times. 
 This is a clever drawing; but Mr. Harding need not 
 hope to draw Switzerland on these cheap terms. The 
 flanks of the Alps are by no means films of blue colour, 
 but very substantial and sturdy masses of chestnuts 
 and walnuts, of corn-fields and vineyards, of black 
 pines and green meadows ; all positively declaring 
 themselves for pines, walnuts, corn, and grass; and 
 requiring as such to be drawn; on peril, otherwise, 
 of instant loss both of character in the nearer scene, 
 and of height in the peaks beyond. If you hide the 
 upper range of mountains in this drawing with your 
 hand, you will find the lower one forms a very satis- 
 factory distance ; as such, the superimposed hills 
 merely dwarf and encumber it; while, had it been 
 drawn with its true detail, it would, on the contrary, 
 have exalted them. 
 
45 
 
 57. Glenarm, County Antrim. (H. Gastineau.) 
 
 There is a great deal of daylight and air in this 
 picture ; and Mr. Gastineau’s work is taking at pre- 
 sent rather a peculiar position on the walls, as almost 
 alone representative of the old pure water-colour 
 painting, executed without much subsequent sponging 
 for texture, or body-colour washes and dashes. This 
 drawing, as well as the more vigorous “ St. Maurice,’ 
 is very pure in execution, and has in consequence a 
 pleasant unaffected character not otherwise attain- 
 able. 
 
 61. Sunset. Winter: a Black Frost. (C. Bran- 
 white.) 
 
 This painter has, for some time back, shown con- 
 siderable ability; but he must not hope to reach 
 any sterling qualities without much closer study 
 of nature. It is really high time, considering how 
 many treatises are written on perspective and op- 
 tics, that our painters should understand, once for 
 all, the difference between shadows and reflections ; 
 and that, as some five or six hundred pictures of 
 pretension are painted annually, with reflection of 
 sun or moon in water, it should be generally under- 
 stood that the reflection of the sun does not ra- 
 diate, any more than that of a white ball or a white 
 Avafer radiates ; but that it is either a circle (in abso- 
 lutely calm water), an oval, more or less elongated (in 
 partly disturbed water), or, under certain circum- 
 stances, especially when the sun is low, a vertical 
 pillar, more or less broken ; each of these images 
 
46 
 
 spreading in flakes to right and left when there is 
 much agitation in the water, but always rather nar- 
 rowing than widening to the spectator’s feet. 
 
 64. One of Nature’s Ferneries. (J. P. Naftel.) 
 
 It looks like a true portrait of a beautiful spot, 
 almost tropical or antediluvian in its ferny rich- 
 ness ; and both this and Mr. Naftel’s other drawings 
 seem wrought with a real love of nature, and a plea- 
 sant sense of daylight colour, Avithout any affectation, 
 or desire to attract attention by trickeries. But I 
 think Mr. Naftel has yet to do some massy and stern 
 Avork in light and shade, and to discipline himself in 
 point-draAving, before he Avill be able to express him- 
 self as he Avould like to do, and may do. 
 
 The tAA'o subjects, 64. and 96., are exquisitely 
 pretty ; but I believe it will be generally found that 
 no merely pretty place is fit for pictorial treatment. 
 Into all good subjects for painters’ Avork, either 
 human feeling must enter by some evidence of culti- 
 vation, or presence of d\\ r elling-place, or of ruin ; or 
 else there must be some sublime features indicative 
 of the distress as Avell as the beauty of nature. I 
 think this law admits of no exception, but I have not 
 space, here, to explain or apply it. 
 
 130. Faust’s First Sight of Margaret. (F. 
 Burton.) 
 
 I am at a loss to knoAv A\ r hy this picture is in a 
 central position ; it possesses no special merit of any 
 
47 
 
 kind ; the face of Margaret is pretty, but wholly 
 untouched by the feeling which prompts her first 
 sharp answer: “ I am neither a lady, nor pretty, 
 and can go home by myself.” For the rest, it is 
 simply a stage dress and a stage stride ; and the 
 colouring is more false and crude than that of 
 almost any picture in the room. The red of the 
 cloak, for instance, is daubed about at random, com- 
 ing bright in the shadow or dirty in the light, as 
 chance will have it. I entirely dislike Faust, and 
 am sick of illustrations of it ; but I wonder whether 
 any painter will ever do it so much justice as to 
 represent Mephistopheles with the face of a man who 
 could either tempt or deceive. 
 
 211. 222. Welsh Bridge and Torrent. (G. Dodg- 
 son.) 
 
 I like Mr. Dodgson’s sketches (they hardly claim 
 to be more) better than any landscape work here, 
 David Cox’s only excepted. There is very great 
 perception of colour in them, and evidently entire 
 fidelity to his subject. The stream in 222. is the 
 only genuine piece of torrent-drawing in the ex- 
 hibition ; all the rest are done by recipe, so much 
 scratch and so much dash ; this is a hard and steady 
 try at a real stream in flood. Mr. Dodgson’s fern- 
 drawing, too, is much more subtle than any one 
 else’s ; his ferns are not merely green central rods, 
 with so many green arms on each side, but real, 
 crisped, quaint, varied leaves, with personal charac- 
 ter in them. Still his work only reaches a certain 
 
48 
 
 length, and lie seems quite careless in choice of sub- 
 ject. I hope he will some day choose more scru- 
 pulously, and finish more carefully. 
 
 217. 244. (F. W. Topham.) 
 
 The delicate feeling and expression in these two 
 drawings induce me to hope that Mr. Topham 
 may produce works of sterling quality if he con- 
 tinues to aim at points of character. As paintings, 
 both are somewhat thin and incomplete, being too 
 much wrought with broad flat washes; very good 
 things for grounds, but wholly incapable of produc- 
 ing any right result without severe drawing above 
 them. The girl’s head in 217. is, however, very 
 pretty, and satisfactorily finished. 
 
 302. Hareem Life. (J. F. Lewis.) 
 
 Though this drawing represents but a small por- 
 tion of the year’s labour of the master (it being only 
 through untoward chance that it has no companion), 
 it may give rise to some serious question how far the 
 conscientiousness of completion ought to be allowed 
 to extend. I know well that Lewis could not have 
 satisfied himself with less than the exquisite accom- 
 plishment of every detail which he has given us here ; 
 nay, I know that he is not satisfied even with what 
 he has given, and would forbid me that word “ ac- 
 complishment,” if he saw it being written. But it 
 seems to me questionable how far he ought to con- 
 sult his own satisfaction ; still more questionable 
 
49 
 
 whether so much invention, toil, intensity of observa- 
 tion and of mechanical skill should be trusted to one 
 poor little piece of white linen film, fifteen inches 
 square. If water colour were infusible enamel, if the 
 ground were a thick plate of beaten gold, if the Eng- 
 lish public were ready to receive a noble picture as 
 a rich treasure, and take the charge of it as a weighty 
 trust, we might reasonably ask Mr. Lewis to finish his 
 work with his full strength, and make it right, at any 
 cost. But now, when the mildew of winter and sun- 
 shine of summer, the city’s smoke and country’s frost, 
 are alike sure to do fatal work, within a very short 
 series of years, on the plurality of works executed in 
 these delicate materials, and either exposed to the 
 dusty honours of modern exhibitions, or condemned to 
 the humid seclusion of the drawingroom when the 
 family are “out of town,” it seems to me mere waste of 
 intellect to bestow so much labour on a single draw- 
 ing: surely the chances of safety, such as they are, 
 might be multiplied ; and six or seven drawings of less 
 elaborate but equally admirable execution, might at 
 once educate the public eye by their diffusion, and fall, 
 perhaps, one or two out of the six, into the posses- 
 sion of persons who would seriously value, and safely 
 guard them. No one is less disposed than I to advo- 
 cate any loose or sketchy methods of painting ; but 
 there is a firm, adequate, and manly execution, such 
 as that adopted by the Venetian painters when they 
 were in a hurry, which, while expressing a perfect 
 conception of the finished object, and reaching as 
 deep and substantial colour as more elaborate work, 
 
 D 
 
50 
 
 yet attains its ends at once with a magician’s speed, 
 and a wise steward’s economy. The practice of such 
 modes of expression has great tendency to enlarge the 
 range of thought and give majesty to its tones; for 
 there is something elevating in the very habit of scorn- 
 ing our own work ; and, frequently, grander things were 
 done by Titian or Giorgione, when they were filling a 
 spare panel in a corner of a refectory, or colouring, 
 half in play, the bit of plaster left between two ugly 
 window-sills of a friend’s house, than when they were 
 bringing all their science and skill to bear on some 
 beloved design in their painting-rooms. 
 
 And there is this farther advantage about a rough 
 piece of work, that time, or chance injury, cannot so 
 grievously affect it as they can a more delicate one. 
 Nothing is so painful as to see what has once been 
 exquisitely complete, become spotted, or scratched, 
 or faded. But a rough chalk sketch, or a bold and 
 massively cast fresco, will bear many a stain and 
 scar, and fail in many a flake of colour, without 
 materially losing its power over our minds. If the 
 slightest spot or injury touched the trelliswork and 
 drapery in Lewis’s pictures, no one would ever 
 be able to look at them again till they had been 
 “ restored and still less, after such restoration, 
 any one who knew the master’s work. 
 
 In the case of Lewis, there is this farther reason 
 for pleading for quicker work, that his inven- 
 tion and power over character are more distinc- 
 tive even than his subtle execution. Van Eyck 
 realised pure detail quite up to the mark of this pic- 
 
51 
 
 ture, and in passages needing air tone, or trans- 
 parency of darkness, considerably farther ; but Yan 
 Eyck could not arrange masses of drapery as these 
 are arranged, still less could he have given all her 
 tigerish strength and cruel waywardness to the 
 couchant cat, or laid in the same grace of languid 
 opalescence the filaments of the peacock’s plume. But 
 all this might have been done, and done quite as 
 greatly, in three days instead of three months ; and 
 perhaps a higher kind of excellence generally reached 
 by the master, if he thought now more of arrange- 
 ment and character than of absolute finish. He can 
 never, after bringing himself up to this perfectness, 
 paint carelessly or slightly ; but there is a chance 
 of his losing the great harmonies of his compositions, 
 and even some of his power over the expression of 
 human features, if he spends too much time on 
 golden fringes and wall mosaics. 
 
 I believe the face of the principal figure in this 
 picture is unfinished ; at all events, I am quite sure 
 the master will see cause for altering it, after his eye 
 has been turned for a little while to other subjects. 
 Both the faces are too grey, and this one is somewhat 
 wanting in retiring shadow, and in distinctness of the 
 sides, so that it looks flat. The cat is wholly magni- 
 ficent in action, but not quite furry or silky enough 
 in her coat. She looks as if she had put pomade 
 on her fur. 
 
 D 2 
 
52 
 
 NEW SOCIETY OE PAINTERS IN WATER 
 COLOURS. 
 
 There is more sincerity of aim, now, in this body of 
 artists than in the elder Society ; though a sincerity 
 which shows itself chiefly in the way which is least 
 interesting — in mere studies and sketches from 
 nature, not in landscape design, nor in figure pieces ; 
 so that it is impossible to take note of all the simple 
 though meritorious drawings which have been pro- 
 duced by them this year, without wearying the reader 
 by mere repetitions of quiet praise. 1 can only allow 
 myself the pleasure of referring to one or two 
 principal or characteristic works. I will not go 
 formally round the room, but name them as 1 re- 
 member them. 
 
 152. At Pallanza. (T. L. Rowbotham.) 
 
 Without bringing forward this drawing as in 
 any Avise an example of great art, it yet pos- 
 sesses one character which distinguishes it, to my 
 mind, very honourably from many by masters of 
 more power or pretension. I think Mr. Row- 
 botham loves the Lago Maggiore, and was thinking 
 of Lago Maggiore and not of himself all the while 
 lie was painting. If he makes the blue of the 
 
53 
 
 water a little too bright, or the draperies of the 
 houses too gay, it is not so much to make his 
 picture conspicuous, as to reach, if by any means 
 he may, the standard of his own memories of the 
 lovely lake and shining village. And 1 think this a 
 precious character in Avork ; Avliile it is also a rarer 
 one than Ave imagine ; for it is quite possible to be 
 much more faithful to natural detail than Mr. Roav- 
 botham is, and yet to be faithful only in pride, for the 
 sake of showing Iioav accurate avc can be ; and then 
 the accuracy, somehoAv or another, ahvays becomes 
 of no use. It is also quite possible to paint on better 
 principles than Mr. Rowbotham does, and yet to 
 care for nothing but principles all the Avhile ; Avhereas 
 I see plainly that this artist does at heart care chiefly 
 for the misty mountains and the deep lake; and is 
 trying to make us care for them too. Which I think, 
 also, he succeeds in doing, very sufficiently. This is 
 very like Pallanza, though it is not every body avIio 
 Avill believe that it is ; but Italian lakes are indeed 
 as blue, Italian tOAvers in morning sunshine as 
 Avhite, as these ; and Avhen I said just noAv the blue 
 was too bright, I did not mean it Avas too pure, but 
 that it Avas not dark enough. Another time, if Mr. 
 Rowbotham will carry his pier a little deeper down 
 into the water, and sIioav the stones more darkly 
 beneath the increasing blue, he Avill find the effect 
 is truer; though very good, even now. Rote the 
 two floating bits of wood at the shalloAv edge, and 
 the three ranges of the shore-cast Aveed and shingle, 
 not tide-marks, but evidences that the south-Avest 
 
54 
 
 wind blew warm with rain on the St. Gothard a 
 few days ago, raising the lake’s level with soft 
 melting of snow, from which level it has ebbed a 
 little since in these sunny mornings. 
 
 Mr. Rowbotham would do well, however, to study 
 the laws of reflection in coloured water more than 
 he has hitherto. They are very curious and subtle ; 
 and it is quite absurd not to ascertain them, for he 
 has nothing to do but to dissolve a little Prussian 
 blue in water in a white basin, and set a few rose 
 leaves, and tulip leaves, and sticks floating in it, and 
 he may study every change in hue and fantasy of 
 reflection at his ease ; afterwards applying the prin- 
 ciples he thus ascertains to his boats, and oars, and 
 awnings. 
 
 285. The Kabyle Mountains at Sunset. (Charles 
 Vacher.) 
 
 The rocks and aloe on the left are very beautifully 
 drawn, the tone of the distant mountains most true, 
 and all the effects more delicately felt than hitherto 
 in this painter’s work. He bids fair to occupy a 
 separate field in the painting of evening light (com- 
 pare Nos. 15. 217. &c.), corresponding closely to that 
 which was once occupied by George Robson. But 
 Mr. Vacher should not draw figures; they will waste 
 his time, and distract his attention from parts of his 
 subjects in which he succeeds better. 
 
 134. The Upper Wye. (Thomas Lindsay.) 
 
 This I remember, because the piece of river bed is 
 so quaintly chosen ; so different from anything which 
 
sketchers usually stay at. It would be a most 
 poetical subject if well carried out ; but Mr. Lindsay’s 
 skill is not quite up to the need. 
 
 103. Trebarwith Sands. (S. Cook.) 
 
 Mr. Cook has a very fine eye for colour, and great 
 understanding of sea. I like all his drawings exceed- 
 ingly. This seems on the whole the leading one ; 
 the rosy sunlight opposing the strength of the green 
 waves very beautifully. 
 
 201. San Clemente. (Venice.) 
 
 Not a very good drawing, but it stays in my 
 memory because it is like Venice ; and any such like- 
 ness is the most difficult thing in the world to find ; 
 for Venice always unsettles painters’ wits; noplace 
 was ever so fit to be painted truly, or so fated to be 
 painted falsely. 
 
 190. Early Spring. (Thomas Sutcliffe.) 
 
 Compare 197. Both are very earnest studies; 
 but only to be considered as such, and of too difficult 
 subjects to be quite successful in Mr. Sutcliffe’s 
 present stage of power. When a young painter 
 first goes to nature, he is sure to be charmed by her 
 intricacy in far away places ; and he sets himself to 
 paint what he likes best, not what is best for him. 
 The simpler his choice the better; the door of a 
 cottage, or a rose-bush in its garden, rather than the 
 opening of a glen, or the aisle of a forest. 
 
56 
 
 SOCIETY OF BRITISH ARTISTS. 
 
 It would of course be useless to enter into separate 
 examination of the works produced by this Society, 
 at the time when the interest of the public is con- 
 centrated on other exhibitions. I sincerely regret 
 this, for many of the drawings which 1 have had 
 occasion to notice above are entirely inferior in skill, 
 and works of very slight interest or power, compared 
 to the oil paintings in Suffolk Street. Still I should 
 vainly endeavour now to attract attention to them, 
 and can only therefore allude, gratefully for my own 
 part, to the elaborate studies of clear streams and 
 rocky mountains, by Mr. Boddington, Mr. Pettit, and 
 Mr. West. The Nos. 158. 195. 223. 346. 347. 351. 
 and 561. were all full of interest and high in merit; 
 the rock-drawing peculiarly good, and careful. 1 
 had not time to examine them carefully enough to 
 justify me in assigning precedences ; only I may say 
 that I liked the last best, for its quiet colour and 
 beautiful setting of the trees on the distant hill sides, 
 as well as the delight evidently felt by the painter 
 in the clearness of the water. 
 
 153. II liitorno della Contadina. (E. Eagles.) was 
 most carefully balanced, and successful in its effect 
 of light — and pretty in thought. Two studies 
 
57 
 
 by Mr. Smalltield (737. “ Little Peggy,” and 760. 
 “An Itinerant Shoeblack”) showed very great feel- 
 ing, and, I hope, promise of high power ; and “ A 
 Bird’s-nest ” by Mr. W. Ward (76.) was by much 
 the most wonderful example of Dutch sharpness 
 and minuteness of execution that I have seen this 
 year ; only Mr. Ward must aim more at getting true 
 relations of shade in his large masses ; he loses him- 
 self in detail. 
 
 In the British Institution, I cannot forget the 
 marvellous effect of light on snow, and the truthful 
 drawing of its wreaths and icicles in Mr. Wolf’s 
 “Covey” (255.). The effect, however, was greatly 
 dependent on distance ; and could hardly be seen in 
 the narrow room. 
 
 E 
 
58 
 
 FRENCH EXHIBITION. 
 
 I do not like to speak much of the French exhibi- 
 bition, because there are characters in the work of 
 every nation which need to be long and specially 
 studied, before a foreigner can do justice to them; 
 and I have not yet been able to give serious study to 
 the French modern school. Two things, however, 
 must strike every one : the general deadness of colour, 
 associated with softness of outline, which seem to be 
 enforced upon their feebler painters, and delighted in 
 by their stronger ones. I had intended to try to get 
 at the principle of this, to consider what harm or 
 good was in it ; but I have been hindered hitherto, 
 and see no hope of my ever getting liberty in that 
 room to think of, or look at, anything but the six 
 pictures of Edouard Frere. There are, I see well 
 enough, one or two consummate pieces by other men : 
 the “ Doctor’s Visit ” (136.), for instance, by Emile 
 Plassan, is as perfect and finished as work or thought 
 well can be; and Trayer’s “Convalescent” (155.), 
 and several other such, show, in various degrees, 
 a peculiar ease in getting at their point, which 
 makes our English efforts, however successful, look 
 clumsy and forced by comparison. But I cannot 
 tell how I am ever to say what I want to say 
 about Frbre’s pictures; I can find no words tender 
 
59 
 
 enough, nor reverent enough. They have all beau- 
 ty, without consciousness ; dignity, without pride ; 
 lowliness, without sorrow ; and religion, without 
 fear. Severe in fidelity, yet, as if by an angel’s pre- 
 sence, banishing all evil and pain ; perfect in power, yet 
 seeming to reach his purpose in a sweet feebleness, 
 his hand failing him for fullness of heart ; swift to 
 seize the passing thought of a moment in a child’s 
 spirit, as a summer wind catches a dead rose-leaf 
 before it falls, yet breathing around it the everlast- 
 ing peace of heaven ; — he will do more for his coun- 
 try, if he can lead her to look where he looks, and to 
 love as he loves, than all the proud painters who 
 ever gave lustre to her state, or endurance to her 
 glory. What truer glory has she than in these her 
 village children ? I cannot choose among such pic- 
 tures, nor reason of them, though, perhaps, the 
 reader may be surprised at my caring so much for 
 what seems slight in work, and poor in colour. But 
 its very poverty and slightness are, in some sort, a 
 part of its beauty : at least, if this painting be im- 
 perfect, I have never seen perfect painting do so 
 much ; and I believe that only the man who can 
 conceive these pictures knows how he ought to paint 
 them. The beautiful “ Student ” (61.) is, perhaps, 
 the most finished, just because it is the least pathetic ; 
 the three other more important ones, the “ Lun- 
 cheon,” the “Sempstress,” and the “Prayer,” are 
 certainly three of the most touching poems that were 
 ever yet written, and, I believe, by far the most 
 lovely ever yet painted, of lowly life. Who could 
 have believed that it was possible to unite the depth 
 
60 
 
 of Wordsworth, the grace of Reynolds, and the 
 holiness of Angelico ? 
 
 The first named of these pictures is the most won- 
 derful ; but perhaps the “Prayer” is the one which 
 will be most easily understood, and will best teach the 
 spectator how to enter into the character of the rest. 
 It needs no telling of it ; surely it will speak for itself : 
 — the little bare feet kept from the stone-cold by the 
 nightgown which the mother has folded for them, 
 bared of their rough grey stockings, as reverently, 
 and as surely in God’s presence, as if the poor cottage 
 floor were the rock of Sinai ; the close cap over the 
 sweet, pointed, playful, waving hair, which the field- 
 winds have tossed and troubled as they do the long 
 meadow-grass in May, and yet have not unsmoothed 
 one wave of its silken balm, nor vexed with rude en- 
 tangling one fair thread of all that her God numbers, 
 day by day ; the dear, bowed, patient face, and hands 
 folded, and the mother’s love that clasps them close in 
 a solemn awe, lest they should part or move before her 
 Father’s blessing had been given in fullness — Return 
 to it, and still return. It should be the last picture 
 you look at in all the year ; carrying the memory of 
 it with you far away through the silence of the 
 thatched villages, and the voices of the blossoming 
 fields. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 London : 
 
 Printed by Spottiswoodb and Co. 
 New-itreet Square. 
 
MR, RUSKIN’S NOTES 
 
 ON SOME OF 
 
 THE PRINCIPAL PICTURES 
 
 EXHIBITED IN THE ROOMS OF THE 
 
 ROYAL ACADEMY, 
 
 ETC. ETC. 
 
 No. IV. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
NOTE S 
 
 ON SOME OF 
 
 THE PRINCIPAL PICTURES 
 
 EXHIBITED IN TIIE ROOMS OF TIIE 
 
 ROYAL ACADEMY, 
 
 THE OLD AND NEW 
 
 SOCIETIES OF PAINTERS IN WATER COLOURS. 
 TIIE SOCIETY OF BRITISH ARTISTS, 
 
 AND THE FRENCH EXHIBITION. 
 
 go. IY— 1858. 
 
 By JOHN RUSKIN, M.A., 
 
 AUTHOR OF “MODERN PAINTERS,” “ STONES OF VENICE,” “SEVEN LAMPS OF 
 ARCHITECTURE,” “ ELEMENTS OF DRAWING,” ETC., ETC. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 SMITH, ELDER AND CO., 65, CORNIIILL. 
 
 1858. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 In a temperate and candid critique which appeared 
 last year in the Economist, and expressed, as I have 
 since found, the feelings of many readers respecting 
 this publication, complaint was made of its imper- 
 fection as a record of the art of the season ; and 
 it was truly alleged that many pictures of merit were 
 passed without notice, and many of demerit without 
 blame. But the writer surely could not have con- 
 sidered what would he involved in an endeavour 
 to give a complete account of the exhibitions of the 
 year. If there is any truly original power in a 
 picture — nay, if it shows even any considerable 
 quantity of good work and effort, it takes me at 
 least half an hour to form judgment of it ; and if it 
 is a great picture, I want the half-hour twice or 
 three times over on different days ; and the time so 
 spent is laboriously spent — in finding out as far as 
 I can, first, wdiat the painter is trying for, then in 
 comparing his w r ay of trying for it with this and the 
 
6 
 
 other condition of art already existing, and considering 
 what likelihoods of success or error arc involved in 
 his present mode of work : determining not so much 
 what the real facts are about the picture, which I 
 can generally tell pretty soon, as how many of those 
 facts the painter or the public ought to be told. 
 Often a picture of merit is passed without notice, 
 because it has heavy faults which, if I spoke of it 
 at all, it would be necessary to point out in a 
 way which might discourage and harm the painter 
 more than the idea that his picture had been over- 
 looked by chance. Often pictures of great demerit 
 arc passed silently, because there is no hope for 
 their painters, and the kind of error they have fallen 
 into may he pointed out quite as usefully in other 
 cases, without multiplying offence. Sometimes I 
 pass over names of great reputation, because my 
 estimate of their work is in opposition so direct 
 to the public estimate of it that such influence as I 
 might otherwise possess would only he weakened by 
 expressing it ; and sometimes I permit myself silence 
 about personal friends who are doing the public little 
 harm by their pictures, and whose friendship 1 should 
 he sorry to lose. But the real and chief reason for 
 my not speaking of such and such pictures is my not 
 having had time to look at them. This pamphlet 
 
/ 
 
 must, if it is to be useful, be printed within seven or 
 eight days after the opening. Two of those days are 
 needed for press correction and binding ; five remain : 
 that is to say — three for looking and two for writing. 
 I can neither look nor write for more than eight 
 hours a day ; which, allowing an average of a quarter 
 of an hour to each picture, enables me even to look 
 at no more than a hundred out of the thousand in 
 the Academy ; and the first choice of this hundred, 
 out of which those to be written of must be finally 
 chosen, of course depends, in some degree, on 
 accident: the. eye is often caught by something 
 bright or energetic, with semblances of right, and it 
 takes a minute or two to make quite sure there is 
 nothing in it — and many minutes in the aggregate 
 arc thus lost ; or a noble and quiet picture may 
 have got entangled in a company so contemptible 
 that one passes it in a fit of indignation about its 
 neighbours. But all tliis is unavoidable — nor is it 
 to be regretted. It is precisely this losing sight 
 here and there of a really good picture which 
 permits me to lose sight also of the bad ones, 
 when it is desirable to do so — nobody knowing 
 whether the picture has been disliked or over- 
 looked. Take the pamphlet simply for what I 
 stated it to be, in the preface to the first that was 
 
8 
 
 issued — a circular letter to my friends about the 
 pictures that most interest me in my first glance 
 at the exhibition — and it will be found serviceable ; 
 view it in any other light, and it will be wholly 
 inefficient. Its value consists only in being trust- 
 worthy as far as it reaches ; and guiding safely, 
 though not guiding everywhere. I trust that I 
 shall not often overlook any truly great and con- 
 summate picture ; but it is better to lose sight of 
 ten than to pass false judgment on one ; and I 
 strive so to look and so to write, that the repent- 
 ances which must necessarily follow all hurried 
 work may be of my silences only — not of my 
 words. 
 
N 0 T E S, 
 
 ETC. ETC. 
 
 EXHIBITION OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY. 
 
 The Academy walls present us this year with much 
 matter for curious speculation, or rather for careful 
 and earnest forecasting of the probable course of our 
 schools of art in this their transitional stage of effort. 
 Accidentally, there are no leading pictures, and the 
 rooms are filled with more or less successful works b\ 
 the disciples of the Pre-Raphaelite school, which, as I 
 stated five years ago it would,*' has entirely prevailed 
 against all opposition ; sweeping away in its strong 
 current many of the opposers themselves, whirling 
 them hither and thither, for the moment, in its 
 eddies, without giving them time to strike out ; and 
 tearing down in its victory a few useful old land- 
 marks, which we shall have to build up again by and 
 bye. But the main question forced upon our thoughts 
 this year is the result of the new modes of study on 
 minds of average, or inferior power. For what was 
 done in the first instance by men of singular genius, 
 
 * Edinburgh Lectures, p. 231. 
 
10 
 
 under intense conditions of mental excitement, is now 
 done, partly as a quiet duty, partly in compliance 
 with the prevalent fashion, by men of ordinary powers 
 in ordinary tempers — resulting, of course, not in 
 brilliant, but only in worthy and satisfactory work ; 
 respecting which commonplace completeness there arc 
 several points of interest for our consideration. For 
 a year or two considerable disappointment may be felt 
 by the disciples of the new school. Conscious in 
 themselves of an entire change in their modes of 
 thought, and a vigorous advance in powers both of 
 sight and execution, they will be necessarily mortified 
 to find that the advance is unrewarded by distinction; 
 that their pictures, which before were unnoticed in 
 the midst of others as wrong, are now unnoticed in 
 the midst of others as right ; and that they have 
 become no more conspicuous in reformation than they 
 were in heresy. There is, however, this comfort for 
 them (without counting the comfort in the mere 
 consciousness of being right, whether noticed or not), 
 that the kind of painting which they now practise is 
 capable of far more extended appeal to the popular 
 mind. The old art of trick and tradition had no 
 language but for the connoisseur ; this natural art 
 speaks to all men : around it daily the circles of 
 sympathy will enlarge ; pictures will become gradually 
 as necessary to domestic life as books ; they will be 
 largely bought — though little wondered at ; the 
 painter will have to content himself with being as 
 undistinguished as an author, and must be satisfied in 
 this unpraised usefulness. 
 
11 
 
 Secondly. The pictures of the rising school will in 
 a few years be much more interesting than they arc 
 now. In learning to work carefully from nature, every- 
 body has been obliged to paint what will stay to he 
 painted ; and the best of nature will not wait. More- 
 over, a subject which must be returned to every day for 
 a couple of months must necessarily he near the house 
 door ; and artists cannot always have their lodgings 
 where they choose ; many of them, unable to quit their 
 usual residences, must paint the best thing they can 
 find in their neighbourhood ; and this best accessible 
 bit, however good as a study — (anything will do for 
 that) — will usually be uninteresting to the public. 
 The evil is increased by affectations of Wordsworthian 
 simplicity ; also by a good deal of genuine simplicity ; 
 and of more or less foolish sentiment. Formerly, 
 when people were forced to draw by rule, and were 
 never allowed either to think or feel, we were at least 
 untroubled by foolish thoughts and weak feelings ; 
 now, when the rage is for sentiment, and everybody 
 is encouraged to tell us all that is in or near their 
 hearts, we must not be surprised to find that naivete 
 may sometimes be tiresome as well as formalism ; and 
 the exaggeration of sensibility as offensive as the 
 pedantry of science. The compensation is in this 
 case greater than the evil : we are sure that whatever 
 thoughts or passions truly possess the painter, will 
 be truly expressed by him ; while in old times they 
 would have been silenced or constrained. The 
 extent of these two adverse influences, however, is 
 curiously shown in the present Academy. Because it 
 
is necessary to paint on successive days from the same 
 object, in order to realize it to perfection, we have 
 hardly a single interesting sky in the whole gallery ; 
 — Mr. Dillon’s sunset on the Nile (2/3), and Mr. 
 Cooke’s at Venice (577) arc almost the only pictures 
 of merit which acknowledge the existence of clouds as 
 a matter of serious interest ; and because the humblest 
 subjects are pathetic when Px*e-llaphaelitically ren- 
 dered, the two pieces most representative of the school 
 in the rooms are both of stonebreakers : one ( Mr. 
 Brett’s), of a boy hard at work on his heap in the 
 morning, and the other (Mr. Wallis’s), of an old 
 man dead on his heap at night. Taking which facts 
 in their full significance, it is pleasant to think what 
 this new school of ours will do when it once gets fairly 
 to work on materials worth its while. Here we have 
 literally only experiments and early lessons : trials of 
 strength on fragments of landscape in serene weather ; 
 quiet little midstreams and corners of meadows, 
 slopes of sand hills, farmyard gates, blackberry 
 hedges, and clumps of furze. But what shall we 
 say when the power of painting, which makes even 
 these so interesting, begins to exert itself, with the 
 aid of imagination and memory, on the splendid 
 transience of nature, and her noblest continuance ; 
 when we have the courses of heaven’s golden clouds 
 instead of squares of blue through cottage casements ; 
 and the fair river mists, and mountain shrouds of 
 vapour instead of cottage smoke ; — pine forests 
 as well as banks of grass, and fallen pre- 
 cipices instead of heaps of flints. All this is yet 
 
to come ; nay, even the best of the quiet, acces- 
 sible, simple gifts of nature are yet to conic. How 
 strange that among all this painting of delicate detail, 
 there is not a true one of English spring ! — that no 
 Pre-Raphaelite has painted a cherry-tree in blossom, 
 dark-white against the twilight of April ; nor an 
 almond-tree rosy on the blue sky ; nor the Hush of 
 the apple-blossom, nor a blackthorn hedge, nor a 
 wildrose hedge ; nor a bank with crown-circlets of 
 the white nettle ; nor a wood-ground of hyacinths ; * 
 no, nor even heather, and such things of which we 
 talk continually. Nobody lias ever painted heather 
 yet, nor a rock spotted richly with mosses ; nor 
 gentians, nor Alpine roses, nor white oxalis in the 
 woods, nor anemone nemorosa, nor even so much as 
 the first springing leaves of any tree in their pale, 
 dispersed delicate sharpness of shape. Everything has 
 to be done yet ; and w r e must not think quite so much 
 of ourselves till we have done it, even though we have 
 got to be so profoundly moral that we make everybody 
 who looks at our tvork the wiser for it. We 
 
 must take care not always to make them sadder also. 
 Indeed, I look with deep respect and delight on the 
 steady purpose of doing good, which has thus in a feiv 
 years changed the spirit of our pictures, and turned 
 most of them into a sort of sermons ; — only let it 
 
 * That is to say, so as to bring out their beauty for a principal 
 subject. Mr. Inchbold painted some wood hyacinths and gentians, 
 but too few, and half hidden in a litter of other flowers. Mr. Oakes 
 painted a beautiful lichened rock, but obscured with furze and rubbish 
 — not brought out in its power. 
 
14 
 
 always be remembered that it is much easier to be 
 didactic than to be lovely, and that it is sometimes 
 desirable to excite the joy of the spectator as well as 
 his indignation. 
 
 What, however, I have to say this year of 
 particular pictures will cast itself, to my regret, 
 a little into the form of carping ; for now that 
 nearly all are careful and well-intended, there is no 
 possibility of praising the universal care, or describing 
 the universal intention : while, on the other hand, 
 there are no leading pictures of the class that 
 silence fault-finding; but several which just miss of 
 being leading pictures, owing to faults which it there- 
 fore becomes a duty to find. I hope it will be under- 
 stood that in my statement of these blemishes, I do 
 not in general fix upon them because the picture in 
 question has more faults than others, but because 
 its merits make them more to be regretted. 
 
 18. Old Holland. (C. Stanfield, 11. A.) 
 
 Certainly there is no cause for regret here; Mr. 
 Stanfield never painted a more delightful picture, or 
 one showing more of his peculiar power. The fish 
 are unusually beautiful both in line and colour. 
 
 29- The Bluidy Tryste. (J. N. Baton.) 
 
 I regret the prevailing gloom which at present 
 characterizes this artist’s work ; art may face horror, 
 but should not dwell with it. The greatest painters 
 habitually have chosen cheerful, or serene subjects ; 
 and if Mr. Baton will paint them more frequently, he 
 
would feel the real power of a frightful one more, 
 when there is need for him to paint it. There was, I 
 believe, such need in the case of his other picture, 
 “ In Memoriam,” it having been designed at the time 
 of the fit of miserable public weakness which had like 
 to have checked the doing of judgment and justice 
 on the Indian murderers ; but there was no need, as 
 far as I can see, or feel, for the defilement of this 
 sweet dell with guilt ; at least, unless it had been 
 done more solemnly. The dead body is far too 
 well dressed ; no one can be sorry that there is an 
 end of the coxcomb ; lie might have been far more 
 gallantly dressed for his tryst without being so fine. 
 Then Nature ought to have had more observance of 
 him — the sun ought to have fallen here and there 
 upon his face — yes, and upon his blood ; and the hue 
 of the leafage round him should have had, it seems 
 to me, the deep sympathy through all its innocent life 
 which is felt in those words of Keats — 
 
 “ Saying, moreover, Isabel, my sweet, 
 
 Red whortle-berries droop above my head, 
 
 And a large flint stone weighs upon my feet. 
 
 Around me beeches and high chestnuts shed 
 
 Their leaves and prickly nuts : a sheepfold bleat 
 Comes from beyond the river to my bed.” 
 
 Manv readers thought it a mere piece of flippancy 
 when I said, respecting Mr. Paton’s beautiful picture 
 of the “ Home,” that he ought to paint nothing for 
 some time to come but apricots and peaches. It was, 
 on the contrary, a quiet statement of a true necessity. 
 Mr. Paton will not learn what is wanting to his mode 
 of painting until he practises colour from simple 
 
objects, in the realization of which emotion can have 
 no share. This foreground is, of course, painted with 
 intensest care, and perfect draughtsmanship ; there 
 is more natural history in it than in most others in 
 the rooms : the little pinguicula alpina on the left, 
 the oxalis leaves in the middle, the red ferns, and 
 small red viper on the right, are all exquisitely 
 articulated as far as form goes ; but they are painted 
 without enough mystery or change of colour. It will 
 be necessary for this painter to make colour his main 
 object for some months, and to paint the leaves 
 thoroughly well on a large scale before he reduces 
 them to foreground magnitude ; but the way he has 
 executed the girdles of the two figures, the piece of 
 bank above the knight’s head, and that just under his 
 breast, between it and the bugle, proves him to be 
 capable of all perfection. 
 
 59. Fairy Tales. (W. C. T. Dobson.) 
 
 It would be difficult to improve the sweet earnestness 
 of the little face ; or the conception of the whole 
 attitude. I merely pay tribute of admiration in 
 passing, having had my say about Mr. Dobson’s 
 colour before. His larger picture, 446, is very 
 interesting in the new' conception of Ishmael ; the 
 boy, against whom was to be the hand of all men, 
 kissing his father’s hand, and receiving his blessing. 
 What a difference between this and the vile Guercino 
 of Milan, in which Abraham scolds them out of the 
 t cn t — Hagar crying because she has no chance of 
 another “ place.” 
 
 But Mr. Dobson is, 1 think, wrong in his idea of 
 
17 
 
 Sarah. She may, indeed, for all that is recorded of 
 her, have been a hard and commonplace woman : 
 but there was nothing in her sending away Hagar at 
 this time to prove that she was, and it would have 
 been nobler to have conceived her as more sorrowful, 
 and hesitating in her cruelty. 
 
 79- Athaliah’s Dismay, &c. (S. II. Hart, H.A.) 
 
 I fear I must leave this, and its correspondent 
 picture of the “high art” school, Mr. Poole’s 
 Lear ( 310 ), to the admiration of the Athenaeum, 
 which, with great felicity of expression, declares the 
 Lear to be under a “ gloating, delicious light,” and 
 the Athaliah to be “ of the highest order of Jezebel 
 beauty.” Jezebel’s beauty, however, needed some 
 painting before she tried its effect when her life 
 hung upon it, and I fear that Athaliah’s beauty must 
 have stood in need of some such help at this period 
 of her age. Has Mr. Hart actually painted this large 
 picture without inquiring how old the queen or her 
 grandson were ? or does he seriously mean the figure 
 of Joash to represent a boy only seven years old ; 
 and that of the Queen to represent a wicked Eastern 
 woman of seven or eight and forty, — for Athaliah 
 could not be less — her son was three and twenty when 
 the arrows of Jehu overtook him by Ibleam, seven 
 years before. But the Athenceum is too severe upon 
 Mr. Hart, in its observation that “ the dull vacant face 
 of Joab is rather a blot;” for, as Joab at this time 
 had been dead just a hundred and forty-two years, 
 it was likely his face would he vacant. 
 
 n 
 
18 
 
 101. A Kibab Shop, Scutari. (J. F. Lewis.) 
 
 My first impression is that this very notable picture 
 shows the labour in it too clearly, but I cannot judge 
 of it in haste. The animal life is nearly perfect ; the 
 kid making up its mind to butt the pigeons is 
 especially delightful. 122, however, is a more con- 
 summate example of the painter’s work ; and 245, 
 though at first it looks uninteresting, will be found 
 very wonderful on quiet examination. His gift of 
 grace in arrangement of line is best seen in the fall 
 of the red drapery of No. 51. But I hardly know 
 what is the matter with me this year, for I find Mr. 
 Baton’s pictures too dramatic, and Mr. Lewis’s not 
 dramatic enough, lie has thirty-one figures in all, upon 
 the walls, and all the drama to be got out of the whole 
 number is the arrangement of a nosegay and the 
 presentation of a cup of coffee. Perhaps those who 
 delight in the gloomier pictures of the present exhi- 
 bition may be able to excite themselves into some 
 interest in this last event, by supposing the coffee to 
 be poisoned. 
 
 There is, however, one point which ought specially 
 to be noted respecting Lewis’s work — it is always 
 and wholly original. When, some time ago, I 
 claimed him as a Pre-Raphaelite, I never meant 
 that he had been influenced in his practice by any 
 of the other members of that school ; but that he 
 was associated with it, as ten years ago I showed that 
 Turner was, and as all true painters for ever must be, 
 by the mere fact of their painting truth instead of 
 formalism or idealism ; while Lewis is still more 
 
19 
 
 closely connected with the present nominal masters 
 of the school by his completeness of finish to the 
 utmost corners of his canvass. But he was not led to 
 this finishing by Hunt or Rossetti. There never, 
 perhaps, in the history of art was work so wholly 
 independent as Lewis’s, lie worked with the sternest 
 precision twenty years ago, when Pre-Raphaelitism 
 had never been heard of ; — pursued calmly the same 
 principles, developed by himself, for himself, in the 
 midst of all adverse influences in Rome, and through 
 years of lonely labour in Syria. In all those years of 
 Eastern light, he wrought with Nature only for his 
 master : he cannot have seen so much as one good 
 picture from the time of his leaving Rome until his 
 return to England. And all our discoveries here, 
 and all our talking and quarrelling about them, have 
 been nothing to John Lewis — as they were nothing to 
 Turner. There is not another picture in all this 
 Academy which I believe to have been painted wholly 
 without reference to the Pre-Raphaelite dogmas. 
 They are either directly or distantly imitative ; either 
 cautiously recusant or vigorously defiant ; hut John 
 Lewis paints as he would have painted had no such 
 school, no such dogmas, ever existed ; and that girl 
 would still have been there, and she would still have 
 had the same exquisite glow in her face — the same 
 delicate light in her eyes — and the same finished 
 tracery of gold on her robe — though Pre-Raphaelitism 
 had been strangled ten years ago in its birth, and all 
 the painters in Europe had now been daubing like 
 Haydon or Benjamin West. 
 
 b 2 
 
20 
 
 119- Sunday Evening. (T. Webster, R.A.) 
 
 Mr. Webster is quite delightful both in this 
 picture and 334. I never remember seeing the 
 expression of a child at once full of affection and 
 mischief, so delicately and perfectly touched as in 
 this little disturber ; one secs so well that the house 
 never can be quiet for her, except when she is asleep; 
 and holds no other joy so dear as that disquiet. 
 
 200. The Maid of Derwent. (IT. H. Emerson.) 
 
 A promising average example of the kind of study 
 from nature which fills the rooms, and of which it is 
 impossible to mark the other instances specially. 
 This is better balanced in effect than most, and looks 
 as if good work would come of it. 
 
 204. The Missing Boat. (Frank Stone.) 
 
 Very good in much of its expression, and thoroughly 
 careful, but too much elaborated in the studio, and 
 not quite enough on the beach. It is got up too 
 primly, as the principal figure is in her fishwife’s 
 dress. Sorrow, and salt water, after six hours’ stand 
 on the shingle, don’t leave a woman’s dress quite so 
 tidy. 
 
 218. The Derby Day. (W. P. Frith, R.A.) 
 
 I am not sure how much power is involved in the 
 production of such a picture as this ; great abilitv 
 there is assuredly — long and careful study — consider- 
 able humour — untiring industry, — all of them quali- 
 
21 
 
 tics entitled to high praise, which I douht not they 
 will receive from the delighted public. It is also 
 quite proper and desirable that this English carnival 
 should be painted : and of the entirely popular 
 manner of painting, which, however, we must 
 remember, is necessarily, because popular, stoop- 
 ing and restricted, I have never seen an abler 
 example. The drawing of the distant figures seems to 
 me especially dexterous and admirable ; but it is very 
 difficult to characterise the picture in accurate 
 general terms. It is a kind of cross between John 
 Leech and Wilkie, with a dash of daguerreotype 
 here and there, and some pretty seasoning with 
 Dickens’s sentiment. 
 
 216. At a Farmhouse in Surrey. (G. F. Boyce.) 
 
 Full of truth and sweet feeling. How pleasant it 
 is, after looking long at Mr. Frith’s picture, to sec 
 how happy a little girl may be who hasn’t gone to the 
 Derby. 
 
 273. Emigrants on the Nile. (F. Dillon.) 
 
 Pelicans to wit ; and many thanks to Mr. Dillon 
 for giving us some idea of the wonderful aspect of 
 the bird in flight : we must certainly have it carved 
 so in a cusp or gargoyle in the Oxford Museum. 
 The transitions of glowing colour, from the nearer 
 ground to the sunlit horizon, arc far finer than 
 anything Mr. Dillon has yet accomplished : the 
 
 drawing of the palm-trees seems admirable. 
 
22 
 
 284. The Nativity. (A. Hughes.) 
 
 Quite beautiful in thought ; and indicative of 
 greater colourist’s power than anything in the rooms ; 
 there is no other picture so right in manner of work, 
 the utmost possible value being given to every atom 
 of tint laid on the canvas. I happen to know that it 
 was hastily finished, in an after-thought — and I am 
 sorry to see that the painter has been fatigued to tho 
 point of not seeing how far he had failed in some 
 parts of his purpose. He had another picture per- 
 fectly finished — and, though a little grotesque in 
 fancy, exquisitely beautiful ; “ the King’s Garden” — 
 why has he not sent that ?* 
 
 It is quite possible that, in this nativity, thoughtless 
 people may he offended by an angel’s being set to 
 hold a stable lantern. Everybody is ready to repeat 
 pretty verses from Spenser about angels who “watch 
 and truly ward,” without ever asking themselves 
 what they look out for — or what they ward off : 
 everybody is also ready to talk about ministering 
 spirits, so long as it is not asked what ministry 
 
 * The absence of the other Pre-Raphaelite leaders from their 
 posts is highly to be reprobated: they have no business to set them- 
 selves to work which they can’t finish in proper time. Every year, 
 at this season, the moment they have seen the effect of their pictures 
 on the public, every one of them should go into the country; and 
 before the long days are half over, each of them should have painted 
 one picture of moderate size for next year : let them lock that up, 
 and resolve not to look at it again till they see it on the Academy 
 walls. Then set themselves to whatever perennial labour they 
 choose to undertake, resting from it always about Easter, so as 
 to be quite fresh to begin their regular Academy work again in 
 May. 
 
23 
 
 means. Perhaps they might even reach to a distinct 
 idea of such practical ministries on the part of angels 
 as warding off a bullet from their son in India — or 
 leading him to a spring when he was thirsty. But 
 they cannot conceive that highest of all dignity 
 in the entirely angelic ministration, which would 
 simply do rightly whatever needed to he done — great 
 or small — and steady a stable lantern if it swung 
 uneasily, just as willingly as drive hack a thunder 
 cloud, or helm a ship with a thousand souls in it 
 from a lee shore. 
 
 300. Weary Life. (R. Carrick.) 
 
 A notable picture ; very great in many respects, 
 but with grievous faults. The two principal figures 
 are quite right — more especially the child ; nothing 
 can be more beautiful than the way it lies ; nothing 
 much better than the painting of it ; and the thought 
 of the whole singularly pathetic. But that thought 
 is only half developed. I am amazed that a painter 
 of Mr. Carrick’s sincerity should allow himself in 
 the conventionalisms of this design. What light is 
 this that is cast on the two sleeping figures — morn- 
 ing ? — evening ? — noon ? All suppositions arc alike 
 negatived by those trees in the background, which 
 are in the deepest twilight ; the rick under which 
 the figures rest is also in darkness ; and thus, for 
 a mere effect of stage illumination on his foreground, 
 the painter has lost all the pathos which there would 
 have been in the calm of long, low sunshine on the 
 solemn fields ; or in the dew of the morning upon 
 
24 
 
 their peace — after the theatre’s fantastic nocturns. 
 The whole value of the background, as a space for 
 informing incident, is also lost. No story is told by 
 the dull trees. I will not take away Mr. Carrick’s 
 freedom and pleasure in invention by offering any 
 suggestion as to the incidents that might occupy 
 that background ; hut assuredly it ought not to 
 be empty. Besides all this, the wonder of the 
 peasant woman is vulgarly told — her gesture at this 
 moment is highly improbable. She could not have 
 approached so near the figures without seeing them 
 before ; unless w r e suppose her to have walked back- 
 wards, which indeed she might have done in raking : 
 but the gesture has an unnatural and theatrical look 
 for all that ; and her face is utterly without expres- 
 sion. When there are only three figures in a picture, 
 we must not make a nonentity of the nearest. 
 
 And lastly, the painting is throughout too hard ; 
 the straw especially is far too much defined. Has 
 Mr. Carrick never looked carefully at the straw 
 in the first picture which showed the beauty of it — 
 the “Dove returning to the Ark” — in which not 
 a single stem w r as entirely defined, and yet all was 
 real. It needs to be constantly kept in mind by 
 all painters, that good painting must be reserved 
 as well as expressive — it withholds always as 
 much as it reveals. All mystery, or all clearness, 
 is equally wrong, though clearness is the noblest 
 error. Nature is simple, and therefore intelligible ; 
 but she is also infinite, and therefore mysterious. 
 Whenever you can make a bit of painting quite 
 
25 
 
 out, that bit of it is wrong. There is no exception 
 to this rule. 
 
 The picture is, however, so beautiful, in spite of 
 all these defects, that it becomes almost the duty 
 of the painter to perfect it. 
 
 326. A Pastoral. (J. C. Hook, A.) 
 
 Exquisite in idea, and some qualities of colour, as 
 Mr. Hook’s pictures are always ; but by no means 
 better than what he did last year, and if not better, 
 then necessarily a little worse. Pause is, I believe, 
 not possible in art. It is a pity thoughts so beautiful 
 should not be entirely realised : this is, at best, but 
 a full and suggestive sketch. It is not the way to 
 paint a dog, nor a woman’s arm, nor a sky. 
 
 453 is again entirely right and beautiful in con- 
 ception, but imperfect in touch. There is a peculiar 
 truth in the way he has given the deep tone of the 
 colour of the sea, out of which the surf opens upon 
 the rocks, like a great light, the snowy glare and 
 roar coming at the same instant. 
 
 350. Flower Girls — Town and Country. (J. C. 
 Horsley, A.) 
 
 The boldest effort we have yet seen from Mr. 
 Horsley’s hand, and I think a very telling one. It 
 is another example of the moralizing tendency of the 
 art of the day ; but if Mr. Horsley makes his ladies 
 going to masquerades look so charming in their gay 
 dresses, I fear they will continue to wear them, in 
 
26 
 
 spite of poor flower-girls leaning against the gate- 
 pillars, or innocent examples of life in the country. 
 
 3/2. (A. L. Egg.) 
 
 As I see that several mistakes have been made in 
 the interpretation of this impressive picture in the 
 public prints, I give the true reading of it, though I 
 should have thought it was clearly enough legible. 
 In the central piece the husband discovers his wife’s 
 infidelity : he dies five years afterwards. The two 
 lateral pictures represent the same moment of night 
 a fortnight after his death. The same little cloud is 
 under the moon. The two children see it from the 
 chamber in which they are praying for their lost 
 mother, and their mother, from behind a boat under 
 a vault on the river-shore. The painting, as such, 
 is not first-rate ; but the purpose of the picture 
 is well reached, and the moonlight is true and 
 beautiful. 
 
 428. Past and Present. (Miss A. Blunden.) 
 
 There is not a more painstaking nor sincere piece 
 of work than this in the room ; though it is clearly 
 the work of a hand which has not yet gained its full 
 strength. The figures are far from satisfactory ; 
 but there are pieces of the old manor house and 
 fore-ground thoroughly felt, and very nearly got 
 right — much righter in general tone of colour than 
 is usual in early work so far carried. The picture is 
 very curious in its quantity of work , and well worth 
 a long stoop to it. 
 
27 
 
 442. The Gaoler’s Daughter. (P. II. Calderon.) 
 
 The figure of the imprisoned priest is perfectly 
 right and beautiful : the girl, nearly so, hut the child 
 ought to he repainted ; it spoils a very touching 
 picture. Mr. Calderon had a promising little in- 
 terior picture in the British Institution. 
 
 455. The Ducal Palace, Venice. 
 
 (D. Roberts, II. A.) 
 
 As this seems to be a definite and energetic protest 
 by Mr. Roberts against Turner’s idea of Venetian 
 colour, and against all that I have endeavoured to 
 urge, or describe in support of that conception, I can 
 only accept it as such, and pass it by : but I may at 
 least say that protests against gondoliers’ management 
 of their boats are not likely to be effective. No gon- 
 dolier can by any possibility get into any one of the 
 positions here supposed, more especially that of the 
 figure on the left. A gondola is rowed from a little 
 elevated deck, with a raised slope for the hindmost foot, 
 close at its stern, not near the felzc (canopy), and at 
 his fullest thrust forward the rower’s position is well 
 over the boat’s side on his left hand ; so that if he 
 missed his stroke, he would go head foremost into the 
 water on that side, without even touching the felze : 
 the certainty of which result renders a tyro’s first efforts 
 with the stern oar exceedingly interesting — as well as 
 the no less precise certainty that if he catches a crab, 
 (and fish of this species may be easily secured on 
 a windy day), he must go instantly into the water 
 over the stern. 
 
28 
 
 499- lleynard’s Glove. (Miss A. F. Mutrie.) 
 
 Very pretty, indeed, Miss Mutrie, as usual ; but 
 you know those arc perfect dwarfs of foxgloves. Bud, 
 bell, and seed, I counted 148 on one stem last 
 summer (under the last crag of the Ochils, that looks 
 to Stirling), and an average foxglove that has at all 
 enjoyed its life, will always have seventy or eighty. 
 One energetic fellow I saw near Inverness, who had 
 not indeed enjoyed his life, hut had grandly made the 
 best of it ; he had been broken down in his youth — 
 his head laid down hill, past all rising again ; hut he 
 had lost no courage, thrown out three upright shoots 
 from the side of his stem, and become three foxgloves 
 instead of one. 
 
 500. Daughters of the Alhambra. (J. Phillips.) 
 
 All Mr. Phillips’s work is able, and, to a certain 
 extent, right ; hut I think he has never again done 
 anything so good as his picture of the church-door 
 two years ago. He is losing refinement ; while his 
 Spanish ladies — and still more his Spanish lovers — • 
 seem to me all somewhat more Phillippian than 
 Castilian. This picture is, however, a good example, 
 — rich, and pleasantly composed. 
 
 526. The Warren. (J. W. Oakes.) 
 
 Exquisitely painted in the flowery centre ; hut of 
 all foregrounds, one of sand and bent grass least pays 
 labour : and why does Mr. Oakes concentrate his 
 strength on foregrounds only? He had a beautiful 
 barley-field in the British Institution — with butterflies 
 
29 
 
 on it, and some nice furze and thistles besides ; but a 
 great deal more of them than was wanted ; while the 
 distance was wholly crude and unsatisfactory. 
 
 528. Peaceful Days. (P. 11. Morris.) 
 
 Very beautiful, and easier in mode of laying colour 
 than most of the work of the year. 
 
 55 7. Sunset on the Lagune. (E. W. Cooke, R.A.) 
 
 I can answer for the truth of this study, repre- 
 senting one of the calm sea-glories of Venice, which 
 painters are too apt to despise, though poets never. 
 Both Shelley and Byron seem to have loved these 
 Euganean Hills and the sunsets behind them, more 
 than Venice herself. 
 
 562. “ Thou wert our Conscript.” (II. Wallis.) 
 
 On the whole, to my mind, the picture of the year ; 
 and but narrowly missing being a first-rate of any year. 
 It is entirely pathetic and beautiful in purpose and 
 colour ; its only fault being a somewhat too heavy 
 laying of the body of paint, more especially in the 
 distant sky, which has no joy nor clearness when it is 
 looked close into, and in the blue of the hills that 
 rise against it, which is also too uniform and dead. 
 All perfect painting is light painting — light at some 
 point of the touch at all events ; no half inch of a 
 good picture but tells, when it is looked at, “ None 
 but my master could have laid me so.” 
 
 The ivy, ferns, &c., seem to me somewhat hastily 
 painted, but they are lovely in colour, and may pass 
 
30 
 
 blameless, as I think it would have been in false taste 
 to elaborate this subject further. The death quiet- 
 ness given by the action of the startled weasel is very 
 striking. 
 
 854. The Rivals, from Clynnog Beach. (C. F. 
 Williams.) 
 
 The magnificent sketch by Landseer in this room, 
 showing, as it does, all his wonderful handling on the 
 boldest scale, must withdraw all eyes at first from the 
 lower walls. But when due honour has been done to 
 the deer, this careful and unpretending study deserves 
 a minute’s stooping to it, admirable as it is alike in 
 rendering of extent of wet sand, weedy shingle, and 
 breaking wave ; and then it would be well to cross to 
 609 (II. Anelav), which, though not an altogether 
 successful effort, is a most earnest one to render the 
 mingling of transparency with reflection in pure and 
 perfect sea. Who ever dreamed of painting sea like 
 this till now ? and yet that is simply the normal state 
 of sea. What Ave have been in the habit, taught by 
 the Dutch, of calling sea-pieces, ought to be called 
 merely mud-bottom pieces. 
 
 1089- Stone Breaker. (J. Bi'ett.) 
 
 This, after John Lewis’s, is simply the most perfect 
 piece of painting with respect to touch, in the 
 Academy this year ; in some points of precision it 
 goes beyond anything the Pre-Raphaelites have done 
 yet. I know no such thistledown, no such chalk 
 
31 
 
 hills, and elm-trees, no such natural pieces of far 
 away cloud in any of their works. 
 
 The composition is palpably crude and wrong 
 in many ways, especially in the awkward white cloud 
 at the top ; and the tone of the whole a little too 
 much as if some of the chalk of the flints had been 
 mixed with all the colours. For all that, it is a 
 marvellous picture, and may be examined inch by 
 inch with delight ; though nearly the last stone I 
 should ever have thought of any one’s sitting down to 
 paint, would have been a chalk flint. If he can make 
 so much of that, what will Mr. Brett not make of 
 mica slate and gneiss ! If he can paint so lovely a 
 distance from the Surrey downs and railway-traversed 
 vales, what w'ould he not make of the chestnut groves 
 of the Yal d’ Aosta ! I heartily wish him good speed 
 and long exile. 
 
32 
 
 FRENCH EXHIBITION. 
 
 Generally, this exhibition is full of interest ; and 
 instructive to our English painters in the evidence of 
 steady training shown in its work. It is dominant in 
 scenes of domestic life ; deficient in landscape. 
 
 7. The Plough. (Mdlle. Rosa Bonheur.) 
 
 This lady gains in. power every year, hut there 
 is one stern fact concerning art which she will 
 do well to consider, if she means her power to 
 reach full development. No painter of animals 
 ever yet was entirely great, who shrank from 
 painting the human face ; and Mdlle. Bonheur clearly 
 does shrink from it. Of course, a ploughman plough- 
 ing westward at evening slouches his hat and stoops 
 his head ; but the hack of him, in this action, with 
 a foreshortened yoke of oxen, and three of the 
 awkwardest haystacks in France, do not altogether 
 constitute a subject for a picture. In the Horse-Fair, 
 the human faces were nearly all dexterously, but dis- 
 agreeably, hidden, and the one chiefly shown had not 
 the slightest character. Mdlle. Bonheur may rely upon 
 this, that if she cannot paint a man’s face, she can 
 
33 
 
 neither paint a horse’s, a (log’s, nor a bull’s. There 
 is in every animal’s eye a dim image and gleam of 
 humanity, a flash of strange light through which their 
 life looks out and up to our great mystery of com- 
 mand over them, and claims the fellowship of the 
 creature, if not of the soul. I assure Mdlle. Bon- 
 heur, strange as the words may sound to her, after 
 what she lias been told by huntsmen and racers, she 
 has never painted a horse yet. She has only painted 
 trotting bodies of horses. 
 
 62. The Gleaner Boy. (Edward Frerc.) 
 
 The expressions of admiration for this painter’s 
 work which I used last year, were thought by many 
 readers to have been written in a fit of momentary 
 and uncalculating enthusiasm. I repeat therefore — 
 after a year’s deliberation — with such plain and 
 purposed meaning as I always try to give words 
 which I know will seem questionable, that this 
 painter unites ; “ the depth of Wordsworth, the grace 
 of Kevnolds, and the holiness of Angelico.” 
 
 That is to .say, first, he approaches the simplest 
 subject with perfect feeling of its great humanity, 
 conscious of all the most solemn pathos which 
 there is in the crowned sorrows of poverty, and 
 calm submissions of toil : — interpreting to the full, 
 and for the first time in the history of sacred 
 paintings, the great words of the first Beatitude. 
 For the poverty which was honoured by the great 
 painters and thinkers of the middle ages was an 
 ostentatious, almost a presumptuous poverty ; if 
 
 c 
 
not tills, at least it was chosen anil accepted — the 
 poverty of men who had given their goods to feed the 
 simpler poor, and who claimed in honour what they 
 had lost in luxury; or, at the best, in claiming nothing 
 for themselves, had still a proud understanding of 
 their own self-denial, and a confident hope of future 
 reward. But it has been reserved for this age to 
 perceive and tell the blessedness of another kind of 
 poverty than this ; not voluntary nor proud, 
 but accepted and submissive; not clear-sighted nor 
 triumphant, but subdued and patient : partly patient 
 in tenderness — of God’s will ; partly patient in 
 blindness — of man’s oppression ; too laborious to be 
 thoughtful — too innocent to be conscious — too long 
 experienced in sorrow to be hopeful — waiting in its 
 peaceful darkness for the unconceived dawn ; yet not 
 without its own sweet, complete, untainted happiness, 
 like intermittent notes of birds before the daybreak, 
 or the first gleams of heaven’s amber on the eastern 
 grey. Such poverty as this it has been reserved for 
 this age of ours to honour while it afflicted ; it is 
 reserved for the age to come, to honour it — and to 
 spare. 
 
 I said, secondly, that this painter had “ the grace 
 of Reynolds:” — that is to say, grace consummate, 
 no painter having ever before approached Rey- 
 nolds in the rendering of the momentary loveliness 
 and trembling life of childhood, by beauty of play 
 and change in every colour and curve ; the great 
 Venetians were too great to do it ; their lines were 
 always grave and severe in their grace ; and all other 
 
men but Reynolds have been too mean to do it, until 
 this one. And, lastly, I say he has the holiness of 
 Angelico : that is to say, perfect purity from all sen- 
 sual taint, from all baseness of associated ideas, there 
 never passing over his brow so much as the shadow of 
 an Evil Spirit’s wings. This I say of him, and also 
 that the man of whom this may truly be said is, if he 
 uses his power faithfully, simply and brieflykme of the 
 chief men of this century. But on his faithfulness to 
 the gift of his deep heart all now rests : and he is at 
 present failing in this faithfulness. I noticed last 
 year that there were certain characters in his painting 
 which, in any other man’s work, would have been 
 faults, and which were only to be forgiven in him so 
 far as they were unavoidable in getting his main 
 result. Now this year the main result is not better — 
 is not even quite so good, and the faults are more 
 conspicuous, proving themselves therefore faults 
 positive. The colour even of the faces is less pure; 
 that of the background is becoming dark and heavy ; 
 it is difficult to see even as much as the painter 
 intends us to see : we feel as if there were a 
 coating of clay over the work which wants to be 
 washed off. This manner of painting will assuredly 
 gain upon him, unless he sets a standard to himself 
 far beyond it ; and I believe he will have to paint 
 some pieces of still life, in which no question of feeling 
 or of harmony of expression will interfere with his 
 efforts, up to the highest point of finish possible to 
 him, for exercise merely : afterwards receding from 
 the precision and brilliancy lie does not want when he 
 
 c 2 
 
36 
 
 uses such passages in his pictures. Take, for instance, 
 the piece of near grass in this “ Gleaner it, of 
 course, in nowise resembles grass : not a leaf of it is 
 true, nor is it lovely ; it is merely an indication of the 
 thing meant, in a tone harmonious with the rest of the 
 work. Now the painter ought not only to see more 
 in the grass than this, but ought to be able to paint 
 more, without hurting his general effect.* So, also, in 
 the corn which the hoy carries, there is none of the 
 beauty or complexity of a real cluster of wheat ; and 
 if the artist would draw the real sheaf perfectly, he 
 would be able to make the number of touches he has 
 permitted himself here, quite as subordinate, but far 
 more lovely. The sadness of colour which he 
 chooses, is indeed a part, and a very important part, 
 
 * The reader may perhaps be surprised at my speaking here 
 somewhat in the tone of one of the men of the old “ generalization” 
 school: about subduing parts for the effect of the whole. But this 
 is because I do not consider Frere’s as finished pictures, but as 
 sketches of expression. In a finished picture, all must be finished; 
 and in a sketch, all must be sketched, up to an harmonious point — 
 nothing beyond that point. Frere’s faces are not finished ; he 
 seems to pause just when he has touched the truth of expression, 
 lest he should lose it by doing more. Then, of course, the acces- 
 saries must not be finished in a higher degree ; he must be content 
 with the expression only of those — as with the expression only of 
 the human face. The rule I gave for finished pictures is a perfectly 
 true one — namely, that if you paint faces ill, you must not try to 
 mend them by painting back-grounds worse : but it is also a true 
 rule, that if you sketch a figure lightly, you must not finish the 
 burden it carries heavily, nor give a completion to the lesser thing 
 which you have refused to the greater. The picture, No. 63, is, 
 however, very nearly up to his mark of last year. The hair of the 
 child is beautifully touched. 
 
of the pathos of his subjects — but he must take 
 care not to allow melancholy to sink into ennui, 
 nor humility to degenerate into dullness. 
 
 J O 
 
 I take no separate note of the other pictures 
 by him in this room ; for I believe the persons 
 who can feel them at all will feel them without 
 being much talked to about them : only it should 
 be observed generally that the greatness of Frere 
 consists in such slight things that it is only by long 
 looking at his work that it can be felt : the difference 
 between him and all other painters of similar subjects 
 is quite infinite — and yet it depends literally on 
 hairsbreadths, and less than hairsbreadths ; on the 
 ineffable subtlety of line which makes gesture or 
 expression precisely right. Examine, for instance, the 
 way the child leans on her sister, pushing a little to 
 get at the shells in her lap, in No. 59, and consider 
 how it is that all the child’s mind is given in its 
 attitude — all its fitful, troublesome, innocent, incon- 
 sequent eagerness, just in the turn of a sleeve ! 
 
 103. Sea Shore at Blankenburg — Afternoon. 
 (Henri Lc lion.) 
 
 Very clever in the balanced depressions of tone 
 which bring out the gleams of light on boat and sea, 
 
 and showing, I think, great feeling and skill in the 
 painter ; but this depression of tone is, nevertheless, 
 a standing mistake of the French school. The French 
 
 painters always chill the colours of nature as they 
 lower them, by toning everything with grey : and 
 thus not only alter the depth and pitch of the 
 
33 
 
 colour, but the colour itself. They do not merely 
 change its key, but debase its nature, — that is 
 to say, if they have trees to lower, they turn 
 what is in reality pale pure green into dark dirty 
 green, when they ought to change it only into a 
 darker green of the same purity ; and if they have 
 pale yellow sand to lower, instead of lowering it to 
 a dark yellow, equally glowing, they lower it to a dark 
 grev, and thus turn sand into slime. It is very 
 curious, that in spite of all the talk about Titian, this 
 simple principle of his colouring, lias never been 
 understood. When Titian lowers tones, he always 
 lowers them without changing the colours. Pale blue 
 lie translates into ultramarine : pale rose-colour into 
 crimson : pale sand-colour into deep brown : and pale 
 green into emerald green ; but he never pollutes 
 the blue sky with blackness, nor stains pale roses 
 with clay ; whereas, nearly all the French landscapes 
 in this room represent nature seen through a smoked 
 glass. If the sky had only been half as livid at the 
 last eclipse of the sun as the French landscapists 
 represent it on sunny afternoons, the birds would 
 have gone to roost in a much more satisfactory way 
 than I hear they did. 
 
 108. The Study. (Louis Ernest Meissonicr.) 
 
 I look upon this work and its companion (109) with 
 exceeding sorrow, for they show great powers wasted 
 in producing results either useless, or worse than use- 
 less in so far as they encourage the disposition of the 
 modern patron — so long fatal to the best interests 
 
39 
 
 and highest purposes of art — to spend his wealth in 
 petty luxuries of the drawing-room, instead of in 
 the bold and large art which is visible to all men, 
 and helpful to all men. I have never in anywise 
 joined in the vague cry raised usually hy ambitious 
 and weak painters, for public encouragement to “ high 
 art, ’ or “ historical art,’’ — as if art might not be 
 both high and historical on a small scale as well 
 as a large one. But, on the other hand, I have 
 always protested, in the strongest way I could, against 
 the miserable degradation of pictures, by the influ- 
 ence of the Dutch schools, into toys for boudoirs, or 
 marvels for cabinets. And here is the old Dutch 
 principle again in all its strength. Narrow, easily 
 imitated, easily appreciated chiaroscuro, let in by a 
 single window, to get dioramic relief — brown shadows 
 — bright touches — dull surfaces — coppery colours ; — 
 all Flanders and Holland over again. Quite as good 
 as ever Holland did ; nay, it seems to me, in some 
 respects, better ; but assuredly quite as wretched, 
 as forgetful of the high purposes of painting, and as 
 traitorous to the royalty of human nature. 
 
 130. The Music Lesson. (Emile Plassan.) 
 
 Exquisite in touch of pencil, and in appreciation 
 of delicate character, both in features and gesture. 
 
 It is lighter and softer in laying of colour than 
 Frere’s work, and more refined in colour than Meis- 
 sonier’s ; on the whole it seems to me the best piece 
 of quiet painting in the room. The French painters 
 far surpass us in their understanding of the light 
 
40 
 
 expressions and trivial actions of daily life ; partly 
 because they aim at them more simply, and are con- 
 tent to be true and polished, while our painters are 
 always striving to he heroic, moral, or amusing ; hut 
 also. I suppose, from an innate tact and sympathy 
 which we never have possessed — nor can possess. 
 
 139- Marguerite at the Fountain. (Ary Scheffer.) 
 
 As this picture is designed on the assumption that 
 the universe generally is vulgar, and that the noblest 
 ideal of colour is to be found in dust, it of course puts 
 itself beyond criticism. But it suggests a curious 
 question. It may he — I believe it is — a just view of 
 the depth and purity of Marguerite’s character, which 
 assumes that the first whispers of her companions 
 would not flush her face, hut turn it pale. But, 
 supposing the painter should ever wish to paint a 
 woman “ glowing all over noble shame,” how will he 
 reconcile the human crimson with the dusty insensi- 
 bilities of his background ? 
 
41 
 
 SOCIETY OF BRITISH ARTISTS/ 
 
 84. Borromcan Islands on the Lago Maggiore (?) 
 (J. B. Pyne.) 
 
 I am sincerely glad to see that Mr. Pyne has suc- 
 ceeded in reaching better qualities of colour than in 
 his earlier pictures. I had feared the range of his 
 work had been limited by natural incapacity for the 
 perception of hue ; hut lie begins to disprove such 
 incapacity, and it seems to me quite at his own choice 
 whether he will now become a real artist, or remain 
 merely a popular draughtsman and supplier of the 
 market with “lake scenery.” It is at his own choice, 
 I repeat, — hut only at his resolute choice ; for he has 
 much to surrender of his own, and much to learn 
 from the external world. His own part in the con- 
 ception of this No. 84, for instance — is somewhat too 
 manifest — and highly curious. The picture appears to 
 represent an inlet of green water among desolate 
 rocks, somewhere near the North Pole ; the faint, 
 pure, frosty, Arctic light penetrating into their jagged 
 hollows ; a shore of grey slime, washed down from 
 the glaciers, stretches into the shallow water of the 
 inlet, on which tongue of land (at the right hand 
 
42 
 
 of the spectator) Mr. Pyne has erected a small 
 model of an Italian campanile and some clay houses. 
 On the slope of the hill above he has carried his 
 bitterness of mockery of any lost navigator, to the 
 extent of setting up some pillars as they usually 
 stand in the alleys of vineyards, and arranging some 
 copper foliage upon them, having a resemblance to 
 vine leaves, distant indeed, but yet clear enough to 
 he very painful to persons suffering from cold and 
 hunger. It is true there is some Iceland moss in 
 the foreground — (is it not slightly too brown for 
 that lichen ?) ; and his malice towards his fellow- 
 men is tempered by some kindness for animals ; 
 since by raising an island, traversed by alternate 
 terraces and slopes, in the middle of the lagoon, 
 he has provided for the exercise and amusement 
 of the white hears, who, it is well known, arc fond 
 of sliding down small slopes of this kind on their 
 hind-quarters. 
 
 If Mr. Pyne is determined to paint these Arctic 
 desolations, lie would find that their real incidents 
 were in the end more interesting, though less start- 
 ling, than these grotesque introductions of Surrey- 
 garden decoration ; but I do not see why he should 
 confine himself to Northern subjects. Among the 
 Italian lakes, to one of which this very Polar scene hears 
 (except in the forms of the mountains) so singular a 
 resemblance as to have caused, I presume, the mistake 
 in the catalogue, he would find materials, which 
 though at first much more difficult to treat, would, in 
 the end, reward his labour with a richer charm ; 
 
43 
 
 shores dark with ilex and soft with olive, arc surely 
 pleasanter than slimy shallows ; and the Alps of 
 the Simplon, soaring through their twelve thousand 
 feet of air, purple with everlasting pines, are better 
 worth painting than these little crags jutting out of 
 the pools of the glacial sea, and hardly high enough 
 to catch a few of the level rays of the revolving 
 sun upon their lichenless edges. 
 
 Seriously and heartily, I am sorry for Mr. Pyne, 
 his work has now become well worth sorrow ; I never 
 knew before that he cared for rosy lights and blue 
 shadows, or could feel that there were other forms in 
 the world than those of Mendip limestones. Put I 
 see here that he can; and that he is only shutting 
 himself wilfully away from the beauty that lie might' 
 delight in. All these scenes of fairy land, which 
 he supposes can only he got by fallacy, exist in 
 truth — exist in tenderness and loveliness, greater 
 than he has any dream of ; — greater than he could at 
 present conceive possible. But between them and him 
 lies a fiery trial. His work, clever though it be, is at 
 present wrong to the very core ; so fatally has lie 
 blinded himself to the great facts of the earth. If lie 
 could bear to have this false work aud the false prin- 
 ciples involved in it fairly burnt away — burnt to their 
 foundations, and after humiliation in their ashes, 
 will paint steadily for six months from things quiet 
 in colour and commonplace (as lie will at first 
 suppose) in form — solemnly resolving to allow him- 
 self neither a fallacy nor an avoidable incompletion ; 
 and having done this penance, will then seek again 
 
44 
 
 some of his favourite scenes, lie will find a new 
 world opened to him, from which lie will never desire 
 to wander more. 
 
 115. Mozart’s Last Chorus. 
 
 Not a good picture ; but very touching in its 
 subject, and I think successful — (is it not ? for 
 musicians must he judges in this) — in the principal 
 figure. 
 
 188. The Windings of the Wye. (11. J. Bod- 
 dington.) 
 
 I am puzzled by the pictures of this class which the 
 society produces so abundantly. There are this year 
 about fifty in the room of nearly equal average value; 
 some are a little richer in blue than others — some a 
 little warmer in brown ; a few, Mr. Sycr’s chiefly — 
 (201, for instance) — are more dexterous and light in 
 touch than the rest ; and one or two, like this 
 188, more ambitious in size and subject, hut 
 they may all be classed together as imperfect 
 studies from pleasant mountain scenery, dependent 
 for effect chiefly on redundance of rock forms and 
 opposition of warm light to purple shade, with occa- 
 sionally considerable tenderness of atmosphere — well 
 studied reflections in water, and sharply touched 
 sticks and stones in the foreground. Nevertheless, I 
 do not look upon them as done by recipe. There is 
 evidence in all of them that the painters have worked 
 much out of doors, and have faced midges and wet 
 weather many a long day before they could either get 
 
45 
 
 into those dexterous habits of rock-drawing, or give 
 definite portraiture of all the rock basins in a torrent 
 bed — as Mr. Pettitt has done in 139- Moreover, I 
 really think they love the hills : those elaborate 
 pieces of mountain flank, touched with amber, look 
 to me as if they were painted quite for love — not to 
 speak of many pretty stones and cottages, and streams 
 with foam on them, and even bubbles — yes, and for 
 the first time, as far as I recollect, bubbles with 
 colour (699)* But there is one fatal wrong in all of 
 them, which is simply that nothing is quite right. 
 The whole is respectable ; but no single stone, no 
 wreath of cloud, no cottage gable, is absolutely, 
 decisively, insuperably good. 
 
 They arc wrong, also, by having always too much 
 of the same kind of thing. Too much bank — all 
 alike ; too many rocks — all alike ; each piece of the 
 picture undoes another, and nobody ever feels inclined 
 to ask for more. 
 
 Then, farther, there are no strange things in 
 them. Nature always looks strange when she is 
 truly rendered, and is alwavs doing' what none of us 
 expect from her. These painters never seem to get 
 any out-of-the-way glimpses, or to catch one of the 
 humours of the clouds in a wayward day. There 
 was a little green bit of sunshine on the wet grass 
 in the British Institution (234, C. Leslie), which 
 had far more sight in it than any of these large 
 pictures, though sharing with them the last fault I 
 have to name — overloading and too smooth laying of 
 colour. Half as much paint would have produced 
 
46 
 
 a result twice as good. Titian would put glow into 
 a whole head with no more paint than goes to one of 
 the touches on these foregrounds. 
 
 252. A Fisherman’s Daughter of Mola di Ga?ta. 
 (F. Y. Hurlstone.) 
 
 Is it too late for Mr. Ilurlstonc to recover himself? 
 He might have been a noble painter. Bad and 
 coarse as it is, that bright fish is the best piece of 
 mere painting in all the rooms ; and I believe, 
 if Mr. Ilurlstonc would set himself fairly to take 
 account of his own work, he might yet feel how 
 fast he is sinking. If he would but look some 
 morning for half an hour steadily and closely at that 
 piece of Thames slime, stained with dim gouts and 
 blotches of vermilion, which he has given in the 
 place of a left hand to the fisherman’s daughter : and 
 then walk straight into the National Gallery, and 
 look for another half-hour at the drooped left hand 
 of the princess — holding her crown — in Veronese’s 
 picture, I do believe he might yet be seized with 
 desire to recover his ground ; — and this desire, in 
 him, would be capacity. 
 
 454. The Wife’s Remonstrance. (J. Campbell.) 
 
 By far the best picture in the Suffolk-strect Rooms 
 this year : full of pathos, and true painting. But I 
 fear Mr. Campbell is unredecmably under the fatal 
 influence which shortens the power of so many of the 
 Pre-Raphaelites — the fate of loving ugly things better 
 than beautiful ones. In his “ Visit to the Old 
 
47 
 
 Sailor” (800), lie has painted the rugged face well; 
 but quite spoiled the child’s. He ought to repaint 
 the child’s face : the rest of the drawing is worth any 
 pains he could spend on it. 
 
 783. Roast Chestnut Seller. (F. Smallfield.) 
 
 An interesting and successful study, as are also 
 several other drawings by this artist in this room. 
 But he seems to me to be imitating William Hunt’s 
 execution, without thoroughly understanding the 
 motive of it. If he does not sec things rough, 
 he should not paint them so : in No. 71b the blue 
 sleeve looks like worsted work, not like painting. 
 He has, however, two excellent studies in the Royal 
 Academy, (33, 877*) 
 
48 
 
 NEW SOCIETY OF PAINTERS IN WATER-COLOURS. 
 
 18. The Bass Bock. (J. W. AVhymper.) 
 
 A most interesting subject, truly seen, and well 
 rendered up to a certain point. There is no high 
 power of present execution shown in it ; but I think 
 the painter must have great feeling, and perhaps even 
 the rare gift of invention. Those bird-clouds arc 
 well wreathed and tossed, so as to show the noble 
 form of the rock. I hope this painter may advance 
 far. 
 
 63. Bardj. A50USS. (Charles Vachcr.) 
 
 There is great beauty of tone in many of All*. 
 V acher’s drawings, and their impression is often 
 most pleasing : but he should really leave out the 
 figures for some time to come, exercising himself in 
 figure-drawing in the meanwhile ; and also he needs 
 to study individual pieces of foreground with more 
 respect for their local colours, lie is working too 
 much by recipe, and the nearer stones are here very 
 meagre. 
 
 111. The Bising of the Ground Sea. (S. Cooke.) 
 
 This is a drawing full of merit and feeling for sea ; 
 hut there are five others by this artist in the room, 
 
49 
 
 and in all of them there is a green sea under a slight 
 breeze, breaking on a flat shore. The sea thus 
 represented six times over, is indeed very like salt- 
 water, and the waves shake well along their 
 edges, giving more suggestion than usual of the 
 tremulousness which so often runs in a kind of electric 
 current along the whole length of a breaker's edge as 
 it rises. But I sincerely hope Mr. Cooke will make 
 some effort to break from this slavery to one kind of 
 wave, lie might teach himself, and us, a serviceable 
 lesson by resolving, on the first morning of summer, 
 when there was a likelihood of unsettled, hut not 
 stormy weather during the day, to go down to the 
 beach as soon after dawn as possible, and make a 
 rapid sketch of the exact aspect of sea and sky at 
 every two hours, as the day passed on, until sun- 
 set ; afterwards trying to realise each with complete 
 sincerity, and sending the 9 drawings as a series to 
 the next Exhibition. He would find they attracted 
 more notice than these repetitions of green breakers. 
 309 is, however, very lovely. 
 
 114. The Bay of Naples. (T. L. Rowbotham.) 
 
 What I said of Mr. Bowbotham’s work last year 
 I must take leave to repeat, for I do believe there is 
 the making of a good landscape painter in him. I 
 think, in spite of all his artificialness, he has en- 
 thusiasm — loves what he tries to paint, and works 
 hard ; and where there is enthusiasm, and no shirking 
 of labour, there is no saying what a painter may 
 
 D 
 
50 
 
 make of himself if once he takes the right turn 
 of the road. Of the merely blottesque workman 
 I have far less hope. He is often more right, as 
 far as lie reaches, than the enthusiastic one ; hut 
 there is no growth in him. Mr. Bennett, for in- 
 stance, perhaps looks out of his green shades with 
 contempt on Mr. Rowbotham’s white and blue, as 
 feeling that he is simpler in heart, and truer in 
 purpose. But then he purposes nearly nothing — 
 loving fields and trees only with a serene, vegetative 
 affection ; whereas if Mr. Rowbotham but once takes 
 a fancy to finish one of his pretty subjects fairly 
 on the spot — nay, if he hut draws so much as the 
 window of an Italian cottage completely — his mind 
 will he altered about many matters before the sketch 
 is well dry ; and then all his admiration of rocks 
 and lakes may be brought into good service. At 
 present it is sufficiently sad to see him defrauding 
 himself of the very picturesqueness he delights in, by 
 painting out of what he supposes to be his head, hut 
 is, in reality, only his habit. He knows well enough, 
 as well as I do, that those trios of similar windows 
 (compare 130) are not particularly interesting; but 
 he docs not yet know that they are also impossible, 
 and that there arc the most delightful window groups 
 to he had every day, and in every place, merely 
 for the trouble of looking at them and noting them 
 down. 
 
51 
 
 182. Song of the Georgian Maiden. (H. Warren.) 
 
 Full of cleverness; but continually false in pas- 
 sages, owing to the violent striving for brilliancy. 
 I do not dwell upon the errors, because so dexterous 
 an artist must surely know them w r ell enough himself, 
 and I suppose therefore, he means, for the sake of 
 dazzling, to persist in them. 
 
 20". In the Forest of Dean. (Edmund E. 
 Warren.) 
 
 A very interesting study ; the dark side of the 
 trunk is singularly consistent and right in its gra- 
 dations ; the effect of the whole as true as it is 
 possible for anything to he which is not delicately 
 coloured, but depends for all its results on mere 
 brown, grey, and green, laid in right chiaroscuro. 
 
 I fear the success is mechanical ; but I wish that 
 the younger Pre-Raphaelite painters, who cannot yet 
 bring their details into true balance of force, would 
 take note how* much appearance of truth to nature 
 has been obtained in this drawing merely by the 
 consistent relations of its shade, and would try to 
 give the same consistency to their own truer hues. 
 
 218. A Miracle Play. (Edward Corbould.) 
 
 An amusing subject, which would, however, have 
 been more intelligible if Mr. Corbould had quoted 
 some of the text of the play. I recollect reading it 
 with great edification one w r et day at Chester, some 
 ten years ago, but I remember now only the heroic 
 determination of Noah’s wife, and the less heroic 
 
52 
 
 resolves of her gossips, expressed as follows ; I cannot 
 answer for the spelling : — 
 
 Three Gossips . — Here is a pottle full of Malmsey, gode and stronge, 
 Tlio’ Noe thynke us never so longe, 
 
 Yet we will drink alyke. 
 
 Noah's wife. — Yea, Noe, set up your sayle, 
 
 And row forth with evylle hayle. 
 
 But I love my gossippes, each one. 
 
 One foote further will I not gone ; 
 
 They shall not drown — by Saint John, 
 
 And I may save their lyffe. 
 
 But thou shalt let them into that kist, 
 
 Els, row forth, Noe, where thou list, 
 
 And gette thee a new wyf. 
 
 223. A Study. (T. Sutcliffe.) 
 
 The furze in this drawing is admirable, and the 
 whole thing got straight from nature ; but Mr. Sut- 
 cliffe chooses his subjects ill, owing, I believe, to his 
 not working enough in chiaroscuro merely, and allow- 
 ing himself to be captivated by a single pretty bit, 
 like those golden brambles on the purple rock, 
 without considering whether the forms and arrange- 
 ment of the whole are available. He should now 
 study for some time with a view to arrangement 
 only. 
 
53 
 
 OLD SOCIETY OF PAINTERS IN WATER COLOURS. 
 
 I congratulate the Society on its great advance this 
 year. I have placed my notes on their drawings last, 
 because it is pleasant to stay latest with old friends. 
 
 15. Snowdon from Capel Curig. (I). Cox.) 
 
 Though Mr. Cox’s work is every year broader in 
 handling, and therefore farther, as mere work, from 
 the completeness I would generally advocate, it 
 becomes always more majestic or more interesting 
 in conception. I have deeper sympathy with some 
 of his this year’s drawings than with any I ever yet 
 saw from his hand. This is a rich and beautiful one ; 
 hut the bits please me most which no one but he 
 would have thought of painting, and which are made 
 pictures of by a little thing in the right place, as 
 178 is by the black and white dog. The bank above, 
 and distance, are wonderful pieces of grey colour. 
 
 29. Gates at the Villa Somma Riva. (W. Evans.) 
 
 The drawing cannot be called good ; but there is a 
 new idea and vision of Gates in it : and it is therefore 
 very noteworthy. But what does Mr. Evans mean by 
 this coarse way of work, with so much odd good, and 
 
54 
 
 so much odd wrong, in it? 57, for instance, has 
 a great deal of good — and the violent wrong of 
 vertical reflections of oblique lines, which spoils all ; 
 and 10 is very like Vesuvius and the Apennines in 
 winter — a very certain piece of fact — but what very 
 remarkable and objectionable mules ! 
 
 33. Highland Gillie, with Dogs and Black Game. 
 
 I suffer intense anxiety to sec this remarkable 
 gillie, who never grows old, and who has had for the 
 last ten years of Mr. Tayler s painting him, the same 
 little portcullis of carmine on his left cheek, and the 
 same narrow stream of liquorice down his forehead 
 and the right side of his nose. 
 
 It is not Presidential work, Mr. Tayler — you know 
 as well as I that it is not right ; and you know, better 
 than I, how much you could do with that facile hand 
 of yours if you chose ; it seems to me you might paint 
 dogs and ponies as well as Landseer, and Highland 
 gillies, full of life, with real Celtic blood in their 
 cheeks, instead of these little tartan patterns of rouge, 
 if you would only forego for a year or two the pretty 
 praise of the drawing-room — despise for ever the 
 boisterous praise of the stable — and set yourself to 
 paint veritable human nature, instead of lay figures 
 in tasselled caps (compare No. 132); and veritable 
 dog form and power, instead of those little yelping 
 (they do yelp, certainly!) compounds of bistre-blots 
 and flakes of white, with dots in every eye to make 
 them glitter. 
 
55 
 
 46. A Mountain Torrent, late in Autumn. 
 (C. Branwhite.) 
 
 Farther carried than the artist’s usual work, 
 expressing - some sufficient solidity in the rocks, and 
 reaching some grandeur of form in the hills. But 
 whence came the idea of painting autumn in the 
 Highlands without a mountain ash? nay, without one 
 dead leaf or withered fern ! I assume that this scene 
 is to be imagined in the Highlands ; it very certainly 
 is nowhere ; but it is more like a Scottish gflen than 
 a Welsh one, (entirely unlike the Alps) ; and if 
 Scottish scenery is pre-eminent in anything, it is 
 just in the gold and scarlet of the mountain ashes in 
 early November, and in the way the dark purple 
 rocks get studded with the dead leaves like golden 
 byzants, the wind carrying them in whirls into their 
 crannies, and the moist mists fastening them to the 
 surfaces without washing them down, till every lonely 
 crag looks like one of Veronese’s purple robes 
 embossed with gold. How it is possible for a painter 
 to walk once through a Highland glen in autumn, and 
 miss this, 1 cannot conceive ; nor how Mr. Branwhite, 
 possessing some real power of drawing, can like these 
 various conditions of scratch and dash in brown paint 
 better than curled tops of closing fern, or than the 
 splendid iron-russet sprays of the dead heath-blossoms, 
 soft here and there with faint lilac, where a living bell 
 remains. 
 
 However, slight and affected as the work is, it 
 is firmer than last year’s ; and we must hope better 
 things for the future. 
 
56 
 
 62. A Lingerer. (W. Turner.) 
 
 Not up to Mr. Turner’s usual work; but the only 
 thing I have seen this year at all like heather. 172 
 is, however, a very impressive and precious drawing : 
 full of truth in its far-off Highland hills, and glowing 
 sky, and low-floating mists. 
 
 72. Sty Head Tarn, Cumberland. Early Morning. 
 (P. S. Jackson.) 
 
 Very pathetic and true in its waves of mist under 
 sunrise ; but too monotonous in colour of clouds. 
 The rock foreground expresses faithfully the fact, too 
 often overlooked, of a great rounded mass of slate 
 splitting and gaping gradually under frost, giving a 
 flat-bottomed block at the top, with a rounded back 
 like a turtle’s, and flat tabular masses in succession 
 below, rounded on their outer edges. 
 
 112. A Winter Scene. Carting Ice. (E. Duncan.) 
 
 Carefully studied in some of its aerial effects ; 
 but winter mists would be enchanting indeed, if they 
 could turn trees into knots of serpents. It is very 
 strange that Mr. Duncan should work so conscien- 
 tiously and quietly through the difficult part of bis 
 drawing, and yet not take the small pains which 
 would have made the whole satisfactory, by sketching 
 that tree on the left, and the pollard willow on the 
 right, from nature. Any tree in the world would 
 have done ; and when Mr. Duncan does draw a tree 
 from nature, he will find that a bough half a foot 
 
57 
 
 thick at the beginning of it, ramifies into more than 
 two twigs at the end of it. 
 
 126. In the Sabine Hills. (Carl Haag.) 
 
 Very beautiful and right — up to the point sought. 
 I have perhaps never before seen a piece of the 
 Italian limestone, scorched dry in the sun, so 
 thoroughly realized, whether in the lie of the oblique 
 beds under the shrine, or in the mass on this side of 
 the path spotted with black lichen. The distant 
 mountain is very soft and lovely in colour, and quite 
 as true as lovelv. The reflected light in the roof of 
 the shrine is rightly cast, and richly glowing. What 
 can possibly be the matter with this picture — making 
 it not a great one — for a great one assuredly it is 
 not ? 
 
 I believe the same things are the matter with it, 
 only in a far less painful degree, which destroy so 
 much of the value of Carl Haag’s figure pieces — 
 namely, a delight in texture rather than in forms or 
 undulations of surface; or (in rougher words), in the 
 skin rather than the make of things ; farther — a 
 delight in violent contrasts of colour rather than in 
 finely invented harmonies of it — (the same thing as 
 the endeavour of a composer to get effect by passages 
 of flute and harp after drum and trumpet, instead of by 
 real invention of successions in chords), and lastly and 
 chiefly, a tendency to stage sentiment rather than life 
 sentiment : making him insist always more on costume 
 than expression ; nay, in fact, always see costume 
 first. And, observe, this error is not merely the 
 
58 
 
 common one of which the Pre-Raphaelites are so 
 often accused (for the most part falsely), of painting 
 accessaries better than principalities, when the princi- 
 palities arc nevertheless seen and tried for. For 
 in Carl Ilaag’s work the principal things are not 
 seen. A peasant offers herself to his eyes as a kind 
 of hook of patterns ; the main phenomena of her are 
 her cap and hoddice ; he cannot recover from the 
 sensation of astonishment at her dress so as to dis- 
 cern that there is a human being within it. A man 
 is, in his eyes, mainly different from a chamois in 
 wearing leggings : if Cadmus had sown hobnails 
 instead of teeth, one might have expected a crop of 
 such men as these. I verily believe that the best 
 thing the painter could do would be to go to the 
 Tyrol, and himself wear green breeches and a conical 
 hat till he got quite used to them, and perceived that 
 there was really nothing so awful nor wonderful in 
 either, but that he might paint without being over- 
 powered by their presence. 
 
 lie is, however, doing better every year. This land- 
 scape seems to me a great step in advance, and I hope 
 we shall have more of the kind. Carl llaag’s forte, as 
 it has been in worsted among men, will evidently be 
 in lichens among rocks, but that is no reason why 
 these respectable and long-lived vegetables should not 
 have their painters. By the way, they and the fungi 
 have all fortune’s favour this year ; for William Hunt’s 
 beautiful little picture (244) is the first, so far 
 as I know, painted entirely in honour of the little 
 ephemeral beauties, as Carl Haag’s is the first which 
 
59 
 
 has entirely expressed the character -of tho black 
 stains of mountain life which hardly change their 
 shapes in a thousand years. 
 
 130. Lihou Island, near Guernsey. (P. J. Naftel.) 
 
 An excellent study of sea-shore. His Bocquain Bay, 
 53, is hung so high that it is likely to escape notice ; 
 and this would be a pity, were it but for the beauty 
 of the subject ; it is pleasant to know what lovely 
 lanes there are in the Channel Islands, in full green 
 in this present spring time. Bather too green, I think, 
 here on paper. Tree shadows are more violet. 
 
 197. Declining Day. View in Argyllshire. 
 
 (A. P. Newton.) 
 
 It is curious what compensation time and tide 
 bring for every evil. First come railroads to make 
 us all restless ; next come faithful painters, to 
 draw everything so well that w r e needn’t leave home 
 to see it. Let Mr. Newton but draw all the four 
 sides of Ben Nevis as he has done this one, and 
 nobody need ever go to the mountain again for the 
 mere sake of seeing what it is like. I know' all about 
 it, nearly, already, though I never have been near it, 
 merely by this one drawing — quite wonderful in its 
 expression of Scottish hill form, and very right and 
 noble in colour. I believe it was hastily finished 
 under heavy disadvantage, owing to an accident 
 which happened to the painter ; the foreground is 
 therefore coarse, and I think the lower purples of 
 the mountain may, in another such drawing, be purer 
 
60 
 
 and lovelier ; but the expression of its shaly sides 
 and knotted crags cannot be much bettered. 
 
 In 145, the mountains are also nobly drawn, but 
 the foreground is again incomplete ; the houses and 
 other near objects look mean and small. 
 
 285. An Italian Cottage Door. (Alfred Fripp.) 
 
 All of this painter’s work in the room is of 
 exceeding interest to me ; more significative of pro- 
 gress, and more full in promise than any other ; and 
 that in three ways — in method of work, system of 
 shade, and intention of sentiment. 
 
 In method of work it is pure and straightforward, 
 truly painted ; not sponged or washed ; and in places 
 completely finished. I cannot but suppose it is 
 through mere accident and want of time that this 
 principal subject (285) is so unequal in completion; 
 portions of it are quite sketchy and coarse, while 
 other portions of it even give hope that Mr. Fripp may 
 in due time not unworthily fill some of the places which 
 John Lewis has left vacant on the walls. I feared at 
 first, on seeing how the face and dress of the mother 
 were wrought, while the arbour and architecture 
 ■were neglected, that Mr. Fripp had not disentangled 
 himself from the old fallacy about generalizing subor- 
 dinate parts, but I see with comfort that some 
 subordinate parts — the cat, winking in the sun, and 
 the pinks, for instance, on the right hand — are carried 
 nearly to faultless completion. On the whole I think 
 that passage nearly the best bit of painting in the 
 room. It has no look of painful elaboration ; shows 
 
61 
 
 no stipple or mannerism of touch ; appears to be done 
 easily as well as completely, and is quite beautiful in 
 the conception of its pale colour in the sun. But 
 much lias to be done yet, Mr. Fripp. Our Italian 
 mother is unsatisfactory ; it is but smirking, not 
 passionate, maternity ; her gown is well drawn, but 
 not her body ; our old woman plays her part of 
 monster too monstrously ; our vines will never grow 
 any grapes. We must have everything up to the 
 cat’s mark next year, please. 
 
 Then in the second place : Mr. Fripp’s work is 
 progressive in its system of shade, or rather of light. 
 That Church of St. Olivano (37) which looks so 
 strange in its paleness among all the old fashioned 
 watercolours about it, has bad its colours carefully 
 matched with sunshine. Only it will never do to 
 leave bard edges and thin washes, if we are going to 
 paint in that key. Treble notes must not be sharp 
 and thin ; the higher they are the more tender they 
 must be, and in a certain sense the richer ; it is the 
 rich trebles that are sweet and precious, not the 
 meagre ones. The paler the tone of a picture the 
 more sweet must be its textures, and the more 
 subtle its gradations ; else it will always look like a 
 strange half-finished sketch, not as this picture really 
 is, a most truthful study of sunlight. What people 
 usually suppose to he like sunlight in pictures is only 
 like .twilight or lamp-light; this goes nearly as far 
 towards Italian noonday as poor paper and colour can 
 reach. 
 
 And in the third, but the chief place : all Mr. 
 
62 
 
 Fripp’s pictures are well designed, their subjects 
 being chosen with great sense of the moral force 
 and meaning of every incident ; even the small figures 
 in this are entirely right in conception. But he has 
 not vet enough knowledge of the figure to carry out his 
 purposes ; he is, indeed, quite in a transitional state, 
 hesitating between landscape and figures. I think, 
 chiefly in consequence of the way he has put in those 
 monks of St. Olivano, that it will be quite worth 
 his while to make the figures principal. No. 101, 
 also, Evening on the Abruzzi mountains, is in idea a 
 most beautiful picture ; but of course neither the 
 drawing of boy or dog is as yet possible to the artist ; 
 he must choose between retracting his figures into 
 insignificance, and leaving only hills and clouds, or 
 enabling himself, by a good hard year or two’s work, 
 to draw the figures rightly. I hope he will choose 
 the steeper path. 
 
 244. Fungi. (W. Hunt.) 
 
 That we may have the pleasure of parting with 
 words of unqualified praise, we must look last at this 
 exquisite drawing, and therefore must glance, somewhat 
 out of their order, at Mr. Palmer’s “ Going to India,” 
 256, which looks at first cruder and harsher than it is, 
 but gains by a long look, and has deep feeling in it ; 
 and so, taking what good there is on the screens as 
 we pass (especially Carl Ilaag’s “ Arch at Spalatro,’ 
 another of the save-trouble drawings which are as 
 good as seeing the thing itself) to Mr. Hunt’s 
 “ View from Richmond Hill,” 306, very notable for 
 
63 
 
 its air, and sunshine, and quaint expression of the 
 contentment of the worthy English middle classes in 
 sitting on benches beside park palings : as well as for 
 its expression of all the ugliest and intensely charac- 
 teristic qualities of our English elms, and, indeed, 
 of our English trees generally, which always appear 
 to me, as compared with French trees, to grow in 
 paroxysms of mauvaise honte, sticking out their 
 elbows everywhere in the wrong places, and stiffening 
 themselves against every breeze that would bend 
 them into grace, till all their leaves stand on end at 
 last in sheer misery and shame at the shapes they have 
 been got into. Then to the “ Peach and Grapes,” 
 314, wherein note the wonderful light in dark of the 
 peach’s dark side, and the subtle finish of composition 
 by help of the strawberry, whose stalk follows and 
 relieves the curve of the round peach, and with the 
 raised point of its green receptacle (or whatever the 
 botanists call it) expresses its sympathy, as far as a 
 strawberry can, with the descending curve of the 
 bunch of grapes. Then across to 232, one of the 
 very noblest fruit pieces which Mr. Hunt ever 
 painted ; and look well at the green gages, and the 
 brown spots in the shadow on them. How he gets 
 that stalk, with all its faint colour, to stand out, as 
 it clearly does, an inch from the plums, so that hut 
 for the glass, it is all hut* morally certain we might 
 lay hold of it, passes nearly all the mysteries of 
 
 * Not quite certain — there is a shade of doubt about its tangi- 
 bility — just enough to keep it in its rank of noble painting. All 
 entirely deceptive work is bad. 
 
64 
 
 imitative painting I have seen. And thus, lastly, to 
 these scarlet — no, not scarlet — nor crimson— nor in 
 any wise speakably coloured fungi, for which, with a 
 serious heart, I thank the painter, and with more 
 thanks than I can give for any other picture here, as 
 having best shown us the gracious splendour which 
 there is in the meanest herb of the field. 
 
 L ondon: Printed by Smith, Elder & Co., Little Green Arbour Court, E.C. 
 
ME. RUSKIN’S NOTES 
 
 G> T SOME Of 
 
 the principal pictures 
 
 EXHIBITED IX THE ROOMS OF THE 
 
 ROYAL ACADEMY. 
 
 . ETC. ETC. 
 
 No. V. 
 

 t. ! I 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
NOTE S 
 
 ON SOME OF 
 
 THE PRINCIPAL PICTURES 
 
 EXHIBITED IN THE ROOMS OF THE 
 
 ROYAL ACADEMY, 
 
 THE OLD AND NEW 
 
 SOCIETIES OF PAINTERS IN WATER COLOURS, 
 
 TIIE SOCIETY OF BRITISH ARTISTS, 
 
 AND THE FRENCH EXHIBITION. 
 
 ^0. V.— 1859. 
 
 By JOHN BUSKIN, M.A., 
 
 AUTHOR OF “MODERN PAINTERS,” “STONES OF VENICE, “SEVEN LAMPS OF 
 ARCHITECTURE,” “ ELEMENTS OF DRAWING,” ETC. ETC. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 SMITH, ELDER AND CO., 65, CORNHILL. 
 
 1859. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 , A 
 
 . 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 I hope henceforward to do without preface ; for 
 the real state of our schools in any given year 
 cannot be described in few words, and after the 
 most earnest analysis of the causes of advance or 
 decline, the real result will always he inexplicable. 
 Great painters will every now and then appear when 
 no one expects them ; or perhaps disappear sud- 
 denly through trap doors without any visible reason 
 for their exit ; and the critic can only congratulate 
 in simplicity, or lament in amazement. The present 
 Inhibition shows steady advance among the younger 
 students ; the more experienced masters, whether 
 Academic or prc-llaphaelite, are either absent or 
 indolent ; but I have never seen the Academy 
 walls show so high an average of good work. 
 
NOTES, 
 
 EIC. ETC. 
 
 EXHIBITION OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY. 
 
 12. Reminiscences of the Ball. (G. 1). Leslie.) 
 
 It must be a great delight to Mr. Leslie to see 
 
 his son do such good work as this. There is not a 
 prettier little piece of painting on the walls, and very 
 few half so pretty. All the accessories, too, are at once 
 quaint and graceful : showing an enjoyment of ele- 
 gance in form (even down to the design of the frame 
 of the picture, and the bars of the chair,) which is 
 very rare among the young painters of the rising 
 school. This grace of fancy is shown no less in the 
 little Chinese subject by the same artist (351), which, 
 however, is not quite so thoroughly painted. I shall 
 look anxiously for Mr. Leslie’s work next year, for 
 he seems to have truly the power of composition, 
 and that is the gift of gifts if it be rightly used. 
 He colours very well already. 
 
 13. A Boy in Florentine Costume. (J. B. Ilay.) 
 
 Very masterly and complete in effect, and like 
 
 the Yal d’Arno: so also its companion, No. 1/3. 
 
8 
 
 But the intention of this latter is mistaken. An 
 English boy, however luxuriously bred, has usually 
 twenty times the firmness in his face that an Italian 
 one has. Italian boys are beautiful — full of vitality 
 and roguery ; lazy, and, on the whole, well fed, 
 wherever I have seen them. There is more misery 
 of an outward and physical kind in a couple of 
 London back-streets than in a whole Italian town. 
 Mental degradation, not physical suffering, consti- 
 tutes the slavery of Italy, — both constitute that of 
 England. Italian slavery is infinitely grander than 
 ours. The souls of Italv at least need iron bars to 
 
 J 
 
 bind them ; ours need only the threads of purses. 
 
 15. The Yale of Best. (J. E. Millais, A.) 
 
 I have no doubt the beholder is considerably 
 offended at first sight of this picture — justifiably so, 
 considering what might once have been hoped for 
 from its painter; but unjustifiably, if the offence 
 taken prevents his staying by it ; for it deserves his 
 study. “ We arc offended by it." Granted. Perhaps 
 the painter did not mean us to be pleased. It may 
 be that he supposed we should have been offended 
 if we had seen the real nun digging her real grave ;* 
 that she and it might have appeared to us not 
 altogether pathetic, romantic, or sublime ; but only 
 strange, or horrible ; and that he chooses to fasten 
 this sensation upon us rather than any other. 
 
 * I believe, in point of fact, nuns neither dig tliei^ own graves, 
 nor erect tombstones : but we will take the picture on its own 
 terms. 
 
9 
 
 It is a temper into which many a good painter 
 lias fallen before now. You would not find it a plea- 
 sant thing to he left at twilight in the church of the 
 Madonna of the Garden at Venice, with the last light 
 falling on the skeletons — half alive, dreamy, stam- 
 mering skeletons — shaking the dust off their ribs, in 
 Tintoret’s Last Judgment. Perhaps even you might 
 not he at your case before one or two pale crucifixes 
 which I remember of Giotto’s and other not mean 
 men, where the dark red runlets twine and trickle 
 from the feet down to the skull at the root of the 
 cross. Many an ugly spectre and ghastly face has 
 been painted by the gloomier German workmen be- 
 fore now, and been in some sort approved by us ; 
 nay, there is more horror by far, of a certain kind, in 
 modern French works — Ver net’s Eylau and Plague, 
 and such like — which we do not hear any one de- 
 claim against — (nay, which seem to meet a large 
 division of public taste,) than in this picture which 
 so many people call “ frightful.” 
 
 Why so frightful ? Is it not because it is so nearly 
 beautiful? — Because the dark green field, and wind- 
 less trees, and purple sky might he so lovely to per- 
 sons unconcerned about their graves ? 
 
 Or is it that the faces are so ugly ? You would 
 have liked them better to be fair faces, such as would 
 grace a drawing-room, and the grave to be dug in 
 prettier ground — under a rose-bush or willow, and 
 in turf set with violets — nothing like a bone visible 
 as ’one threw the mould out. So, it would have 
 been a sweet piece of convent sentiment. 
 
10 
 
 I am afraid that it is a good deal more like real 
 convent sentiment as it is. Death — confessed for 
 
 king before his time, asserts, so far as I have seen, 
 some authority over such places ; either unper- 
 eeived, and then the worst, in drowsy unquickening 
 of the soul ; or felt and terrible, pouring out his 
 white ashes upon the heart — ashes that burn with 
 cold. If you think what the kind of persons who 
 have strength of conviction enough to give up the 
 world, might have done for the world had they not 
 given it up : and how the King of Terror must 
 rejoice when he wins for himself another soul that 
 might have gone forth to calm the earth ; and 
 folds his wide, white wings over it for ever : — 
 He also gathering his children together ; — and how 
 those white sarcophagi — towered and belfried, each 
 with his companies of living dead, gleam still so mul- 
 titudinous among the mountain pyramids of the 
 fairest countries of the earth : places of silence for 
 their sweet voices ; places of binding for their 
 faithfullest hands; places of fading for their mightiest 
 intelligences : — you may, perhaps, feel also, that so 
 great wrong cannot be lovely in the near aspect of 
 it ; and that if this very day, at evening, we were 
 allowed to see what the last clouds of twilight glow 
 upon in some convent garden of the Apennines, we 
 might leave the place with some such horror as this 
 picture will leave upon us ; not all of it noble 
 horror, but in some sort repulsive and ignoble. 
 
 It is, for these reasons, to me, a great work : 
 nevertheless, part of its power is not to the painter’s 
 
11 
 
 praise. The crude painting is here in a kind of 
 harmony with the expression of discord which was 
 needed. But it is crude — not in momentary compli- 
 ance with the mood which prompted this wild design ; 
 but in apparent consistency of decline from the artist’s 
 earlier ways of labour. Pass to his other picture — 
 the “ Spring,” and we find the colour not less abrupt, 
 though more vivid. * 
 
 And when we look at this fierce and rigid orchard, 
 — this angry blooming — petals, as it were, of japanned 
 brass ; and remember the lovely wild roses and 
 flowers scattered on the stream in the “ Ophelia 
 there is, I regret to say, no ground for any diminu- 
 tion of the doubt which I expressed two years since, 
 respecting the future career of a painter who can fall 
 thus strangely beneath himself. 
 
 The power has not yet left him. With all its 
 faults, and they are grievous, this is still mighty 
 painting : nothing else is as strong, or approximately 
 as strong, within these walls. But it is a pheno- 
 menon, so far as I know, unparalleled hitherto in art- 
 history, that any workman capable of so much should 
 rest content with so little. All former art, by men 
 of any intellect, has been wrought, under whatever 
 limitations of time, as w r ell as the painter could do it ; 
 evidently with an effort to reach something beyond 
 what was actuallv done : if a sketch, the sketch 
 showed a straining towards completion ; if a picture, 
 it showed a straining to a higher perfection ; but 
 here, we have a careless and insolent indication of 
 things that might be — not the splendid promise of a 
 
12 
 
 grand impatience, but the scrabbled remnant of a 
 scornfully abandoned aim. 
 
 And this wildness of execution is strangely asso- 
 ciated with the distortion of feature which more or 
 less has been sought for by this painter from his 
 earliest youth ; just as it was by Martin Schongaucr 
 and Mantegna. In the first picture (from Keat’s 
 Isabella) which *attracted public attention, the figure 
 in the foreground writhed in violence of constrained 
 rage : in the picture of the “ Holy Family at Nazareth,” 
 the Virgin s features were contorted in sorrow over 
 a wounded hand ; violent ugliness of feature spoiled 
 a beautiful arrangement of colour in the “ Return of 
 the Dove,” and disturbed a powerful piece of dramatic 
 effect in the “ Escape from the Inquisition.” And 
 in this present picture, the unsightliness of some of 
 the faces, and the preternatural grimness of others, 
 with the fierce colour and angular masses of the 
 flowers above, force upon me a strange impression, 
 which I cannot shake off — that this is an illustration 
 of the song of some modern Dante, who, at the first 
 entrance of an inferno for English society, had found, 
 carpeted with ghostly grass, a field of penance for 
 young ladies ; where girl-blossoms, who had been 
 vainly gay, or treacherously amiable, were condemned 
 to recline in reprobation under red-hot apple blossom, 
 and sip scalding milk out of a poisoned porringer. 
 
 40. The Night before Naseby. (A. L. Egg, A.) 
 
 An interesting contribution to the store of hints 
 for better understanding of English history which 
 
13 
 
 painters and poets are now continually throwing out 
 for us. This scene is, however, hardly strange enough 
 to have the look of reality : it is what we should, or 
 could, all imagine about Cromwell ; while most likclv, 
 if we had really been able to look into his tent the 
 night before Naseby, the look of him would have been 
 something different from what we should have ima- 
 gined. A picture which is not at first a little won- 
 derful to us, can hardly at last he true to us. 
 
 63. A Huff. (J. Philip.) 
 
 Full of powerful and dexterous painting; but un- 
 graceful, and slightly vulgar. This last character is 
 given chiefly by the brilliancy of petticoat and 
 chenille, prevailing at once over passions, faces, and 
 landscape. It is, indeed, quite right to elaborate 
 details ; but not the ignoblest details first and best. 
 All ! or none. If chenille, then, d fortiori — orange 
 bough and blossom ; if blue petticoat, u fortiori — 
 blue sky. The orange tree, it might be said, would 
 have spoiled the faces if it had been made out ? 
 Then put something behind them that will not spoil 
 them, but always paint it well, whatever it is. 
 
 95. The late Captain Sir Charles Hotham. 
 
 (G. Richmond, A.) 
 
 This is a very noble portrait ; full of simple and 
 manly character; vigorous and complete in workman- 
 ship : hut all the best of it is here lost, and what 
 deficiency exists in its dark colour brought out, both 
 by its height above the eye, and by the neighbourhood 
 
14 
 
 of the white dresses in the portraits beneath it ; and 
 thus a great injustice is done to the painter, and a 
 real loss (for it is a serious one not to see this 
 admirably wrought head better) caused to the public, 
 merely for the sake of the symmetries of the saloon ; 
 that a diagonal line of general in No. 95, may 
 balance a diagonal line of lady in No. 69* In the 
 Louvre, at this moment, the French use their best 
 old pictures, the treasures of Europe, in the same 
 way, and hang Titian’s and Rubens’ portraits to 
 balance each other, forty feet above the eye. Such 
 treatment of great pictures is simply, and in the full 
 sense of the word, “savage such things cannot be 
 done, whether by us here, or by the French in the 
 Louvre, but in a clownish ignorance of the meaning 
 of the word “ picture and of the entire value and 
 purpose of painting. And, indeed, when the pictures 
 are wholly precious and perfect, like the Titian with 
 the red capped St. Joseph, which the French have 
 hung high out of sight in the Louvre, or like the 
 Sir Joshua’s Holy Family which we have thrust into 
 the darkest room in Marlborough House, “clownish” 
 is not a strong enough word for the mischief ; 
 “ savage” is the accurate expression. A clown buys 
 ornaments for his cottage chimney-piece, without 
 much understanding of their merit as works of art, 
 but at least he puts them where he can see them. 
 But your savage, to whom, after much polite and 
 instructive conversation about England, thinking to 
 deepen the impression on his mind, you make a 
 present of miniatures of the Queen and Prince 
 
15 
 
 Albert, presently attaches the Queen to one ear, and 
 Prince Albert to the other, and dances round you 
 with a howl. We two great nations, French and 
 English, “ wear ” our noble pictures precisely in this 
 manner. 
 
 It is to he hoped that in the arrangement of the 
 building about to be raised for the occupation of the 
 Academy, the fact may be at last acknowledged, that 
 a picture which is worth seeing at all is worth seeing 
 well ; that a picture gallery needs space, but not 
 height — and rational sequence, not overwhelming 
 concentration, of its treasures. 
 
 The portrait of the Dean of Westminster, No. 510, 
 shows Mr. Richmond’s power more satisfactorily. 
 
 113. Clarkson Stanfield, Esq., R. A. (D. Macnee.) 
 
 A good portrait ; only Mr. Stanfield’s eyes are 
 more piercing, even in general, and must be espe- 
 cially so when he is sketching. And surely the 
 portrait of a landscape painter ought to have a 
 background. Velasquez always allows his admirals 
 a little sea ; might not Mr. Stanfield have had at 
 least a rock and a wave. 
 
 135. Waiting for the Ferry Boat. — Upper Egypt. 
 (J. F. Lewis, A.) 
 
 Well, of course, it is very nice. Housings and 
 camels — palm trees — clouds, and Sheik. But waiting 
 for a ferry-boat is dull work ; and are we never to get 
 out of Egypt any more ? nor to perceive the existence 
 of any living creatures but Arabs and camels ? Is 
 
16 
 
 there nothing paintable in England, nor Spain, nor 
 Italy ? Or, in the East, if we must live in the East, 
 is no landscape ever visible but a dead level of mud 
 raised two feet above a slow stream. I have heard 
 of lovely hills and convents at Athos — of green trees 
 and flowing waters at Damascus — of mighty rocks 
 at Petra and Mount Hor — of wonderful turrets and 
 enamelled walls at Cairo ; surely the mosaic of a 
 marble turret is as pretty a thing to paint as a camel- 
 housing ; and it would take no more trouble to draw 
 the ridges of an Arabian mountain than the folds 
 of that everlasting Sheik’s cloak ! We go to this 
 melancholy Egypt through plague, and mosquitos, 
 and misery of every sort — and all we sec for our 
 pains is a camel with a fine carpet on his back. 
 Cannot we see that any day at the Zoological Gar- 
 dens ? But the Sphinx, and the temples, and the 
 hieroglyphics, and the mirage, and simoom ; and 
 everything that we want to know about, and that 
 one would be so thankful to have painted properly ; 
 — shall we never have any of these ? It is too un- 
 kind of you, Mr. Lewis ; and it serves you quite 
 right to be put up there, where nobody can see a bit 
 of your good work, but only your dull subject. But 
 what is this we have got put underneath you, which 
 looks like a tobacconist’s sign ; a valuable work it is 
 to be hoped — let us see. 
 
 137. The Fusee. (A. Cooper, II. A.) 
 
 The sublime of English art, truly ! A lake, with 
 ingenious white touches at the edges, to mark it 
 
17 
 
 from the mountains; some rocks of leather; sky- 
 blue heather ; wooden- headed people, displaying 
 themselves in the athletic exercise of smoking, and 
 a pool of water, with vertical reflections of sloping 
 lines ! A superb art lesson for the line of the 
 Academy — heroic and optical at once ; it is inte- 
 resting, especially, to see that, in the present state of 
 British science, one may write R.A. after one’s name, 
 yet not be able to paint a gutter. 
 
 160. The Church of Sta. Maria della Salute. 
 (D. Roberts, R.A.) 
 
 My dear Mr. Roberts, is this like a church built 
 of white Carrara marble ? La Salute is verily as 
 white as snow in some places ; black-spotted or 
 ochre-spotted in others ; but delicate and lovely 
 everywhere. And then the gondoliers ! still always 
 where they couldn’t possibly row ! It would be very 
 comfortable for gondoliers if they might stand in 
 the middle of the boat close by the canopy ; but 
 to their sorrow, sometimes to their misfortune, they 
 must stand far back, poised on the point of the giddy 
 stern. I say “ sometimes to their misfortune,” for, 
 as if specially to illustrate Mr. Leslie’s* declaration, 
 in defence of Canaletto against some fault-findino,' 
 of mine, that the water “ as it approached the houses 
 was sheltered from the breeze, my strongest gondolier 
 was blown off his perch into the canal at my own 
 door one day, just opposite this very church, and 
 had nearly been brained against the doorstep. 
 
 * Handbook for Young Painter’s, p. 269. 
 
 B 
 
18 
 
 I much regret Mr. Roberts’ abandonment of his 
 old picturesque subjects for these severe ones. He 
 had a great gift of expressing the ins and outs of 
 Spanish balconies and roofs, and the hollow work of 
 complex tracery, and all his skill of this kind is now 
 passing away into formal architectural drawing in 
 brown and gray. His old painting of the spires 
 of Burgos Cathedral — of its turreted chapter-house 
 — the tombs of Ferdinand and Isabella — the towers 
 and courts of the Alhambra, &c., involved points of 
 interest and displays of skill which none of his sub- 
 jects at present either contain or admit ; while their 
 generally smaller size prevented the painter’s weary- 
 ing at his work, and enabled us to have five or six 
 subjects each year instead of two. 
 
 165. Mary Magdalen. (J. R. Herbert, R.A.) 
 
 Very beautiful, and an interesting example of the 
 noble tendency of modern religious art to conceive 
 scenes as they really in probability occurred ; not in 
 merely artistic modification or adaptation. 
 
 The picture tells its story sufficiently, and needs no 
 comment. It is not of high artistic merit, but a sin- 
 cere and gentle conception, adequately, and therefore 
 very touchingly, expressed. 
 
 167* “Just as the Twig is Bent.” 
 
 (W. Mulready, R.A.) 
 
 I see that this picture has been depreciatingly 
 spoken of in several of the journals. I think un- 
 justly so. It is as good as Mr. Mulready ’s work 
 
19 
 
 usually is. I had occasion last year to point out 
 the general defect of that work — namely, that the 
 painter is evidently thinking only of himself and his 
 drawing — never caring the least about what he lias 
 to draw ; of which, therefore, he misses precisely the 
 most valuable characters, and succeeds in using more 
 skill in painting Nothing than any painter ever spent 
 before on that subject. 
 
 If the trees in the background are supposed to 
 be typical of education, they ought to have been 
 better grown. Mr. Mulready’s trees arc often 
 supposed by artists to be well drawn, merely be- 
 cause they are well rounded. But they are, never- 
 theless, mannered in execution, and false in tree 
 anatomy. 
 
 190. Barley Harvest on the Welsh Coast. 
 
 (C. P. Knight.) 
 
 A delightful subject, forcibly, because harmoniously, 
 rendered, though without any subtlety of execution. 
 I am glad to observe how much the public enjoy a 
 piece of plain fact like this, plainly told ; and how 
 they rejoice in their gradual discovery that ground 
 may be golden and sea blue, no less than brown and 
 gray. 
 
 211. Jeanic Deans and Queen Caroline. 
 
 (C. B. Leslie, E.A.) 
 
 The more I learn of art, the more respect I feel 
 for Mr. Leslie’s painting, as such ; and for the way 
 it brings out the expressional result he requires. 
 
 b 2 
 
20 
 
 Given, a certain quantity of oil colour to be laid with 
 one touch of pencil, so as to produce at once the 
 subtlest and largest expressional result possible, and 
 there is no man now living who seems to me to come 
 at all near Mr. Leslie, his work being, in places, 
 equal to Hogarth for decision, and here and there a 
 little lighter and more graceful (Hogarth always 
 laying his colour somewhat in daubs and spots). 
 But I am obliged to write above, “ the result he 
 (Mr. Leslie) requires,” as being very completely dis- 
 tinguished from the result that other people might 
 possibly require. So long, indeed, as Mr. Leslie is 
 dealing only with delicate, lady-like, or gentleman- 
 like expression, he is a consummately faithful artist. 
 I cannot help referring once more to his exquisite 
 Belinda and her lover, in his “ Rape of the 
 Lock,” as types of all that can be asked in such 
 painting; and in this picture before us — the Queen, 
 — and still more the dark-robed Lady Suffolk, 
 are quite beautiful ; as also in No. 152, Lady 
 Percy. But Jeanie, here ! and Harry, there ! ! 
 Alas, the day ! Examine the two pictures well ; 
 they are among the most instructive that ever 
 yet appeared on the Academy walls, in showing the 
 possibility of entering completely into the spirit of 
 the gracefulnesses of society, without the power of 
 conceiving Heroism. To a certain extent, the mind 
 of Reynolds was of this stamp. lie could conceive 
 a most refined lord or lady, but not a saint or 
 Madonna ; and his best hero, Lord Ileathfield, is 
 but an obstinate old English gentleman after all. 
 
21 
 
 Gainsborough takes very nearly the same view of 
 us. Hogarth laughs at or condemns us. Leslie, ac- 
 customed to high English life, supposes that this was 
 Harry Percy’s way of wearing his spurs. Is it not 
 a rather strange matter, that our seers or painters, 
 contemplating the English nation, cannot, all of 
 them put together, paint an English hero? Nothing 
 more than an English gentleman in an obstinate 
 state of mind about keys ; with an expression 
 which I can conceive so exceedingly stout a gentle- 
 man of that age as occasionally putting on, even 
 respecting the keys of the cellaret. Pray, consider 
 of it a little, good visitors to the Royal Academy 
 in the afternoon, whether it is altogether the painter’s 
 fault, or anybody else’s ! 
 
 237. A Maltese Xebec, on the Rocks of Procida. 
 
 (C. Stanfield, R. A. ) 
 
 It is rather singular that the castle of Ischia, 
 which appears in the distance of this picture, is 
 almost the only piece of really picturesque archi- 
 tecture which is to be found on the Academy walls 
 this year. 
 
 It is not, perhaps, one of Mr. Stanfield’s best 
 works, but his mountain forms are alwavs true and 
 bold ; and after infinite and infinitesimal calls upon 
 one’s sympathy from leaves and dragonflies, one 
 is glad of a piece of solid rock and wall, about 
 which one is not expected to “feel” anything par- 
 ticular. 
 
22 
 
 310. Sunday in the Backwoods. (T. Faed.) 
 
 This will of course be a very popular picture, 
 and deserves to be so, having every claim to our 
 observance which kindly feeling and steady average 
 painting can give it. It does not possess any first- 
 rate qualities ; but has no serious faults, and much 
 gentle pathos. The figure of the healthy sister, 
 looking up, seems to me the best. 
 
 31 6. The Rose Garland.. (W. C. T. Dobson.) 
 
 Evidently a most faithful portrait (colour only ex- 
 cepted) of a dear, good little girl — such an one as 
 may be seen often enough, Heaven be praised ! at 
 cottage-doors in England, or in France, or in Ger- 
 many, or in Switzerland, or, I suppose, in Sweden. 
 South of the Alps or Pyrenees, or east of the 
 Carpathians, one finds that kind of face no more. 
 What does that peculiar northern sweetness consist 
 in, which never showed itself, even to Giotto, nor 
 to Raphael? — their beauty being of another kind 
 wholly ; more pensive, less wise, and less active. 
 
 329. Felice Ballarin reciting Tasso. 
 
 (F. Goodall, A.) 
 
 This is a great advance beyond all Mr. Goodall’s 
 former work ; it is entirely higher in aim, and deeper 
 in rendering of character : the subject interesting ; 
 the faces, for the most part, evidently portraits, 
 and good portraits (especially those dark ones of the 
 men in the background), the colour, in some sepa- 
 rate portions, rich and good, showing qualities which 
 
23 
 
 never before appeared to be in the least sought for, 
 much less reached by the painter. In fact, Mr. 
 Goodall has been looking at Titian instead of Wilkie, 
 and that makes a large difference in what will be got 
 by looking. 
 
 Nevertheless the picture is far from right yet ; and 
 its failure involves an important principle, which it 
 may be of use to state generally, at a time when 
 nearly all our younger painters are making those 
 vigorous efforts in new directions. It is wholly 
 impossible to paint an effect of sunlight truly. 
 It never has been done, and never will be. Sun- 
 shine is brighter than any mortal can paint, and 
 all resemblances to it must be obtained by sacrifice. 
 In order to obtain a popularly effective sunlight, 
 colour must be sacrificed. Dc Hoogh, Cuyp, Claude, 
 Both, Richard Wilson, and all other masters of sun- 
 shine, invariably reach their most telling effects by 
 harmonies of gold with gray, giving up the blues, 
 rubies, and freshest greens. Turner did the same 
 in his earlier work. Modern prc-Raphaelites, and 
 Turner in his later work, reached magnificent 
 effects of sunshine colour, but of a kind necessarily 
 unintelligible to the ordinary observer (as true sun- 
 shine colour will always be, since it is impossible 
 to paint it of the pitch of light which has true 
 relation to its shadows). And thus the “ Sun of 
 Venice,” and the “ Slave Ship,” with Hunt’s “ Two 
 Gentlemen of Verona,” “ Stray Sheep,” and such 
 others, failed of almost all their due effect on the 
 popular mind. 
 
24 
 
 In landscape, nevertheless, to which sunshine is 
 often necessary as part of its expression, the sacri- 
 fice must be made ; and the public will, in time, 
 understand it. But in figures, sunshine is rarely 
 a necessary part of the expression ; and all figure 
 pictures in which it is introduced must be, to a 
 certain extent, offensive. The obstinate endeavours 
 of the pre-Raphaelitcs to get Vermillion transparen- 
 cies and purple shadows into flesh, have been one of 
 the principal and most justifiable grounds of the 
 long opposition to them. And all great work what- 
 soever, of the highest school, refuses sunlight ; and 
 admits only a kind of glowing twilight, like that of 
 Italy, a quarter of an hour after sunset. 
 
 Under these circumstances, choice must be made 
 firmly and completely. Give up your sunlight, and 
 you may get Titian’s twilight. Give up your Titian- 
 esque depth, and you may, by thorough study from 
 nature, get some approximation to noonday flame. 
 But you cannot have both. Mr. Goodall has at- 
 tempted both, and, of course, missed both — chiefly 
 his sunshine, from mere inattention to its effects. 
 For instance, the woman sitting on the right, 
 with the green petticoat, has her lap in sunshine, 
 her head in shade. Whatever light touches the 
 head would be reflected light, and it would be re- 
 flected from the ground, shining strongly under her 
 brows and on the lower part of her face ; instead 
 of which there is a shadow under the brow, exactly 
 as if she were sitting in a room with ordinary 
 daylight entering from above through a window. 
 
25 
 
 The picture is full of grammatical error of the same 
 kind — the kind of error which in these days of 
 earnest effort and accurate science, artists should 
 get quit of with their long-clothes and spelling- 
 hooks ; whereas now, to the middle or even the close 
 of life, they remain encumbered among petty mis- 
 understandings, and wondering why they cannot make 
 their art beautiful, when they have never taken the 
 pains to make it right. There are, of course, just 
 three simple stages of study to be gone through by 
 every student. lie has first to learn to draw a solid 
 body in perfect light and shade, without sunlight. 
 Then to paint it, also without sunlight ; taking sub- 
 jects that will give no trouble about their expression 
 or sentiment. Then to put it into sunshine, and 
 paint it there also, until he knows precisely the kind 
 of difference in treatment required for it. And then 
 — not till then — he may be able partially to colour 
 the human face. 
 
 All this is just as simple and rational in method of 
 procedure as practising scales in music before we try 
 to play sonatas. But we always try to learn our 
 painting upside down. 
 
 368. The Evening Song. (A. Rankling.) 
 
 A pretty thought, but not well enough painted. 
 The sky has been caught from nature ; but with 
 too little precision ; the perspective of the retiring 
 ranks of cloud being missed. 
 
 Are our village children taught at present to sing 
 
26 
 
 the evening hymn in such an obstreperous manner 
 as to frighten the geese ? 
 
 O O 
 
 369. Luff, Boy! (J. C. Hook, A.) 
 
 War with France ? It may be ; and they say good 
 ships arc building at Cherbourg. War with Russia ? 
 That also is conceivable ; and the Russians invent 
 machines that explode under water by means of 
 knobs. War with the fiend in ourselves ? That may 
 not so easily come to pass, he and vve being in close 
 treaty hitherto, yet perhaps in good time may be 
 looked for. And against enemies, foreign or inter- 
 nal, French, Sclavonic, or demoniac, what arms have 
 we to count upon ? I hear of good artillery practice 
 at Woolwich, — of new methods of sharpening sabres 
 invented by Sikhs, — of a modern condition of the blood 
 of Nessus, which sets sails on fire, and makes an 
 end of Herculean ships, like Phoenixes. All which 
 may perhaps be well, or perhaps ill, for us. But, 
 if our enemies want to judge of our proved weapons 
 and armour, let them come and look here. Bare 
 head, bare fist, bare foot, and blue jacket. If these 
 will not save us — nothing will. 
 
 A glorious picture — most glorious — “ Hempen 
 bridle, and horse of tree.” Nay, rather, backs of 
 the blue horses, foam-fctlocked, rearing beside us 
 as w r e ride, tossing their tameless crests, with 
 deep-drawn thunder in their overtaking tread. I 
 wonder if Mr. Hook when he drew that boy thought 
 of the Elgin marbles; the helmetless, unsworded, 
 unarmoured men of Marathon. I think not : the 
 
27 
 
 likeness is too lovely to be conscious : it is all the 
 more touching. They also, the men of Marathon, 
 horsemen riding upon horses, given them of the Sea 
 God. The earth struck by the trident takes such 
 shape — a white wave, with its foaming mane and its 
 crested head, made living for them. 
 
 And the quiet steersman, too, with his young brow 
 knit, to whom father and brother are trusted — and 
 more than they. I would we had such faithful arms, 
 however feeble, at all helms. 
 
 Infinite thanks, Mr. Ilook, for this ; — for our 
 Brook of Human Life also (250), and our Hours of 
 listless Sway on gentle Wave (493). All of them 
 beautiful. The distant landscape in that brook scene 
 is one of the sweetest ever found by painter — for 
 found it evidently is — not composed ; as well as Mr. 
 Bedgrave’s beautiful distance in 218. 
 
 390. Barley Harvest. (H. C. Whaite.) 
 
 Very exquisite in nearly every respect; perhaps, 
 take it all in all, the most covetable bit of landscape 
 of this year, and showing good promise, it seems to me, 
 if the painter does not overwork himself needlessly. 
 The execution of the whole by minute and similar 
 touches is a mistake ; certain textures need to be so 
 produced, and certain complexities of form, but the 
 work is never good unless it varies with every part 
 of the subject, and is different in method, according 
 to the sort of surface or form required. Nothing 
 finished can be done without labour ; but a picture 
 can hardly be more injured than by the quantity of 
 
28 
 
 labour in it which is lost. Uncon tributive toil is one 
 of the forms of ruin. 
 
 Mr. Whaite’s drawing, 1,001, is also very lovely in 
 conception, and right in form of cloud. It is slightly 
 affected by the same error as the oil-painting. Com- 
 pare with it the interesting study opposite, by Mr. 
 A. W. Hunt (997), entirely well meant, but suffering 
 under the same oppression of plethoric labour. I do 
 not often, in the present state of the English school, 
 think it advisable to recommend “ breadth,” but 
 assuredlv both Mr. Whaite and Mr. Hunt, if thev 
 wish to do themselves justice, ought to give up colour 
 for a little while, and work with nothing but very 
 ill-made charcoal, which will not cut to a point. 
 
 While we arc examining these minor landscapes, it 
 is worth while returning to the west room to glance 
 at Mr. Haven’s “ Saintfoin in bloom,” (574,) which 
 is more easy in touch, and very harmonious in the 
 light and shade of the figures ; and at Mr. Oake’s 
 richly, but vainly wrought foreground, with nothing 
 beyond it. (525.) 
 
 Mr. Boyce’s “ East Lynn” (682) is of higher temper. 
 It is curious how few people seem to feel the solemn 
 difference between sun and shade — in the breadth 
 of both, which he has endeavoured to render there. 
 Many other studies of great interest may be found 
 scattered on the walls, in which, while there is much 
 to be admired, this is generally to be regretted, that 
 the painters, not being able to do their work en- 
 tirely well, think to make progress by doing a great 
 quantity of work moderately well, which will by no 
 
29 
 
 means answer the purpose. We cannot iearn to 
 paint leaves by painting trees-full ; nor grass by 
 painting fields-full. Learning to paint one leaf 
 rightly is better than constructing a whole forest of 
 leaf definitions. 
 
 441. God’s Gothic. (Miss A. Blunden.) 
 
 An entirely earnest and very notable studv. It 
 looks hard at first (and indeed is a little hard at 
 last) ; but the appearance of too conspicuous green 
 in the sea, which principally causes the harshness, 
 will be found to diminish after a steadv look ; the 
 fact being that the sea is often of this colour, only 
 the bright sunlight of nature, which no painting can 
 equal, accounts for it to our sensations. But if Miss 
 Blunden can make her handling a little more tender, 
 the colour may be as bright without looking wrong. 
 She has tried hard, not without fair success, to ex- 
 press the rise of the wave — hardly visible in the 
 long swell — till the foam shows at its edge ; the 
 wet shingle is also very good ; the boat well drawn ; 
 and the beds of pointed “Gothic” wonderfully true 
 in bend, as well as various in colour. 
 
 480. The Burgesses of Calais. (H. Holiday.) 
 
 A well-conceived and interesting scene : the face 
 of the knight successful ; that of the wife is a little 
 beyond the painter’s strength. It is a fair repre- 
 sentation of the class of pictures now produced in 
 numbers by the advancing school, which, with con- 
 siderable merit, have the general demerit of making 
 
30 
 
 us feel in an instant that they would never have 
 been painted had not others shown how ; and the 
 greater demerit of slightly blunting the enjoyment of 
 the work of original men. Nevertheless, in every 
 school these engrafted pictures must exist ; and it is 
 a cause for sincere congratulation when the habit 
 which is becoming derivatively universal, is to read 
 human nature and history with sympathy for noble- 
 ness, and desire for truth. 
 
 49'2. The Rev. F. D. Maurice. (L. Dickinson.) 
 
 Like, and good ; an entirely well-meant and well- 
 wrought portrait ; coming a little hard, in conse- 
 quence of the endeavour to paint all the expression 
 of an expressive face ; but it is a good fault. Our 
 portraits are in general wanting in power, owing to a 
 misunderstanding of Sir Joshua ; and the idea that 
 his playful tenderness and easy precision arc imitahle 
 by slovenliness. 
 
 Generally speaking, portraiture may be divided 
 into three great schools: the greatest is the 'Venetian, 
 headed by Titian, and entirely right ; on one side of 
 it, is the German school, headed by Ilolbein, erring 
 slightly on the side of intenseness and force of defi- 
 nition; on the other side of it, the English school, 
 headed by Sir Joshua, erring slightly on the side of 
 facility and grace of abstraction.* Now, the Vene- 
 
 * For the sake of simplicity of conception, Velasquez must be 
 classed with the Venetians, to whom he belongs in right of his style, 
 and Vandyck with the English ; in fact, he, with Sir Joshua and 
 Gainsborough, constitute the whole school. 
 
31 
 
 tians and Sir Joshua are, for the present, wholly 
 inimitable ; but Holbein is imitable, and is the best 
 model for us. 
 
 609. The King’s Orchard. (A. Hughes.) 
 
 Mr. Hughes’ exquisite sense of colour and delicacy 
 of design are seen to less advantage than usual. He 
 has been allowing himself to go astray by indulging 
 too much in his chief delight of colour ; and this 
 picture, which was quite lovely when I saw it last 
 year incomplete, is now throughout too gay, and 
 wanting in sweetness of shade ; but most accom- 
 plished and delicious in detached passages ; and the 
 apple-blossom, among all its ruddy rivals on the walls 
 this year, is tenderly, but triumphantly, victorious — 
 it is the only blossom which is soft enough in tex- 
 ture, or round enough in bud. There is the making 
 of a magnificent painter in Mr. Hughes : but he 
 must for some time yet, stoop to conquer; be content 
 with cottagers’ instead of kings’ orchards, and bow to 
 the perhaps distressing, but assured fact, that a pic- 
 ture can be no more wholly splendid than it can be 
 wholly white. 
 
 900. Too Late. (W. L. Windus.) 
 
 Something wrong here : either this painter has 
 been ill : * or his picture has been sent in to the 
 Academy in a hurry ; or he has sickened his temper 
 and dimmed his sight by reading melancholy ballads. 
 
 * I fear this has been the fact. See the postscript, at the end of 
 these pages. 
 
32 
 
 There is great grandeur in the work ; but it cannot 
 for a moment be compared with Burd Helen. On 
 the whole, young painters must remember this great 
 fact, that painting, as a mere physical exertion, re- 
 quires the utmost possible strength of constitution and 
 of heart. A stout arm, a calm mind, a merry heart, 
 and a bright eye are essential to a great painter. 
 Without all these he can, in a great and immortal 
 way, do nothing. 
 
 Wherefore, all puling and pining over deserted 
 ladies, and knights run through the body, is, to the 
 high artistic faculty, just so much poison. Frequent 
 the company of right-minded and nobly-souled per- 
 sons ; learn all athletic exercises, and all delicate 
 arts; music more especially; torment yourself neither 
 with fine philosophy nor impatient philanthropy — 
 but be kind and just to everybody ; rise in the 
 morning with the lark, and whistle in the evening 
 with the blackbird ; and in time you may be a 
 painter. Not otherwise. 
 
 908. Val d’ Aosta. (J. Brett.) 
 
 Yes, here we have it at last — some close-coming to 
 it at least — historical landscape, properly so called, — 
 landscape painting with a meaning and a use. We 
 have had hitherto plenty of industry, precision quite 
 unlimited — but all useless, or nearly so, being wasted 
 on scenes of no majesty or enduring interest. Here 
 is, at last, a scene worth painting — painted with 
 all our might : (not quite with all our heart, per- 
 haps, but with might of hand and eye). And here, 
 
33 
 
 accordingly, for the first time in history, we have, by 
 help of art, the power of visiting a place, reasoning 
 about it, and knowing it, just as if we were there, 
 except only that we cannot stir from our place, nor 
 look behind us. For the rest, standing before this 
 picture is just as good as standing on that spot in 
 Val d’ Aosta, so far as gaining of knowledge is con- 
 cerned ; and perhaps in some degree pleasanter, for it 
 would be very hot on that rock to-day, and there 
 would probably be a disagreeable smell of juniper 
 plants growing on the slopes above. 
 
 So if any simple-minded, quietly-living person, in- 
 disposed towards railroad stations or crowded inns, 
 cares to know in an untroublous and uncostly way 
 what a Piedmontese valley is like in July, there it is 
 for him. llocks overlaid with velvet and fur to stand 
 on in the first place. If you look close into the velvet 
 you will find it is jewelled and set with stars in a 
 stately way. White poplars by the roadside, shaking 
 silvery in the wind. I regret to say the wind is apt 
 to come up the Val d’Aosta in an ill-tempered and rude 
 manner, turning leaves thus the wrong side out ; but 
 it will be over in a moment. Beyond the poplars you 
 may see the slopes of arable and vineyard ground, 
 such as give the wealth and life to Italy which she 
 idly trusts in. Ground laid ages ago in wreaths, like 
 new cut hay by the mountain streams, now terraced 
 and trimmed into all gentle service. If you want to 
 know what vines look like under Italian training (far 
 from the best), that is the look of them — the dark 
 spots and irregular cavities, seen through the broken 
 
 c 
 
34 
 
 green of their square-set ranks, distinguishing them 
 at any distance from the continuous pale fields of low 
 set staff and leaf, divided by no gaps of gloom, 
 which clothe a true vine country. There, down in 
 the mid-valley, you sec what pasture and meadow-land 
 we have, we Piedmontese, with our hamlet and cot- 
 tage life, and groups of glorious wood. Just beyond 
 the rock are two splendid sweet chesnut trees, with 
 forming fruit, good for making bread of, no less than 
 maize ; lower down, far to the left, a furlong or two of 
 the main stream with its white shore and alders : not 
 beautiful, for it has come down into all this fair 
 country from the Cormayeur glaciers, and is yet 
 untamed, cold, and furious, incapable of rest. But 
 above, there is rest, where the sunshine streams into 
 iridescence through branches of pine, and turns the 
 pastures into strange golden clouds, half grass half 
 dew ; for the shadows of the great hills have kept the 
 dew there since morning. Rest also, calm enough, 
 among the ridges of rock and forest that heap them- 
 selves into that purple pyramid, high on the right. 
 Look well into the making of it — it is indeed so, that 
 a great mountain is built and bears itself, and its forest 
 fringes, and village jewels — for those white spots far 
 up the ravine are villages — and peasant dynasties arc 
 hidden amonjr the film of blue. And above all are 
 other more desolate dynasties — the crowns that cannot 
 shake — of jagged rock; they also true and right, 
 even to their finest serration. So it is, that the snow 
 lies on those dark diadems for ever. A notable pic- 
 ture truly ; a possession of much within a few feet 
 square. 
 
35 
 
 
 Yet not, in the strong, essential meaning of the 
 word, a noble picture. It has a strange fault, con- 
 sidering the school to which it belongs, — it seems 
 to me wholly emotionless. I cannot find from it that 
 the painter loved, or feared, anything in all that 
 wonderful piece of the world. There seems to me 
 no awe of the mountains there — no real love of the 
 chesnuts or the vines. Keenness of eve and fineness 
 
 J 
 
 of hand as much as you choose ; but of emotion, or of 
 intention, nothing traceable. Not but that I believe 
 the painter to be capable of the highest emotion : any- 
 one who can paint thus must have passion within 
 him ; but the passion here is assuredly not out of him. 
 He has cared for nothing, except as it was more 
 or less pretty in colour and form. I never saw the 
 mirror so held up to nature : but it is Mirror’s work, 
 not Man’s. This absence of sentiment is peculiar^ 
 indicated by the feeble anger of the sky. Had it 
 been wholly cloudless — burning down in one calm 
 field of light behind the purple hills, all the rest of 
 the landscape would have been gathered into unity by 
 its repose ; and for the sleeping girl we should have 
 feared no other disturbance than the bleating of the 
 favourite of her flock, who has returned to seek her — 
 his companions wandering forgetful : but now she 
 will be comfortlessly waked by hailstorm in another 
 quarter of an hour : and yet there is no majesty in 
 the clouds, nor any grand incumbency of them on 
 the hills ; they are but a dash of mist, gusty and dis- 
 agreeable enough — in no otherwise to be dreaded ; 
 highly un-divine clouds — incognizant of Olympus — 
 
 c 2 
 
36 
 
 what have they to do here upon the hill thrones — 
 
 Kopv<j>aiQ upaig ■^lovofiXi'iTOici. 
 
 Historical landscape it is, unquestionably ; me- 
 teorological also ; poetical — by no means : yet pre- 
 cious, in its patient way ; and, as a wonder of toil 
 and delicate handling, unimpeachable. There is no 
 such subtle and precise work on any other canvas 
 here. The chesnut-trees are like a finished design 
 of Durer’s ; every leaf a study: the poplar trunks 
 and boughs drawn with an unexampled exquisiteness 
 of texture and curve. And if it does not touch you 
 at first, stay by it a little — look well at the cottage 
 among the meadows — think of all that this Italian 
 life might be among these sacred hills, and of what 
 Italian life has been, and yet is, in spite of silver 
 crosses on the breast, and how far it is your fault and 
 mine that this is so : and the picture may be service- 
 able to you in quite other ways than by pleasing your 
 eyes with purple and gold. 
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 It is one of the most difficult and painful duties 
 which I have to perform in these Notes, to guard the 
 public against supposing that works executed under 
 circumstances accidentally unfavourable, are charac- 
 teristic of a school, without at the same time hurting 
 the artist’s feelings deeply, just when all discourage- 
 ment is most dangerous to him. I cannot, in justice 
 to the pre-Raphaelite school, allow Mr. Windus’ pic- 
 
37 
 
 ture — he being one of its chief leaders —to be looked 
 upon as an example of what that school may achieve ; 
 but I trust that he will accept the assurance of my 
 deep respect for his genius; and of my conviction 
 that, with returning strength, he may one day take 
 highest rank among masters of expression. 
 
 By inadvertency, I omitted in the arrangement 
 of these detached notes, the reference made to Mr. 
 Campbell’s wonderful and all but perfect study, 
 “Our Village Clockmaker” (14), full of various 
 power ; but perhaps challenging difficulties of detail 
 too manifestly : and to Mr. Calderon’s “ Lost and 
 Found ” (634), which, if the face of the mother had 
 been but a little more beautiful, would have been 
 one of the most touching, as it is one of the most 
 able, pictures of the year. 
 
 I cannot criticise my friend Mr. Watts’ picture, 
 “ Isabella ” (438) ; it is full of beauty and thought- 
 fulness. I have no doubt that he knows its faults 
 better than I do ; and they are so slight that the 
 public ought not to see them, but to admire it 
 with all their hearts. 
 
38 
 
 WATER COLOUR SOCIETIES. 
 
 A somewhat singular circumstance has taken place 
 this year, in the choice of their principal or master- 
 piece by two important societies of English artists. 
 
 The Society of British Artists placed, as the central 
 attraction of their rooms, an illustration of Shak- 
 speare.* The New Water Colour Society honoured 
 with a similarly central position an illustration of 
 Tennyson, f 
 
 Duly allowing for privileges of seniority and pre- 
 sidentship, it would not be just towards either body 
 of artists, if we supposed that the places assigned 
 to these works of art were entirely trustworthy indi- 
 cations of the estimate formed of them. But whether 
 promoted by law, by courtesy, or by admiration, those 
 pictures stood forth to the English — and more than 
 the English, public — as in some central or typical 
 way exponents of the power of the two societies ; and 
 foreigners, at least, would be justified in concluding 
 that the sanction given by two important bodies of 
 English painters to these readings of the greatest 
 
 * No. 53. Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. (F. Y. Hurlstone.) 
 
 f No. 212. A Dream of Fair Women. (E. II. Corboukl.) 
 The illustrations of Shakespeare by Mr. Gilbert, which occupy a 
 conspicuous position (on each side of Mr. Burton’s centre piece) in 
 the rooms of the Old Water Colour Society, curiously involve that 
 society also in a parallel manifestation of opinion. 
 
39 
 
 dead, and greatest living, English poets, indicated 
 with some truth the measure of general under- 
 standing of poetry in the artist mind of the 
 country ; and perhaps also (as the appeal to public 
 judgment was made so frankly) something of the 
 public mind of this country on the same matter. 
 
 I am not going to criticise those pictures. If the 
 reader is not of my mind about them, I should not 
 have any hope of being able to make him so — nor 
 even any wish to make him so. If he is of my mind 
 about them, he will understand why they should have 
 set me thinking — not on the whole pleasurably — of 
 the course and probable prospects of the curious 
 group of English Personages to whom art now ad- 
 dresses itself. For it would not he difficult to show, 
 if necessary, that these two works do verily express 
 the final and entirely typical issue of the most popular 
 modern views on the subject of poetry in general : 
 and more than this, there is a certain typical cha- 
 racter even in the hero and heroines of the pictures — 
 the “ Hamlet,” not unworthily representing what is 
 popularly considered as Philosophy ; the “ Jephthahs 
 Daughter,” what is popularly accepted as Piety ; 
 and the “ Cleopatra,” what is popularly displayed as 
 Splendour. 
 
 Or, in a nearer and narrower view, these pictures 
 contain a concentrated expression of the character 
 which distinguishes a modern English exhibition of 
 paintings from every other that has yet been, or 
 is likely to be. Bad painting is to be found in 
 abundance everywhere, so that we do not distinguish 
 ourselves by our weakness ; foolish painting in greater 
 
40 
 
 abundance still, so that we do not distinguish our- 
 selves by our imbecility; more or less meritorious 
 painting, at least in all principal French and German 
 schools, as well as in ours, so that we do not dis- 
 tinguish ourselves by our merit : but purely and 
 wholly vulgar painting is not to be found deve- 
 loping itself elsewhere with the same naivete as 
 among the English, and we do distinguish ourselves 
 by our vulgarity. So, at least, it appears to me. 
 As I have just said, I do not wish to argue with 
 any one who disputes the fact, but to trace thence 
 one or two conclusions with those who admit it. 
 
 What vulgarity is, whether in manners, acts, or 
 conceptions, most well-educated persons understand ; 
 but what it consists in, or arises from, is a more 
 difficult question. I believe that on strict analysis 
 it will be found definable as “ the habit of mind 
 and act resulting from the prolonged combination 
 of insensibility with insincerity:”* and I think the 
 special manifestation of it among artists has resulted, 
 
 * It would be more accurate to say, “ constitutional insensibility;" 
 for people are born vulgar, or not vulgar, irrevocably. An apparent 
 insensibility may often be caused by one strong feeling quenching 
 or conquering another ; and this to the extent of involving the 
 person in all kinds of cruelty and crime — yet, Borgia, or Ezzelin, 
 lady and knight still ; while the born clown is dead in all sensation 
 and capacity of thought, whatever his acts or life may be. 
 
 Cloten, in “ Cymbeline,” is the most perfect study of pure vul- 
 garity which I know in literature ; Perdita, in “ Winter’s Tale,” 
 the most perfect study of its opposite (irrespective of such higher 
 virtue or intellect as we have in Desdemona or Portia). Perdita's 
 exquisite openness, joined with as exquisite sensitiveness, constitute 
 the precise opposite of the apathetic insincerity which, I believe, is 
 the essence of vulgarity. 
 
41 
 
 in the first place, from the withdrawal of all right, 
 and therefore all softening or animating, motive for 
 their work ; and, in the second place, from the habit 
 of assuming, or striving by rule to express, feelings 
 which did not, and could not, arise out of their work 
 under such conditions. 
 
 I say first, by the withdrawal of all softening or 
 animating motive, and chiefly bv the loss of belief 
 in the spiritual world. Art has never shown, in 
 anv corner of the earth, a condition of advancing 
 strength but under this influence. I do not say, 
 observe, influence of “ religion,” but merely of a 
 belief in some invisible power — god or goddess, 
 fury or fate, saint or demon. Where such belief 
 existed, however sunk or distorted, progressive art has 
 been possible, otherwise impossible. The distortion 
 of the belief, its contraction or its incoherence, con- 
 tract or compress the resultant art ; still the art is 
 evermore of another and mightier race than the art of 
 materialism. Be so much of a Pythagorean as to be- 
 lieve in something awful and impenetrable connected 
 with beans, and forthwith you are not weaker, but 
 stronger, than your kitchenmaid, who perceives in 
 them only an adaptability to being boiled. Be so 
 much of an Egyptian as to believe that some god 
 made hawks, and bears up their wings for them on 
 the wind, and looks for ever through the fierce light of 
 their eyes, that therefore it is not good to slay hawks ; 
 and some day you may be able to paint a hawk 
 quite otherwise than will be possible to you by any 
 persistency in slaughter or dissection, or help of 
 a nv quantity of stuffing and glass beads in thorax or 
 
42 
 
 eye-sockct. Be so much of a Jew as to believe that 
 there is a great Spirit who makes the tempests his 
 true messengers, and the flaming tire his true servant, 
 and lays the beams of his chambers upon the un- 
 shrinking sea, and you will paint the cloud, and the 
 fire, and the wave, otherwise, and on the whole better, 
 than in any state of modern enlightenment as to 
 the composition of caloric or protoxide of hydrogen. 
 Or, finally, be so much of a human creature as to 
 care about the heart and history of fellow-creatures, 
 and to take so much concern with the facts of human 
 life going on around you as shall make vour art in 
 some sort compassionate, exhortant, or communica- 
 tive : and useful to any one coming after you, either 
 as a record of what was done among men in your 
 day, or as a testimony of what you felt or knew con- 
 cerning them and their misdoings or undoings : and 
 this love and dwelling in the spirits of other creatures 
 will give a glory to your work quite unattainable by 
 observance of any proportions of arms and collar- 
 bones hitherto stated by professors of Man-painting. 
 All this is irrevocably so ; and since, as a nation 
 concerning itself with art, we have wholly rejected 
 these heathenish, Jewish, and other such beliefs ; 
 and have accepted, for things worshipful, absolutely 
 nothing but pairs of ourselves ; taking for exclu- 
 sive idols, gods, or objects of veneration, the in- 
 finitesimal points of humanity, Mr. and Mrs. P., 
 and the Misses and Master P.’s ; — out, I say, of 
 this highly punctuated religion, which comes to its 
 full stop and note of admiration after the family 
 name, w r e shall get nothing, — can get nothing, 
 
43 
 
 but such issues as we see here. The whole temper 
 of former art was in some way reverential — had. 
 awe in it : no matter how carefully or conven- 
 tionally the workman ruled and wrought the psalter 
 page, he had every now and then a far away feeling 
 that it w'as to be prayed out of — somebody would 
 prav out of it some day — not entirely mechanically, 
 nor by slip of bead. No matter how many madonnas 
 he painted to order from the same outlines ; the 
 sense that the worst of them was sure, late or soon, 
 to be looked up to through tears, could not but 
 thrill through him as he arched the brow and ani- 
 mated the smile : nay, if he was but a poor armourer 
 or enameller, the feeling that those chased traceries 
 of cuish and helmet would he one day embossed in 
 hot purple, deeper, perhaps, through fault of his, 
 would every now and then make his hammer smite 
 with sterner, truer tone : awe and pity ruling over 
 all his doings, such as now are unattainable. For 
 Mr. and Mrs. P. are not in that sense awful — not in 
 that sense pitiable : both — in another and deeper 
 sense, but not in this. 
 
 Then the second source of the evil is the endea- 
 vour to assume the sentiment which we cannot 
 possibly have. Let us accept our position ; and 
 good scientific, or diagrammatic, or politely per- 
 sonal and domestic art is still possible to us ; — still 
 may be made, if not majestic work, yet real work. 
 There is use in a good geological diagram ; and 
 there is good riding in Rotten-row, to be seen any 
 day between four and six ; but if we profess to 
 paint ghosts, when we believe in no immortality; — 
 
44 
 
 or Iphigenias and daughters of Jephthah, when we 
 believe in no Deity — this is what we come to : not but 
 that even ghosts are indeed still to be seen, and Iphi- 
 genias found (though perhaps sacrificed not altogether 
 to Diana) by sharpsighted persons — upon occasion. 
 
 It may be thought, I speak too seriously — or speak 
 seriously in the wrong place — of this matter. I do 
 not. The pictures are ludicrous enough. That 
 
 which they signifv is not ludicrous. And, as if to 
 make us think out their signification fully, the 
 Tennyson picture has a companion — an opposite 
 at least — another illustration of English poetry by 
 English art. The gate of Eden, with a Peri at it — 
 an interesting scene to people who believe in Eden. 
 We suppose ourselves to be rather nearer that gate — 
 do not we ? — than any of the old shepherds who saw 
 ladders set to it in their dreams. And this is the 
 aspect assumed by the gate, and the aspect of the 
 angels in — or outside of it — upon such closer acquain- 
 tance. A “ strait gate” truly. 
 
 This being so, I cannot enter with any pleasure 
 into examination of the works of the two Water 
 Colour Societies this year. For in their very 
 nature those two societies appeal to the insensitive- 
 ncss and pretence of the public : insensitiveness, be- 
 cause no refined eve could bear with the glaring 
 colours, and blotted or dashed forms, which are the 
 staple of modern water-colour work ; and pretence, 
 because this system of painting is principally sup- 
 ported by the idle amateurs who concern them- 
 selves about art without being truly interested in it ; 
 and by pupils of the various water-colour masters ; 
 
45 
 
 who enjoy being taught to sketch brilliantly in six 
 lessons. 
 
 In spite of all the apparent exertion, and reflex of 
 prc-Raphaelite minuteness from the schools above 
 them, the Water Colour Societies arc in steady descent. 
 They were founded first on a true and simple school 
 of broad light and shade, — grey touched with golden 
 colour on the lights. This, with clear and delicate 
 washes for its transparent tones, was the method of 
 all the earlier men ; and the sincere love of nature 
 which existed in the hearts of the first water colour 
 masters — Girtin, Cousens, Hobson, Copley Fielding, 
 Cox, Prout, and De Wint — formed a true and pro- 
 gressive school, till Hunt, the greatest of all, per- 
 fected his art. Hunt and Cox alone are left of all 
 that group, and their works in the Old Water Colour 
 are the only ones which are now seriously worth 
 looking at; for in the endeavour to employ new re- 
 sources, to rival oil colour, and to display facility, mere 
 method has superseded all feeling and all wholesome 
 aim, and has itself become finally degraded. The 
 sponge and handkerchief have destroyed water colour 
 painting ; and I believe there are now only two 
 courses open to its younger students — either to “hark 
 back” at once to the old grey schools, and ground them- 
 selves again firmly on chiaroscuro studies with the 
 flat grey wash, or to take William Hunt for their only 
 master, and resolve that they will be able to paint a 
 piece of leafage and fruit approximately well in his 
 way before they try even the smallest piece of land- 
 scape.^' If they want to follow Turner, the first course 
 is the only one. Steady grey and yellow for ten 
 
46 
 
 years, and lead pencil point all your life, or no 
 “ Turnerism.” No “dodge” will ever enable you 
 otherwise to get round that corner. Those are the 
 terms of the thing; we may accept or not as we 
 choose, but there are no others. I name, however, a 
 few of the works in the rooms of the two societies, 
 which are at least indicative of power to do well, if 
 the painters choose. 
 
 In the New Water Colour, Mr. Warren’s “Lost 
 in the Woods” (88), and “ Avenue” (228), are good 
 instances of deceptive painting — scene-painting on a 
 small scale — the treatment of the light through the 
 leaf interstices being skilfully correspondent with 
 photographic effects. There is no refined work or 
 feeling in them, but they are careful and ingenious ; 
 and their webs of leafage are pleasant fly-traps to 
 draw public attention, which, perhaps, after re- 
 ceiving, Mr. Warren may be able to justify by work 
 better worthy of it. 
 
 In Mr. Cooke’s “ Hartland Point” (50), the sense 
 of the low trickling of the rivulets of tide through 
 infinite stones is very delightful ; alternate rippling 
 and resting of the confined, shallow, wandering water, 
 that hardly will be at the trouble of getting down 
 through the shingle, when it has to come up again 
 over it soon. There are beautiful passages of atmo- 
 sphere in this, as in all Mr. Cooke’s drawings this 
 year. The companion studies of morning and even- 
 ing, on the same cliff (2 and 6), suggest a pretty 
 idea, but not quite successfully. The contrast is not 
 carried far enough in minor details. 
 
 Mr. Telbin’s “ Dovedale” (208) is very delightful: 
 
47 
 
 on the whole it seems to me the sweetest and riffhtest 
 thing in the room, hut scattered in subject. A pretty 
 place, certainly, but incoherent; neither dark, nor 
 light ; — quiet, nor disquieted ; — tame, nor wild, but 
 tenderly chaotic and insipid — suggestive, to me 
 at least, of nothing but going on to see if nothing 
 better is to be found. The sensation, perhaps, is in- 
 creased by the oval shape — not a wise one for a 
 landscape ; where one wants to know accurately the 
 difference between slope and vertical, as bearing 
 much on the sublimities of some things, and the 
 moral characters of others. 
 
 Lastly, Mr. Rowbotham’s “East Cliff” (268) is 
 an earnest and admirable study ; strong in disci- 
 pline, and full of fact, but hard. Neither the sweetest 
 colours nor the subtlest forms have been seen — 
 in fact, the heart of the cliff is not opened yet ; 
 but its muscular development is right. Yet it is 
 costly drawing this, in attention, considering what 
 water colour work is usually ; and the timbers and 
 other materiel are well set in serviceable places. 
 The painter must have felt himself braced after 
 such work, and forwarded, in many ways. 
 
 In the rooms of the Old Water Colour Society, the 
 first thing to be looked at should be Mr. Hunt’s mar- 
 vellous fruit piece, No. 26 1. It seems to me almost 
 the exquisitest I have ever seen, in the glowing grey 
 of the bosses of the pine, and sweeping curves of its 
 leaves. After that, David Cox’s magnificent water- 
 fall, at the upper end of the room — unsurpass- 
 able in its own broad way, and giving, in the foam, 
 
48 
 
 examples of execution as broad as Salvator’s, and 
 infinitely more subtle and lovely. Then, everything 
 else of David Cox’s in the room, especially 274. 
 Next, Mr. Newton’s “Snow Scene,” 181, which is 
 very good ; but the good of it might be got in a 
 daguerreotype as well, and Mr. Newton can do better 
 than a daguerreotype if lie likes. We may well, 
 however, look for his drawings round the room ; 
 all have something in them. The Inverness-shire 
 moonlight (213) is especially good. And then 
 follow round Mr. Naftel (who has made swift ad- 
 vance this year), in the same way, beginning with 
 the beautiful bit of retiring mountain and glittering 
 fern, No. 183 ; and staying long at No. 44, a notable 
 study of smooth-sculptured torrent bed and flushed 
 hill side ; look also at the rolling clouds in Mr. 
 Turner’s “Ben Cruachan” (48), which arc the truest 
 clouds in the whole room. Then, give as much time 
 as you can to Mr. Jackson’s “Bamborough” (170), 
 and to Mr. Smith’s “Chillon” (91); both of them 
 quiet and sincere. Chillon, the least bit too red, but 
 the purple towers in shade very good; and the grada- 
 tions of light in the distance admirable. And it 
 must not be through any importunity of mine if you 
 stay longer ; for the rest of the works here are. 
 indeed, some very pretty, and some entertaining, 
 and many very clever ; but hardly, so far as I see, 
 calculated cither to form our taste or advance our 
 knowledge. 
 
49 
 
 FRENCH EXHIBITION. 
 
 6. Cherry-seller of Port l’Abbe, Brittany. 
 
 Very powerful and systematic in handling; right 
 in form and gesture, and, up to its attempted point, in 
 colour — only the beauty of girls and cherries missed. 
 French girls, the sweetest tempered living creatures 
 in the world, are not obliged to Monsieur Antigua 
 for his representation of their countenances to the 
 English, as they appear either here or in No. 5 
 opposite (also a clever work), while “ the pet 
 squirrel ” (4), though full of power, is entirely 
 ignoble in its conception of girlhood. Bespecting 
 No. 1, it seems to me, we English might ask — “Is 
 it so rare a thing in France to hold your umbrella 
 over somebody else in a shower as to induce the 
 person so generously protected always to kiss the 
 hem of your robe ? ” I carried a bag of nuts, as 
 big as an ordinary coal-sack, a mile up hill, from 
 hedge to home, for a tired Lucernoise old woman 
 the other day, getting in return kind thanks indeed, 
 but no pictorial effects of this kind. 
 
 57. The Toilet. (Edward Frere.) 
 
 This, with 59 and 60, is worthy of the painter, 
 which is saying much ; but there is no advance on 
 
 D 
 
50 
 
 previous effort. The “ Student,” exhibited in 5", 
 contained higher qualities of painting than any shown 
 in the pictures of this year ; and, which is a matter 
 of much sorrow to me, I think the faces are on the 
 whole less lovely than they were ; quite as right and 
 deep in expression, but some of their pure beauty 
 lost : this is especially so in the face of the taller 
 girl in 61. 
 
 I hear some complaints among the art-talk of 
 the year, respecting the “monotony” of Frere’s 
 pictures. But rustic life is not, it should be re- 
 membered, on the whole an exciting matter. The 
 superiors of the poor rustics occasionally procure 
 them some excitement — in the way of roof-burning, 
 or starvation ; or bayonet, instead of spade agri- 
 culture, — with supply of richer manure to their 
 fields than usual. But as Frere has seen it (and 
 he paints only what he has seen), this cottage life, 
 with its morning and evening prayer, and mid-day 
 pottage, is a quiet business. You will not, I believe, 
 get any disquietude from him. There is plenty 
 brewing for us — subjects for historical painting of 
 dramatic interest enough, on the horizon. For the 
 present, we will give our sympathy to the “Cut 
 Finger, ” and to the tender little Florence, ' who 
 binds it up, and be content. 
 
 91^. Bavarian Policemen, &c. (Louis Knaus.) 
 
 A most powerful work, full of entirely right ex- 
 pression, alike in feature and gesture. The distant 
 figures at the opening of the wood are among the 
 
51 
 
 most wonderful pieces of complete drawing in a faint 
 tone which I have ever seen ; and there is handling- 
 in the faces throughout, which, though much inferior 
 to Hogarth in colour, and in deep conception of 
 feeling, approaches him in expressive skill (perhaps 
 there is more resemblance to him in the companion 
 picture, 91c*, than in this). The painting is every- 
 where vigorous, hut fails, as I have said, in colour, 
 especially in the flesh. Gypsies have indeed dark 
 skins, but they have bright life beneath them ; here 
 we have only gypsy mahogany, not gypsy blood. The 
 dog and monkey, however, are perfect — I think, in 
 unexaggerated truth of action and expression, better 
 than Landseer’s work. A most notable picture it 
 seems to me, though not a profound one ; but its 
 superficial qualities are of the rarest kind. The 
 other, 9 is rather deeper — at least in the dignity 
 of the offended and hopeless wife — but it is coarse in 
 colour. 
 
 147. A Country Fair in France. (C. Trovon.) 
 
 There is much cleverness in this picture, but it is 
 painted on a totally false principle, which is doing so 
 much mischief to the whole French school that I 
 trust I may be pardoned for pointing it out very 
 distinctly. 
 
 Chiaroscuro is a very noble subject of study ; but 
 it is not so noble a study as human nature : nor is it 
 the subject which should mainly occupy our thoughts 
 when we have human nature before us. Generallv, 
 we ought to see more in man or woman than that 
 
 d 2 
 
their foreheads come dark against the sky, or their 
 petticoats and pantaloons white against it. If we see 
 nothing hut this, and think of nothing else in the 
 company of our fellow creatures but the depth of 
 their shadows, we are assuredly in such insensitive 
 state of mind as must render all true painting im- 
 possible to us. It may be the most important thing 
 about a pollard willow that it comes greyly against a 
 cloud, or gloomily out of a pool. But respecting a 
 man, his greyncss or opacity arc not the principal 
 facts which it is desirable to state of him. If you 
 cannot see his human beauty, and have no sympathy 
 with his mind, don’t paint him. Go and paint logs, 
 or stones, or weeds ; — you will not, indeed, paint even 
 these at all supremely, for their best beauty is also in 
 a sort human : nevertheless vou will not insult them, 
 as you do living creatures, by perceiving in them only 
 opacity. Immense harm has been done in this matter 
 by the popular misunderstanding of Rembrandt — for 
 Rembrandt’s strength is in rendering of human cha- 
 racter — not in chiaroscuro. Rembrandt’s chiaroscuro 
 is always forced — •generally false, and wholly vulgar : 
 it is in all possible ways inferior, as chiaroscuro, 
 to Correggio’s, Titian’s, Tintoret’s, Veronese’s, or 
 Velasquez’s. But in rendering human character, 
 such as lie saw about him, Rembrandt is nearly 
 equal to any of these men, and the real power of 
 him is in his stern and steady touch on lip and 
 brow — seen best in his lightest etchings — or in the 
 lightest parts of the handling of his portraits, the 
 head of the Jew in our own gallery being about as 
 
53 
 
 good and thorough work as it is possible to see of his. 
 And when this is so, and the great qualities of cha- 
 racter and of form are first secured — after them, and 
 in due subordination to them — chiaroscuro and every- 
 thing else will come rightly and gloriously ; and they 
 always do come in such order ; no chiaroscuro ever 
 was good, as such, which was not subordinate to 
 character and to form ; and all search after it as a 
 first object ends in the loss of the thing itself so 
 sought. One of our English painters, Constable, 
 professed this pursuit in its simplicity. “ Though 
 my pictures should have nothing else, they shall have 
 chiaroscuro.” The sacrifice was accepted by the 
 Fates, but the prayer denied. His pictures had 
 nothing else ; but they had not chiaroscuro. 
 
54 
 
 SOCIETY OF BRITISH ARTISTS. 
 
 I sec no distinctive reason for noting any of the 
 works in the room at Suffolk-street (though many of 
 them meritorious in their usual way,) except only 
 Mr. Baxter’s “Red Riding Hood” (158), and Mr. 
 Roberts’ “Child at Play” (48), and “Opinion of 
 the Press” (173). Of these, the first showed, I 
 thought, a great gift of painting, and great feeling 
 for beauty, if the painter will not try to imitate 
 the superficial qualities of Reynolds more than the 
 sterling ones. The two works by Mr. W. Roberts 
 are interesting ; not, indeed, for absolute perfection 
 of attainment, but for their fidelity of light and 
 shade ; many pictures are more brilliant ; but it is 
 rare to find any so equally studied and harmoniously 
 balanced in all parts ; no bits of colour painted at 
 inconsistent times, or in a changed temper, and there- 
 fore discordant. Few people would believe, for in- 
 stance, that the strong orange touch on the girl’s 
 shoulder, in No. 48, was indeed the faithful repre- 
 sentation of sunlight reflected at that angle from a 
 purple dress ; but so it is, and all the other pieces of 
 effect arc as earnestly watched and rendered,* and the 
 figure of the little girl very gracefully designed. 
 
 It may not be out of place, in noticing the senti- 
 ment of No. 173, which is well and graphically ex- 
 pressed, to warn young painters against attaching 
 
 * Except the extreme distance, which is sunless. 
 
55 
 
 too much importance to press criticism as an influence 
 on their fortunes. If sharp and telling, it is a dis- 
 agreeable thing to look at, when just damp from the 
 tvpe ; and it is certainly in an unpleasantly convenient 
 form for one’s friends to carry about in their pockets. 
 But, ultimately, it is quite powerless, except so far 
 as it concurs with general public opinion. I have 
 never vet seen even a had picture crushed by criti- 
 cism, much less a good one. The sale of a given 
 work may, indeed, be checked, or prevented ; but 
 so it may by a whisper, or a chance touch of the 
 elbow. 1 have seen more real mischief and defi- 
 nite injury to property done in ten minutes by 
 an idle coxcomb amusing his party, than could 
 possibly be done by all the malice in type that 
 could be got into the journals of a season. The 
 printed malice only makes people look at the pic- 
 ture ; the fool’s jest makes them pass it. And 
 though public taste is capricious enough — and erro- 
 neous enough — so as to make it very difficult to say 
 how it is to be strongly wrought upon, yet let all 
 young painters be assured of this — that an abso- 
 lutely good painting is always sure of sale . If they 
 choose to offend the public by wanton eccentricity, 
 or easily avoidable error, they have only themselves 
 to blame when the public loses its temper and passes 
 their real merits without notice. The charity of 
 artists is in condescending to please ; and they de- 
 servedly suffer when they have it not. A great and 
 good musician lowers his voice when he sings in a 
 sick room, and raises it when he has to fill the 
 theatre ; he will sing lightly for the child, and simply 
 
56 
 
 for the uninstructed, but nobly and gloriously for 
 all. So also a great painter can show his majesty 
 in nothing more than by securing, in timely gentle- 
 ness, empire over all hearts. It is only his petu- 
 lance, or his pride — not his power — which will 
 alienate the eyes of men : if Veronese rose now 
 among us, or Correggio, there would be at first a 
 wondering, attentive silence — not a murmur heard 
 against them : and presently they would make the 
 very streets ring for joy, and every lip laugh with 
 acclamation ; not because their essential power could 
 be perceived by all — or by one in a thousand of all — 
 but because, up to the point of possible perception, 
 it would be made loveable by all. 
 
 I repeat, therefore, to the young painter, in all dis- 
 tinctness and completeness, this assurance : Do your 
 work well, and kindly, and no enemy can harm vou. 
 So soon as your picture deserves to be bought, it will 
 be bought. If, indeed, you want to live by your art 
 before you have learned it ; or to sell what you know 
 to be worthless, by catching the fancy of the pur- 
 chaser ; or to display your own dexterity, instead of 
 truth of facts ; or to preach to people, instead of 
 pleasing them : in each and all of these cases you 
 must take the chances of your speculation, or the 
 penalty of your presumption. There are, indeed, 
 some things you may preach without presumption ; 
 only, do not expect to be paid for your sermons : 
 for people will pay richly for being pleased — scarcely, 
 if at all, for being rebuked. 
 
 London : 1'rinted by Smith, Eldf.b & Co., Little Green Arbour Court, E.C.