G' R A 1 N~~ 1) Ilk-MZ St ~ K N NC> 'N Nt 'x N' A> __ ___ j tj 1~13 V THE MODERN SCHOOL OF AliT. .1, ",, W110 1. IT 9 " (Frrom the pctintinqn byl L. Alma-77ademr, lcBq THE Ni ODItBN ScI IIOOL 01" Amy EDITED BY WILERID ME YNELL r~ I t I 1r at c t CAS SELL AND COMPANY, LIMITED /,)(,),-Y, iAII16, XLAI FUR/i' dAiII'/JI/2 AN1 ALL RIGHTS iLESERVED C, CONTENTS. LAURENS ALMA-TADEMA, R.A. CHARLES LUTYENS... VAL PRINSEP, A.R.A. MARK ANTOKOLSKY ARNOLD BOCKLIN....... JOHN BAGNOLD BURGESS, A.R.A. HENRY HUGH ARMSTEAD, R.A.... HENRY WILLIAM BANKS DAVIS, R.A. FRED BARNARD....... GEORGE ADOLPHUS STOREY, A.R.A. BASIL VERESTCHAGIN... PHIL MORRIS, A.R.A.... HENRY STACY MARKS, R.A.... MARCUS STONE, R.A....... GEORGE FREDERICK WATTS, R.A. WILLIAM POWELL FRITH, R.A... JEAN FRAN~OIS MILLET... JOHN PETTIE, R.A.... E. J. GREGORY, A.R.A. HARRY FENN......... BRITON RIVIERE, R.A.... PAGE 1... 23... 29 38... 46... 55... 64... 71... 77... 83... 91... 102... 111... 122... 131... 144... 152.. 166... 183. 193... 202... 212... 221... 227 PHILIP HERMOGENES CALDERON, R.A.... HAYNES WILLIAMS........ THOMAS FAED, R.A.... 166762 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE Laurens Alma-Tadema, R.A., Portrait an Autograph of................ 1 Mr. Laurens Alma-Tadema's House:The Studio............... 4 Mrs. Alma-Tadema's Studio......... 5 The Drawing-room; the Gold-room...... 7 The Fountain............... 8 The Panel-room........... 9 "Tarquinius Superbus"........... 11 " An Audience at Agrippa's"........ 12 " The Pomona Festival"........... 14 "Spring Festival".............. 15 "Fredegonda Viewing from her Room in the Palace the Marriage Ceremony between Chilperic and Galswinde".............. 16 "Sappho "............ 18 "A Balneatrix"............. 19 "Herr Barnay as Mark Antony"..... 20 " The Way to the Temple"............ 21 Charles Lutyens, Portrait and Autograph of... 23 " Harnessing the Black Horses"........ 24 " Crossing the Coquet River"......... 27 Val Prinsep, A.R.A., Portrait and Autograph of... 29 "Jane Shore".............. 32 " The Gleaners"......... 35 " The Linen-Gatherers"........ 36 " Ivan the Terrible"........... 39 "Peter the Great"......... 43 "Christ Before the People ".......... 44 Arnold Bocklin, Portrait of.......... 46 " A Sea Idyll"............... 47 "The Storm"............ 50 "The Cave of the Dragon"............ 53 John Bagnold Burgess, A.R.A., Portrait and Autograph of............... 55 "Licensing Beggars in Spain"......... 57 " Childhood in Eastern Life"........ 58 "The Professor and His Pupil"......... 62 " Guarding the Hostages"............ 63 Henry Hugh Armstead, R.A., Portrait and Autograph of.................. 64 " The Fountain, King's College, Cambridge"... 67 " From the Base of the Albert Memorial, Kensing PAGE Henry William Banks Davis, R.A., Portrait and Autograph of.............. 71 SContentment".......... 74 "The Approach of Night"............ 75 "Sydney Carton".............. 77 "Character Sketch from Dickens-' Mr. Micawber'" 79 "'The Vagabond '-The Drawing-room"...... 80 "' The Vagabond-The Street'"......... 81 George Adolphus Storey, A.R.A., Portrait of... 83 " V iola "..................... 84 " Lilies, Oleanders, and the Pink"......... 85 "Study for ' My Lady Belle'"........ 87 "The Old Pump-room, Bath"....... 89 Basil Verestchagin, Portrait of......... 91 "A Tartar of the Northern Slopes of the Caucasus" 94 " A Cossack"................. 95 "The Vanquished-The Russians at Telish "... 97 "A Kirghiz Falconer"........... 100 "A Cossack"................ 101 " The End of the Journey "............ 102 "Bathers Alarmed"............. 104 " The Queen's Shilling"............ 105 " The Reaper and the Flowers "........ 107 "Procession of First Communicants at Dieppe"... 108 "The Condition of Turkey "............ 109 Henry Stacy Marks, R.A., Portrait and Autograph of............... 111 " St. Francis Preaching to the Birds "...... 112 "Cartoon for 'What is it "............ 114 "The Apothecary "............. 115 "Science is Measurement "............ 116 "Convocation"................ 118 "An Episcopal Visitation ".......... 119 " Author and Critics; " " Half Hours at the ' Zoo:' A Study"................. 120 "Study-A Ploughboy"......... 121 Marcus Stone, R.A., Portrait and Autograph of... 122 "' Le Roi est Mort; Vive le Roi'".... 125 "Married for Love".............. 127 "A Type of Beauty".............. 128 "' Amour ou Patrie'"............ 129 George Frederick Watts, R.A., Portrait and Autograph of.................. 131 "Portrait of Mrs. Frederick Myers"...... 133 ton "......... 68 viii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE " Portrait of Thomas Carlyle"......... 134 " Paolo and Francesca"............ 136 " Diana and Endymion"............ 137 " Time, Death, and Judgment"......... 139 "To All the Churches: A Symbolical Design"... 140 " Britomart and her Nurse"............ 142 William Powell Frith, R.A., Portrait and Autograph of.................. 144 " Claude Duval"............... 147 "The Last of ' The Road to Ruin' Series"... 148 " In the Salon d'Or "............ 149 Jean Franqois Millet, Portrait of......... 152 "Millet's House at Barbizon; " " The House where Millet Was Born-Gruchy"......... 153 " The Shepherdess and Her Flock"...... 154 "Le Depart pour le Travail"......... 157 "The Shepherdess"............ 159 "The Sawyers"............... 162 "Gathering Beans"............... 163 John Pettie, R.A., Portrait and Autograph of... 166 Mr. Pettie's House:The Studio; the Entrance-hall...... 169 The Inner Hall and Staircase...... 170 The Dining-room............ 171 View into the Drawing-room; Cabinet in the Drawing-room...... 173 "'Jacobites, 1745'"............... 174 "Scene in Hal o' the Wynd's Smithy "...... 177 "Trout-fishing at Arran"............ 178 PAGE "The General's Headquarters"......... 180 "' Dost thou know this Water-Fly?'"...... 181 "A Look at the Model"............ 183 " A Rehearsal".............. 187 "Intruders".................. 191 "Moonlight on the Shore-Eastern Long Island"... 193 Mr. H. Fenn's House:North and South Sides......... 194 The Ground Plan............ 195 The Hall looking into the Dining-room... 197 The Hall Fireplace............ 198 " The Port of Messina"............ 199 " Inkermann's Ravine "............ 200 " Fitch Mountain, Lake George "......... 201 Briton Riviere, R.A., Portrait and Autograph of 202 "Victims".............. 204 " The King Drinks".............. 205 " Giants at Play"............... 208 Philip Hermogenes Calderon, R.A., Portrait and Autograph of............... 212 "Constance".................. 214 "' And a little face at the window peers out into the night '".................. 215 " 'Spring Pelting Away Winter'"......... 217 Haynes Williams, Portrait and Autograph of... 221 "The Stepmother".............. 223 "Congratulations"......... 224 Thomas Faed, R.A., Portrait and Autograph of... 227 " ' Oh! wha wad buy a silken gown '"...... 229 LIST OF PLATES. "WHO Is IT?".................. L. Alma-Tadema, R.A. "AT THE GOLDEN GATE ".......... Val Prinsep, A.R.A.... "FALSTAFF AND THE CHIEF JUSTICE"...... F. Barnard... "THE VICTORS-THFE TmURKS AT TELISCH "...... Basil Verestchagin " HOME, SWEET HOME "........ P. R. Morris, A.R.A. " THE MID-DAY REST "............... G. F. Watts, R.A. "THE ANGELUS".................. J. F. Millet "CAPRI"..................... HI. Fenn...... "SIGHING His SOUL INTO His LADY'S FACE"... P. H. Calderon, R.A. "ApS LONGA, VITA BREVIS"............ Haynes Williams... "PAGE F... rontispiece.... To face 29 S., 77 S,, 91 102...,, 131 152,, 193 S.,, 212 221 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. (From a Photograph by A. E. Fradelle.) LAURENS ALMA-TADEMA, R.A. OOKING over some art-chronicles of the year 1873, we recently stumbled on this entry: "Mr. Alma-Tadema, the Belgian artist now settled in London, has been elected an Associate of the Society of Painters in Water-Colours." Since that not very remote period when, in the leading art-journal of the day, the name of Mr. Alma-Tadema required a sort of explanatory introduction, "the Belgian artist now settled in London" has become a striking entity in the English world of art. Not that 30 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. Mr. Alma-Tadema himself would smile to be called "a Belgian painter;" on the contrary, he would seriously repudiate the description. Even when the phrase was used, it was not correct, for he was born not a Belgian but a Dutchman, and in the first month of that very year, 1873, he had become a naturalised Englishman; and every succeeding season has allied him more closely with our country and its art. If readers were to make the acquaintance of Mr. Alma-Tadema under the impression that they were going to talk to a foreign artist, they would speedily perceive their mistake; for when he says "our school" he means the English school, and when he uses the pronoun "we" in an artistic and national sense, it stands for himself and the painters who are his fellow- countrymen by adoption. Let us continue to suppose ourselves for a time in the company of the great artist, and in the beautiful and characteristic studio he occupied so long at Townshend House, on the outskirts of Regent's Park. Looking around, we are sure to find on the easels, either in progress or complete, some exquisite instances of the master's skill. It will be evident to us at once, on closely examining the canvases, that only by extreme technical learning could he produce his lovely and famous textures and surfaces, which are done so broadly and freely that the finish is hard to understand. "You must not think that those roses look like roses because I have niggled at them," says the artist, as we stop to admire the extraordinary yet unobtrusive imitation of a bunch of the crimson and pink roses he paints so often, combining them frequently with the glowing tones of gold or brass in an unusual and very felicitous manner; and he gives us a magnifyingglass which shows us how uncramped and impulsive the handling of them is. Never has the saying of poor William Hunt, that "true finish is of the nature of true commencement," been more happily demonstrated than here. Mr. AlmaTadema will tell us that these surfaces of his-those skins and that marble-are real, less by reason of minuteness of labour than by that truth of "relations" on which so much store is set in the art-schools of the Continent. And notwithstanding his choice of an English nationality, and his respect for the English character, and his even insistent patriotism, it is undeniably to foreign discipline and the foreign system that he owes his most distinctive scientific excellences; while his foreign birth has bestowed on him a certain quality of excellence of touch, a charm in the handling of the paint, quite apart from beauty of colour or solidity of drawing, which is distinctly not among our many national artistic merits. Certainly all this happy art has been come at by severe study, in addition to the influence of the austere medhe3valism of his master, Baron Leys, on the training of his youth. The completeness of his revolt when the time arrived for the assertion of his own individuality is a curious feature of his life. His master was, as we have said, of the Middle Ages; the pupil became, artistically speaking, and remained, a pagan--but by no means, be it observed, a pagan of that school of feeble pessimism, of impotent emotion and unwholesome amativeness, which has stirred some young hearts with LAURENS ALMA-TADEMA, R.A. 3 so much vague yet keen sentiment of late, and which the real pagans would have been masculine enough to hold in no little scorn. Living in an imitative age, we can make but imperfect essays in artistic furnishing. In originative epochs completeness is easy enough. The early Florentine, for instance, preparing his villa outside the gates, or finishing his winter palace in town, had no need to cast about for "periods," in his things of use or ornament, and was not fain to consider himself exceptionally consistent if he kept within a liberal margin of a century in matching together the fittings of his house. Every one who worked for him-from the artist who frescoed his wall to the carpenter or the potter-worked strictly, but unconsciously, according to the "unities." Everything was right, as a matter of course; everything was artistic; everything, in a word, was early Florentine without effort. Some antiques among the ornaments of the house took their places as harmonious accidents; but all the rest was in one accord. We, however, who "live by admiration," in a sense more extreme than that intended by Wordsworth, are obliged to take very special pains in our housefurnishing, if we wish to preserve these unities: with this result when all is done -that we are ourselves the standing anachronisms to our dwellings, thinking, feeling, acting, and dressing out of date. The wisest way is, therefore, to accept the situation frankly, to abandon the dream of simulating or representing a period, and to mix times for the sake of their beauty, choosing ornaments by way rather of reminiscence than of reproduction. Mr. Alma-Tadema's way has evidently been this, and his house, if antique in many of its details, is modern in its comprehensiveness. Old times and new, the East and the West, have been made to contribute some line of form, some subtlety of colour, to a cluster of rooms which is as brilliant and attractive as a bunch of flowers. Nevertheless, these several components are all correct in themselves. What is Roman is pure Roman-not that adaptation after the French "Empire" taste which so often does duty for the true thing; and what is Japanese is pure Japanese, and no half-occidentalised corruption. Using classic qualities more than do most painters who have built themselves palaces of art, the artist's choice has inclined rather to the lucid in colour and the translucent in surface than to the soft tertiary tints and the dull and opaque surfaces of the ordinary English artistic taste. His house, indeed, is the appropriate dwelling of one who is a painter of light. It stands, too, as far as may be from the fog-centres, in that region of the north-west which is supposed to afford the working artist more days of light and more hours of sun than he can find elsewhere in London. Everything is comparative, however; and the "golden glooms" of these charming apartments should by rights be recessed from the blaze of a southern sky, and penetrated by the all-pervading reflected lights of a Roman or an Egyptian summer. Entering the hall, on each side is a door-the left one leading to Mrs. AlmaTadema's studio and the conservatory, and the right leading to the library, with its Gothic furniture. These doors open outwards and meet in the hall, where by THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. MR. ALMA-TADEMA'S STUDIO. a very simple arrangement they are fixed, and block entrance to the house, except through the rooms on either side, which are narrow and long, and which lead to the other end of the hall, and to the staircase, which one must ascend to reach the drawing-rooms and Mr. Alma-Tadema's studio. The doors, thus devised to block at will the entrance-passage or hall, have painted panels, one of which contains a portrait of Mrs. Alma-Tadema by her husband. This is one of the decorations of Townshend House which dates from before the explosion on the Regent's Canal. The rest of the door was shattered, but that particular panel was left uninjured: because, said the painter, it had on it the portrait of the mistress of the house. If the same charm has always the same power, misfortune should never enter the dwelling, for a bust or portrait of Mrs. Alma-Tadema may be found in nearly every room. In addition to the blue-bonneted head on the panel just alluded to, there is a more important portrait-exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery a few seasons ago -from Mr. Alma-Tadema's own brush; M. Bastien-Lepage and Mr. John Collier have interpreted the same features in colour; while among the busts and statuettes which mark the homage of many sculptors, M. Amendola's plastic portrait of the lady leaning back in a low chair may take the palm for vividness and finish. Mrs. Alma-Tadema's name is inscribed in antique letters on wall and panel, and the LAURENS ALMA-TADEMA, R.A. 5 dates of important domestic events, such as the painter's arrival in England and his marriage, are traced above the drawing-room door, and help to make Townshend House what every house ought to be-perhaps a place for beautiful things and a museum for rare ones, but above everything a Home. The artist lives his whole life under his own roof, and every room bears witness to his presence. Every nook and corner is inhabited, and possesses in consequence that human interest which is wanting in half the fine houses of the day. The duke in " Lothair" who complains that he has no home, because in truth he has so many, spoke a fuller truth than perhaps he knew; and the merchant who spends half or a quarter of his life in the city runs the risk of never having anything more than an " eligible mansion " for the place of his abode. But Townshend House is the entire scene of Mr. Alma-Tadema's toil, happiness, and triumph, and is, therefore, in some sense an epitome of his history; for if the books on a man's shelves be an indication of his character, far more so in the world of art are the papers on his walls, the cloths on his table, and the carpets on his floor. This biographical interest belongs to almost every room of Townshend House hardly less than to the studio, which may be supposed to represent the artist's own taste. The Tadema studio is a square room, the view of which in our illustration of it is taken from behind the chair, enveloped in a rug, seen in the right-hand corner nearest the spectator. In the left-hand corner, at the farther end of the room, is the entrance, with a bust of the painter to the right. The decorations of the room, in which Pompeian designs are mostly executed in the customary M. ALMA-TADEMA'S 8TUIDO. 6 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. reds and yellows, can hardly be presented to the reader by the black and white of the artist, and still less by the black and white of the writer. The initiated will doubtless find in all these decorations, most of which are from the hand of Mr. Alma-Tadema himself, a learning which will rouse their enthusiasm; but the visitor not versed in archaic lore will be inclined to consider the design curious rather than delightful, and will turn from the somewhat expressionless tints on ceiling and wall to the canvases in coarse of progress on ithe easels. For here the busy artist labours with a fidelity which shirks no difficulty, and never hesitates to obliterate one beautiful chord of colour if it can be replaced by another more beautiful still. And while he will sacrifice time to produce a scheme of colour, which perhaps hardly a dozen Academy goers will recognise as nearer perfection than that which has been effaced, he sacrifices also some of that easily-won applause which can be gained by the use of cheap methods of effect. He paints marble without reflections and armour without high lights, yet both with a science which captivates the connoisseur, and with a reality which awakens the admiration and curiosity of the crowd. From this studio, season by season, he has gladdened us by his whites and his blues, and charmed us by the cool and lovely tints he has created out of the little gamut of colours contained upon the artist's palette. Descending three steps, we pass into the first of the suite of little drawingrooms. The Column Drawing-Room's ceiling is supported by Ionic pillars, lucent in surface, while great cushions of Oriental stuffs are heaped upon the chairs and couches, and thick Oriental carpets, small in size and subtle in colour, almost cover the inlaid floor. A portion of this room, or rather compartment-for there are no doors between the drawing-rooms, but only archways and curtains-is hung with crimson Persian appliqu6 work in velvet of considerable antiquity, once the ornament of a palace in Venice when she "1held the gorgeous East in fee;" a decoration in stencil comes between the velvet and the yellow ceiling; the windows are principally filled by Mexican onyx. Farther on is the Gold Room, more antique in sentiment and more radiant than any other apartment in the house. One side is opened by an arch designed by the master of the dwelling, and surmounted by two small semicircular openings overarching a couple of broad shelves in the thickness of the wall, which are loaded with pottery; immediately below these shelves hangs a gorgeous Chinese silk curtain, yellow, blue, and gold. The floor is of ebony and maple; a Byzantine dado five feet high lines the walls, and supports china or some chance ornament upon its shelf; above this runs a miniature copy, in ivory set in ebony, of the Parthenon frieze; while thence to the ceiling and over the ceiling itself spreads the luminous gold in shade which gives the room its beauty and its name. The:furniture, of which there is not too much, tells darkly against this splendid surface, so smooth, yet so varied by the accidents of light, the accents of contrast being here strongly marked throughout. The gold walls were originally intended to serve more distinctly as a background, or rather to fill up the interstices of pictures, LA URENS ALMA-TADEMA, R.A.. 7 and so frame them more effectually, but the gold-leaf once applied was found to be so beautiful that it was left alone. The window here, Itoo, is fitted with panes, not of glass, but THE DRAWING-ROOM. of Mexican onyx, translucent and almost transparent, with veinings of brown; and the leads trace the oft-repeated initials of the master and mistress of the house. Apart upon a shelf stands a large crater or oxybaphon - a reproduction of the great Hildesheim piece which, cut and finished from the solid silver, and weighing some thirty Roman pounds, was unearthed about fourteen years ago. In this chamber, so well adapted for sound, is the now famous piano, a Broadwood, designed by the painter himself. It is an altogether unique instrument as to its case, in THE GOLD ROOM. which oak, mahogany, ebony, and white woods, ivory, and tortoiseshell, and mother-of-pearl, combine in a Byzantine design; the capitals of the columnar supports are imitated from St. Sophia at 8 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. Constantinople; spaces of iron-work were prepared to be painted on by the artist himself; and under the cover are sheets of vellum containing autographs of the great pianists who have evoked the tone of the piano, which is worthy of the form. Larks, owls, and cuckoos appear in gilt and incised work upon the oaken panelled sides, with their song expressed in antique notation. All round the bottom of the case are ivory drops of quaint and rich effect. The seat-no music-stool, but a throne worthy - of a great musician-is in keeping with the piano; it holds music, and is covered with Japanese cushions. Divided from the Gold Room by the double-headed archway is an apartment all Dutch and mediaeval, the last of the little group of diminutive drawing-rooms. When Townshend House was shaken and all but destroyed by the ex-;Efl'. plosion, a magnificent collection of old.Y1. Dutch cabinets went to pieces, and it is with the panels remaining that this room is lined for some five or six feet of its height. A sixteenth- century window, transported hither, gives dim light through its latticed glass, and is fortified by old oak shutters heavily clamped with steel. Above the wooden panelling the room is painted in a very f light tint which spreads over the deeplyvaulted ceiling, and is broken on the walls by a quantity of blue and white THE FOUNTAIN. china, one or two old Dutch pictures, and innumerable accidents of ornament. The room being somewhat dark, bears this lightness of tone in its upper portion very well. The panel room at Townshend House indicates the fact, to which attention will presently be drawn, that it has not always been Egypt, Greece, and Rome with our Anglo-Dutch artist. Nor does the staircase, to which we pass from the last drawing-room, bear any trace of classicism in its fittings. A Morris paper -the pomegranate pattern-lines the wall, with a dado of dark brown; but little is visible except an almost complete collection of photographs from Mr. Alma-Tadema's pictures. The ground floor of the house is distributed between the dining-room, the library, and Mrs. Alma-Tadema's studio, which is divided into compartments, after the fashion of the drawing-room. In one division the Japanese element is strong; clusters of fans subdue the lamps, and in their half-shadow hangs the painter's solemn and impressive "Death of the Firstborn." A cottage piano stands here; it has been superseded and surpassed by the famous instrument upstairs, but its case has decorations in colour from the hands of Mr. Alma-Tadema and his wife LAURENS ALMA-TADEMA, R.A. 9 quaint designs which include some staves of antique notation. From this room opens another which is in a different taste. The upper portion of the walls are hung with Spanish leather, and the quasi-white dado is panelled with decorative designs. Then comes the conservatory, with tall plants in picturesque pots; a rectangular white marble Roman tank receives a fountain from the mouth of a small antique mask; M. Dalou's bust of Mrs. Alma-Tadema stands above. An Indian grass hammock swings across the conservatory,and old Chinese lanterns hang from above. Passing the barometer, which the artist complains of as not showing fine weather enough, we go through the dining - room, with its matting dado and old water-colours of flower and fruit, and through the library, where the Gothic table vas designed by Mr. AlmaTadema himself. THE PANEL ROOM. The grotesque head of a bronze knocker, copied from an antique, is our last impression of Townshend House. And now we must allow ourselves a retrospect of the career of its typical and happy occupant. Born in Holland, but a naturalised Englishman, and a master in the English school, Mr. Alma-Tadema occupies a position entirely peculiar to himself. Original in all else, he is original also in this. Moreover, a Dutchman by birth, an Englishman by adoption, he belongs by his art to a third nation-Rome, and to a far-distant century. Professing the doctrine of art for art's sake, and desiring apparently to free his own art from all the literary interests - from tragedy and comedy and morals and religion-he seems to have sought out a time and a country in which life, as it passed on, made pictures for the eye alone. Ancient Rome, with its Italian sun, with the gaiety of its outdoor life, with its freedom from the ascetic 31 10 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. abstraction of after-ages, with its refinements of dress and of manners, and the invariable beauty of its daily details, offers an infinity of such pictures. Greece was beautiful, yet Greece was too serious for the mood of Mr. Alma-Tadema's art; the human type, moreover, which he has made peculiarly his own, has nothing of Greek severity or regularity; and from the little visits which his brush has paid to Greece, to Egypt, to modern Holland, and elsewhere, it returns always with renewed delight to the gay brilliance of classic Rome. The scholarly knowledge which this choice of subject requires is no child's play. Yet Mr. Alma-Tadema never wearies us with pedantry; he may intentionally raise an occasional smile by quaint insistence upon some scholarly detail, but his science is never obtrusive, for he often elects to spend his greatest learning on some half-comic and wholly commonplace passage of the buried past. That Mr. Alma-Tadema should unite with English artists in representing the English school abroad and at home is a fortunate chance, which has strengthened our hands in the emulation of nations, giving us adventitious honours which we have not merited before, and can only deserve now in one way-by sedulous study of that refined, learned, and exquisite work which has power enough to leaven the English school of colouring. Mr. Alma-Tadema is not ours by birth nor by training, he will never become ours by the conversion of his talent to British tastes and habits of art; but he can be ours, and is fast becoming such by the conversion of the national tastes and habits to him-to his science, his original, nay, creative gifts of colour, his practice of that art of valuing the lights and darks of a picture by which the effect of atmosphere is produced. Since the decline of the immortal school of portraiture in the last century, of which Sir Joshua Reynolds was the master and the noblest example, and since the complete conclusion of that almost equally noble art of landscape-painting, the masters of which are remembered as the " Norwich School," English work has taken a way of complete change, of revolt from the national traditions, and, at the same time, of independence of contemporary schools. Much freshness of thought, freedom of manner, and originality of aim have been unquestionably produced amongst us by this general attitude. But no one who has watched the progress of matters during the last few years will be disposed to doubt that it is being quickly abandoned. On all hands a disposition is showing itself to assimilate our practice to that of the scientifically trained and systematically taught schools of France, South Germany, Holland, and Belgium. Mr. Alma-Tadema, working in our midst and as one of us, has done more towards this change than any other artist or any art-critic. Mr. Laurens Alma-Tadema (t~he Alma, by the way, was early added by the artist to make his name euphonious to English and to his own musical ears, or, as he has himself suggested, so that he might learn his fate quickly when the Academy sent out its varnishing tickets alphabetically) was born at D~ronryp, in the Netherlands, on the 8th of January, 1836. His early training took place at the Royal Academy of Antwerp, and his maturer studies were prosecuted in the studio of TARQUINIUS SUPE1B1JS. (From the Picture in Poseession of Sir Henry Thoropeon. Bly ind Permission of Messrs. Pilgerarn and Lefevre.) 1;, THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. Baron Leys. Our readers need scarcely be told that the great difference between a foreign and an English art-education lies in the fact, that whereas the student in our country works in a Government school under the intermittent teaching of a AN AUDIENCE AT AGRIPPAtS. number of artists of many minds, or else engages the private services of a tenthrate painter, whose profession is that of copyist and teacher, the foreign art-student passes from the class of an academy to the care of some leading artist of his country and time, part of whose ambition it is to found a school, it may be, and at any rate to hand down the traditions, habits, and technique which he has himself LAUREN8 ALMA-TADEMA, R.A. 18 successfully observed, to the young talents whose future triumphs will each and all add a specially noble glory to his own renown. It is not sufficient for a French master, for instance, to succeed in the few great pictures which he can achieve in his own lifetime; he wishes, in addition, to bear a part in the living history of his country's art, to pass on for further development some view of nature, some little piece of technical science which he has himself developed from the teaching of his own early instructor. Nor would a d(butant on first exhibiting be received with much respect unless he announced himself as the pupil of such and such an artist. The technical difficulties of painting are well known to be so enormous that a selftaught artist must needs waste half his youth in puzzling out what his master could tell him in an hour; besides which the discipline of learning is considered necessary for the right prosecution of scientific and legitimate art. No French painter, therefore, exhibits at the Salon without the addition of his master's name to his own; he may be a well-known and successful artist, but he appears in the catalogue at the same time as a pupil. That in this system mannerisms should be caught and (as mannerisms always are in the imitation) exaggerated, is undoubtedly one of its dangers. And Baron Leys was almost professedly a mannerist. Far more scientific as a draughtsman, he was as archaic as our own " Pre-Raphaelites" of some thirty or forty years ago; he also had a curious habit of binding his figures with a hard, dark outline; nevertheless, his distinguished pupil has caught nothing of these peculiarities, save perhaps an extreme precision in details. Least of all has he carried out the dry and ascetic spirit of Baron Leys, whose inspiration came from the early Flemish masters. Mr. Almhna-Tadema seems, in a word, to have assimilated only and exactly what suited his individual artistic constitution; nor could the relations of master and pupil have a more fortunate outcome than this. The young artist began to be known about the year 1863; the remarkable qualities of his work were not long in exciting interest in all lovers of new and exquisite colour. In the following year he obtained the distinguished honour of a gold medal at Paris, and thenceforward recognitions came thickly. At the Paris International Exhibition of 1867 (the most brilliant and triumphant of all the internationals, when the Second Empire was at its brightest, richest, and gayest, no cloud even of the size of a man's hand appearing above the horizon) he gained a medal, and another at Berlin in 1872. To complete his foreign honours, let us say at once that he is a Knight of the Order of Leopold, of the Order of the Dutch Lion, and of that of St. Michael of Bavaria; Chevalier of the Legion of Honour; and member of the Amsterdam and Munich Academies. From such different schools has he received awards! The pedantry of modern Munich, the mediocrity of modern Amsterdam, the savoir-faire of modern Paris-all have offered him homage. And to these is to be added the sincere, and, indeed, grateful recognition of London. For, all this time, Mr. Ahnlma-Tadema was exhibiting year by year at our Royal Academy. His pictures have been "a feature" there for over twenty years, during which his style has never altered although his delicate power has increased. 14 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. His painting of surfaces-of marble, stone, bronze-is what has principally taken the eyes of the million. This is a form of excellence readily intelligible; fewer, perhaps, recognise the means by which this perfection of representation is obtaineda method purely scientific. Season by season he has not forgotten to gladden and even to astonish us by that shibboleth of colourists, which none pro aounces more perfectly than he-the painting of white. Season by season also he has delighted London eyes by one of the most characteristic and individual devices of his art-the introduction of a little space of the free blue sky, palpitating with the light of the shining Italian weather. Be the subject a cool interior or an overTHE POMONA FESTIVAL. (By kintd Permission of Messrs. Agnew and Sons.} shaded garden, in which the differences of tone lie between narrow limits, through the corner of a high window or between the trees shines the illimitable azure. An artist who can paint the sky with the noonday sunshine in it by means of a little scrap of blue has mastered his art in a way that is given to few. To paint the "live air"-this is a triumph. A painter of atmosphere is generally understood to be a painter of fog. To represent air when it is so mixed with palpable articles as to be scarcely air at all is no difficult matter; but Mr. Alma-Tadema paints, or rather implies, the pure, free atmosphere of lucid day. And to these victories over the technical difficulties of his art he has added yet another-his victory over the prejudices of the ordinary picture-loving English public. As a rule, the common run of visitors to the Academy demand stories, illustrations, and emotions. A little easily-understood allegory is the most universally attractive subject; second to this comes the direct illustration of a familiar incident in history; and third, perhaps, a scene of domestic modern life. Tlhat a picture LAURENS ALMA-TADEMA, R.A. 15 should have a story to tell, and should tell it unmistakably, is an irrefutable title to general favour. Now Mr. Alma-Tadema will not humour the public in this respect; he denies them flatly; he specially, deliberately, and firmly refuses and resists them; and yet in spite of this he is not caviare to the general. Indeed, he has few rivals as the object of a solidly established popularity. Banishing, as Mr. Alma-Tadema does, the emotions from his art, his T subjects, as a general rule, are in - no sense connected with the feel- \ -; ings; they are the learned revivifications of the past, delighting only by their scholarly accuracy; but if 1 I the subject be so reserved in its aims, there is one emotion-that of _ delight-which is never absent from his work, and its presence is attributable entirely to his light and colour. It is not too much to say that no other colourist has ever " produced such a sense of joy. The f-' I Venetians' colour was otherwise ex- t pressive, so was that of Rubens and the Flemish school, so is that of the modern French masters; joy is not their aim; but we cannot believe otherwise of the subject of this sketch than that he holds delight of heart in view as the object of his..4 work. A list of his pictures is not dry reading, for it recalls touch after touch of light, colour, and pleasure which all who love such things -PRINO FESTIVAL. would not willingly forget. The following are his principal works known in England:-" How they Amused Themselves in Egypt 3,000 Years Ago," 1863; "Egyptian Game," 1865; "The Soldier of Marathon," 1865; "A Roman Dance,' 1866; " Tarquinius Superbus," 1867, which we engrave; "Phidias and the Elgin Marbles," 1868; "Flower Market," 1868; "A Negro," 1869; "The Vintage," 1870; "A Roman Emperor," 1871; "The Mummy (Roman period)," 1872; "The Siesta," 1873; "Joseph, Overseer of Pharaoh's Granaries," 1874, a very curious realistic picture, as unlike the conventional treatment of Biblical subjects as it was probably like the real scene; 16 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. "On the Steps of the Capitol," 1874; "The Sculpture Gallery," 1875, in which the painting of marble, in a quiet subdued effect, without accentuated lights or shadows, is a triumph of science; " The Painter's Studio," 1875, where the interior of the room shows exquisite mellow yellows with cool passages, while through a little window appears one of those glimpses of unrivalled blue sky of which we have already spoken; "An Audience at Agrippa's," 1876, containing a memorable pavement and tiger skin, besides exquisite colour in the draperies; " Cleopatra," 1876, in which the artist has unfortunately given an Egyptian type to that Greek daughter of the Ptolemies, the painting of the flesh and of a black pearl that hangs at the swarthy ear being the notable things in the picture. To the same year belongs "After - the Dance," which shows a Bacchante, fast asleep on a bearskin with a tambourine in her hand. The figure is in very high relief, as it were, and modelled with care, but as usual the face is singularly unsympathetic and coarse. Next in order come the pictures of 1877. "Between Hope and Fear" FREDEGONDA VIEWING FROM HER ROOM IN THE PALACE THE MARRIAGE is rathereg i title CEREMONY BETWEEN CHILPERIC AND GALSWINDE. the enigmaca of a composition of an elderly and antique monarch reclining on a couch and about to drink from a cup. A damsel bearing a great bunch of roses turns timorously away. All the accessories-armour hanging up, figs on a salver, bronze and gold vessels, cream-coloured and yellow silks-are wonderfully painted. But one of the artist's masterpieces was the series of "The Seasons," which have been briefly described as-(1), green of the fields; (2), yellow of brass; (3), red of fire; and (4), blue of cold. The " Spring," however, is not precisely green; it is involved in blue April atmosphere, which seems to be living with light; and across fields of asphodel and daffodil come the flower-like Roman girls keeping their own festival of blossom and scent. Some are erect, some bend hither and thither for posies in the grass. The " Summer " is a scene in a Roman bath, the LAURENS ALMA-TADEMA, R.A. 17 brass and marble wet, golden robes, the surface of the lucid water strewn with rose-leaves, one rose-crowned lady dreaming in the water, another resting asleep upon the seat above. " Autumn" is a fierce-looking votaress purple-robed, performing a kind of dance while she pours libations of new wine to the gods. In "Winter" we have the exquisite tints of the blue and grey of the garments of a group of women peering out of their shelter at the snow. These charming works were succeeded by "A Sculptor's Model" and "Love's Missile." The former is, as it were, a revivification of the not very beautiful statue known as the Esquiline Venus; that is, Mr. Almna-Tadema figures the model who might have been supposed to stand for it, posed upon her pedestal, with the arms raised in the attitude of the statue, binding her hair. As the "Venus" (probably not a Venus at all, but inevitably so named at its digging-up in Rome) does not belong to a fine period, and has no special charm, it was scarcely worth while bringing her to life in the picture. "Love's Missile " is a great bunch of roses just about to be flung by a girl who watches her lover from a window. Of the next important picture, "Down to the River," it cannot be said that the subject is attractive. A bridge in perspective spans the river, and down steps at its side go ladies and children, while watermen beckon them to their boats. The figures are all rather awkwardly cut in two, and none of the heads are pleasing. With this was exhibited a gem, " The Pomona Festival." Here a group of Romans, men, maids, and children, have formed a circle round a fruit-tree in full blossom, and for sheer gaiety of heart are dancing, one leaping grotesquely into the air with the spring of an india-rubber ball. The work throughout is exquisite, and the colour most delicate and tender. Also a scene in a Roman garden was "A Hearty Welcome," a little girl welcoming her mother among the flower-beds. "In the Time of Constantine " shows two Romans teaching a poodle tricks as they sit in the sunshine. In " Spring Festival," a subject taken from the Georgics, Mr. Alma-Tadema gives us again the jocund open air-an atmosphere a-quiver with light, pine trees against a warm blue sky, fields full of flowers, and figures with song and cymbal dancing their thanks to the gods. Leaving his dear Rome for a time this same year (1880) the artist produced his fierce " Fredegonda," sitting in her barbaric palace on her tiger-skin, as she watches the espousals of Chilperic to the Visigothic princess, the rival for whom she was obliged to give way, not being of royal blood. But we are back again in the Empire with "Ave Caesar-Io Saturnalia!" a wonderful scene of revelry and mockery, where the interior of the Roman palace is painted with a completeness which even Mr. Alma-Tadema had perhaps hardly touched before. But for sheer beauty he surpassed himself in the " Sappho" of the following year. Here we are taken to sweeter air and a sweeter life than that of Rome. By the Greek sea-such a sea! it is a lucid blue that burns like a sapphire-an amphitheatre of marble has been erected for the poets who sing there-marble which has taken the warmth of the southern sun and the softness of the air, and which is lucent and semi-transparent. Here, flower-crowned, sits Sappho with her pupils, also garlanded with spring jonquils 32 SAPPHO. LAURENS ALMA-TADEIMA, R.A. 19 and narcissus, while a young poet touches his lyre to his recital. She bends over her desk, eyes and ears fervently intent. There are passages of colour in this wonderful picture which surpass description, in the lyre, the flowers, the pines, the draperies. And yet one false note-the blue of the sky, which is out of harmony with the magnificent colour of the sea-jars almost fatally. It is the one fault of a true masterpiece. Mr. Alma-Tadema's only picture in 1882 was the portrait of Mr. J. Whichcord, and several of his contributions to the Grosvenor Gallery have been portraits, among them being that of Herr Barnay, the German actor, in the character of Mark Antony. But it was to the Grosvenor that the painter sent one of the most perfect works produced by his delightful pencil. This was "Expectation," an antique scene on the Southern Italian coast. A girl sits in exquisite drapery on a marble seat, with a tree above her covered with rosy blossoms. She raises herself in the sunshine to look across the shining blue bay; for from the harbour of a little white town opposite a boat has set sail towards her home. For sun, colour, and a luminous delicacy this is a very jewel among pictures. Mr. Alma-Tadema's diploma picture was exhibited at the Academy in 1883. This was "The Way to the Temple." A girl in red sits at a gateway selling bronze statuettes; in the background a Bacchic procession passes, and the bluie sea flashes beyond. Next came an elaborate picture representing a visit supposed to be paid by the Emperor Hadrian to a British pottery. The subject is much akin to that of the painter's "Artist's Studio" and "Sculptor's Studio." It is classic, yet deals with no A BALNEATRIX. political event, and presents good opportunities for the study of form and surface in still-life, and for that of the figure in perfect repose. For Mr. Alma-Tadema has always eschewed dramatic movement and energetic action, as not being in the scheme of his art. With the Roman Empress's face the painter has not hesitated to deal; but the native beauty was something too fresh and too fair -he chose to leave it to the spectator's imagination, turning away the head of the British potter's wife, and leaving her white shoulder to speak for her loveliness. In announcing the picture, an enterprising evening paper spoke of this as English beauty, showing a truly astonishing confusion of ideas, which might make the friends of Mr. Green rejoice that lhe was called away from a world which so persistently mixes up the Teutonic and Celtic races, and refuses to realise the fact 20 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. that the " History of the English People" in England began with the landing of those whom our benighted fathers, in their pitiable ignorance, called "AngloSaxons." Anyway, there were no English in Britain in Roman times, and the dazzling fairness which Mr. Alma-Tadema attributes to the native matron should hardly be more than what is common to Welsh or Irish women now. Mr. AlmaTadema is perhaps more secure in his Roman than in his British history, and all his Romans in the " Hadrian" are historical personages, the heads having, in fact, been studied from the antique portrait busts. Hadrian himself is a stately figure in purple, standing at the head of a staircase (this artist has always appreciated the taking effect of the abrupt perspective of a staircase in composition), and near him is Lucius Verus, whose IP.son Commodus was afterwards about as abominable an Emperor as any of the line. The Imperial suite Ii are grouped behind. Sabina and Balbilla, in their graceful draperies, are standing near the potter's HERR BARNAY A MARK ANTONY. wife. Perhaps it is on the pottery that Mr. AlmaTadema has spent the most pains and the greatest erudition. He made studies in half a dozen museums, metropolitan and provincial, and the principal objects are absolute portraits of famous pots of the period. In fact, the perfectly passionate study of pottery into which the enthusiastic Academician threw himself may be considered to be the raison d'dtre of this work, and the subject is said to have been suggested by Mr. Minton. The flower-painting in the "Hadrian" is, as usual, exquisite. Flowers, with their vegetable individualities and definite life, come somewhere between pottery and human faces; and Mr. Alma-Tadema treats nothing more delightfully than he does these lovely organisms. "A Reading from Homer" (1885) hardly repeated the triumph of the " Sappho," in spite of some exquisite LAURENS ALMA-TADEMA, R.A. 21 passages. Perhaps the size was against it. It might be difficult to say why Mr. Alma-Tadema's work is unwelcome in anything approaching life-size. In the "Apodyterium" of the following year he returned to the scale that suits him so well. At Paris, in 1878, our artist was fully represented by the "Audience at Agrippa's," "A Roman Garden," "The Picture- Gallery," " The Sculpture Gallery," " After the Dance," "A Pyrrhic Dance," "A iFtte Intime," " The Vintage," "A Roman Emperor," and" The Death of the Firstborn" - the lastnamed being perhaps the only instance of thorough tragedy in this artist's work. It presents a mournful group of Egyptians in a house stricken with the last and most fearful of the plagues. In the winter of 1882-3 the THU WAY TO THE TEMPLB. 22 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. Grosvenor Gallery exhibition was devoted to his works, and it certainly offered a rare record of the brilliant and beautiful labour of a life still in its vigour and prime. Mr. Alma-Tadema drew closer the ties that bound him to England by marrying an English lady, Laura, youngest daughter of Dr. Epps. Her own artistic power is exceptionally great; she has apparently studied colour in her husband's school; nor could he, in this respect, have found a disciple of finer eye and purer taste. It was, as we have seen, in 1873 that Mr. Alma-Tadema became legally an Englishman; and in 1876 the Academy awarded him the official recognition which had long been due by electing him to the Associateship. On the 19th June, 1879, he obtained full Academical honours. A CHARLES LUTYENS. R. FRANCIS GALTON remarks, in his "Hereditary Genius," that there can be no doubt that artistic merit is to some extent hereditary, and that it would be easy to collect a large number of modern names to show how frequently the artistic talent is a family possession. Charles Lutyens affords a good and pertinent illustration of Mr. Gallon's theory..The elders of the house-which, as the name implies, was originally Danish -exhibited in a marked degree the artistic tendencies and the artistic capacity which characterise their descendant. Although he has bestowed much time and attention on landscape-painting, Mr. Charles Lutyens has devoted himself more especially to the painting of portraits, both human and animal. He possesses in a high degree the qualities which go to make a good painter, and he is especially distinguished for the earnestness which he throws into all that he undertakes. This is evident in the many canvases he has exhibited, in all of which he displays that thorough grasp of the subject without 24 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. which it is difficult for a picture to be impressive, however good the details may be. Born in 1829, at Southcot House, near Reading, he displayed at a very early age an unmistakable bent for art. At the outset, however, he met with obstacles which for the time he was unable to surmount. His father-an old soldier-imbued with the ideas against art and artists which were only too prevalent at the time, HARNESSING THE BLACK HORSES. discountenanced what in his eyes was merely a youthful and impracticable whim. He had destined his son for a military career, one of the few careers which in those days were considered fit for an eldest son with a patrimony; and this destiny -for a time, at least-was fulfilled. Sacrificing his own inclinations to his father's wishes, Mr. Lutyens studied for the army, and in 1848 obtained a commission in the 20th Regiment, with which he served for five years in Canada. Soon after the creation of the School of Musketry at Hythe, he was appointed on the Staff as Assistant-Instructor, and remainel some time attached to that establishment. But if the calling of his choice was denied to him as a profession, there was nothing CHARLES LUTYENS. 25 to prevent his following it as a pursuit. During the whole of his military career he eagerly and earnestly devoted every spare moment to the study and practice of art, steadily developing the aptitude and increasing the capacity which he possessed. At last the artist in him triumphed, and the soldier was beaten off the field. Yielding both to his own wishes, and to the urgent representations of the many friends he had made in the art-world, he resolved, on obtaining his captaincy, in 1859, to retire from the army, and devote himself entirely to the profession which had always been the object of his ambition. He entered the studio of Baron Marochetti, who, with characteristic perception, had understood that in the young captain of infantry there were the makings of a good painter, and had been mainly instrumental in inducing him to take up art as a career. It is perhaps not generally known that Marochetti in early life had practised painting, and had been a friend of the illustrious Gericault. Lutyens studied with Marochetti for nearly eight years, during which period he made the acquaintance of Edwin Landseer, then at work on the lions of Trafalgar Square, an acquaintance which ripened into the warmest friendship and intimacy. It is not surprising that under such guidance so apt a pupil should have made his mark in art. His first contribution to the Royal Academy (1864) was a portrait of the children of Mr. and Mrs. (now Sir Robert and Lady) Hay, with a pony-a large and powerful composition. It occupied a prominent place, and attracted much notice. In 1866 his old friends of the Hythe School of Musketry showed their appreciation of the talent of their former comrade, by requesting him to paint a full-length portrait of General Hay, which was presented by subscription to the School, and now hangs there in the mess-room; also full-length portraits of the late General Haliday and General Radcliffe, Inspectors-General of Musketry. In these and many others of his compositions he discarded the stereotyped accessories of portrait-painting. There is little doubt that conventionality in surroundings, suggestive of weary sittings and studied attitudes, detracts much from the effect of many portraits of unquestionable merit in themselves. Lutyens was not slow to perceive this, and he has not scrupled to free himself, whenever he has considered it advisable, from the shackles of tradition. In lieu of the formal background of drapery or balustrade or conventional landscape, he generally introduces in connection with his model some incident of country or domestic life. His hunting men are portrayed in the midst of some picturesque or stirring episode of the chase; his children, with a pet pony or dog. The picture which is the subject of our fullpage engraving is a very good example of his style. This composition, entitled " Major Browne, Master of the Northumberland Hounds, and Daughter, Crossing the Coquet River," was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1878. The figures are full of life and vigour, and the grouping is judicious and effective; the brawling stream with the copse in the background, and the meadow dotted with tardy red coats tailing off in the distance, form a spirited and pleasing landscape. Nor has the artist neglected details, of which indeed lihe exhibits a great mastery. The 33 26 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. wet coats of the hounds, for instance, as they emerge from the water, are admirably painted, and the dogs themselves are life-like. The picture has a freshness and a vigour about it which are very taking. In striking contrast is the original of another engraving, " The Harnessing of the Black Horses," painted for the Earl of Bradford when Master of the Horse. It depicts an incident of life in the Royal Mews. These horses, which are of a peculiar breed, are only taken out with the cream-coloured ones on State occasions. Hence the solemnity with which the coachman, in all the gorgeous splendour of his office, superintends the putting to of the royal roadsters. They are painted with much skill and power, whilst the homely appearance of the child, who looks on apparently unimpressed by the gravity of the occasion, brings the resplendent surroundings into still greater relief. Where Mr. Lutyens excels is in his portraits of horses. Here the sense of truth which characterises all his works can be brought into full and advantageous exercise. He is a lover of horses, he is versed in their management and habits, he has a perfect knowledge of their "points," he is a hunting man himself; and his portraitures are very evidently the outcome of a union of sound talent and practical experience. Newmarket, which he visited for the first time, professionally, in 1874, may truly be described as the scene of some of his greatest triumphs. Since that date he has painted portraits of many celebrated racehorses, including Doncaster, Sefton, Marie Stuart, Isonomy, Gang-Forward, and King Lud. The first and the two last portraits obtained the honours of the Academy, but in all a finish and power of execution are displayed which won for the artist a well-deserved reputation, not only among painters, but among sporting men and owners of horses. The portrait of Doncaster, especially, attracted much attention in Paris, and an eminent patron of the turf is reported to have described it, tersely but truly, as a princely portrait of a princely horse. Of special excellence, too, are two groups of mares and foals, painted for Mr. Sterling Crawfurd. Indeed, almost all Mr. Lutyens' portraits are so full of sincerity and vigour that it is doubtful if. anything so good has been done since the days of Stubbs. In dwelling upon the portraiture of these studies of animals we intend to lay special stress upon their character as studies of the individual horse. The knowledge that produces such likenesses is not entirely and technically artistic. It is not the kind of knowledge that can make an artist for artists-a painter's painter, as there have been poets for poets. Nor can it be claimed for Mr. Lutyens that in such qualities as illumination, handling, ensemble, surface, colour, and "values," his work takes a high place in esthetics. Nevertheless, the power of draughtsmanship, which stands high in all true maesthetic art, is indispensable to the portrait-painter of horses. He must be not only correct, but able to define by drawing those differences of form which differentiate this year's Derby winner from last year's. If this is not altogether " art," it is very near it. And certainly it appeals in England to an enthusiastic public for whom art pure has little interest. It is characteristic of England and of widespread English tastes that a horse's portrait is always attractive, not to the CROSSING THE COQUET RIVER. 28 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. "horsey" alone, but to the many who have no technical knowledge of horseflesh. Artistically, Mr. Lutyens may be classed in the school of Landseer, and accordingly we find that he was much guided by the example of that once famous animalpainter. An aptitude of so special and marked a character was hardly likely to escape the notice of the elder artist, who assisted his quondam pupil with much valuable and judicious advice. Community of ideas in art, added to personal sympathy, had created between the two a friendship which lasted until the death of the elder, and which undoubtedly exercised on the career of the survivor an influence which can be traced in his works. For some years the friends met almost daily. On one of these occasions, a question was raised as to whether it would not be advisable that Mr. Lutyens should go abroad to study, in conformity with the practice of many English artists, whereupon Landseer is related to have exclaimed with characteristic impetuosity, "The Continent! why not stay at home and study that grandest of Old Masters, Nature? " Lutyens took the advice, and consequently accepted a position outside the competition of technical European art. But in his more recent efforts he has fully justified the opinion of his illustrious friend, and more than sustained his claim to be considered a painter of no ordinary merit. With much landscape he has painted several portraits. He has produced a testimonial picture to Lord Huntingdon, a large presentation picture to Mr. Rolleston, of Nottingham, and a portrait of a racehorse for the Earl of Bradford. One of his later contributions to the Academy, the portrait of Miss Gallwey, daughter of General Gallwey, attracted on varnishing day that notice which is so often the precursor of a lasting and well-deserved approval. It is, indeed, 'a very charming picture. It represents a pretty, greyeyed, brown-haired girl with a bouquet in her hand, peeping out of a half-opened door. The pose is very graceful, and the colour is pleasant and appropriate. Another contribution, a portrait of Thebais, the winner of the Oaks of 1881, has the ability which characterises Lutyens' work; but it is not a large picture, and it was hung too high for inspection, much more for the admiration it deserved. This, as we know, is the fate of much excellent work; but it is none the less mortifying for being thus general. Since then Mr. Lutyens' record has comprised a larger number of portraitsmasculine and feminine likenesses in everyday life, and those hunting portraits which are so keenly interesting to hunting men and lovers of horses and dogs, though the idyllic painter may be inclined to grudge them wall-room. Our Royal Academy should have space and to spare for all good work, whatever its class and whatever its subject, and it is pleasant to note that there has hardly been a single exhibition there without an example of Mr. Lutyens' vigour, knowledge, and skill. ~ ~~ ~ ~ ~II ~ ~C, ~ (I ~ 1)~ ~ ~ ~I + ~ ~ ~~ * * *O* AT THE GOLDEN GATE. (From the Painting by Val Prinsep, B.A.) (From the Drawing by Legros.) VAL PRINSEP, R.A. 0 those who are curious in the science of first impressions, and of their effect on the infantine mind, a record of the birthplaces of eminent painters would have a singular interest; nor would it be altogether without its significance to the less subtle outer world. One thing which it would disclose on the surface is the large number of instances in which even 80 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. typically English painters have been born away from British soil. Sir John Millais, it is true, whom we usually assign to the Channel Islands, can be claimed by Southampton; Miss Clara Montalba, with all her foreign graces of style, is a native of Cheltenham; Mr. Boughton was born here, and Mr. Hennessy in Ireland-their Americanism dating from the age respectively of three and of ten. But Mr. Whistler is American born; Mr. Alma-Tadema is from West Friesland; M. Legros comes from Dijon, where his great "Ex Voto " hangs in the public gallery; Mr. Hubert Herkomer is from Bavaria; and M. Tissot is a native of Nantes. And the list is by no means exhausted; for Mr. Ouless was born in St. Heliers, Mrs. Butler at Lausanne, and Mr. W. F. Yeames in Southern Russia, while Mr. Val Prinsep, the subject of the present sketch, owns India as his native land. Although he left Calcutta at an early age, Mr. Prinsep continued to be connected with Hindostan. He belonged to what is called an Indian family. More than a century ago his grandfather left the Warwickshire vicarage of his father for the distant East, notwithstanding a warning which the parson received from a friend, in a letter still preserved, that " Clive was the very devil." The boy sought his fortune, and won it. Of the next generation of the family no fewer than seven were in India at the same time. One of these, Mr. James Prinsep, first started a feeling for historical research in the Dependency; and another--bhe father of the painter-rose to be a member of the Council of India, and died in England, after sixty-five years of service. "His honoured days," says his son, "were spared to welcome my return from India" [after the painting of the Durbar]; "but a fortnight after my arrival he fell asleep in the fulness of years, leaving for us, his children, and for his many friends, an example of that unselfish devotion to duty and unassuming ability found in many of those who have by their unrecognised labours made India what it is." Mr. Val Prinsep was himself destined for the Indian Civil Service; but he gave up his appointment before he had completed his two years' residence at Haileybury, and devoted himself to the study of painting. First he went to Versailles, then to Paris, where he was the pupil of Gleyre, and then to Rome. Nor were foreign influences the only ones at work. Then, as now, Mr. Prinsep was a warm admirer of Mr. Watts. In these early days he was also an acolyte of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and his first picture was all after the manner of the Pre-Raphaelite school: a manner which was only a passing one with him, and which he abandoned mainly under the influence of one who is now his next-door neighbour in Holland Park Road, the President of the Royal Academy. That first picture portrayed "How Bianca Capello sought to Poison the Cardinal de' Medici." It was hung on the line at the Royal Academy, to which the painter has contributed yearly ever since, and which elected him Associate in 1878. Very much in the order in which they were exhibited are " My Lady Betty," "Belinda," "Jane Shore," "Miriam Watching the Infant Moses," "A Venetian Lover," "Bacchus and Ariadne," "The Death of Cleopatra," "News from Abroad," "The VAL PRINSEP, R.A. 31 Harvest of Spring," "Lady Teazle," "Newmarket Heath-The Morning of the Race," "The Gleaners," "A Minuet," "The Linen-Gatherers," "Reading Grandison," and "A Bientot"-the last three being the works by which their painter was represented at the Paris International in 1878. Of these we reproduce "Jane Shore," "The Gleaners," and "The Linen-Gatherers," the last-named one of the most attractive Academy pictures of its year. The breezy subject is pleasant, and the composition has that processional movement, added to quaint zigzag forms, which always takes the eye. The artist was happy, too, in treating, with only slight idealisation, one of the few paintable passages of English country-life still unhackneyed, because unsought by the conventional lovers of the picturesque. His linen-gatherers straggle homewards over the downs with the gait and aspect of nature; and this rare merit is united with solidity of drawing and of execution. In was in 1876 that Mr. Prinsep received, somewhat unexpectedly, a commission which not only resulted in one enormous canvas, but which led to his treatment in a number of smaller pictures of those Eastern subjects with which his name and fame will always be linked. Queen Victoria was to be proclaimed Empress of India in an Imperial Durbar at Delhi, and the Indian Government wished to have a picture of the brilliant scene to offer as a present to the Empress-Queen. Lord Lytton, with all the imagination of the poet, suggested in his telegram that Mr. Prinsep "would be able to make all necessary memoranda during the week the assemblage had to last." No such delusion flitted through the brain of the resolute artist, who, however, set out without delay for wlhat was, after all, the land of his birth, and who was prepared to follow the Rajahs into their own quarters and sue for "sittings." This he did, as is well known to two publics-the artistic and the literary. A whole year was devoted to making the portrait studies which were to appear a little later in the great canvas occupying a wall to itself in the Royal Academy; and during that period Mr. Prinsep saw as much of India as has perhaps been seen by any one man; and what he saw he put down in a diary, which was subsequently published under the title of "Imperial India." In that volume we are allowed to accompany the artist on the travels which his great undertaking involved. We follow him from Bombay across the great continent eastward to Allahabad, northward to Rajpootana and the Punjab, into the high valleys of Kashmere, down through the plains of Southern India to Madras and Mysore; we see him, perhaps with something like dismay on his face (a face, by the way, which Mr. Legros has rendered in our engraving with a quite masterly individuality), when he first saw the ugly erection of glass and iron, with reds and blues as crude as any which the Crystal Palace could show, in which the great ceremony took place; and then we go with him in the after-pursuit of Rajah, Maharajah, and Nizam, and watch him while he paints them in the insufficient light of their palaces, in the "prickly heat," and amid the irritating din of horns and the evil thud of tomtoms. Holkar was what the artist calls his "first victim." "I never saw a man so bored," says Mr. Prinsep; but he frankly adds that he himself was bored equally. JANE SHORE. (From the Coltection of the late Captain Hill.) VAL PRINSEP, R.A. 33 He made a bad start, and was horrified when the dreamy potentate, at the end of an hour, asked to see what had been done. " Ah! " sighed the artist by way of saying a "no" to which even a Maharajah could hardly object, "the great God himself took at least five-and-twenty years to make your Highness as beautiful as you are; how, then, can you expect me to reproduce you in half an hour? " Holkar smiled, and was, the artist flatters himself, "tickled." In the course of his Indian tour, however, Mr. Prinsep stumbled on some dramatic incidents by which he could hardly fail to be impressed. Whether they will ever be turned to account by him on canvas, or whether they will suggest situations for the stage, remains to be seen. Here, for instance, is a story from Ulwar. The Rajah of that State set envious eyes upon the neighbouring Rajah of Jeypore, because the latter had within his circle a beautiful Nautch girl. Vast sums were offered to Ganga-such was her name--if she would leave Jeypore and come to Ulwar. She yielded, and a dak of fast-trotting bullocks conveyed her to her new home. When she had been there but a short time, the Duke of Edinburgh arrived in India, and the Rajah of Ulwar was compelled to leave his place and to take part in his Royal Highness's reception. What would become of Ganga in his absence? The thought that she might return to Jeypore and the rival Rajah was too much for Sheodan Sing, and before his departure he offered to marry her in a left-handed fashion: she had gold bangles fastened on her feet, and was taken into the zenana. Again the woman's vanity in Ganga was touched, and again she yielded. But once in the zenana, there was no escape. She was perpetually imprisoned with rival queens, who, belonging to noble families, looked down on her as the dirt of the earth. Still, she stayed on-forgotten by the "ajah, who never saw her again, but who had his triumph in swaggering past the Rajah of Jeypore and boasting that he had singed his whiskers. In vain she wrote and begged to be liberated. In vain her old mother flung herself at the feet of the political agent with a similar petition. The zenana was sacred; what could he do? So Ganga took the affair into her own hands, and starved herself to death. Another Rajah of Ulwar, who had also married a Nautch girl, had a son. When the Rajah died the marriage was declared illegal and the son illegitimate. The widow was a Mohammedan, and did not believe, as Mr. Prinsep puts it, that " Paradise was to be attained by self-cremation." Yet, to prove the legality of the marriage, she actually performed suttee, and happily the British Government insisted on the acknowledgment of the boy's legitimacy. On his return to England, Mr. Prinsep composed his Durbar figures upon a canvas thirty feet long-a length which almost gives his picture a place among the curiosities of art. Nor were the difficulties of the subject any less than the size of the canvas; it was a giant among achievements which only a giant's strength and resolution could have produced. The single figures and simple groups which Mr. Prinsep has since painted must have seemed to him a holiday task in comparison with the greater effort. Among these were " At the Golden Gate," which we engrave, 34 34 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. and " The Roum-i-Sultana," exhibited in 1879, and purchased by the Prince of Wales. In the case of "The Golden Gate," the spectator may be left to make his own romance. There has evidently been some kind of "scene," for the broken cup on the floor tells tales, and the sultana-whose hair, by the way, is dressed in remarkably occidental fashion-stands rebuked before the glorious golden portal of some tyrant's sanctum. This beautiful picture is principally a study-and a very successful studyof drapery in the small folds proper to the softer Eastern stuffs, and beloved by Greek art. In the " Roum-i- Sultana" the subject is suggested by a tradition that Emperor Akhbar had among his wives a European-a lovely blonde-who lived apart in a pavilion of her own at Futteypore-Sikri. She reclines on cushions, and a black attendant fans her weary face. Since that eventful journey,, Mr. Prinsep has kept almost entirely to Eastern subjects. He has proposed to himself the difficult task of reproducing India in a London studio. Even when the colour of the East can be practically remembered, it is not possible to recall the light. That can be painted only in light, with the surroundings of the local atmosphere. Of this any one may be convinced by looking at an out-door study done in the East, or, still better, in any part of North Africa, with an out-door study done on a bright day in England. The former resembles a tune transposed into a higher key. Accordingly, Mr. Prinsep's Anglo-Indian pictures are emphatic in colour but not high in illumination. They are, nevertheless, interesting as thoroughly authentic and trustworthy presentments of landscape and of architecture. The series has been broken by an occasional portrait, by one illustration of Scandinavian legend, " The Death of Sigurd the Strong," in which the old warrior is shown apparelled in all his armour for the dignified ceremony of death, and by " The Dole," a scene of the distribution of loaves to the poor by some English clerical charity of ancient foundation. That Mr. Prinsep is a theoretic as well as a practical artist is proved by the severe but sensible speech which he made after distributing the prizes to the City School of Art a few years ago. Mr. Prinsep did not spare modern deficiencies. "Although the world had progressed generally," he said, "in matters of art we had not progressed at all. He was not talking of geniuses that arose perhaps once in a century, nor even of eminent artists whose works they saw every year in the exhibitions, but he was talking of the mere artistic level of work in England, and lie thought everybody of education would agree with him that it was not up to the old mark. If he wanted a piece of ironwork, with a scroll of fruit, flowers, or other ornamentation, he found it very difficult to get, whereas if he went into any town on the Continent or to many an old trader of old London he should find example after example of the work he wanted. Again, give a few pieces of coloured rags to a savage, and he would turn out something that would be quaint and grotesque, yet still harmonious; but with all the advantages of the workmen they could often do something that was neither harmonious nor beautiful, and was certainly grotesque. The workmen of this country were as skilled as ever. Metal-workers VAt PRINSEP, R.A. 35 could make a machine, and fit it together with absolute mechanical exactness-in fact, there was the skill, and more skill than of old. How was it, then, that the work turned out was not so good? It was because perfection had killed beauty; it was science that had ruined art; it was the march of civilisation that had trodden out sentiment. They all knew what sentiment was. They knew how a great singer TILE GLEANERS. (By Permissfon of Sir Joseph Pease, Bart.) stirred their hearts by a song, which sung by another, though, in time, tune, and rhythm, did not move them at all. So a great actor giving with emphasis and sentiment words of inferior poetry would bring down a house, while an inferior actor rehearsing a scene of Shakespeare-dealing with the finest poetry ever written-would leave nothing but murmurs behind. A painter might paint a picture, apparently perfect, and yet that picture would not be a popular picture or successful. Another, again, would paint a picture full of glaring faults, and that picture, with sentiment, would be popular and agreeable. Thus he came to ask how it was that good workmen nowadays had not the sentiment of the past. It was becauso the workmnan 36 36 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. of the past got his sentiment partly from education-though he had little of that compared with the present-but mostly from his surroundings. The London of that day was a picturesque gathering of houses round the Gothic fabric of St. Paul's. Every house was rich in shape and features, and in the streets, bustling and busy enough, were the bright robes of many a lady. In close vicinity were the fields, with flowers and birds, for the lark yet sang in Lincoln's Inn Fields, and the THE LINEN-GATHERERS. nightingale lingered in the gardens of the Temple, by the side of the unpolluted Thames, flowing among the swans. Besides this, the master worked in the centre of his men, whom he instructed with his experience and his knowledge, so that each workshop became a school of art, in which traditions of the handicraft were preserved with the greatest jealousy. And beyond this, the master-workman, and frequently the workmen themselves, were brought into immediate connection with the great and mighty of the land, at the time when the City had kings and princes. What wonder, then, when the workmen derived their reward from the fountain-head of honours, if they did their best, and had a sentiment which the present workmen were without. He wtas not one of those who thought that the world had not progressed. They VAL PRINSEP, R.A. 37 had progressed enormously. People were better fed, better clad, better educated, and health was infinitely better looked after than in the old time. But it was an undoubted fact that civilisation had rubbed the edges of men until it had made them almost of the same mould. He might walk from the Tower to Tyburn and never see anything on men but sombre-coloured garments, while the ladies seemed to imitate the men's raiment as much as was consistent with the character inherited from Eve. The streets were larger and more convenient, but the houses, like the men, seemed made on the same pattern; there were the same doors, and the same windows and roofs. The masters, too, had become grand men, dealing wholesale, and left the public to be handled by middle-men, who retailed only that kind of art-work that they thought sold best. No wonder that sentiment was crushed out of work. Science was different from art in this-that science had no sentiment, whereas art could not exist without sentiment." Referring to how foreign competition with England had increased, Mr. Prinsep said he had little hesitation in recommending that workmen should be given an appreciation for art-that was to say. a power of enjoyment, which was independent of the mere sensual enjoyment that man shared with other animals. He said he heard of manufacturing for Americans spades which could not be used by the regular English worker. The American had a spade with a fine edge, keeping a small crowbar to deal with stones. Using such a spade, an Englishman would break half a dozen a day, because his only idea was to shove it hard into the ground. The one was an artist in digging, and the other dug without sentiment. In conclusion, he said that to draw a leaf, a flower, or the human face seemed an easy thing, but it was not so to draw with sentiment, derived from a thorough appreciation of what was drawn. Mr. Prinsep is a very ancient inhabitant of the artists' corner of the Old Court suburb. Long before Melbury Road existed, his substantial gabled red-brick house stood, side by side with Sir Frederick Leighton's dwelling, and over against the garden that backed Mr. Watts's old-world home. There was no general taste for ruddy brick and tiles in those days, and while these few artist-friends housed themselves in charming forms and pleasant colours, the rest of the world was building itself Ionic and Corinthian porticoes, with a coating of paint, bearing balconies in bluntly moulded iron of abominable design. It has not taken many years to convert the world to the side of the artists. We have done but scanty justice to Mr. Prinsep the artist; we must refer in still scantier terms to Mr. Prinsep the dramatist. Mr. Prinsep's literature is, of course, on another scale than Michael Angelo's or Rossetti's; but his book on India, with its pleasant lack of premeditation, showed the possession of a ready writer's pen. And when a sprightly little play, called "Cousin Dick," won from the audience on the first night a call for the author, only the uninitiated were surprised to see Mr. Prinsep respond. " Cousin Dick," in 1879, was followed in 1880 by "M. le Duc," with its good strong dialogue and its powerful situations; but since then the dramatist's talent has been in abeyance, at least as far as the public is concerned. MARK ANTOKOLSKY. N a slum in Wilno there lived some forty years ago a poor orthodox Jew with many cares and a large family. All his life long he had struggled with Misfortune, but the stubborn goddess was stronger than he. She felt herself at home in his wretched little hut. She settled there, and kept her wolf continually at the door; till her miserable host was worried off his wits, and looked as though he had run before his time to waste and ruin and decay. One of his many troubles was his son Mark. He was a lank, awkward, sickly boy, with an intense and thoughtful face. Chalk and charcoal were never out of his hand, and in his passion for making sketches he would forget to eat and drink. He drew on the fences, on the floor, on tables and chairs, and, terrible to relate, on the inner walls of the hut itself. He was often enough in trouble for Art's sake, and compelled to pay in his person-in his ears and cheeks and otherwherefor the lawless and unreasonable delight he took in her pursuit. But pains and penalties had no effect upon him. He would rub the sore places On his frame with an air of abstraction, and g6 out and console himself immediately with another sketch. Once, when the Jews were preparing to make holiday, the great brick stove in his father's house had been elaborately whitewashed; it was not much, but it made the room look clean and cheerful, and it was a source of some pardonable pride. You may imagine the horror and indignation of the elder Antokolsky when, on his return at eventide, he saw on the front of the stove an enormous warrior flourishing a long sword, and as black as charcoal and inspiration could make him. This time the crime was. so inhuman and extraordinary as to make the tweaks and slaps and pinches that were employed for minor offences seem ridiculously inadequate. The injured father took up a stick straightway, and the offending son received the soundest thrashing imaginable. It was well meant, no doubt, but it was singularly inefficacious. Next day he was sketching as vigorously as ever. His parents were so poor that he had to draw where he could. The commonest white paper was beyond his means; and if chalk and charcoal had not been to be had for the gathering he would have fared but ill. His desire, however, was greater MARK AANTOKOLSKY. 39 thaii his necessity; it gave him patience and ingenuity, and it compelled him to succeed. Domiciled under the same roof with him was a bookbinder, who was IVAN THE TERRIBLE. accustomed to cast forth scraps and shavings into the common yard. These the Jew boy gathered up with all diligence. He pasted them together; and in this way he made himself sketching blocks and canvases, and could draw without the 40 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. fear of a pair of red ears. Presently his father began to take his passion for drawing less tragically and with more intelligence; and in no great while, that nothing might be lost and that money might be made as soon as possible, he apprenticed him to a carver. The lad became a craftsman at once, and was able to earn from twelve to fifteen roubles (some twenty-five to thirty shillings) a month, which for a small boy in an out-of-the-way provincial town is an enormous wage. And all the while he stuck to his drawing, and plied his pencil diligently. He was now comparatively rich: he could buy paper and cheap water-colours. His talent and accomplishment got wind; and presently the Governor of Wilno, a certain General Nazimoff, inquired about him, had him up for inspection, took an interest in him, and, finding that his one ambition was to improve himself in his arft, and to become a student of the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg, gave him a letter of introduction for the capital; and with this in his pocket he went on his lonely way. The general's letter was almost useless, we are told, and for some time Antokolsky had to fight with poverty as for his life. In a sense he was well armoured enough; for he had a will of iron, an indefatigable industry, an absolute devotion to art, and a heart and brain as full of ideals as a summer wood is full of songs. But times were desperately hard; circumstances were desperately adverse. Antokolsky had ten roubles (a pound) a month from a certain Baron Ginsburg, it is true; but five shillings a week is not enough to keep body and soul together, much less to study art upon. The Russian Academy of Arts was given over to the devil of pseudoclassicism. The subjects set at the examinations were all mythological; and the students were cramped and hampered into the bargain with all manner of conventionalities and formal rules, without which it was not lawful for art to be or do. Originality, truth to life and nature, the very shadow of realism, were damned as vulgar and degrading. In painting there had been some feeble attempts to break these fetters. But sculpture was the docile slave of formalism, and seemed to exist but for the glorification of the dubious heroes of official Russia. Vitaly, Pimenoff, Tolstoy, Baron Klodt-once considered as stars of the first magnitude-worked almost exclusively on public monuments. Whatever their task and whatever their theme, their attention was directed not so much to the capacities of their subject as art, as to its excellence as an opportunity of paying compliments in bronze to the powers that were. Vitaly modelled the Byzantine Emperor Theodosius and his wife in bas-relief for the Isaac Cathedral in the likeness of Nicolas I. and his Empress. Pimenoff, commissioned to produce an immense equestrian statue of Nicolas I. for the Winter Palace, represented his Emperor in the shape of St. George, helmed and armoured as a Roman warrior, with bare arms and legs, bestriding a fiery steed, and in the act of spearing the Dragon. All these masterpieces were absolutely worthless from the point of view of creation and conception; all were feeble in execution; all were touched with an inane effeminacy of expression. No doubt there were exceptions to the rule, and happy ones: Klodt's "Kriloff," for example, and the realistic essays of Kamensky, an artist of much talent, who MARK ANTOKOLSKY. 41 died young. But, in general, the ideals and ambitions of Russian sculptors were as we have said; and these ambitions and ideals were stronger and more imperious at the Academy of Arts than elsewhere. It is characteristic of Antokolsky that, in spite of his preposterous environment, he showed himself from the beginning an independent and daring artist. In 1864 he exhibited his first work, an alto-rilievo, a "Jew Tailor." In the teeth of rules and traditions the subject was presented not in gypsum, not in bronze, not even in marble. It was wrought in wood, as if the author had been a common carver, only anxious to appear a good craftsman, and without any ambition to become an artist. "Who knows?" says the art-critic Stassoff, "it was perhaps this very unassumingness of Antokolsky that won him the medal (second class, silver) he received at the exhibition." All the same, his work was an outrage upon official art. It represented a lean and hungry Jew, in the cap and cafta,n of his race, sitting cross-legged in the window of his little shop, and trying hard to thread his needle at the light, and so entirely absorbed in the effort that his eyes, his lips, and every muscle of his face are parties to the transaction. Antokolsky had often witnessed the achievement in the slum at Wilno where he was born, and where he had grown up an artist and a lover of Nature. He succeeded in its presentation because he was truthful and sincere. Next year lie exhibited a second alto-rilievo, this time in wood and ivory. The subject was a country miser counting his money. It took the public by surprise. The reality of the type, the greed and cunning in the face, the truth of gesture, the uncompromising accuracy of detail and costume, were not less novel than astonishing. People at once began to look for something great from Antokolsky; and he did not deceive their expectations. Bat they had to wait for it. Poverty and affliction were heavy on him; and it was not until nearly five years after that he achieved his triumphant1 "Ivan the Terrible." This heroic savage, in whom Old Russia is incarnate, appeared to him garbed in his monk's frock, as one set between despair and the hope of grace, between the promises of Holy Writ and the memory of his many crimes, with the Bible on his knee and at his side the legendary sceptre-tall, solid, shod with living steel--wherewith he tested the manhood of his nobles, and beat out the brains of his enemies, and took the life of his son. Thus it was that the great Tzar was revealed; and as Antokolsky sculptured, so have we engraved. When he conceived this immortal work he was still starving on a pound a month. It would have been mere midsummer madness to think of a studio of his own. He tried to get one in the Academy; but he tried in vain. He then asked permission to work there during the vacation in the sculptors' class-rooms; and after agreat deal of circumlocution the required permission was granted (1870), on condition that in return for it he mended all the broken noses and maimed hands and lame legs of the battered old bas-reliefs which had been sent in on account of the Ac'ademy gold medal. He began to work at his "Ivan the Terrible " with the passionate and indefatigable unrest peculiar to him. He wanted to finish it out of hand, under 35 42 IMTHE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. the impulse of a unique, unbroken inspiration. The incessant labour, the old unending hardships and privations, the miserable circumstances under which he lived and wrought, combined to make him seriously ill. He took a horrible cough, and began to suffer violently from pulmonary hmemorrhage. He was obliged to leave his work, and go home and rest. In a month he was back again in St. Petersburg. There a new grief was in store for him. The class-room in which his model stood, by order of the academical authorities had been appropriated to other uses, and the terrible Tzar had been parcelled out in fragments, and stowed away in a lumber room under the roof. Antokolsky kept up his heart. He was worn to a shadow with hardship and illness; he had no light to work in, and no room; he was faint and giddy and tired; but he laboured on. And at last " The Terrible " was finished. Naturally enough the artist's first idea was to show his work to his professors. He was a young man, however; and none of them were interested in his work. Had it been a veteran's, like Pimenoff or Baron Klodt, it would have been another pair of shoes. But it was only Antokolsky's; and they declined to look at it. So the artist went and called on Prince Gagarin, the President of the Academy, and asked inspection of him. The President was very civil, told him that he had long had his eye on him, and that he would be delighted to come and see. He came; he saw; he was conquered. No such work had come from a Russian artist; and he knew it, and was enchanted with the knowledge. Next day he returned with the Grand Duchess Maria Paulovna; she was every whit as much astonished and impressed as the President. "The Emperor must see your work!" she said in her ecstasy. But to make this possible another sacrifice was required of the artist. He was still under the tiles; at such a height the Emperor and he were practically ten thousand miles apart; and he was requested to cut up his work, and get it carried piecemeal downstairs, and set up in a bigger room on the ground floor. This he positively refused to do. The President was persuasive; the Grand Duchess was benevolently imperious; but the sculptor stood firm. Then, at a sign from Her Imperial Highness, a miracle was operated in the little garret. The floor became covered with exquisite tapestry; fair windows appeared in its walls; it grew glorious with costly furniture and silken hangings; and one evening at six o'clock there was a strange and awful jingle of spurs on the narrow stairs, and in came the Tzar. He looked affably at the majestic presentment of his predecessor; and he honoured the artist with a " gracious conversation":-" Who are you? "-" Antokolsky."-" Where from? ''"Wilno."-" Very good, very good!" With that there was another strange and awful jingle of spurs, and the Tzar had vanished. The monarch's visit to the studio of the neglected young sculptor amazed and terrified the representatives of official art. "What have you done?" they asked Antokolsky. "I have done an 'Ivan the Terrible!' " was his rejoinder. Crowds of visitors began to besiege the Academy; and rapturous accounts of the new genius and his magnificent creation were on everybody's lips. The exhibition, in fact, though on a much smaller scale, had pretty much the effect of those of Verestchagin later PETER THE GREAT. 44 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. on. The number of visitors was smaller; but the surprise, the enthusiasm, the sympathy, the interest in the new man, and the new departure, were fully as intense. The statue was bought by the Government, and a bronze of it now adorns the Hermitage collection. In 1872 South Kensington endeavoured to obtain a gypsum cast. But Antokolsky was in Rome; the negotiations fell through; and South Kensington is wanting still. The " Ivan the Terrible" made Antokolsky an Academician, and so gave him a pension for life. He was sent off to Italy at once, as it was feared that his delicate health would break down under the amenities of the Russian climate. In 1872 he exhibited his "Peter the Great," the original of our full-page picture, and in 1874 his " Christ Before the People." The great White Tzar, the immortal Builder of Ships, is marching on an enemy. The lines of Antokolsky's figure are instinct with the heroic swagger, the irresistible will, the fiery and indomitable resolution, of his tremendous original. Thus might he have looked when he marshalled his lines at Pultowa; thus when he challenged the barbarism of his own land and the civilisation of the West. The figure of the "Christ," however, is, as we think, the finer and the more original of the two. The conception is more human and profound; the effect is nobler and more affecting. Antokolsky himself has CHRIST BEFORE THR PEOPLE. described his intention in a letter to his friend Stassoff, and we shall not scruple to quote his description. "I shall make Christ," writes the Jew, "a reformer who rose in revolt against the exclusiveness and injustice of the Pharisees and Sadducees, who proclaimed the Kingdom of Truth and Brotherhood and Freedom on Earth for the very people which in its fury and blindness cried 'Crucify him! crucify him I' I have represented Him as standing before the people for whom He MARK ANTOKOLSKY. 45 afterwards laid down His life, forgiving them, 'for they know not what they do.' " As it seems to us, his Redeemer-outraged, bound, condemned, His meek head bowed beneath the stupid execrations of the churls He would have lifted to Himself -is certainly the most moving and original in modern art. In 1875, when in Rome, Antokolsky produced, for the churchyard of Monte Testario, a monument to Princess Obolensky, a young lady whom he had known. She is sitting, in mute despair, on a great square stone at the entrance of her tomb. The conception of the work is strikingly imaginative. The pain, the infinite regret, the speechless sorrow in the sweet young face, are affecting in a high degree. This excellent work was succeeded by a series of achievements in all of which the masterthought is likewise one of defeat and the breaking of life. In his " Death of Socrates" (1876) the hero is shown to us cold and stiff in his chair, his arms inert and pendent, his head fallen forwards on his breast, as his friends and disciples may have seen him after the draught of hemlock. In "Irreparable Loss " (1876) there is presented the bust of a dead boy, pathetic and still on the white pillows in which he is laid. Then comes the "Last Sigh of Christ on the Cross" (1877), a poignant realisation of the supreme agony, the ultimate and consummate pang of the hour upon Calvary. And then the famous " Head of John the Baptist " (1878), couched in grisly and awful quiet on the charger of Herodias, with the broad keen glaive beneath it that has just sliced through nape and throat; and the " Baron Ginsburg " (1878), a kind of threnody in marble. We should add that these "sculptured elegiacs," these material and abiding laments, are no mere illustrations of the primal curse of mortality. In all the dominant idea is one of sorrowfulness and of reproach-is the idea, in fact, which animates the " Christ Before the People," and makes the figure not only live for us, but seem charged with heroic and tragical significance. The sculptor's meaning is but too plain. He has seen that it is the wont of the mob to persecute and destroy its benefactors; and his work is one long descant, in terms of heartfelt melancholy, on the vanity of human effort and the sorrowfulness of human destiny. Besides these, Antokolsky has produced a number not yet exhibited. The most important is certainly the " Spinoza." The famous Jew is represented at the most tragic pass of his life. His writings have been burned by the hangman; he has been twice anathematised; he is utterly forsaken; his last days are upon him. He is a bent and broken man of five-and-thirty-his face rather Dutch than Hebraic in type. He is sitting mournful in a chair, his hands are crossed helpless upon his breast, his knees are covered with a rug. The pen has fallen from his grasp; a half-folded letter-a letter of ill news, no doubt-lies on the floor at his feet. Antokolsky, whether treating in marble the Saviour of the world or a solitary and unhappy heresiarch, turns his hand to what is solemn and tragic in the history of action and suffering on earth. By this devotion to serious interests he has made himself a place unique in modern art. zL ARNOLD BOCKLIN. N the possession of a painter of undoubted genius, to which is allied a strong dose of eccentricity, the Germany of the present day is hardly behind France with Puvis de Chavannes and Gustave Moreau, or England S with Edward Burne Jones. In Arnold Bocklin-German by training and culture, though Swiss by birth-shle has a painter whose position in the German art-world of the time is one of even greater isolation and opposition than is in their respective countries that of the painters just cited; an innovator, indeed, vwho for years past has been as vehemently attacked, and by his own circle of worshippers as passionately defended, as any Pre-Raphaelite of our own, or in France any inventor of a new art-language antagonistic to reigning fashions, whether academic or ultra-realistic. In Germany the evolution of such an artistic personality as that of Arnold Bocklin is stranger and less open to explanation than are similar appearances among ourselves or our neighbours. No recent phase of Teutonic literature or thought can be said to have generated or to be exactly reflected in his idealistic, pagan, yet thoroughly real art. He stands equally distant from the Germanic, classic, and archaistic schools of the revival which took place in the earlier part of the century-those of Cornelius, Schnorr, Overbeck, and Kaulbach-as from the semi-conventional romantic movement headed later by Karl Piloty, under the influence of Delaroche and kindred painters of the French school. The former styles were already on the wane at the commencement of Herr Bbcklin's artistic career, and though the latter fashion was at that time in full bloom, it seems never to have seriously influenced his art. Still less ARNOLD BOCKL1N. 47 has the master in common with the absolute, patient realism of the most modern schools of Munich and Berlin: a style which was no doubt in the first place generated by the youngest art of modern France, but which-especially since the great FrancoGerman War-has taken strong root and given forth fresh growths. There is, indeed, a remarkable analogy between what is now taking place in the schools of Germany and the direction given to Dutch art at the termination of the great wars of the Netherlands with Spain. There, as here, the tendency of the schools of painting was irresistibly strong towards the rendering of purely domestic incident A SEA IDYLL. (By permission of Count Schack.) and the unemphasised facts of outward nature. The fashion of the day was a patiently observant realism comfortably within the comprehension of all, soothing and charming those who, tired of war's alarms, and having attained a great end, gladly turned to the contemplation of the fruits of peace, and to a reproduction, aiming specially at truth and technical completeness, of even its most prosaic and unsuggestive scenes. With art of this type, as has been pointed out, Herr Bdcklin has no feeling in common; indeed, it must be concluded that no outward influence has any serious power for good or evil over him, but that his genius has irresistibly forced its way to the surface, occasionally assuming in its efforts distorted and eccentric forms, but for all that making its high imaginative powers, its pathos, aind its overflowing vigour unmistakably felt. Herr Bdcklin has always especially delighted in subjects combining landscape, idealistic, yet in its main facts essentially true to Nature, with subjects drawn from the realms of myth and phantasy rather than from history and actuality. 48 THE MODERNY SCHOOL OF ART. It is as a landscape and marine painter, under these conditions, that he has proved himself entitled to the first rank. Though in the beginning of his career he showed himself to a certain extent under the influence of the grave and noble art of Nicolas Poussin, and in at least one instance-to be mentioned presently--under that of a still greater master, Titian, he soon shook off all trammels, and worked out a style of his own. As a landscape-painter he developed one of the rarest and most enviable qualities-the power to reproduce with fidelity the grand lines and calm, solemn beauty of Italian scenery as it is, without [the pseudo-classical re-arrangements which the conventionalities of the seventeenth century caused the masters of that time to adopt, thus compelling them to overload and mar their, in many respects, great and noble works. This special quality, so precious yet so difficult to define, of dealing thus untrammelled by tradition with the scenery of the South, necessitates no loss of idealistic effect, but on the contrary has for its chief characteristic a marked gain of poetical suggestion. It is a quality evidenced in but very few works, and among them in a supreme degree in those of our own Cozens and in the delicately beautiful landscapes of a living Italian painter, the gifted Signor G. Costa. Let it not be supposed, however, that Herr Bocklin's style has in other respects any analogy with that of either of the painters just named; they do not differ more absolutely from each other in all respects than he does from both, save in this one inestimable attribute-the power to see the real beauties of Italy undimmed by the questionable ornaments and conventionalities imposed by tradition. He is, especially in his later and more daring works, pre-eminently a colourist, and that in the higher sense: he is not content merely to produce a work made ornamental through the artful juxtaposition of brilliant and well-harmonised tints; he makes of colour an all-important instrument of expression, varying ceaselessly according to the mood to be expressed, and enhancing by its vigour, its brilliancy, or its suggestiveness, the impression which the master seeks to convey. It would be hardly fair, or indeed possible, to judge Herr Bocklin's figures apart from their frame of sea or landscape; they are often of extraordinary vigour, and so vividly conceived as, notwithstanding their subject, to pass from the bounds of the ideal into those of the real; but it would be idle to deny that they are not infrequently defective in draughtsmanship and wanting in proportion. Yet, seeing that his special power and originality consist in the combination on equal terms of the human figure with landscape-the one aiding the other, and making with it an inseparable whole-these technical faults stand less in the way of a fair appreciation of his peculiar genius than would have been the case had its vehicle of expression been other than it is. With these same painter-poets whom we have cited Herr Bbcklin has certainly this impatience of all conventional restraint in common; but he has little else. Though like them he shuns all outward suggestion of modern life and its terrible, if pathetic realities, though like them he is a dreamer of dreams, yet he is rarely a lover of the allegorical or involved mode of representation. So vigorous and ARNOLD BOCKLIN. 49 overflowing with life is his temperament, with such intensity does he conceive, and so powerfully does he realise the strange, fantastic subjects in which he delights, that, did not the designation savour of paradox, he might be fitly called a Realist in the Ideal. He succeeds so thoroughly in giving form and life to the mythical beings in a sense created anew by him, that the effect produced is often a startling oneso strong is the contrast between the theme and its treatment; nay, the boundaries which separate art from the purely grotesque are often reached and well-nigh transgressed. Herr Bocklin especially delights in delineating with much of the Greek feeling, though with little of the Greek form, the merman copper-hued and overgrown with seaweed; the shaggy centaur, all beast in mood and well-nigh all beast in form; the yet stranger sea-centaur-a creation of the painter's own; the old Triton, the sea-nymph flying from pursuit through the blue deep. In his milder moods he loves to show us in the foreground of a landscape of peaceful beauty and exquisite charm the great god Pan reclined on moss-covered stones and fluting to the attentive Dryads, or a pair of antique lovers lying in the grass, made bright with innumerable flowers. These same marvellous creatures-Bocklin's own, in so far as he has vividly embodied and presented them with a power never before attained-recall the defile of strange monsters who in the " Classical Walpurgis-Night" pass before Faust and the Mediteval Fiend: the poet has with wonderful skill put new life into the strange procession which he evokes; and the painter, if no reverence for Greek myth or Greek culture has awed or controlled him, yet gives incomparable vigour and much of the antique spirit to his eccentric creatures. He is master, too, when he wills it, of the tragic and terrible mood, and the spice of the grotesque, which is often an element of his exuberance, rather enhances than imperils the intensity of the impression produced. Herr Bocklin is, in one way, the most uncertain of painters: according as his subject inspires him or not, he may produce a work original in conception, and supreme in beauty and suggestiveness of colouring; or he may perhaps bring forth an eccentric and questionably drawn performance, insufficiently redeemed by its motive, and exhibiting the artist's scheme of colour in its unduly daring and exaggerated phase. These two moods of the painter can and do co-exist; and what is more, he seems, like many creative artists, not always able to distinguish the wheat from the chaff. At a recent exhibition held in Berlin, where he brought forward one of his most complete and most genuinely inspired works, the " Prometheus" landscape, presently to be described, he placed side by side with it a figurepiece so incomplete in technique that the highest recompense, which would inevitably have been accorded to him for his masterpiece, could not in decency be granted. Like Turner, Herr Bdcklin in his early time affected a more minute touch, and a more sombre and modest, though always a suggestive and poetical, scheme of colour, than is exhibited in his later productions. It is no doubt these early studies which have enabled the master in his later manner to display in landscape such brilliant ease and caestria, allied to that rare power of suggesting, through the medium of 36 vie =ss ol ARNOLD BOCKLI N. 51 external Nature, human moods and sentiments, which even his most searching critics have not denied to him. It is, indeed, in contact with Nature that his highest and noblest qualities are manifest and his art appears most moving and pathetic. The other side of his genius, if, indeed, it be possible thus to dissect it-the boundless love for the fantastic, for the world of myth and imagination-is characterised by a poetry and charm all its own; but it yet of necessity fails to attain the moving power which has been the gift of those whose art has more closely identified itself with humanity and its problems. One of Herr Bb*cklin's earliest patrons was the well-known author and dilettante, Count Schack, of Munich, whose fine gallery there, so liberally displayed to all who desire to make acquaintance with its treasures, contains most of the best works of his earlier and more moderate time, besides some more striking performances exhibiting his original talent in its maturity. It is through the courtesy of Count Schack that we are enabled to engrave three of the most remarkable of his works. The "Anchorite," though apparently one of the earliest, is one of the most perfect in technique of his works. The first suggestion and general outline of the picture, though but little else, have been obtained from Titian's noble "St. Jerome" at the Brera. Before a rude cross, planted half-way up a rocky incline, kneels the hermit, half-nude, scourging himself in passionate penitence. Overhanging the figure is a framework of the dark-green foliage of the ilex, rendered with great finish and perfection, through which are seen glimpses of a sky of exquisite purity: above and round about, descending into the branches, comes a great flight of ravens, attracted seemingly by the scent of blood. There is here some pathos, though not of the deepest, nor altogether commensurate with the opportunities afforded by the subject; the impression produced is scarcely a strong or lasting one, notwithstanding the great pictorial charm which the work undoubtedly possesses. More striking is the very curious "Cave of the Dragon," to which the painter has himself appended the words of Mignon's immortal song'"Das Maulthier sudht in Nebel seinen Weg, In Hohlen wohnt der Drachen alto Brut." Here is shown a mountainous gorge, bordered on either side with steep inaccessible rocks of rich and varied hue, half-way along which are seen muleteers with their beasts precipitately flying over a bridge. From a cave in the rock protrudes the head and half the form of a mighty dragon-not the ordinary conventional monster, but a living creature, half huge lizard, half monstrous snake, with strange dull eye and gliding movement. Here the painter's power of realising and making probable the shadowy and the unreal is already fully manifest. In the " Storm" Herr Bdcklin has dared his utmost in the combination of elements apparently the most heterogeneous, and by sheer force of genius has attainedl almost the exact measure of success which he sought. In the foreground of-for the painter--an unusually realistic landscape, in the delineation of which 52 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. he has avoided all so-called romantic elements, having as its main feature a copse of green, harshly-toned willows bent double under a terrible storm of wind and rain, kneels a man in the dress of the sixteenth century, grasping a still reeking dagger, and gazing fixedly at a prostrate corpse. To the right appear the three Furies armed with their traditional snakes, yet half modernised. These are not the awful Erinnyes pursuing the avenger of Agamemnon, nor yet are they quite the gibbering, half-human hags of "Macbeth." They have assumed a weaker, a more degenerate, yet a more venomous aspect, though they seem themselves to suffer while they torture: the foremost stands-a horrible vision-half-nude, with clinging white draperies, shivering in the storm. With extraordinary subtlety the master has, as it were, laid bare to us by suggestion the nature of the crime: all-the realistic landscape, these strange Furies who are the "boser Geist" of the assassin-shows irresistibly, yet in a fashion impossible to define, that the crime is no heroic deed, but the outcome of sordid greed or treacherous hate. Grotesque exaggeration is pushed to limits perilous indeed, and almost verging on caricature; yet the purpose of the picture is so intense, the conception so vividly realised, that the painter's audacity is crowned with complete success; the very grotesqueness enhances the terror with which the sordid tragedy inspires us. A measure of the same exaggeration-arising in like manner rather from the fresh vigour and the intensity with which the subject is conceived than from a conscious desire for sensational effect-is shown in the well-known " Sea-Idyll," in the Schack Gallery. In the midst of a slate-grey sea, yet agitated by past storms, appears a Triton seated on a rock and blowing lustily into a red-hued shell; he is no mere classic monster, but a strange being, copper-coloured and half-clothed with fantastic sea-growths, full of life, and strikingly vraisemblable: on the same rock lies, half averted and well-nigh at full length, a Nereid, her form, too, half covered with a reddish seaweed, holding lovingly in her hanld the head of a huge sea-snake, his skin deeply marked with the most vivid green and black. Notwithstanding certain exaggerations of colouring and conception, and some defects of design, toonotably the imperfect drawing of the nude torso of the nymph-the work is a typical specimen of Herr Bocklin's unsurpassed power of giving life and vigour to subjects the least easy to realise, because they are the farthest removed from human experience. Another notable evidence of the zest and unconventionality with which he depicts the strange sea-folk in whose existence he almost compels us to believe, is the still more important "In the Sport of the Waves," one of the chief attractions of the exhibition of the painter's works held at Dresden in the winter of 1883. It shows a sea-nymph flying half in sport from a monstrous scaly sea-centaur, who energetically yet helplessly pursues; an old Triton laughingly shields a young seamaiden, while other sea-folk sport in the blue agitated waves, delineated with masterly skill. Here the spirit of the conception is intentionally less an idyllic or poetic, than a downright comic and grotesque one; the artist seems to rejoice ARNOLD BOCKLIN. 53 with the sportive creatures of his fancy, and share in their overflowing animal vigour. In a similar haltnaturalistic spirit is conceived the wild " Battle of Centaurs," one of the ornaments of the Munich exhibition of 1879. Here,again,though the master has produced a version of his own as far removed in form from the Greek ideal as it is pos-- sible to be, he has infused into his creatures so much of the pagan spirit and such intense life, that the antique conception is more truly realised than by the spiritless copies of Greek sculpture which often do duty in the presentment of similar subjects. In a very different mood one, indeed, not the most usual to him, as THlE CAVE OP THlE DRAGON. including with an (fly Perisson of Count &hac.) almost epic breadth and dignity of conception certa~in elements of mystery--Herr Bbckliu must have conceived the "Prometheus" landscape, to which for elevation of style and pathos 54 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART few or none of his works can be compared. Out of the deep blue sea rise steep rocks, clothed with forest growth, over which tower mountain peaks, huge and inaccessible; these are canopied by cloud-curtained skies, through which the sun darts a few pale, struggling rays, casting on the summits below a strange, unearthly light. Bound on the summit of the mountain lies the Titan, a vague and tremendous form, himself rather resembling a giant cloud than a definite shape; the shadowy head lies on the highest summit, and the huge form is outstretched over mountain and valley. The obscurity of the painter's meaning, granting that it exists, is here inherent to the subject rather than evoked by the conception of the painter; nor does it seem to call for any special effort in the way of interpretation. Yet it is quite possible to weave on so beautiful and suggestive a foundation inventions more or less poetical, and as shadowy as the Titan's own form. The power and beauty of the work are, however, manifest, and in no wise depend on such expositions; its spells are cast alike over the emotions and the intellect, and are not to be withstood. In the painter's studio at Florence are said to be many interesting works (not seen by the writer), including a "Mary Bewailing the Dead Christ," a somewhat unusual choice for the painter, who thus makes a return to one of the themes of his early time; this perilously familiar subject he appears, according to all accounts, to have conceived with much pathos and in singularly unconventional fashion. Report speaks also very highly of an ideal landscape of great beauty suggested by an Egyptian scene. Herr Bdcklin is a native of Basle, where are preserved in the museum some ot his earlier works, but he received his artistic training chiefly at Munich, and has passed his later years partly in Rome, but mainly in Florence, finding in the scenery of Italy a never-failing stimulus to his imaginative powers. It is stated that he now proposes to transfer his studio from Florence to Zurich. Such a migration is, in view of the peculiar quality of his art, somewhat difficult to understand; but perhaps with the change of scene the gifted artist may obtain new inspiration, and find for his genius new fields and an enlarged scope. A-~-~ r~~4Z5~ JOHN BAGNOLD BURGESS, A.R.A., F? to come of an artistic stock were to commanJ artistic success, Mr. Burgess's popularity were easily explicable on other grounds than those of merit and accomplishment. He has a highly respectable painter's lineage, for his immediate ancestors were all hidalgos of the palette. His is a congeinital talent; and he may be cited as a living argument i proof of the theory of heredity. About the middle of the eighteenth century there existed in Maiden Lane, Strand, an academy or school of art, which numbered amongst its students a certain lad whose name was destined to become perhaps the brigrhtest in the roll of British painters. He was called Thomas Ga-insborough, and he received the foundation of that artistic education which was to make him world-famous at the hands of one Thomas Burgess, who presided over the school. This Thomas Burgess was the 56 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. great-grandfather of the subject of this memoir; but the hereditary transmission of a genius for art, so evident in this case, was not to be broken by a single link, for the son of Thomas Burgess, named William, became distinguished as a portraitpainter, in proof whereof a work of his elicited much commendation and inquiry some years ago at an exhibition of Old Masters at Burlington House. William in his turn had a son whose initials were i-. W., and H. W. Burgess, the father of the present John, held the post of landscape-painter to King William IV. Other members of this gifted family likewise exemplified the general tendency, inasmuch as there was another Thomas Burgess, a landscape-painter of great promise, who died very young in 1807; whilst Lea-nington, until very recently, claimed as one of its notables an eminent water-colour flower-painter named John Cart Burgess. That a descendant from such a stock should have early manifested the spirit within him, and that he should in due time have attained a conspicuous place in the front rank of the artistic profession, is therefore not surprising. John Bagnold Burgess was born on the 21st of October, 1830, at Chelsea, and, like so many of his contemporaries, commenced his actual training in art at Mr. Leigh's academy in Newman Street, in 1848. Thence to the Royal Academy there was but one step, he being admitted there as a student in 1850. Much credit is due to him for the persevering manner in which he pushed forward towards his goal during his early life; for he had the misfortune, when only ten, to be deprived by death of the guidance of his accomplished father, and in those days the ready means now to be found for carrying on the study of art did not exist. A youngster had to train himself as best he could, feeling his way amongst the antiques at the British Museum, or drawing from casts in his own home; and much valuable time was wasted for the want of a little discriminating direction from a master. To some extent young Burgess found this at the hands of Sir William Ross, the miniaturepainter, who undertook, as an intimate friend of his father, to look after the boy's art-education. Still, the help which he received was trifling until he entered Leigh's school; and he says that he was astonished, when he at last got into the life school of the Academy, to find that he knew so much as he did, and that he was able, with but little exertion, to distinguish himself by carrying off the medal of the first class awarded in that institution for drawing from the life. His efforts to establish himself on an independent footing were begun by painting portraits, but his poetic and imaginative nature soon began to resent the trammels of such comparatively prosaic work. An artist capable of thinking out and bringing ato a successful issue such pictures as those by which Mr. Burgess has made his reputation, was not likely to be contented with t~he mere portrayal of modern ladies and gentlemen, albeit he gained doubtless much mnastery over the brush by its exercise in that direction. Taking advantage of certain family connections residing in Seville, he very soon went off to Spain; and had it nOt been for the tendency of the British public to associate certain artists with certain countries or classes of subjects, and to look upon others who may venture upon the same ground as pirates and poachers, there can be little reason why JOHN BAGNOLD BURGESS, A.R.A. 57 J. B. Burgess should not have become some time since as celebrated for his interpretations of Spanish life and character as was the late John Phillip. For be it remembered, although he goes chiefly to the Peninsula for his themes and inspirations, he in nowise follows in the footsteps of his elder and renowned predecessor. Beyond the fact that he paints Spaniards, his work no more clashes with that of John Phillip than the pictures of Webster or Faed, for example, clash with those of LICENSING BEGGARS IN SPAIN. (In the Collection of Thomas Taylor, Esq.) Wilkie, and it is surely rather hard upon an artist that he should have to live down a certain amount of prejudice against his work simply because some one has treated similar subjects previously. But we would say, pursuing this question a little further, except that their models are Spanish, the subjects which Mr. Burgess paints are not similar to those of Phillip. The latter by preference portrayed the gay, guitar-twanging, castanet-playing, bolero-dancing, carnival-keeping, cigarette-smoking life of Seville, rather than that of the rough, ragged, dirty, sheepskin-clad, parchedup peasantry, gipsies, and contrabandistas of the Sierra Morena, with the surroundings of the low venta and posada, such as John B. Burgess chiefly delights in. Not, however, to continue the comparison, there has been, for any time these fifteen years past, enough and to spare of individuality and originality in his work to have warranted much earlier than he received it the award of an Associateship in the 37 z z CI) fj z a a JOFTY BAGNOLD BURGESS, A.R.A. 59 Royal Academy. So long ago as 1865 he established himself in the estimation of the public, as well as in the opinion of the best judges, as a painter of no mean power, by the exhibition of a picture at the Royal Academy which, from its nature, has been hard for him to surpass. It is not often that an artist can hit upon a subject that lends itself so entirely to pictorial treatment as did that of" Bravo Toro." To describe it or dwell on it here would be gratuitous, well known and associated as the work is with the name of Burgess. Full of beauty and fine in colour, powerful in drawing, expression, and execution, it deservedly claimed, and has retained, a large meed of public favour; and if its painter has not always seemed to keep up to the high standard of excellence which it promised, the shortcoming may readily be attributed, as we have said, to the fact that equally telling subjects are not easy to find. If, upon Dr. Johnson's principle, those who paint the manners, tone, and temper of Spain with the veracity which is conspicuous in this artist, should themselves be Spanish in feeling and character, then assuredly Mr. Burgess is by right the very man for the work. One can trace through his frank, firm, yet tender English manner, and the excellence of his technique, which, if not of the most forcible, is decidedly above the English average, that vein of languid, graceful, semi-sensuous indolence-that postponing ctill to-morrow (hasta matiana) kind of sentiment-which is so marked an element of the Spanish nature. It may be that something of this tendency accountst for he comparatively few large compositions which our hinner produces. lie works with industry, lovingly, diligently, but deliberately, as though he were revelling in the calm, warm atmosphere which he depicts, and in the midst of which any great display of energy or intensity, to adopt a modern phrase, would be quite out of place. Going back over the public record of his work, we shall revert only to such of his canvases as have displayed the especial charms of his brush. Thus, whilst the many single heads and figures which he has exhibited since 1865 are all more or less choice specimens, the really important works are scarcer until we come down to somewhat recent dates. Still, in 1866 "1The Favourite Padre" might fairly have claimed for its painter more renown than it did, had it not been but just preceded by "Bravo Toro." This Spanish street-scene, where two priests, one fat and one lean, are receiving their salutations from, and distributing their blessings among, a group of their especial charges, was full of life and character, and displayed the keenest appreciation of all that is humorous, pathetic, and picturesque. The same may be said, far more emphatically, of "Stolen by Gipsies," which in 1868 deservedly attracted great attention. An able review said of it:-" It is unusually interesting from the strong appeal it makes to the sympathy of the spectator-- an appeal sustained by great power of expression. At a low Spanish inn, a haunt of gipsies and thieves, a prettgy little girl, who has been stolen from some respectable family, is receiving or undergoing a lesson in dancing and in the use of the tambourine. The trouble in the poor child's face, and the keen repulsive raillery on the countenance of one of the two men who are teaching her, as well as the 60 0THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. compassionate look of a gipsy woman who has a child of her own and feels for this lonely little girl, are as good studies of expression as anything in this year's Academy. The two old men who are playing at cards, and the gendarmes just entering upon the scene, as yet unperceived, are as life-like in their way, though less powerfully dramatic. Mr. Burgess is very merciful to the spectator in introducing the messengers of justice on the staircase. It would have been too painful to think that such a nice little girl should have to pass her whole life in the company of these vagabonds, and we feel much satisfaction in the thought that she is just going to be released and restored to her anxious friends, whilst her captors will come within the grasp of the law." Making good use of the troublous times on which he fell during a visit to Spain in 1869, our artist gave us the following year a highly dramatic, picturesque, and telling reproduction of one of their many episodes. The scene was the interior of a church into which, during an emeute in the streets, some of the wounded were being carried for treatment; the picture was full of pathetic and stirring interest. In a very different key was the work by which Mr. Burgess was represented in 1871, bringing, as it did, into view an entirely new phase of his powers. Peace and domesticity succeeded turmoil and revolution, and we had in "A Visit to the Nursery" as healthy and strong a bit of English home-life and sentiment as ever graced Academy walls. The delightful old Colonel Newcome-like grandpapa in his tops, buckskins, and pink, who is paying "the visit," in company with the charming mamma, just before riding off to cover, should, even after this lapse of time, be remembered by all observant visitors to modern picture-shows. Unable, however, to remain long away from the land of his love, Mr. Burgess has continued since that year, almost without interruption, to exhibit none but Spanish or Moorish subjects. Thus in 1872 "Kissing Relics in Spain" was his principal picture, and in writing about it at the time an able critic pronounces it to be broad and luminous in treatment and composition. In 1873 and 1874 we had evidence in "The Rush for Water: Scene during the Ramadan in Morocco," and "The Presentation: English Ladies Visiting a Moor's House," that the Straits of Gibraltar had been crossed for pictorial purposes; but in 1875 there was an agreeable renewal of acquaintance with that quaintly humorous side of Spanish character in which the artist shows at his best. "The Barber's Prodigy," like " Stolen by Gipsies," was a really excellent picture, and was thus described at the time:-"The barber, who has left his customer, a sturdy, rough-looking Spanish peasant, upon whom he has so far operated as to have well lathered his face with soap, is eagerly conversing with two priests and a gentleman, to whom he is showing some sketches made by his son, a boy-artist who is kneeling upon the floor in the centre of the picture, with portfolio before him. The humorous element introduced in the expression in the face of the indignant customer, left alone, ornamented as we have described, may be imagined. Mr. Burgess has supplied the requirement of beauty in the work in the barber's daughter, a charming girl, who is an interested spectator in the scene." JOHNL BAGNOLD BURGESS, A.R.A. 61 The list of his works for the years 1876, 1877, 1878, and 1879 includes Feliciana-a Spanish Gipsy," Licensing the Bewggars Spain,""Childhood in Eastern Life," "Zulina," "The Convent Garden," and "The Student in Disgrace: a Scene in the University of Salamanca." "Childhood in Eastern Life" is a half humorous, half pathetic family scene, showing the forlorn and despised state of the girl-children, whom the father never names, and who are admitted into his presence only to see the honours and indulgences lavished by him and by his friends on the young lord of the creation, their brother. The facts are by no means exaggerated. Such English ladies as, in their travels in Egypt, have come into any social relation with Egyptian gentlemen, have invariably been amused and rather indignant at finding the little English maiden who is the pride of father and mother, passed over with absolute indifference by the courteous native visitor, who spends his whole vocabulary of compliments upon the British boy. And if this difference is so marked when it is a question of a European family, much more distinct and even painful does it become when the Oriental is in his own home. The pictures which immediately succeeded this on the walls of Burlington House-viz., "The Professor and His Pupil" (1880), and "The Genius of the Family," "Ethel," and "Guarding the Hostages" (1881)-if they were not quite equal in all respects to "The Student in Disgrace," were excellent in their several ways. Of two of these we give illustrations. The second, "Guarding the Hostages," may be compared with the "Rush for Water" and the "Presentation." It is a striking little picture, MToorish as to its subject, and dramatic in intention and effect. The first, "The Professor and his Pupil "-a very pleasant work-brings us back into Spain, the Spain of Lazarillo de Tormes and the Gran Tacano. The old gentleman has lost himself in the geographical lesson which in the days of Spain's Colonial Empire formed so indispensable a part in the education of a young Spanish nobleman. He is peering upon the great globe as earnestly as if he were reading Peter Martyr and discoursing of the Admiral himself, or mapping out the victories of the mighty Marquts del Valle. His pupil--some dukeling, with a score of splendid names to his tail-has little stomach for learning of any sort. He lounges in the great leathern chair, and cuddles his favourite hound. He would much prefer to be out and away, with hawk on wrist and spur on heel, a-pacing the beach, and looking for the wondrous galley and listening for the wondrous song he has read of in the ballad of Count Arnaldos. There are a great many English boys who will thoroughly agree with him. In more recent years Mr. Burgess has contributed to the Academy several scenes from the Spain of to-day--among them that o1 4 but always interesting subject, "The Letter Writer." The old man who makes it his profession to write letters for the unlearned, sits with his pen, and sand, and paper, and ink-horn, and a girl who has some impassioned message to send sits opposite, turning an undecided ear to the suggestions of a friend, whom we suspect of some subtle disloyalty. The girl herself is all sincerity and fire. On the other side a lazy THE PROFESSOR AND mIS PUPIL JOHN BAG NOLD BURGESS, A.R.A. 63 Andalusian, who doubtless has her own affairs, but does not take them tragically, leans laughing over the scribe's table, volunteering advice from her own gay point of view. An old woman behind looks gravely over the unfinished letter. The painter labels his picture, "In the Multitude of Counsellors there is Safety." In the same Academy (1882) was exhibited " Zara," a pretty little Oriental figure in green with a pinkand-gold veil. In 1885 came "Una Limosnita por el Amor de Dios ""a little alms for the love of God" -which speaks for itself as a bit of Spanish churchdoor begging. And the Academy of the following year had "An Artist's Almsgiving," the subject of which is historical and full of the character of the charityloving people of Spain. Alonzo Cano, a great GUARDING THE HOSTAGES. Spanish painter, passed his time in his old age in acts of chariity. Sometimes, when he had given away all his money, he would enter a shop, sit down, and make sketches, which he would give to the beggars, who sold them to the neighbouring convents. Mr. Burgess is very constant to the Academy of which he is so distinguished an Associate, and seldom or never exhibits elsewhere. (From a Photograph by the London Stereoscopic Company.) HENRY HUGH ARMSTEAD, R.A. T was well said upon a memorable occasion, by the late Prince Consort, whose opinion on matters of taste will ever be regarded with respectful consideration, that " all works of poetry and art are most tender plants, which will thrive only in an atmosphere of kindness-kindness towards thQ artist personally, as well as towards his production." Now, without staying to consider the reasons why sculpture can scarcely be said to have met with that encouragement in this country so freely accorded to the sister art of painting-whether from the fact that, lacking the attraction of colour, it appeals to the more cultivated tastos as the means of expressing form in the abstract only, or whether there has been any want of that necessary warmth of HENRY HUGH ARMS TEAD, R.A. 65 appreciation suggested in the words of the Prince Consort-the fact remains that our progress in the highest of the imitative arts has hardly been commensurate with the requirements of either its professors or its admirers. And yet there have been those who, like Chantrey, Flaxman, and Foley, may fitly rank with the greatest artists of the British school, whilst of living masters Mr. Henry Hugh Armstead is entitled to most prominent consideration as both metal-worker and sculptor, and as one to whom this country, and, indeed, the age itself, is indebted for some of the noblest works in silver and bronze. Born in London in 1828, Mr. Armstead may be said to have been cradled in art, having from his earliest years experienced the advantage of the careful and judicious training of his father, Mr. John Armstead, the most eminent Herald chaser of his day, to whose wise instruction, indeed, his son ascribes so much of his subsequent success. Studyingo first in the School of Design at Somerset House, where he obtained prizes for both modelling and drawing, Mr. Armstead completed this, the more elementary portion of his art-education, at the well-known schools of J. M. Leigh, in Maddox Street, and F. S. Carey, in Charlotte Street, Bloomsbury, where so many of our more noteworthy painters and sculptors imbibed a knowledge of the principles of art. Under the careful supervision of the latter most excellent instructor, Mr. Armstead made rapid progress, producing the drawings which secured his admission as a probationer in the Antique School of the Royal Academy; this success being shortly followed by works of excellence in an alto-rilievo of "Boadicea," and a statuette of "Satan Dismayed," which were both executed in bronze by the Art Union of London. And now for a period of from fourteen to sixteen years the young sculptor devoted himself almost entirely to the production of works in metal, of which chaste and beautiful examples in silver were the " St. George's Vase," exhibited at the Royal Academy, the "Tennyson Vase," and the "Packington " and " Outram " shields, the latter of which, now at the South Kensington Museum, describes the principal events of Sir James Outram's career, and was designed, modelled, and all the most important parts chased by Mr. Armstead's own hand. With this terminated the artist's labours as a worker in metal; and having occupied his time for a brief space in making some designs upon wood as illustrations for a poem by Dora Greenwood in Good TVords, and for one of Tennyson's, as well as some blocks for Dalziels' Bible, he was for the future to be known only in his capacity as a sculptor. What he has accomplished has proved him worthy to rank among the foremost modellers of his time, nor will succeeding generations fail to do him honour. Space would not suffice for enumeration here of anything like a complete list of Mr. Armstead's works, but at the same time it would appear unjust, when referring to the labours of his artistic career, to leave unnoticed, at least by name, such examples of a nobly inventive genius as his statue of " Aristotle,"; executed in Caen stone, and one of the series at the Oxford Museum; his wood-carvings illustrating the lives of King Arthur and Sir Galahad in the Queen's Robing Room of the Westminster Palace; the carved cornice of the reredos in Westminster Abbey, with marble figures 38 66 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. of "Moses," "St. Peter," "St. Paul," and "King David" in the niches beneath; the Eatington designs, being twenty large reliefs carved in stone above the groundfloor windows, for Eatington Park, Warwickshire, giving the history of the Shirley family from the Saxon founder up to the time of Cromwell; the external mosaic forming part of the frieze of the Albert Hall, illustrating Applied Mechanics, and representing the Lever, the Wedge, and the Screw, with figures of Archimedes and Watt; four bronze figures at the west end of the Inner Temple Hall; the effigy of the late Bishop Wilberforce in Winchester Cathedral; the memorial of the late Frederick Walker, A.R.A., in Cookham Church; and the external sculptures of the Colonial Office, of which it must suffice to mention the eight figures of colonial secretaries-the Earl of Derby, Earl Grey, Sir W. Molesworth, Lord Lytton, tho Duke of Newcastle, Lord Ripen, Lord Gleneig, and Lord Bathurst. Of works more particularly illustrative of the manner and style of Mr. Armstead's art, there are three to which a few words of description should certainly be devoted. The first is the fountain for King's College, Cambridge (which we engrave), showing the pious founder, Henry VI., supported by figures of " Religion " and "Philosophy," the king having in his charter expressly founded the college with the view to their encouragement. In this very beautiful and noble work, which is twenty-seven feet high, Mr. Armstead, who is here his own architect, has placed upon the summit the figure of the king, who is presenting the charter, and beneath, on either side, a female figure in sitting posture, the one representing " Religion," the other " Philosophy." At the sides are two panels, each containing two infant Neptunes guiding dolphins, from which jets of water flow into handsome bronze tazze ornamented with lions' heads and lotos flowers, whence three jets issue into a lower basin decorated with ten small dolphins and shells. The fountain is in Portland stone, with figures and ornamental work in bronze, most elaborately finished. Anything like critical analysis or description of what is perhaps Mr. Armstead's grandest work, the decoration of the podium of the Albert Memorial, is so far beyond the limits of this brief notice that we must confine ourselves to the mere outline of the design and motive of the work, remembering that many of those who are anxious to study the original happily have it within easy reach. The work consists of eighty life-size figures upon the south and east surfaces of the Memorial, illustrating Poetry, Music, and Painting-the general arrangement being geographical, not chronological, the greatest men, like Homer and Raphael, being grouped in the centre, with those of lesser note gathered around. This able work occupied Mr. Armstead eight years, and represents a remarkable amount of earnest thought and labour. The portraits of the various poets, painters, and musicians are executed from the most authentic likenesses, obtained from tracings, engravings, and drawings in this country and abroad-this undertaking was itself a work of no little labour-and every head was carved by the sculptor in situ, whilst each separate figure is the result of careful and conscientious study. As regards Mr. Armstead's labours in strictly monumental work, no better 0 z Ca a 0 0 ~rj C 0 68 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. example exists than the nobly-conceived memorial effigy of the late Archdeacon Moore, in last year's Royal Academy Exhibition, and now placed in Lichfield Cathedral. The Archdeacon is a venerable, dignified-looking man, in canonical vestments, lying with closed eyelids and serene expression of face; at his feet the kneeling figure of an angel, with great wings, and hands folded together as in prayer, gives an unusually impressive character to the memorial. The countenance of the Archdeacon impresses the spectator with the terrible solemnity of death, whilst the careful moulding of the form, the simplicity of the drapery, and the beautiful chiselling of the hands are beyond praise. Of honorary rewards Mr. Armstead has not been without his share, having in FROM THE BASE OF THE ALBERT MEMORIAL, KENSINGTON. 1855 obtained the French bronze medal for silver-work-groups and shields; in 1862 the medal of the Great International Exhibition for the Outram Shield and other silver-work; and in 1867 the silver medal at the Paris Exhibition of that year; whilst the more substantial honour of being elected an Associate of our Royal Academy was attained in 1875, and the full membership in 1879. Such, in very few words, is the record of a great and useful life, one to which we aqll look as eminent in the past, and-the artist being happily in the fulness of his powers-as certain to be yet more brilliant in the future. Whatever the vicissitudes and disappointments of that life-and what successful artist has been without them?the measure of success has been attained, and the proud position of an eminent sculptor has been fully earned by Mr. Henry Hugh Armstead. The future of sculpture in London-a very doubtful future as yet-rests rather in the hands of a monumental and architectural sculptor like Mr. Armstead than in those of even so great a master of the personal and realistic statue as Mr. Ilamo Thornycroft. At the present time the town is not at all in a pleasant temper with HENRY HUGH ARMSTEAD, R.A. 69 its sculptors. Long-suffering and indifferent as the English public usually seems towards its urban monuments, there are instances in which it unexpectedly starts up and gives a savage thrust, like the cat that has been teased for a long time without giving any sign of resentment. When Wyatt's "Duke of Wellington" was placed on the arch at Hyde Park Corner, in 1846, there occurred one of those popular ebullitions, and another occurred in the case of the famous monument at Temple Bar. Nor was it always very easy, even when we persistently dismissed Hyde Park Corner and Temple Bar, to defend the adornments of our streets. We are a vestry-loving people, and we have introduced into our patronage of the fine arts a very singular parochial custom called "competition." It would be difficult to invent a more ingenious system for wasting public money as well as private patience, or for securing the least possible good at the greatest possible expense, than this favourite mode of procuring a public statue. The manner of working the system is as follows:-Some excellent philanthropist or popular warrior dies, and a feeling gradually becomes current in favour of doing something in honour of his memory. This something gradually takes the shape of a statue in the minds of one or two active people with a tendency towards combined action. These people form a committee, add to themselves certain influential names in science, or in finance, or anything except fine art, and they gracefully elect their most active member as secretary. The little vestry is now constituted on the approved English plan, issues invitations for money, and receives subscriptions with dignity and zeal. The secretary now becomes a person of much importance. He issues a peremptory little notice inviting sculptors to compete for a monument, to be in marble or bronze, sitting or standing, six or twelve feet high, just according to his own taste or that of the committee. It seems plain that if a committee of artists and other ordinary people were to invite a man of science to lay down for them an improved system of drainage under a certain building, they would not dictate to him the form of his pipes and the exact position of his traps, but this does not hold true in the reverse instance. The secretary, rejoicing in his strength, sends out his notices, and receives a great number of replies. It is very rarely indeed that he takes the trouble to inquire whether they are signed by distinguished names, or whether the really eminent artists are deaf to his appeal. He merely mentions to those who do reply that they must send in a finished study, in the round, by a certain date. For this a rich committee sometimes offers a small sum to each exhibitor, but, as a rule, the artists are invited to spend all this time and labour for nothing. The obvious result of all this is that a sculptor who has got anything else to do, or who is nOt quite sure beforehand of the result of the competition, hesitates to expend his labour, and he is very right in doing so. The competition, then, if it is a genuine thing and not a mere blind for the deluding of the public, starts under the disadvantage that it is only entered by young or unprosperous men, and that the very art ists whose work should be most eagerly secured for the public are not approached in the matter. Sometimes, and this is slightly more rational, the first 70 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. competition is left open, and a rough selection is made of the three or four best sketches, to the authors of each of which a retaining fee, as we may call it, is given. This is not so exacting to the sculptor, but it is a great injustice to the public, for by this means ~150 or ~200 of the money subscribed is expended before even a final decision is made. That final decision rests with the untrained, unprofessional committee. Is it necessary to wait until the times are ripe for a Minister of Fine Art? Is it not possible for the good taste of the influential middle classes to sweep away this disastrous parochial system, invented and supported solely to indulge the selfimportance of one or two worthy but unnecessary persons? If we take a grave interest in the question of the adornment of our streets with fine sculpture, we must be prepared, first of all, to reform the present mode of selection by competition. It is really only on a confession of ignorance that this system exists. The committees tacitly admit that they do not know to whom to entrust their money. It is a little surprising that with such names as those of Messrs. Armstead, Woolner, Boehm, Thornycroft, and Brock constantly before them, they cannot form some notion of the style and qualifications of a large number of competent artists. But even if we admit that they cannot be expected to know these names, there are a great many persons whose range of official duties includes the knowledge of such facts. What is really to be desired, from a purely practical point of view and in the interests of taste, is that those who oblige the public by forming themselves into committees for the receipt of subscriptions towards popular monuments should go with their final estimate of funds to the studio of some thoroughly accredited sculptor, and ask him to tell them what work he is able to produce for the sum in hand. If his plans seem to them too expensive, they can go to one of his colleagues; but, as a matter of fact, it is extremely unlikely that an artist approached in this manner would fail to respond as warmly as his opportunities might permit. The great point is that, the money once secured and the sculptor selected, the latter should not be disturbed in the execution of his design by any secretary or middleman whose responsibility should go further than that of a financial adviser to the committee. It may be objected that by this reform we propose to take the bread out of the mouths of clever, rising men who might otherwise chance to profit by the present haphazard system of competition. We are prepared to accept this painful charge, as far as purely public monuments are concerned. A statue in a prominent part of London is an object which it almost requires an Act of Parliament to get rid of, and we are most strongly of opinion that for the task of placing beautiful and appropriate groups in the streets of London, none but learned and accredited sculptors should be chosen. Mr. Armstead, happily for us fairly well represented in our public places, stands at the head of these. Z~5r (From a Photograph by Mr. Robert Faulkner.) HENRY WILLIAM BANKS DAVIS, R.A. F the list of British animal-painters of high eminence is small, we have, nevertheless, more than one example of how much can be accomplished by genius in a branch of art the resources of which are apparently limited. The notable power Landseer possessed of parodying human nature without entirely robbing the brute creation of its characteristics, shown in pictures like his "Alexander and Diogenes," and "Uncle Tom and his Wife for Sale," was the expression of an idea in language understood by all, for we find the sense of humour almost universal, and this painter's works are consequently popular through. out civilised Europe. And what in a vein peculiar to himself Landseer succeeded in accomplishing so inimitably, other painters who have adopted as their rble in art the portrayal of the lower animals in their various moods, sympathies, and sentiments, 72 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. have in a different manner accomplished with no less certainty and skill. To go no farther back in the history of British art, Abraham Cooper, Ward, and-we give but one example among living artists, although perhaps here we can scarcely claim the artist as an animal-painter alone-the infinitely talented designer of the horses in the pictures of "Balaklava" and "The Remnants of an Army," have in their best works shown that perfect appreciation of the habits and sympathies of the creatures they depict, coupled of course with anatomical knowledge and the necessary executive skill, sufficient to prove they were completely masters of their art. The requirements of landscape-painting are somewhat different, but with these also Mr. H. W. B. Davis, of whom we are about to speak, and who has now for some time appeared before the public as both animal and landscape painter, has, as we may be able to show, very fully complied. Son of a barrister, and born in August, 1833, Mr. Davis appears not so much to have inherited as to have originated the artistic faculty in his family. When he was little more than a child his great delight and recreation consisted of attempts at sketching, crude enough, as may be well imagined, but still showing the bent of the boy's mind; and it is a thing to be noted as rare in the experience of painters, that the artist of whom we are treating attributes his devotion to Nature and his fondness for art to the early teaching and example of his father. Whilst still the art-instinct in the boy appeared scarcely to admit of explanation, such a fostering care was bestowed upon his training as influenced his future career in a manner never to be obliterated. Mr. Davis's father, a gentleman of highly-cultivated mind, chanced to be a devoted follower of Izaak Walton, and in his frequent excursions with his son in pursuit of piscatorial recreation he never failed to instil into the lad's mind lessons to be learnt from the contemplation of Nature, the beauties of which he pointed out and dwelt upon with loving appreciation. The boy's early artistic leaning appeared to be towards sculpture, and that feeling was strengthened by the enthusiastic admiration aroused in his mind at being allowed to witness the modelling of a fine bust of Barry Cornwall. This predilection was increased by the youth's introduction to Foley, the sculptor, who encouraged him in his purpose, so that entering the Royal Academy schools as a student in 1852, he did so as a sculptor, and with the intention of following out that branch of art. And here it is interesting to mark the valuable influence this early training as a sculptor had upon the career of the future painter, in whose later works a very noticeable quality is the masterly modelling of the domestic animals he represents. During a season or two spent in the Academy schools, Mr. Davis was awarded two medals-one for a model from the life and the other for perspective-and about the same period he also exhibited a medallion and a bust of Flora. Leaving the Academy, and still perhaps as yet without any set and steadfast purpose in art, Mr. Davis fancied he would like to try his hand at painting, and in 1855 he sent two landscapes to the Royal Academy-" A Forest Lake" and " A Marly Lane "--and subsequently, after having entered himself at Oxford University, where he kept a few terms, he took a HENRY WILLIAM BANKS DAVIS, L.A. 73 house a few miles from Boulogne, where he has since occasionally resided, finding in the scenery around the motive for much of the landscape portion of his pictures. Mr. Davis's next few works sufficiently proved that their author was engaged with serious intention of conquering the difficulties of his art, until, about the year 1860, he exhibited at the Portland Gallery a landscape picture of a scene near Boulogne, a number of sheep introduced into which elicited such marked expressions of public approval as in a measure to have originated the artist's habit of painting animals. In succeeding years there appeared at the Academy exhibitions a number of works from 'the artist's brush, all carefully wrought ount, and, almost without exception, each one an improvement upon the last-" Midsummer," a view near Boulogne; "On the French Coast;" "The Strayed Herd;" "Spring Ploughing;" "A Squall from the Sea, Picardy;" "Dewy Eve;" "Moonrise;" and in 1872 two veiy remarkable productions which led to his election as an Associate in the following year. "A Panic" was a large picture, in which a herd of cattle, painted life-size, were represented in one of those momentary alarms with which they are sometimes unaccountably seized, rushing headlong towards the spectator. This work, which was the talk of the season, splendidly drawn, solidly executed, and rich in every quality of the animal painter's art, at once placed Mr. Davis at the head of his profession in the branch he had adopted. "A Trotting Bull," in bronze, and modelled as a study for his picture, exhibited in the same collection, also proved conclusively that Mr. Davis had not forgotten his early training as a sculptor. This last-mentioned work was in the following year sent to the Vienna International Exhibition, where it secured a medal for its author, and was received with not less favour than it obtained here. The substantial reward consequent upon the production of these remarkable works-the artist's election as an Associate, in February, 1873-appeared to act as a spur for the further development of his genius, so that we had from his brush a succession of beautiful pictures like "A Summer Afternoon," "The End of the Day," "A Spring Morning," and " After Sundown," more than one of which made it almost difficult to determine whether the artist was greater as a landscape or animal painter; for whilst the sheep and cattle with which he enlivened his scenery all but breathed and moved, in more than one of his landscapes meadows and hedgerow alike appeared fragrant as if with the breath of spring, and every tuft of grass, shrub, or tree showed the thoughtful touch of the earnest and loving student of Nature. In June, 1877, Mr. Davis attained full honours in the Academy, and in the following year he was one of the strongest exhibitors, with four most learned works, the motive in three of which was the production of the effects of different periods of the day. Of these we can but stay to refer to "Evening Light "--a splendidly-drawn dark bull with white cow and calf; mid-distance of green fields, and, far away, the sea-shore, lighted up by gleams of the setting sun--and " Mid-day Shelter," wherein cows and calves on a river's bank were sheltering from Pile fierce heat of the sun under the pleasant shadow of some trees, or standing in the 39 CONTENTMENT. HENRY WILLIA-11 BANKS DAVIS, R.A. 75 streamn quietly enjoying their refreshing bath. Brown, black, and dappled cows, with a lovely landscape-every tree painted with faultless precision, whilst the great shadows from the branches were lightened here and there at intervals by bright gleams of the sun shining pleasantly through-constituted altogether a lovely pastoral, perfectly realising the painter's motive in his work. In 1879 Mr. Davis was unusually piolific, exhibiting no less than five pictures, of which one, " Cutting Forage on the French Coast," showed him rather in his character as a landscapepainter, for those who saw the work will not readily forget the great field with its TH* APPROACH OF NIGHT. many-tinted grasses, the tall tops of which were gently fanned by the summer breeze, and the lovely gLrniture of wild flowers, of infinite beauty and variety, whilst waggon-horses waited patiently for the load being busily prepared for them to carry away. The artist shows us in "Wanderers," through the cow and calf which have strayed away from their pasturage to the sandy hillocks and barren soil adjacent to the sea-shore, something of what sentiment there is in animal life, and in "A Midsummer Night" the peculiar effect often observable at midnight in summer-time. The artist's two contributions in 1880-" Family Affection," a group of cattle (bull, cow, and calf), their bodies lighted up by the rays of the afternoon sun, and " Returning to the Fold," a perfectly admirable study of sheep being collected together by the shepherd and his attendant dogs, a work so highly regarded by the Royal Academy that it was purchased by that body under the terms of the Chantrey Bequest-are productions so much esteemed as to call for no comment at our hands. 76 73THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. The pictures we engrave are admirably representative of Mr. Davis's artistic powers. "The Approach of Night" is a scene of tranquil beauty, in which the last trembling light of day is giving place to the period appointed for Nature's rest. It is in such a scene that the artist's passionate love of the beautiful in creation is most strongly shown. The remaining example of his skill which we reproduce"Contentment "-no less markedly illustrates the ability he possesses as an animalpainter. In 1882 Mr. Davis exhibited " In Ross-shire,"' an elaborate landscape with cattle and sheep under a cloud-piled northern sky; and " Sea and Land Waves," carthorses at work on a hilly sea-shore. A little later came "Lost Sheep," a strayed and startled little group together on a hillock in a lonely country. The artist has cleverly given that expression of fear which is the only emphatic expression of which a sheep is capable. In 1885 Mr. Davis was richly represented at the Academy by " Summer Twilight," and " On the Cliffs;" and in 1886 by "A Flood on the WyeSubsiding," and "Fording." The most judicious admirers of this painter's later work find more of his artistic quality in the treatment of cattle-the masterly drawing of forms and handling of surfaces-than in that of the landscape by which he surrounds his groups. His position as a cattle painter equals in the English school that held by Van Maarke at the head of his art on the Continent. But little remains to be added, unless it is to congratulate ourselves that the loss to British art sustained by the death of its famous animal-painter in 1873 is not altogether irreparable, and that our school of animal-painting is not likely to become extinct whilst painters like Mr. Davis, with matured taste, judgment, and learned executive skill, spring up to supply the vacancies which arise in the ranks of our artists. "75' F1 Q ~3' 4G3 Uc-~ K3~'I en en U-s~ 29 KS ~35; U:l -4 * *g* 00 O 0 4, SYDNEY CARTON. FRED. BARNARD. T is now many years since observers of men and names and work at the Royal Academy were surprised by a picture of moderate size and grim aspect, signed "Fred. Barnard." The surprise was caused by the strong character and individuality of the separate heads in this murky "Saturday Night" of a wide, dreary, crowded London street, with its barrows, and buyers and sellers, and gas-jets blown in the night wind. The vivid and vital personality which the painter gave to the men and women he had studied seemed, in fact, the announcement of a new personality in English 78 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. art, which needed it; for though there is among us a fair quantity of eccentricity, we cannot boast a superabundance of initiative and distinctiveness. "Saturday Night" led its admirers to look for more of the painter's handiwork, which they found, not superabundant in quantity, but always interesting in quality, here and there, in galleries and in books. The picture we have named is a work full of Dickens-like observation and energyo; and it is in effect to the works of Dickens that Mr. Barnard has devoted much of his peculiar illustrative power. In this choice he has very few competitors. The work of our great humourist is under a certain partial eclipse. People have begun to think his pathos a little sickly, and to feel a distaste even for the fun which deals with distasteful things and people. Nor does Dickens's truth strike us as it evidently struck our fathers; for the truth of forty years ago is not the truth of to-day. Mrs. Gamp is an absolute stranger to us; her dialect is an unknown tongue; her uncertificated nursing is a thing of a barbarous past; her drink, her cruelties, her attire, her umbrella, have long passed away. Our evil old women have indeed a way and a speech of their own, but they are not her ways or her speech. So with the Wellers in " Pickwick; " so with the London-life groups in "1Nicholas Nickleby; " and so, still more, with Dickens's Americans. The writer who would "chaff" the Americans now, politically or socially (but that form of requital of transatlantic hospitality is out of fashion), must do it on totally different lines from those of "Martin Chuzzlewit." Hardly one of the points in that book is a point now; the manners-the very manner of speech-has passed out of remembrance. Thus Dickens is, just for the present, bygone without being old. Until we can read him as ancient history, and since we cannot read him for his actuality, we read him little. And few of our artists take their suggestions of humour from his comedy, or of pathos from his tragedy, or of action from his vigorous and energetic drama. Mr. Barnard, in choosing his author, has evidently the sympathy of affinity. He inclines, as Dickens did, if not precisely to caricature, certainly to extreme emphasis, and takes character and fun in a massive and manly manner, rather foreign to the present temper of the world. He has not only painted subjects from Dickens, he has illustrated his author's stories in black-and-white with a freshness, an impulse, and an enjoyment which prove how close is the touch of the two minds in many moods and tempers. Undoubtedly Mr. Barnard's most serious and impressive work is the " Sydney Carton," in which he lends the added realisation of his art to a singularly noble living passage of the novelist's work. " The Tale of Two Cities" has never been altogether so popular as many another of Dickens's novels, and it may be well to remind the reader of the situation--as strong a situation as genius ever devised. Evr~monde, though he renounced his order in indignant p rotest against the oppression of the people by the nobles of France, has been seized upon by the blind fury of the Revolution, and condemned to death. For Evr~monde's wife's sake Sydney Carton, who has squandered youth and strength in idleness, resolves to turn to use an accidental likeness, and to die for him. He gains admission to his friend's prison, FRED. BARNARD. 79 stupefies him with a drug out of the power of resistance, changes clothes with him, has him carried out in the apparent swoon, and in his name accepts condemnation to the guillotine. Many an author has brought innocent and noble men or women to the scaffold, but not to the rope, not to the knife. The consummation has been CHARACTER SKETCH FROM DICKENS--" MR. MICAWBER." arrested, an accident has prevented the shock of judicial death for no crime-in fiction, at least, whatever the more grim records of history may be. But Dickens, in this tremendous close to his tragedy, makes the sacrifice complete, and that with no mere form of words, but with a realisation of feeling that brings home the very pang of voluntary death. First comes the scene where the condemnuo man meets a little chance companion on his way to death:"As he stood by the wall in a dim corner, while some of the fifty-two were brought in after him, one man stopped in passing to embrace him, as having a knowledge of him. It thrilled him with a great dread of 80 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. discovery; but the man went on. A very few moments after that a young woman, with a slight, girlish form, a sweet, spare face, in which there was no vestige of colour, and large, widely-opened, patient eyes, rose from the seat where he had observed her sitting, and came to speak to him. " 'Citizen Evremonde,' she said, touching him with her cold hand, 'I am a poor little seamstress, who was with you in La Force.' "He murmured for answer: 'True. I forget what you were accused of.' " Plots; though the just Heaven knows I am innocent of any. Is it likely 1 Who would think of plotting with a poor little weak creature like me V' " The forlorn smile with which she said it so touched him, that tears started from his eyes. "'I am not afraid to die, Citizen Evrdmonde, but I have done nothing. I am not unwilling to die, if the Republic which is to do so much good to us poor will profit by my death; but I do not know how that can be, Citizen Evremonde. Such a poor, weak little creature!' "As the last thing on earth that his heart was to warm and soften to, it warmed and softened to this pitiable girl. "' I heard you were released, Citizen Evremonde. I hoped it was true.' "'It was. But I was again taken and condemned.' "' If I may ride with you, Citizen Evrdmonde, will you let me hold your hand I am not afraid, but I am little and weak, and it will give me more courage.' "As the patient eyes were lifted to his face, he saw a sudden doubt in them, and then astonishment. He pressed the work-worn, hunger-worn young fingers, and touched his lips. "'Are you dying for him7' she whispered. "'And his wife and child. Hush! Yes.' " Oh, you will let me hold your brave hand, stranger I' " ' Hush! Yes, my poor sister, to the last.' " "THE VAGABOND: " THE DRAWING-ROOM. (From the Collection of the late Captain Hill n, of Brighton.) And next is the record of the And next is the record of the work of the guillotine, before which the tricoteuses sit at their counting:"The tumbrils begin to discharge their loads. The ministers of Sainte Guillotine are robed and ready Crash! A head is held up, and the knitting-women, who scarcely lifted their eyes to look at it a moment ago when it could think and speak, count One. " The second tumbril empties and moves on; the third comes up. Crash! And the knitting-women, never faltering or pausing in their work, count Two. "The supposed Evr4monde descends, and the seamstress is lifted out next after him. He has not relinquished her patient hand in getting out, but still holds it as he promised. He gently places her with her back to the crashing engine, that constantly whirrs up and falls, and she looks into his face and thanks him. "' But for you, dear stranger, I should not be so composed, for I am naturally a poor little thing, faint of heart; nor should have been able to raise my thoughts to Him who was put to death that we might have hope and comfort here to-day. I think you were sent to me by Heaven.' FRED. BARNARD. 81 ' Or you to me,' says Sydney Carton. ' Keep your eyes upon me, dear child, and mind no other object.' "' I mind nothing while I hold your hand. I shall mind nothing when I let it go, if they are rapid. "'They will be rapid. Fear not!' "The two stand in the fast-thinning throng of victims, but they speak as if they were alone. Eye to eye, voice to voice, hand to hand, heart to heart, these two children of the Universal Mother, else so wide apart and differing, have come together on the dark highway, to repair home together, and to rest in her bosom. " 'Brave and generous friend, will you let me ask you one last question? I am very ignorant, and it troubles me-just a little.' "' Tell me what it is.' "' I have a cousin, an only relative and an orphan, like myself, whom I love very dearly. She is five years younger than I, and she lives in a farmer's house in the South Country. Poverty parted us and she knows nothing of my fate, for I cannot write; and if I could, how should I tell her 7 It is better as it is.' "'Yes, yes; better as it is.' "'What I have been thinking as we came along, and what I am still thinking now, as I look into your kind, strong face, which gives me so much support, is this If the Republic really does good to the poor, and they come to be less hungry, and in all ways to suffer less, she may live a long time. She may even live to be old.' "' What then, my gentle sister V' " ' Do you think '-the uncomplaining eyes, in which there is so much endurance, fill with tears, and the lips part a little more and tremble-' that it will seem long to me while I wait for her in the better land, where I trust both you and I will be mercifully sheltered I' "' It cannot be, my child. There is no time there, and no trouble there.' "'You comfort me so much. I am so ignorant. Am I to kiss you now 7 Is theI moment come I' THE VAGABOND: THE STREET. "'Yes.' (From the Collection of the late Capt. Hill, of Brighton.) "She kisses his lips, he kisses hers; they solemnly bless each other. The spare hand does not tremble as he releases it; nothing worse than a sweet, bright constancy is in the patient face. She goes next before him-is gone! The knitting-women count Twenty-two. "'I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord; 'lie that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die.' "The murmuring of many voices, the upturning of many faces, the pressing on of many footsteps in the outskirts of the crowd, so that it swells forward in a mass, like one great heave of water-all flashes away. Twenty-three." Then turn from this solemn consummation to a " character sketch." Here is the inimitable Micawber, the pathetic, the rhetorical, the cheerful, the impecunious and incorrigible-one of the immortals of Dickens's best and soundest work. Mr. Barnard has him in gait and action, and especially in expression. for the glance of 40 82 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. his Micawber is admirable. And is there not also a Dickens-like breadth and vigour of meaning in "The Vagabond," as his joys and woes are sung by the portly amateur in the song so popular fifteen years ago, and "The Vagabond" as he crouches in the snow and desolation of the bitter truth? Assuredly the rich had better ignore the poor in the manner of Dives than make picturesque matter for song and story out of them. The painter of " Saturday Night" has no tolerance for cheap little forms of the fool's paradise. That memorable picture, to return to Mr. Barnard's Academy appearances, was followed in the succeeding year (1879) by a " Scene from Barnaby Rudge," and by a good bit of humour, "At the Pantomime." The painter shows us the interior of a box, over the edge of which two children are leaning in the intensity of their interest, while behind the discreet curtain the grandfather sleeps with an expression of boredom and weariness which is at least as intense of its kind. Next year came " The Chaperon," in which the painter attacks the grotesque fashions of about 1830. Two ladies, made as broad as they are long by their sleeves and stiff skirts, with their hair arranged in curls and erect ornamental bows, are just entering on the business of the ball-room. The one is a debutante whose prettiness is proof against even the hairdresser of the period; but the other is a portentous specimen of what chaperonage, with its anxieties, combined with birds of paradise, a turban, and bunches of fictitious ringlets, can make of the elderly female of man's naturally dignified race. In 1883 appeared the remarkable picture which may vie with the " Sydney Carton" as its painter's chef d'oeuvre. It was not Dickens this time, but an author yet broader and more emphatic than Dickens-John Bunyan. This is how the " Pilgrim's Progress" has the names of " The Jury" which Mr. Barnard paintsMr. High-mind, Mr. Enmity, Mr. Liar, Mr. Cruelty, Mr. Hate-light, Mr. Implacable, Mr. Blindman, Mr. No-good, Mr. Malice, Mr. Love-lust, Mr. Live-loose, and Mr. Heady. With all the single sincerity, the attention to one characteristic, the simple vigour, and the stern humour suggested by the text, has the painter presented his two wonderful rows of types. Types of course they are rather than persons. If Mr. Barnard had been dealing with persons he could not have put one thing into each face with the completeness and force which are so peculiar to his genius. The deliberate obstinacy of Mr. Blindman, Mr. No-good's yawn, Mr. Live-loose's wan and fatuous look and physique helpless with dissipation, and Mr. Heady's upright hair and invincibility of expression, are all rendered beyond praise. Equally excellent is the specious and almost deprecatory look of Mr. Liar as he whispers to the hard smile of his neighbour, Mr. Cruelty. The picture made a considerable sensation-at least in that public which takes pleasure in strong personal talent. And all the humour and the force in it were commended to the more technical critics by the painter's science and sureness. Mr. Barnard is an exceptionally good draughtsman. (Frum a Photograph by Fraddle.) GEORGE ADOLPHUS STOREY, A.R.A. EORGE ADOLPHUS STOREY-the artist of "Viola," "iMy Lady Belle," "Little Buttercup," and a score of graceful and charming fantasies besides-in a family of eight, was the only one with a taste for art. His parents, too, were altogether unconnected with it, directly or indirectly. If we add that he writes as well as paints, and produces quaint and pretty verses as well as quaint and pretty pictures, and that he only of his kin has been favoured by this second muse, it will be obvious that his talent is, to say the least of it, original, and that the why and wherefore of his possession are not easily perceived. But to the many who enjoy his pleasant work, it is of very little consequence whence lie derives his talent. Oddly enough, it flourished side by side with a love 84 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. for mathematics. Contrary to almost all precedent, Mr. Storey, when a youngster, was intensely fond of calculation. Nor is this all. Still further to invert and turn topsy-turvy the received ideas as to a painter's quality and progress, he was, in 1852-53, a fairly successful exhibitor at the Royal Academy-two years, that is to say, before he entered, in 1854, as a student there. Hie was at this time twenty years old, having been born in London in 1834. He had begun as a schoolboy; for he won a tiny silver palette as a prize for painting in oils, and at nine years old he showed his turn for art by trying his hand at modelling the heads and limbs of horses, in the studio of M. Belines, the sculptor. All the while, as his love for mathematics had in nowise declined, and as he gave both time and attention to their study, it was deemed expedient that he should have a couple of years in Paris, under M. Maraud, mathematical professor at the Ath'nee-Royale. There he remained from 1848 to 1850, passing much more than his leisure in copying pictures in the Louvre, under the guidance of a well-known teacher, M. Jean Dulong. Here was laid the groundVIOLA. work for that delicate and sensitive technique by which his work is distinguished. On his return to England he went into an architect's office, and wasted many precious hours over elevations and plans. Disgusted, as it would seem, by this vain attempt to practically unite his several loves, he finally entered Mr. Leigh's School of Art in Newman Street. Messrs. Calderon, Marks, and others, of what is called the " St. John's Wood School," were his fellow-students; and in their company lie has worked and flourished ever since. At first, his interests were somewhat too many and too varied. He produced much, and achieved but little. The mere GEORGE ADOLPHUS STOREY, A.R.A. 85 titles of his pictures show how long it took him to settle down to any special class of subject. Thus his first exhibit in the Royal Academy (1852) was "A Family Portrait; " it was followed in 1853-54 by a " Madonna and Child," a " Holy Family," LLIES, OLEANDERS, AND THE PINK. (By Permission qf A. S. Dixon, Esq.) " Sacred Music," " The Widowed Bride," " The Bride's Burial," " The Annunciation." In 1864 he exhibited an historical picture, which brought him a good deal of renown -" The Meeting of William Seymour with Lady Arabella Stuart at the Court of James I., 1609; " and next year another of the same class, called "The Royal 86 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. Challenge "-of our Eighth H'arry playing at singlestick with a peasant. After this, however, his themes grew less ambitious; and at Mr. Gambart's Gallery, in 1866, he gave us, in "Children at Breakfast," the first of those domestic subjects-which are at the same time portrait pictures-in which he has been so long and so brilliantly successful. It was followed in 1867 by "After You," a quaint and exquisitely-painted bit of character. The backgrounds in both were painted at Hever Castle, then-all royal as its traditions and its past had been-the summer house of a kind of co-operative society of artists. Very delicate and subtle characterisation, too, marked Mr. Storey's exhibits in 1868: the " Shy Pupil " and " Saying Grace;" whilst in 1869-the year in which the new galleries at Burlington House were opened-he came forward as the author of three more pictures, which still further increased his reputation. This was now established beyond dispute, and the positions he won in the public esteem by his "Sister," "Going to School," and "The Old Soldier," fully justified the excellent places they obtained on the walls. The years which have swept by since then must be full of satisfaction to our painter as he glances back upon them. They have brought him, deservedly, within the sacred circle of Royal Academy Associateship (for he was elected A.R.A. in April, 1876); they have enabled him to fulfil all those promises which he began to make when, in 1866, he struck out a line for himself; and they have given him time to develop that leaning towards the Dutch school of the seventeenth century -always more or less manifest in his work-upon which he has grafted much delicacy and beauty, at the same time investing it with all that indulgent sympathy with human nature which every one who knows the man himself is aware that he possesses in a very large degree. A kindly consideration and tenderness for our little foibles and weaknesses always peeps out from the fun which he delights in extracting from them; and as this is entirely free from everything that is bitter or sardonic, so is it absolutely devoid of the very faintest tincture of vulgarity. Mr. Storey's satire is so good-natured, and the manner in which it is applied so happy, that offence is impossible. It is obvious that he may have profited in this, as in many artistic respects, by the teaching and advice of the late C. R. Leslie, R.A., whose friendship he acquired at the outset of his professional career. Much of his appreciative interpretation of character is Lesliean, whilst his technique is based upon foreign teaching. These remarks are more or less applicable to all his work, from "Children at Breakfast" and "The Shy Pupil" down to his last exhibited picture. Ile is seen at his best in " The Duet" and " Only a Rabbit" (in the Royal Academy, 1870), " 1osy Cheeks" and "Lessons" (1871), "A Lover's Quarrel" and "Little Buttercup" (1872), "Scandal," "Love in a Maze," and " Mistress Dorothy" (1873). These last-mentioned three works attracted particular attention, the third of them leading to those marked successes in life-sized female portraiture which have become so conspicuous a feature of the painter's present reputation, and of which we present our readers with two excellent examples in the "Viola" and the " Lilies, Oleanders, and the Pink." "Love in a Maze" is a very gay little bit of C EORGE ADOLPHUS STOREY, A.R.A. 87 comedy. The lover has followed the windings of one of those labyrinths or " mazes," to be found in a few old-world gardens. The beloved sits in the midst-in the heart of the mystery, as it were-and he has come within one hedge of her, but, alas! only to discover that he is virtually at a greater distance than ever. He must begin again, and thread the intricacies of the cunning paths without a clue to the secret. A propos of Mr. Storey's skill as a portrait-painter he tells an amusing story of one of his early experiences in this capacity during a visit to Madrid, which hlie made in the year 1863. He was commissioned to paint the portrait of one Don Juan Moreno Benitez, Governor of Madrid. Some noble friends of his Excellency became so interested in the progress of the picture, that they, in order to watch it, used to inundate the artist's studio with their company, and, being idle themselves, were the cause of idleness in him. Hence he found it impossible to complete the work within the appointed period for sending it in to the forthcoming exhibition, where the Dons were most anxious it should appear. They exerted their influence, and obtained for the painter an extension of time, STUDY FOR "MY LADY BELLE. and by this means he was just able to complete his task a day or two before the exhibition opened. The portrait, however, was so badly hung that its aspect was a grievous disappointment to all concerned. The powers which had procured the first privilege were now evoked again, and an appeal was made to the Minister of the Interior, who, looking upon the matter as one of grave importance, wrote to the President of the exhibition, and the picture was eventually taken from its bad position and placed in a post of honour. "Imagine," says Mr. Storey, " an outsider and a foreigner under similar circumstances bringing similar pressure to bear on Sir Frederick Leighton, and with a like result!" But to return to 1873. " Scandal" showed our painter's love of sly humour 88 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. and domestic old-world quaintness, whilst " Love in a Maze " exhibited an additional trait, in the skill with which the landscape background was treated. Again, in 1874, " The Blue Girls of Canterbury" was a striking example of his combination of subject and portrait pictures. " Little Swansdown " and " Dame Octavia Beaumont," also portraits, in another style, added largely to his fame; and " Grandmamma's Christmas Visitors," the fourth of his combinations in that year, lent afterwards, as an engraving, immense attraction to the Christmas number of the Graphic. Two life-sized portraits, and " Caught," and " The Whip Hand," together with, in 1876, " The Dancing Lesson" and " My Lady Belle "-a study for which we reproducecarry us on to another highly excellent production, in 1877, namely, " The Old Pump Room, Bath," in which the extent of our artist's versatile powers is seen at its very best, as a reference to our full-page reproduction will show. " Sweet Margery," " Portrait of a Lady a la Rubens," and two other portraits, belong to 1878; two more portraits, " Orphans" and " Lilies, Oleanders, and the Pink," to 1879; "Following the Drum" and "Daphne" to 1880; and "The Connoisseur" and " Sunflower " to 1881. In the following year Mr. Storey exhibited " Pensive Daughter," illustrating that passage in Romeo and Juliet, which has made controversy about Shakespeare's religion. Could a Protestant understand a friar's position, and know so thoroughly the theology of Roman Catholic marriage, as Shakespeare does in this play? And, on the other hand, could a Roman Catholic talk about "evening mass?" With this was " Out for a Walk," a pretty girl equipped for a constitutional on a winter day; also " Coracles on the Dee, Llantysilio," a quiet corner for fishing. One of the painter's pleasantest pictures of children is "As Good as Gold," the portrait of a charming little girl sitting on a table with her hands before her. She wears a huge mob-cap and a little fichu crossed over her shoulders. Less delightful, though a far more elaborate composition, is the Greek subject of the same year" The Choice of the Beautiful Five Maidens of Crotona Sitting to Zeuxis for his Picture of Helen." The incident is well known. The painter's masterpiece as a delineation of female beauty was supposed to be this ideal Helen, dedicated in the temple of Here at Crotona. It was painted from five beauties, the most perfect to be found in that city, from whose combined " points " the artist was to extract a kind of quintessence of consummate loveliness. We all know another version of the same story, according to which the picture produced by this process represented a creature so inharmonious, so lacking in the individuality and unity of nature, that she was dubbed by universal judgment " the devil's bride." But taking Mr. Storey's view of the tradition, the point of his picture would of course depend entirely on the emphatic and striking beauty of the five models. Curiously enough, however, this noted painter of prettiness has not altogether succeeded in charming the spectator. His beauties are every one of a full and rounded style, which would have been more pleasing a generation ago, when " plumpness" was admired, than it is now. They are five sleek little well-fed schoolgirls, in whose features a painter would assuredly look in vain for " the face that launched a thousand ships." One of the 41 0 0 0 41 90'w THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. group is evidently sitting to Zeuxis for her rounded arm, while the others, who are to contribute eyes or hair or ankles, lounge around her, chatting or admiring tVheir own special perfections in a mirror. The painting is going on out-of-doors, on a sunny terrace, across which a peacock trails his own unique beauty. To the Academy of 1886 Mr. Storey contributed "IOn Guard " and "A Violin Player." How much besides he has produced in every sort of medium-water-colour, etching, black-andwhite-we cannot pretend to say. More than once reference has been made to Mr. Storey's powers as a poet; and the pretty double meaning which is sometimes conveyed in the names by which he christens his pictures, together with the quaint and charming lines which he frequently attaches to them in the catalogue, give us a clue to what we may expect to find in "Homely Ballads and Old-fashioned Poems," the title of his little book of verse. It is full not only of pretty dainty conceits, but of that kind, genial sympathy with human nature which is a marked characteristic of the man, and which appears, if not as powerfully at least as pleasantly, beneath his pen as beneath his brush, notwithstanding the modest estimate he gives of himself in his preface. 4%' THE VICTORS-THE TURKS AT TELISCH. (From the Painting by Basil Verestchagin. By Permission of the Artist.) * S * * * * * * * 'S.' BASIL VERESTCHAGIN. ASIL YERESTCIIAGIN is a strange and imposing figure in European art. Much in all possible languages has already been written about him. An original painter, a valiant soldier, a daring traveller, and generally an accomplished man, he is in all respects unique. Most of the Russian painters rise from the poorest class of society. They enter the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg or the School of Painting and Sculpture in Moscow; they work there and they disappear; or they win a travelling scholarship and go abroad at the Government's expense or their own. Abroad, they copy the foreign masters or create under foreign influence. Then they either return to Russia or they expatriate themselves for good. They are often commissioned liberally enough; they are often decorated; sometimes they obtain renown and make a good deal of money. Then they stop working and become commonplace and "bourgeois." Thus it has been with them since the creation of the Academy of Arts in the second half of the Eighteenth Century. 92 TIE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. Verestchagin is quite another type of man. The only painter with whom he has anything in common is Schwartz, his friend and fellow-pupil at the Academy. Both were the sons of rich proprietors, one at Novgorod, the other at Koursk; both were sent by their parents into special but not artistic schools; one entered the navy and the other studied law; both did brilliantly, and won first prizes, and were gold medallists; both entered the Academy for a little, later on, and both worked in the studios of foreign painters, but quite independently and without copying anybody; both began by learning to draw, and only afterwards proceeded to paint; both have been ardent readers; both have become great historians-the one of modern life, the other of Russia in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; both have worked originally and spontaneously; both have exhibited but rarely, though they have produced much. The great difference between them is, that Schwartz died at thirty years old (he was born in 1818), lived obscurely (though he won many prizes both in Russia and abroad), and is now almost forgotten; while Verestchagin is still alive (he was born in 1842), and is famous all over Europe and America. His talent is far greater than Schwartz's, his purpose has been far stronger and higher. His parents were bitterly opposed to his attempts upon art. They kept him penniless, so that he was often on bad terms with them, and had to earn his living by sketching for illustrated papers and by teaching drawing. He had begun to draw at five years old. At first he copied the " troika," the sledge printed on his nurse's handkerchief; then, all the pictures in the paternal house. He began" to study systematically at college, and went on to work hard in the drawing schools of the Society for the Protection of Painting and the Academy of Arts. The first hlie attended while a cadet (1858-60), and the second after leaving the navy (1860-62). At this time his parents were quite indifferent to his practice of art. But when, having finished his education, he determined to get his discharge and study painting, they did their utmost to divert him from his purpose. Neither prayers nor threats, however, could avail. Yerestchagin told his father that he had done his bidding once in studying for the navy; that he had passed with honours, and that henceforth he meant to have his own way; and that, as he hated the sea, he had determined to be an artist. His father was furious. He cut off the supplies, and Verestchagin was obliged to look for any work he could get. For some time he lived by colouring plans and making mechanical drawings. Then his father, seeing that he was able to earn his own living, somewhat abated his anger. Yerestchagin, however, detested his work, and applied for help and counsel to Lvoff, director of the drawing school at the Academy of Arts. Lvoff introduced him to Prince Gagarin, vice-president of the Academy. He was admitted to the schools, with an allowance of 200 roubles (about ~33) a year. The professor who influenced him most was Beideman, but newly returned from a prolonged tour in Europe. By his advice Yerestchagin did much sketching from Nature, sur place and also from memory. Of great use to him was a journey to Paris and the Pyrenees, vid Stef'tin and Berlin (1861), on money partly BA SRTL VERES TWA GIN.9 93 earned by himself, and partly given by his father and uncle. His faith in the pseudo-classicism then reigning in the Academy was severely shaken; and after winning the second-class silver medal with an "1Odysseus Killing the Suitors" (1862), he put his cartoon behind the fire, and said good-bye to the pseudo-classic for ever. This act of defiance preceded the famous refusal of the classic subject (for the gold medal) by fourteen scholars of the Academy, and the creation (1863) by the rebels of an art club. Verestchagin's mother, however, was greatly impressed by his silver medal; she even implored a benediction on her son's pursuit of art. Butl he forsook his work at the Academy and his task of making drawings for Zotow's "Illustrated History of Russia," and in 1863 set out for the Caucasus. When he got there he was almost penniless, but he soon began to make a great deal of money by teaching drawing. In his hours of leisure he sketched the men and things and animals about him, and read scientific books with Lagorio, the landscape-painter. Like all his contemporaries, he studied English and German literature, and this reading did him more good than all his former studies in the schools. In 1864 he journeyed down the Danube, and went on to Paris, there to edit an art journal and study the, masters of his craft. His editing did not succeed, and Lemercier printed only a few copies of the paper. In his other purpose he succeeded brilliantly enough. He went straight to GO-r me. "Who sent you?" asked the famous painter. "Nobody," said Verestchagin; "only I like your pictures." Gerbme praised his sketches much, and Yerestchagin began' to work in his studio, and in the ltcole des Beaux-Arts. He declined, however, to draw from the antique or to copy pictures in the Louvre, in spite of G&Ome and in spite of Dev'ria, both of whom (the latter as early as 1861) advised him to do so. At last, having got some money from his father, he again went off to the Caucasus (1865), and sketched from Nature everything he saw on his journey. He returned to Paris at the end of the year, and his drawings astonished Gerbme and Bida. They entreated him to essay himself in colour, but he still thought colour too difficult, and went on drawing. His new sketches pleased Bida so much that he used one of them as an etching, "The Evangelist Luke," in his illustrated Bible. It was in the spring of 1866, and at his father's estate at Novgorod, that he first attempted painting. He determined to begin with a big picture-of three or four gangs of Volga boatmen, some two hundred strong, hauling their craft in the hot sunshine. (Some eight years after Repine produced a beautiful picture on the same subject, but on a smaller scale than Verestchagin had purposed.) He did a few sketches in the Novgorod country and the Volga; but a fresh quarrel with his parents and want of money compelled him to abandon the enterprise, and he was again obliged to draw on wood for a living. Bida introduced him to the "Tour du Monde," in which appeared a French translation of his travels in the Caucasus, illustrated by his own sketches. In 1867 came the war in Turkestan. Verestchagin followed the Russian army at General Kaufman's invitation, and fought and sketched his way through the country at General Kaufman's side. Once, the 94 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. general being absent with the main body, he defended Samarcand from a Turcoman assault, with only a small detachment. For this, in spite of a determined opposition on his part (he being the sworn foe of all rewards and distinctions), he received the C-PPON //' ///1 - ------------'-~I~ ~-" A TARTAR OF THE NORTHERN SLOPES OF THE CAUCASUS. (From "A Journey in the Caucasus"-" Le Tour du Monde.") military order of St. George. In Paris, in the spring of 1869, he arranged an exhibition of his pictures and studies of the campaign, with many objects of interest from the newly-conquered country. This he repeated at St. Petersburg. It contained a great number of his studies, and his first pictures in oil, done at Tashkend in 1867-68--as, for instance, " Victors " and "The Vanquished," the " Russian Soldier BASIL VERESTCHA GN. 95 Smoking his Pipe among the Enemy's Dead," the " Opium-Eaters," and "Batcha and his Worshippers." The last, a picture of the same type as Ger8me's " Phryne Before the Judges," was represented by a photograph, the artist having destroyed A COSSACK. (From "A Jurney in the Caucasus"-" Le Tour du Monde.") the original, which had been severely criticised for the extreme unpleasantness of its subject. These works were heavy in colour; but thanks to their vivid and novel realism, the impression they produced was deep and lasting. After this exhibition Verestchagin went once more to Central Asia, and sketched and painted much there; he studied and represented the life of the Russian exiles in Siberia; he saw 96 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. some hot fighting against the Tartars, on the Chinese frontier. At last he returned to Europe, and in 1870 he went to Munich. He brought four pictures with himthe "Chorus of Doornis" (a Doorni is a kind of dervish); the "Dervishes of the Order of Narksh-bendi;" the "1Central Asian Politicians;" and the "Beggars at Samarcand:" together with some studies from Nature, and upwards of one hundred sketches. He took the studio vacated by the death of the battle-painter Gorsheld (1871), and outside the town he arranged a second-a box-shed surrounded by a hedge-in which he could work all day long in the open air. Here, as in Paris, he lived the life of a hermit, seeing nobody, and painting continually; and in a little while he had produced an astonishing number of pictures of life and war in Turkestan, from studies made on the spot. He was no longer obliged to draw for bread, his father, while yet alive, having shared his fortune with his sons. In 1872 he painted six of a sheet of ten, designed (but never finished) to do duty as a sort of panoramic poem of war, to be called "The Barbarian." The last of these, "The Apotheosis of War "-a ghastly heap of skulls-is inscribed on the frame, "1To all Great Conquerors, Past, Present, and Future." In 1873 he painted the "Look Out," the "Parley," "1Mortally Wounded," and other works, a number of ethnological studies, and a great quantity of portrait studies of Russian soldiers and Asiatic savages. Travelling and working in the fierce daylight of Central Asia had taught him more about colour than he would have learned from any amount of copying from the Old Masters; and when, in 1873, he exhibited at the Crystal Palace his Asiatic studies (1869-70) and his Munich pictures (1871-72), their excellent technical quality was almost as much remarked as the novel and surprising -often repulsive--quality of their material. In these works he represented either the wretchedness of every-day existence, or the horrors of war, exhibiting no preference for any one nation in particular, but painting everything that had come in his way. In the introduction to his catalogue he remarked that the savagery of the peoples of Central Asia was so glaring, and their economical and social condition so degraded, that they could not be subjected too soon to the influences of European civilisation, and that he should consider himself amply rewarded for all his toils if the graphic memoranda he had collected and shown were fortunate enough to help to dispel the English people's mistrust for their natural friends and neighbours in that quarter of the globe. The facts he had seen were faithfully and vigorously reported in his work; the artist, as generally understood, counts for little. Battle-pictures and portraits, landscapes and ethnographic studies alike, all he does has the attribute of perfect accuracy, of hard literal truth. You find in it none of the unnatural and impossible decorum of the conventional representations of war; his fights are not theatrical but real; it is war, and war caught in the act. This is why in St. Petersburg, where Yerestchagin had exhibited a year after his venture in London, certain persons declined to recognise the merit of his work. The public came in crowds; his catalogues sold tremendously; all the journals were loud in his praise; but the pseudo-patriots accused him of slandering the Russian army and of favouring THE VANQUISHED-THE RUSSIANS AT TELISCILH (By Permission of the Artist.) 98 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. the Turcomans. It was utterly impossible that any Russian soldier could be forgotten on the field, or be surrounded by the enemy, or prove capable of emotion at the sight of a heap of dead. These things were palpable fiction: why did the artist paint them? Verestchagin was so hurt by these ridiculous criticisms that with his own hands he burnt the "1Forgotten on the Field" and the " Surrounded," which were in some ways the best things he had done, to show his enemies how unseemly such insinuations were. He failed of his purpose, however, and made matters worse all round; for he was at once accused of a craving for notoriety and a habit of advertisement. His refusal to be Professor at the Academy was oil to the fire. Some, shocked beyond measure by this audacity, sought consolation in the theory that such a huge gathering of pictures could not possibly be the work of one man, and was in reality the achievement of a whole company of painters in Munich. This idle twaddle got into the papers, and was solemnly contradicted by the Munich Artistic Society. The world, indeed, thought nothing of these scandals; M. P. Tretakoff, a Moscow merchant, owner of a fine collection of Russian pictures, bought-and bought at high prices-all the Turkestan pictures and sketches the artist had shown. In the same year (1874) Verestchagin, for whom the Orient had a mysterious and irresistible charm, set out for India. He lived there some two years. He scaled, at peril of his life, the Himalayas during the winter; and he made a great many wonderful studies of men, animals, architecture, and landscape. These new wanderings in the land of the sun, and so much painting in the open air, improved his technical qualities considerably. Returning (1876) to Europe, he settled near Paris, at Auteuil, fully proposing to paint two pictorial epics-one short, the other longof the British conquest of India: from the presentation in Agra of the first English ambassador to the Great Mogul, to the triumphal entry of the Prince of Wales into Jeypore. Some numbers he began at Auteuil, and finished in one or other of the two big studios he had at Maison Laffitte, close to Paris: one-an immense apartment-for winter work; and another for the summer, on a shedded platform moving on rails with the sun, and enabling him to paint all day in the open air. He had finished two of the set-" The Great Mogul in the Mosque of Delhi" and " The Prince of Wales at Jeypore "-when war broke out in Servia. He was anxious to follow the camp once more, but family matters obliged him to remain in Paris. The moment, however, that Russia declared war on the Porte, he threw up everything, and hurried to the field, to serve with the van of the Russian armies, under Generals Gourko, Strukoff, and Skobeleff. He saw a good deal of desperate fighting. In one affair, the attack on his friend Skrydloff's torpedo-boat on a Turkish river, he nearly lost his life; he was badly hurt in the leg, and lay for a long time in B ucharest hospital. His brother Sergius, Skobeleff's orderly, a painter like himself, was killed at Plevna.:Basil could not take part in that famous leaguer, as his wound was not quite healed; he was present, however, as a spectator, and saw Osman surrender. H-e crossed the Balkans at Shipka with the Russian army, saw--as the two magnificent pictures we have engraved will show--the desperate BASIL VERESTGCIAGIN. 99 battle of Telisch, served as chief of the staff in the cavalry raid on Adrianople, and was employed as a secretary during the preliminary negotiations for peace. In spite of all this he found time to make over fifty studies from life and the facts of the war; many of these, unfortunately, including all that had reference to the March of the Guard-were lost by those who undertook to convey them to Paris. From such as were left, and a number of studies made two years afterwards on the theatre of war, he painted in Paris a new series of pictures of the Russo-Turkish campaign. They are even more literal and exact than his pictures of Turkestan. His heart was altogether in his work; he lived the scenes anew as hie painted them; his patient labour in the open air had done much to develop his style and perfect his method; and in this record of the great war is comprehended some of his most striking work:-a " Turkish Prisoners, after Plevna;" an "Albanian Robbers, BashiBazouks;" a "Russians in the Balkans: Winter;" a "Shipka in Winter: the Batteries;" a "Russian Graves at Shipka, on the Slope of Mount St. Nicholas;" and "1A Snow Storm at Shipka: a Sentry." The whole set-with others-was exhibited, in 1874, at South Kensington. The English art-critics were loud in their praise; the English artists (Mr. Alma Tadema, Sir Frederick Leighton, and others) gave their painter a cordial welcome. Soon afterwards they were exhibited in Paris, together with a certain number of pictures of the Russo-Turkish war not shown at South Kensington:-the "De Profundis" (a churchyard near Paradim); "1The Last Bivouac; " and the originals of our two engravings--" Victors" (the Turks at Telisch) and "The Vanquished" (the Russians at the same place)-and several besides. Jules Claretie wrote the introduction to the catalogue of the exhibition. At last, in 1880, Verestchagin exhibited the greater part of his Indian work and all his pictures of the Russo-Turkish war at St. Petersburg. As before, his exhibition was free, excepting on certain days, when there was a charge for admission, for the benefit of the Russian schools. Early and late it was crowded. The new picturesof the Shipka Pass, the Siege of Plevna, the strange and moving incidents of the desperate campaign-impressed the spectators quite terribly. A few fanatics and reactionaries-more Russian than Russia-accused the painter of untruthfulness, of showing only the reverse of the medal, even of being his country's enemy and ill-wisher, and went so far as to deny his fame and question his abilities. But they were in a very small minority. During the two months of the exhibition it was visited by some two hundred thousand people, forty thousand of whom bought catalogues. Then came the sale by auction of the Indian studies. The collectors of Moscow and St. Petersburg assembled in force; prices ran high; the pick of the collection was disputed piece by piece with incredible determination. The principal pictures went as high as five and seven thousand roubles, and a total was realised of over a hundred and fifty thousand roubles. With this Yerestchagin laid his Indian epic aside and devoted himself to his picture-history of the war. He painted " Ple vna Before the Assault," "PBlevna After the Assault," " The Turkish Hospital;" and he sent them, with other- battle-pi~ctures A KTRGIIIZ FALCONER. BA 9IL VEIl RJETCHAGI1N. 101 and some of the Indian and Turcoman studies, on a tour through Europe, under the care of his younger brother Alexander, also one of Skobeleff's orderlies. In 1881-83 the exhibition was seen in nearly all the Continental centres-at Vienna, Paris, Berlin, Dresden, Hamburg, Brussels, Pesth, Moscow; and everywhere it attracted crowds of people. At Vienna, in a single month, there were a hundred and ten thousand visitors, forty-five thousand of whom bought catalogues; at Berlin, a hundred and forty-five thousand visitors, and a sale of forty-five thousand catalogues; and so through the length and breadth of Europe. The cost of carriage and of exhibition was considerable, and Verestchagin was obliged to charge for admission. From first to last, however, he kept his prices as low as possible; for he holds that an exhibition is an influence for good, and he had it at heart to be visited and seen by the poor. His popularity was greatly increased. Art-critics and painters applauded him heartily, and advised their countrymen to study his work. All this while he was in Paris painting new pictures (of India and Turkestan), or preparing for publication his notes of the Indian journey he had made in company with his wife; or travelling anew in India, and making studies for other pictures. At Moscow he sold some of his battle-pictures and studies at high prices. It is quite possible that Verestchagin may put by his "1epic of war," as he put by his picture-histories of India and Turkestan, and that he may take new subjects in hand. He has always had a lively interest in matters Russian; but the necessity of making money, the opportunity of Eastern travel, his passion for war and the camp, have given his work a quality rather cosmopolitan than national. Ere he paints he must see and feel; and for this reason he is a traveller. What difficulties can there be, he asks, in an age of railways and steamboats? To himn the wonder is that his fellows profit so little by their epoch, and stay so much at home. A COSSACK. (From a "Journey in the Caucasus."--" Le Tour duA Monde.") THE END OF THE JOURNEY. (From the Collection of the late Captain Hill, of Brighton.) PHIL MORRIS, A.R.A. HE best place to see an artist's works is neither a yearly exhibition nor a permanent public collection, for there they will always kill, or be killed by, inharmonious pictures, chosen by various and discordant tastes. Nor will one man's work ever be there in any great quantity. The right conditions are doubtless those of a private gallery, especially when the collector has had a special fancy for a special painter, and has in a great measure "bought him up." Such a fancy had the late Captain Hill for Mr. Phil Morris, whose principal pictures for many years he got together in his own treasurehouse of art at Brighton. And yet Brighton is not suggestive of art. Philistinism in its most cheerful form reigns supreme on the King's Road and Marine Parade, and even the easiest kind of all art--estheticism in dress-was not at home, in its palmy days, in'the bleak and busy town, made little display on the Chain Pier, and was feebly represented in the musters of feminine fashion. The robust advocates of all that is "healtbhily" tight, trim, British, and usual would perhaps opine that the sea-breezes were too wholesome for the languors of the artistic craze; our own more literal " HOME, SWEET 11OM.TE.' (From the Ilaintiy by 1'. RI. orr\ A.R.A. By Permission o)I A. S. iDiaom, TE1l.) PHIL MORRIS, A.R.A 103 reading of the matter is that the actual breezes that come so freshly from the sea are not friendly to the long and soft draperies and prepared accidents of pseudomediaeval attire. However this may be, Brighton wears an air of determination to be braced which is distinctly opposed to the recollection and meditation of enthusiastic art. Our preconceived notion of a Brighton picture-gallery would be that of an eminently "healthy" gathering of polished horses and dogs by Landseer, some "legitimate" histrionic compositions of Maclise, studies in contemporary life by Mr. Frith, some of Mr. Vicat Cole's landscapes to remind us of the beauties of inland country, and a few of the many uncompromising sea-pieces by which English art has illustrated the severities of the national climate. The late Captain Hill's house-one of many on the Marine Parade, bright, white, and unsuggestive-disclosed a very different taste. Not that any strong predilection for the work of any of the little schools of modern English art was there obtrusively apparent. The collector had not insisted quand medme upon Mr. Burne-Jones's ideal, or Mr. Pettie's manner, or Mr. Frank Holl's method; but there was everywhere an impression of good, advanced, and interesting art, without monotony. A great delight in the works of one or two painters was undoubtedly shown, but without any narrow or exclusive devotedness to the schools and principles of those painters. The impression was not, of course, literally correct, but it would have seemed at the first glance that all Mr. Phil Morris's most important pictures were assembled here; yet painters of taste and work most opposed to Mr. Morris's were there as well. Captain Hill had, besides, confined himself neither to his own time nor to his own country in his researches. The collection was gathered into a cluster of moderately-sized, well-lighted rooms, devoted entirely to the purposes of a gallery, except for the presence of a pianoforte a queue, which suggested a very delightful combination of pleasuresChopin with Corot, and other happy unions of suggestive art. But the whole house was flowing over with pictures, the drawing-room being hung with them, and even the obscurer walls of an ante-room being covered. Nothing was hung positively too high for a good sight, and some of the more centrally-placed pictures were so advantageously lighted and looked so brilliant that they seemed to be full of a fresh force. Mr. Phil Morris's "Cradled in his Calling" is in some respects the artist's most delightful picture: the grace of the composition,. the buoyant movement of the actions, the atmosphere, and the prevailing blue sea-light, combining to give it a peculiar charm. A troop of fisher-folk, going on their way over the cliffs, have swung the baby in one of his father's nets by way of hammock, and are carrying him so in the breeze and sunshine of the coast. The figures are drawn with uncommon grace and impulse. Among the larger and more important compositions which the late Captain Hill had chosen from the many works of the same artist is " The End of the Journey," one of those quasi-allegorical subjects which are so popular in contemporary English art, having, besides the primary meaning, a 0.ce IV Qb wz PHIL MORRIS, A.R.A. 105 secondary one by no means apt to be lost through a want of obviousness or a too great reserve in its suggestion. In "The End of the Journey" an old soldier has returned to his native hamlet, and has reached the ferry which will take him across the peaceful stream to his home. It is evening, and beyond the water, against the waning light, comes the ferryman to meet him; in this figure, with its quasi-classic line and action, the suggestion of Charon is of course apparent. A young girl, who has helped to carry the old man's drum, stands at his side, her fresh beauty contrasting with his melancholy wrinkles. Assuredly the picture THE QUEENNS SHILLING. is particularly pleasing to the lovers of easy allegory; but it is valuable in an artistic sense for the quality of its work and for its many merits of light and effect. Still more to our taste on these accounts is the original and brilliant composition of the " Ship-builders." Mr. Morris has made it noisy with the clatter of the mallets and hammers of his ship's carpenters, as they stand driving their blows into the vessel's sides in strokes which come in groups, in succession, in single sounds, and in cannonades, after the manner of many hammers at work; the ear can imagine the irregular but pleasant rhythm of the blows. All sounds of manual labour, it may be said in passing, have a certain beauty. Who that has been at harvest-time in Switzerland has not marked the busy noise of the flails at work on the threshing-floor, as they beat their well-accentuated time to a tune they create in the listener's head? So with all sounds of spade, pick, creaking wain, loom and shuttle, plashing oars, the "sweep of scythe in morning dews; " all these are distinctly beautiful, whereas the sounds of all kinds of machine-labour are unquestionably ugly. When the hand of man is behind the 43 106 1TE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. tool it makes a pleasant, poetic, or suggestive sound; but when it sets steam or other power at work to move the tool, the result is invariably an intolerable noise, such as the yell of the steam-whistle, the ringing buzz and whirr of a saw-mill, the hard roar of an express train, and all the other too familiar clatters, screams, rattles, and bangs which distract the air of the modern world. As attractive as Mr. Morris's "Ship-builders," in another manner, is the somewhat slight and very dreamy woodland study, with its sauntering figures-" Journeys End in Lovers Meeting." The title, by the way, is not very obviously appropriate, as the lovers have evidently met some time before, and the ladies who follow are otherwise interested. In "1The Reaper and the Flowers," the merry children link hands and form a chain before the old man on the road, but they will not stay his advance, any more than.they will be able to resist the progress of Time, which he symbolises, and which will bring uthem to be as decrepit as the old woman walking up the hill, and will finally cut them down with the scythe. All this sentiment is well expressed by Mr. Phil Morris on his canvas-one of the many canvases of his in the collection of the Iate Captain Hill. At every turn in the galleries the familiar manner of this artist met the eye. "The Sons of the Brave "-a picture which owed much to its title, but which was so good that nobody grudged it the accidental advantage it thereby obtained-was also there, with a smaller replica or study which, except in the motive of the central group, offers curious points of difference, being of another shape-far longer, with extra figures at the sides; and that picture of peace, the "Procession of First Communicants at Dieppe"-girls in white-in that wonderful white drapery of Mr. Morris's, which is used again in the picture of three girls who have been bathing, and whose toilet has been disturbed by a calf, this also being in the late Captain Hill's collection, with a number of others by the same versatile hand. Very rarely in the history of art has so constant a patron been found by any one artist, and rarely has patronage been so deservedly won. Several of Mr. Phil Morris's sketches and studies of landscape are very fresh and artistic, and one or two have caught-without the deliberate imitation which is never happily or successfully applied to that particular master's exceedingly individual manner-some of the lightness, impulse, and sweetness of Corot. Since Captain Hill made his brilliant collection, which included several very beautiful examples of older English art, especially of Morland's lovely pearly tones and colours, one or two of Millet's immortal peasant pictures, and a number of wonderfully true impressions by Degas, Mr. Morris has somewhat changed his style. He has seemed of late years to paint for the sake of prettiness, and of a more trivial effectiveness than he ever aimed at formerly. He appears to have become a little less painterlike in his aims, and to seek to interest by popular subject rather than by the fine pictorial qualities of " Cradled in his Calling" and the " Ship-builders." How much more the public has been taken by a rather noisy picture of the "First Prince of Wales " displayed upon a shield to the assembled Cambrians, than by thbe painter's (*u0;q~.tj Jo 122!H *jIvO 2) aI OVIJo u~l~o~ o o a; USOS) ISLRAXOa allau x QV vadVau anfl 108 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. beautiful studies of out-of-door tone and light, we cannot say. But we may hope that he will yet return to his first loves. Many another Academician and Associate can satisfy the nation with a "First Prince of Wales," and delight the sentimental with a boudoir Eve nursing a little Cain and Abel in a nest of dyed feathers from Paris; but not many, in the Academy or out of it, can paint the blue sea air, and can give the movement of the unconscious limbs of fishermen's daughters on the downs. In these papers, dealing as they do with living men chiefly, we have abstained from obtruding criticism when defects arise from incapacity. But in the case of this artist, who has proved that he has rare pictorial quality, and who has made his choice delibe. _ ____ _ - rately, we are impelled "to give gratuitous re. monstrance! Mr. Morris's principal works not already described are the follow"ing:-In 1858 he made an early dobut at the Royal Academy with "Peaceful Days," which was bought by T. R. "Creswick, R.A. To the then popular little gallery called the British InstituPROCESSION OF FIRST COMMUNICANTS AT DIEPPF.in, or in the mild slang of Thackeray's artists, the "Brish Inst," he contributed, in 1860, "The Widow's Harvest," in 1864, "Where they 1875. The last-named shows some mowers in a field, a woman approaching. The drawing and movement are excellent, the brawny arms are strenuously at work. In the distant background there is a contrasting feeling of rest in wooded hills and shade. "The Sailor's Wedding " (1876) is a charming picture of a little procession of a bridal party on the sands, within splash and spray of a high sea. Men and women are tossed and buffeted by the good sea-wind, and the bride's gay scarf is thrown into an arch, like the drapery of a Greek, as she clings to the arm of her roving lord. In 1877 came "The Heir of the Manor," a scene in a park glade, where the little heir, some three years old, stands abashed before a herd of does and fawns, who meet him in the soft sunlight. His mother watches at a little TILE CONDITION OF TURKEY. (From the Collection of the late Captain Hilt, of Birighton.) 110 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. distance. With this was "The Lost Heir," behind the scenes in a gipsies' barn, where a little vagabond is dressing the stolen child, who submits meekly to the rough handling by dark gipsy hands of his delicate, fair body. In the following year Mr. Morris exhibited a portrait of Mrs. Frederick Leyland and a large study of deer. To 1880 belong "Hagar" and "Fording the Stream," huntsmen crossing a rivulet in a wood, up to the girths in water. Next year our artist returned to the sea, in his bit of fisher-life in trouble-" Sale of the Boat." Down by the edge of the sea, where the boats are drawn up, the sale is going forward amid a group of sailors. The young wife of the fisherman who is parting with his sea friend and breadwinner, sits in the foreground, with her charming, sad face turned away; one of her boys a little wistfully leans on her shoulder; a younger one rolls laughing and playing in the sand. The nets which she has often mended, and which are to be idle now, lie near her feet. To the same season belongs the portrait of Mrs. Phil Morris and her daughter. In 1885, with the "First Prince of Wales," we had portraits of Maud and Mary Chester, "The Little Mother," and "The Farmer's Daughter;" and in 1886 portraits of Mrs. Edgar Flower and her youngest son, of the late Sir Walter Burrell, and of Mrs. Joseph Parker; "The Lone Farm," and "Oh, Vanity!" " Taking the Queen's Shilling" dates a few years back. It shows the rather desperate joy of a young villager, who is acclaimed by a group of children, but whose mother hears the rumour with a pang at her heart. "The Condition of Turkey " is a careful farmniyard study, which gains little from the mild pun of the title. Some of Mr. Phil Morris's best pictures, as some of his least good, have been at the Grosvenor Gallery. He has exhibited there "The Model," "Return from Confirmation," "The Mask," "By Cloud-capped Cader-Gathering the Flocks," " Playmates," the "Ship-builders," the picture of Eve and her babies, to which we have already alluded, and " Breezy England." At the Paris International, in 1878, the artist was represented by the "Sailor's Wedding," the "Mowers," and the " Reaper and the Flowers." Born in 1836, Mr. Morris entered early on his art-studies, drawing for some time in the best school we have in England-the Elgin Marble room at the British Museum. In 1855 he began his course in the Royal Academy schools, winning in his first year the silver medal for drawing from the life. In 1856 he gained two medals; in 1858 he carried off the gold medal for historical painting, the subject given being the " Good Samaritan." Winning at the same time the travelling studentship, he spent some time in Italy and France. He was elected an Associate in 1878. zt*&& tttc4 (From a Photograph by Messrs. Elliott and Fry.) HENRY STACY MARKS, R.A. T is doubtful whether, but for Mr. Henry Stacy Marks as the precursor of the modern return to the quaintly decorative as well as the pictorial art of the Middle Ages, we might not still be languishing on in the clumsily humorous or sickly sentimental style, which for so many years was thought the fit and only one to be applied to the illustration of our books, comic or serious, for young or old, and to a large extent to the adornment of our houses. It is Mr. Marks who has introduced, and made familiar to us, the delightful blending of colours and quaint delicacy of form and design pervading the fashion of the day in the thousand and one matters that can 112 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. be affected by such art as his; and for the welcome reform he has brought about in all these respects he deserves our warmest thanks. He is distinctly one of the most representative of representative men, and his election in 1878 to the full honours of the Royal Academy was a matter of congratulation to all concerned. But when we remember that in his pictures, properly so called, as distinct from the illustrative ST. FRANCIS PREACHlING TO TIlE BIRDS. (By kind Permission of Mr. Angus flolden, of Bradford.) and decorative work on which he is so largely engaged, he has displayed powers as a painter pure and simple, of a high class, and that he has given us for the last five-and-twenty years some of the most amusing bits of character and humour that have ever appeared upon the walls of our Royal Academy and other exhibitions, we may surely regard him as one of the original and distinguished artists of the English school. Contriving not unfrequently to weave a strong thread of pathos into the fabric of dry fun in which he revels, painting landscape as well as he does HENRY STACY MARKS, R.A. 113 humanity, and birds and beasts as well as either, he may be quoted as an eminently and thoroughly versatile artist, whilst the specialty which he long ago developed for himself as a "bird fancier" on canvas, puts him far ahead of all rivalry in what may be described as pictorial and humorous ornithology. Most steady and legitimate has been his progress upwards since the days when "Toothache in the Middle Ages "' (1856) first attracted attention from the originality and quaintness of the mere notion. Not, however, that this was by any means the picture with which he commenced his public career at the Royal Academy. Turning to the catalogues, we see in his earliest exhibited works that the "Dogberrian" side of life had from the first an especial attraction for him. It has never been quite absent, and still forms the leading sentiment in some shape or other in nearly everything he produces, albeit latterly it has cropped up in the guise of his remarkable long-legged, longnecked, long-beaked birds. In 1853 Mr. Marks submitted to the Council of the then existing British Institution his first attempt in oil; but the "lay" element in that body rejected the "Dogberry Examining Conrade and Borachio," which, nevertheless, found a good place just below the line and beside Holman Hunt's "Strayed Sheep" on the walls in Trafalgar Square, and from that day forth (1853)-as he himself puts it-" H. S. M. has been represented in the Royal Academy Exhibitions-sometimes on the ground-sometimes on the ceiling-but ' all there' somehow." Such characters as " Christopher Sly," " Bardolph," " Slender, " Francis "Feeble, "Bottom," &c., together with their like in more modern guise, have supplied him with never-ending themes. Subjects in which these personages figured conspicuously carried him prosperously onward till 1861, when the most ambitious and complete work he had yet produced clenched the good opinion the judges had formed of his powers. " The Franciscan Sculptor and his Model" embodied in a high degree all his excellences, and the sly fun, originality, and freshness of the idea, as well as its admirable execution, must be still in the memory of most of those that saw it. Suffice it to say that it is a malicious little scene from the grave cloister in the Middle Ages. The sculptor-friar is chiselling a gargoyle for the outside of the community chapel, and he takes for the model of his grotesque the profile of a lay brother. The intent gravity of the sculptor, who is evidently the humourist of the house, and the ill-repressed laughter of his brethren, are well rendered. Between this date and the removal of the Royal Academy to Burlington House, amidst a succession of pictures never varying in their general merit, may be enumerated, as especially striking, the following:-"How Shakespeare Studied" (1863), "Doctors Differ " (1864), "Beggars Coming to Town"5 (1865), " Falstaff's Own" (1867), "Experimental Gunnery in the Middle Ages" (1868), and "The Minstrel's Gallery" (1869), an admirable work, the first exhibited by our artist at Burlington House. In 1870 was given us the first taste in oil of Mr. Marks' quality as an ornithological painter, and, with what had gone before, his " St. Francis Preaching to the Birds" landed him, in the January of the following year, most 44 114 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. justly and safely into the haven of an Associateship. Conscientious and trustworthy in method to the highest degree, his "Book-worm," in 1871, by its thoroughness and completeness, setting aside its technical and other merits, which were perhaps beyond any yet displayed in the painter's work, fully warranted the choice of the Royal Academicians. Again, in 1872, "Waiting for the Procession," and in 1873, " The Ornithologist," and a remarkably quaint bit called " What is it?" steadily kept the artist to the front. "Capital and Labour," "A Page of Rabelais," "The Latest Fashion," and "Winter" (the latter an important decorative work), were the CARTOON FOR "WHAT 18 IT?" (The Picture, much altered from the Cartoon, was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1873.) four contributions from Mr. Marks in 1874, and the largest number he ever exhibited in one season at the Royal Academy. That prosperity and success were in no way going to check the energy of the artist was proved indisputably by each succeeding effort. "The Jolly Post Boys," and "A Merry Jest" (1875), as examples, were in all respects in his best manner. No less so was "The Apothecary" of 1876, "The Spider and the Fly," and " A Bit of Blue " (1877), whilst in " Convocation" (1878) we had another of his remarkable "bird fancies," more than enough, in the opinion of many judges, to have ensured the final academic honour just afterwards conferred on him. Of Mr. Marks' work of late years-his more official work as an Academicianthere is, as with so many, a rather various record to be made. At his best he paints with a suggestiveness of fun which is better, or seems better in some of our moods, than explicit drollery, and with a great completeness and finish of technique. Sometimes there is a little lack of strength in the drawing, and the suggestions THE APOTHECARY. (By kind Permiszion of Mr. 1. J. Turner.) 116 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. of humour are so reserved and reticent as to be almost negative. Or perhaps the fault is rather our own, when we expect a joke and look for it in some literal subject not intended to amuse us. In 1879 the artist exhibited "Intellect and Instinct "a little landscape, an old gentleman absorbed in study, and his little dog intent on observation. With this was "Old Friends," and " Science is Measurement." The former is a capital motive. Into one of the timber-yards of Chelsea, or some other place of wharves and wood, have strayed two old salts, who stand looking up at the figure-heads which have been hewn off and stacked among the timbers of old ships. Those timbers are for firewood, and in the winter evenings they will make talk among tea-sippers in some Eesthetic drawing-room, who will chat about the tints of blue and rose and violet Splaying in the flames of the brine-impregnated logs. The salt of many oceans, of many storms and calms, will make the show of colour, and the hostess will say, "Yes, we always burn old ships." But to these figureheadsVthe two old men have made a kind of pilgrimage. With one of them they are indeed old friends, companions of past years. The two spent lives and the figure-head which keeps its bold outlook over the planks and lumber as it was wont to keep it across the waves, are part of a forgotten past. " Science is Measurement" _...._ shows the painter's favourite ornithologist facing the skeleton of a huge bird, which he is about to measure with his tape; the pen for making the record of dimenSCIBNC IS MEASUREMENT. sions is in his mouth. No one who has been among natural history collections can have failed to see the humour of certain birds, whether alive or stuffed, or in the skeleton form. Perhaps, indeed, the expression of the skeleton is the most comic, especially when in contrast with the unconsciousness of the old savant. In "An Episcopal Visitation," Mr. Marks makes another comic combination, putting two live adjutant storks over against a Bishop among the birdpens of the Zoological Gardens. Adjutant storks and Bishops certainly offer a comparison of gravities not without piquant effect. To the same year belongs "Author and Critics," in which the painter has indulged himself and us with some very definite comedy. With real ability he has rendered the worn and simple egoism of the poor author, who is inflicting such a tyranny on two much-oppressed friends. The one has reached a kind of dismal resignation, mitigated by tobacco; the othver has evidently made some former feeble attempt to go, and has finally sat down again with his hat on. And yet, in spite of unspeakable boredom, it is by no means the critics with whom we sympathise most. They are doubtless enduring much, but the tale told in the thin face of the oppressor is by far the most pathetic. It is so evident that he has never had and will never have a chance of inflicting himself on the world, as he is inflicting himself on these. HENRY STACY MARKS, R.A. 117 Next came "The Man of Law," "A Fugitive Thought "-the single figure of a monk writing, "A Song without Words "-a student walking in the woods listening to a bird, and " The Lord Say brought before Jack Cade." This is a composition with a far larger number of figures than Mr. Marks often attempts, and it is, perhaps, the least successful of his works. It has a lack of vigour, and the body of Jack Cade would fall on to its face if it had not the unfair advantage of being a painted figure. The moment is that which the mob-hating Shakespeare has put into drama:Messenger. My lord, a prize, a prize! here 's the Lord Say, which sold the towns in France; he that made us pay one-and-twenty fifteens, and one shilling to the pound, the last subsidy. Cade. Well, he shall be beheaded for it ten times. Ah! thou say, thou serge, nay, thou buckram lord! now art thou within point-blank of our jurisdiction regal. What canst thou answer to my majesty 1.... Thou hast most traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm in erecting a grammar-school: and whereas, before, our forefathers had no other books but the score and the tally, thou hast caused printing to be used; and, contrary to the king, his crown, and dignity, thou hast built a paper-mill. It will be proved to thy face that thou hast men about thee that usually talk of a noun and a verb.... Thou dost ride on a foot-cloth, dost thou not? Say. What of that? Cade. Marry, thou oughtest not to let thy horse wear a cloak, when lionester men than thou go in their hose and doublets. Say. These cheeks are pale for watching for your good. Cade. Give him a box o' the ear, and that will make 'em red again. Say. Long sitting to determine poor men's causes Hath made me full of sickness and diseases. Cade. Ye shall have a hempen candle, then, and the help of hatchet. The following year our artist returned to the repose which so well suits him in " The Old Clock," which the clockmaker, almost as old, is regulating according to an infallible timepiece from his own pocket; and in "The Professor," again an ornithologist, and again with the unconscious absorption of expression, beginning the exordium of a lecture upon the comic yet pathetic beaks and skulls that are ranged in classification on the table before him. To a very similar subject, in which the birds are not reduced to skeletons, but stuffed-" A Treatise on Parrots," Mr. Marks attached lines, which sound very serious compared with the inevitable humour of the suggestions of character:" Splendid in hue, and delicate in form, God's feathered fairies, birds whose very effigies In which but sound and movement lack to life, Plumage, shape, colour, all remaining, still Enchant the eye, and stir the dreaming heart: And so the life-long lover of sweet fowls, Old, calm, and solitary, feels the glow, The love of science and the love of art, Which stir the tender soul, yet strongly drawn To worship the Creator in His works." "With this was exhibited "At the Printseller's," in which the painter touched upon another kind of hobby. Finally, to the Academy of 1886 Mr. Marks contributed CONVOCATION. HENRY STACY MARKS, R.A. 119 " A Delicate Question," " A Plain Case," "At the Ferry," and a portrait of the late Mr. John Aird. It will be seen that though never an absentee from the great annual picture show, he has been seldom represented by more than two or three works per year. This is, of course, partly due to the large claims which are made upon his time for the production of a variety of decorative work painted in situ, or at any rate, painted only to adorn the houses of those who, by their employment.r of Mr. Marks, show themselves to:. be endowed with as much good4 / sense as money. The " Winter," just mentioned, is a case in point, d being one of a series representing f ai the seasons, designed, we believe, a for the decoration of a large billiardroom in a country house. Moreover, Mr. Marks was elected in March, 1871, Associate of the Society of Painters in Water-Colours; and though, beyond some quaint studies of birds, he has not hitherto been a prominent contributor to the gallery, the public have had many an opportunity of judging how masterly is his work in water-colour, from the numerous examples (vide - "The Princess and the Pelicans," "Thoughts of Christmas," &c.) ex- -------_ hibited at the General Exhibition AN EPISCOPAL VISITATION. of Water-Colour Drawings, Dudley Gallery, a member of the Committee of which he was elected in 1867. Add to these facts the books which he illustrates, his drawings on the wood, his designs for stained glass, and other work, and it can be understood why, in spite of his being one of the hardest workers in the profession, he is not so great a producer in oil as some of his contemporaries. Indomitable energy, diligence, and perseverance, have ever distinguished our artist: even in those early times when hlie was engaged all day in business with his father, his enthusiasm for art made him devote his evenings to the study of it at Leigh's school in Newman Street. Here he formed the friendships, continued up to the present time, of such men as Calderon, Hodgson, Storey, Joseph Clark, and others who also have since made a mark in life; and the hope of his talent having been strongly encouraged by these surroundings, he determined, when he came of age (1850), "to burn his boats," 120 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. and striking out manfully, make for the shore on which we have seen him land in safety. He was born in Great Portland Street, London, in 1829, and he himself declares that, although he was always fond of drawing as a child, fsome of his early productions still Se in his possession display nothing theremarkable or promising; they are exactly like what other children of six or seven delight in drawing. With the modesty about his own work which still distinguishes him, he further declares that his earliest studies from the antique and the life, both at Leigh's and at the Academy (into which he was adAUTHORD CRITICS. mitted a student 1851), were far from meritorious. The first real spurt he seems to have had was in 1853, when, at the instigation of his friend Calderon, he scraped funds together and went to Paris, where he studied for five months in the atelier of M. Picot, the result very soon being, as we have seen, the picture of " Dogberry Examining Conrade and Borachio." It has been well said that "it is in the art we love that the truest and deepest emotions of our nature-our true selves-find expression," and that, in short, a man is like his...... pictures. This certainly is the case with Henry Stacy Marks. He is essentially the man you would expect to be the producer of such work g as his. Not only is his5iR personal appearance, with his sedately humorous expression, the quiet twinkle in his bright eye, and the sly he is like his pictures. In their honesty, HALF HOURs AT THE ZOO" A STUDY. HENRY STAGY MARKS, R.A. 121 thoroughness, and conscientious painstaking completeness, they are but the reflex of his character. All who enjoy the pleasure of his friendship will endorse this statement to the letter, whilst those less fortunate will not be surprised to hear that, in addition to these qualities, socially he is one of the most amusing and delightful companions that it is possible to meet. With Shakespeare at his fingers' ends, with an inexhaustible fund of anecdote at his command, an able versifier, a singer of a good song, a teller of a good story, he is indeed hard to match; and looking back over the brief outline we have here traced of his life and career, and remembering that his success has been reached through no path of roses, but across many a rough and stony bit of road, it will be readily admitted, as we said at starting, that he is a thoroughly representative man. bTUDY-A VPLOUGHBOY. 45 eA '00ý oto topný ý (From a Photograph by the London Stereoocopto Company.) MA..ARCUS STONE, IR.A. HAT a distinguished artist son should follow a distinguished artist father is rare enough to call for special remark, even when father and son are as unlike in the quality of their attainments as in the manner of their successes. The name of Frank Stone is familiar as that of a member of a society which comprised the chief literary and artistic talent of the time. And the father's friends were the son's. Young, full of promise and precocious talent, with a brilliant career assured by the quality of his earliest work, the lad of some sixteen years became the familiar acquaintance of men whose names belong to a waning generation. Mr. Marcus Stone is still a young Man, but if he should live to eighty years he will be a link between two worlds of thought and art. He has seen Turner; he was the intimate young companion of Charles Dickens's later years; he knew the father of Edwin Landse'er~, MARCUS STI'ONE, RA. 12 3 whose birth dates back to the middle of the last century; he knew Mulready, Lytton, Maclise, Albert Smith, Stanfield, Douglas Jerrold, Augustus Egg, and Thackeray. These men did not live so long ago that it is extraordinary to have known them, but it is extraordinary now to find one of their friends in the flower of his age. There is always, and there will always be, an artistic and literary society in London, but to the little knot of writers and painters of that time belongs a character of its own. Manners were simpler; club-life, as we now know it, was not yet instituted. The old style is all described in Thackeray's works; and the change of manners has been very rapid since he wrote. To belong, in his freshness, to both periodsthe past and the present-has been the good fortune of Mr. Marcus Stone. Born in 1840, the child was an artist by intuition before he was four years old. One of his first feats was the decoration in pencil of a chimney-piecean attempt which was volunteered, and was not received with much favour. His father, however, in ordering the child's handiwork to be effaced, directed that one figure should be left, because it showed precocious talent. This precocity marked all the juvenile efforts of Marcus Stone, and must doubtless be taken as an element in estimating the success which attended the exhibition of his early works. The boy never at any time contemplated the possibility of any other career for his future life than that of art; but, in spite of this invariable resolution, he received no actual training in his first years. That he passed through no regular studentship is, however, more than compensated by the fact that he has always been a student; and if at the date of his boyhood a thorough artistic training was not considered to be of very insistent necessity, he lived to work in a time which rates science and discipline at a truer value. At the age of thirteen the young aspirant had made so good an attempt at illustration as to call forth the following note from Charles Dickens, dated from Tavistock House on the 19th of December, 1853:-" My dear Marcus,-You made an excellent sketch for a book of mine, which I have received (and have preserved) with great pleasure. Will you accept from me, in remembrance of it, this little book? I believe it to be true, but it may be sometimes not as genteel as history has sometimes a habit of being. Faithfully yours, CHARLES DICKENS." The book so gracefully offered to a child was the " Child's History of England," which the novelist found time to write for his own children about this time, and which, the world has generally agreed since then, he would have done better to leave alone. Mr. Marcus Stone was only seventeen when he exhibited his first picture at the Royal Academy. The second, entitled "Silent Pleading," created a small sensation in the following year. It represented a tramp, with a child wrapped up in his cloak, asleep in a shed on a snowy night; while the squire and the police, who have tracked the man, for some small depredation, to his resting-place, standt irresolutely, doubtful whether to put on the handcuffs, or let the poor outcast sleep in peace. The subject was somewhat after the style of Dickens, who himself refers to the work in t~erms of full sympathy. 124 4TE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. A crisis had now arrived in the life of the young artist. He was only nineteen, when, owing to his father's sudden death from heart-disease, on him devolved the duty of turning his talents to the best and most profitable account. Under these circumstances he found it desirable to increase his field of labour by the addition of book-illustration to oil-painting. Charles Dickens gave him warm sympathy in his courageous efforts, and helped him by a number of characteristic letters to such publishers as could give the young artist employment. "My dear Longman," wrote the novelist from Tavistock House, on the 28th of November, 1859, "I am very anxious to present to you, with the earnest hope that you will hold him in your remembrance, young Mr. Marcus Stone, son of poor Frank Stone, who died suddenly but a little week ago. You know, I dare say, what a start this young man made in the last exhibition, and what favourable notice his picture attracted. He wishes to make an additional opening for himself in the illustration of books. He is an admirable draughtsman-has a most dexterous hand, a charming sense of grace and beauty, and a capital power of observation. These qualities in him I know well of my own knowledge. He is in all things modest, punctual, and right; and I would answer for him, if it were needful, with my head. If you will put anything in his way, you will do it a second time I am certain. Faithfully yours always, CHARLES DICKENS." That nothing came, at the time, of this impulsive appeal was not certainly due to any lack of affectionate urgency in the request. The fact was rather that the artist, generally so brilliantly successful, was immature at the work of drawing on wood; for even a year or two later, when Dickens himself entrusted him with the illustrations to the monthly parts of "1Our Mutual Friend," to a new edition of the "Child's History of England," and to the completed reprint of "Great Expectations," Marcus Stone's efforts showed the timidity of an unaccustomed hand. What he did was always intelligent, and the drawings for "Our Mutual Friend" especially show no lack of capacity and promise; but it was not until 1869, when he illustrated Anthony Trollope's "He Knew he was Right," that he began to do himself better justice as a designer on wood. Some years later still a story in the Cornhill Magazine, "Young Brown," was accompanied by drawings from Mr. Marcus Stone's pencil which are of rare excellence. But his career is essentially the career of an oil-painter; and in his own art he has never relaxed his efforts after progress, all his studies being slow and laborious experiences and experiments, in which he has gradually mastered the lessons of his art; but every step has been cheered by unfailing public favour. Txvo years after " Silent Pleading" he painted the " Fainting of Hero," which won, among other praises, the precious good opinion of Frederick Leighton, who went up to the young artist at the Academy on varnishing-day, and claimed acquaintance with him on the ground of the promise of his picture. Again two years lat er, in 1863, a more marked sensation was made by a serious work of historical interest, "Flrom Waterloo to Paris," a picture suggested by B36ranger's MARCUS STONE, R.A. 125 ' Souvenir du Peuple." It was in 1872 that Mr. Stone painted his admirable " Edward II. and Piers Gaveston." The confidential impertinence of the light N f~r pq C P4 0 F4 Go k I B minded young king and his favourite, and the indignant disgust of the old courtiers whom they are quizzing, are rendered with spirit and entrain. 126 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. But all this invariable, legitimate, and now and then brilliant success has never made Mr. Marcus Stone forget his duties of self-improvement, has never made him repose in self-confidence, has never induced him to facilitate his labour and cheapen his effectiveness by mannerism. Oliver Wendell Holmes says somewhere that only a fool is consistent, and Mr. Marcus Stone has proved his possession of such wisdom as consists in a frank change of method. As he grew to riper years he began to believe that his first "manner" had been little more than the precocious following of those among whom he lived. Travel opened his eyes to other methods, other theories, to whole schools of modern painting from which England has generally held aloof. French contemporary work, and indeed all the best Continental work, greatly impressed him-so greatly, indeed, that his own art was visibly influenced. He fell under the powerful charm of the savoir-faire of French painters, and emulated the workmanlike daring quality and the masterly felicities of their school. From his delight in style he then went farther, and penetrated into the science of his art. He gave himself to a thorough study of perspective, of composition, of relations, and of all learned excellences. From this very careful self-discipline Mr. Marcus Stone's work has shown of late years a completeness not common in this country. He compasses what he intends with a thoroughness of fulfilment which is the result of no small science. As a colourist he is tasteful rather than great. Lately he has also preferred extreme grace and prettiness of subject, with figures in repose and garden accessories, to any form of action or emotion. That he is able to give dramatic expression to the passions with no little living energy was proved by a picture exhibited by him at the Royal Academy several years ago, which gave a vivid scene of French peasant life, full of movement and of pathos. It is the moment of a soldier's return, after the woes of a conscription and the perils of a campaign, to his little rustic home. He runs in a delirium of joy to the bed and the arms of the pale young mother, at whose side rests the newly-filled cradle. The execution of this picture is even more unlike Mr. Marcus Stone's present manner than is the subject different from his present choice. As he now eschews emotion, so does he also those types of character which are not compatible with smooth beauty. In one important matter his respect for the legitimate in art calls for special notice; the subjects of his pictures are always within the right pictorial scope, within the province of a painted scene. Even when they aim at telling a story, or only at illustrating an historical incident, they contain their own explanation, and complete themselves. Marcus Stone does not disdain all help from a catalogue title, but he expresses himself in his pictures in such a manner as to render title unessential. They can all be read, in themselves, without outside aid, more or less of intelligence being supposed in the spectator. His meaning is not allowed to overflow the canvas, as it were, in a manner very commonly practised by painters of pictures with a story to tell. In the work already alluded to, "Edward II. and Piers Gaveston," for instance, the situation is so expressively rendered, and the accessories are so accurate, that a MARCUS STONE, R.A. 127 person of very great intelligence and familiarity with history might probably name the characters of the composition; at any rate, nobody could fail to see that a young king and a young favourite were amusing themselves at the expense of a highly-disgusted group of court grandees; this is the scope and intention of the picture. The painter helps us to the exact incident by means of his title, but does not allow the interest of his scene to depend upon it. Precisely the same may be said for another incident-picture of his, in which he shows us King Henry VIII. rejoicing over his only son, the infant Edward, while the little Princess Elizabeth, neglected and disregarded as being "only a girl," stands wistfully by. The situation is as old as human nature and the laws of inheritance; and, as a fact, in this case the artist had intended at first to paint the group as an illustration to "Dombey and Son," but afterwards changed his mind and gave it the t historical interest. In 1877 the Royal Academy, % < Y4t4 to which he had contributed un- ' I brokenly for twenty - two years, t y elected him Associate, an honour V1-- which was followed, as it was preceded, by constant and successful work. Ten years later came the election which made him a full.. MARRIED FOR LOVE. member, his most formidable com- MARRID FOR LOV. petitor being Mr. Fildes, who followed him into the ranks of the Academicians within a few weeks. One of Mr. Stone's earlier works after his first honours was a contribution to an exhibition altogether characteristic of the time-the collection of " Types of Beauty " shown by the Fine Art Society in Bond Street. As though beautiful faces had not throughout the world's history had their full meed of power and prestige, London made a sudden discovery of the value of feminine loveliness, as it had made a few years before the discovery of rinking, and the popularity of "beauty women" suggested an exhibition of the ideals of artists. "Rejected " is an interior of the time of our great-grandmothers, with the modifications of Mr. Marcus Stone's taste in the costumes. A very lovely maiden in white, with an empire dress and a Sir Joshua hat, is turning away very gently from an unsuccessful aspirant. As she slowly lifts the portiere to leave the room, he hangs his head over the fireplace. There is just a little too much emphasis on the situation in the manner in which the two figures turn their backs straight upon one another. But Mr. Stone frequently shows a fear, which we hope does injustice to the general intelligence, that he may be misunderstood unless he puts on plenty of accent. But the picture is extremely pleasing on account of the elegant feminine figure, which is a protest against the long and slender waists of more modern times. This resolute but gentle-hearted 128 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. damsel became such a favourite with her painter that she reappears in many and many a subsequent picture. She is much the same as the young aristocrate who kneels at the feet of the Revolutionist official in "An Appeal for Mercy, 1793," only that she is without the hat, which has fallen off. The man in whose hands is the fate of husband or father has risen abruptly, leaving her sinking forward upon his chair, where she has just clasped his knees. He looks closely at the paper, and she watches him intently; a red-capped ruffian sits sprawling at a table hard by. Again, in "Sacrifice" she stands, in a hat again, with the long, straight lines of her dress longer than ever, and a fichu more than ever picturesquely disposed across her graceful shoulders. She is in pink this time, and she turns to do the bidding of father and mother by burning a love-letter. They are sorry for her, but quite inflexible, and she makes no show of emotion. A white cat is pruning its clean coat on a chair. In the same Academy appeared "Waiting at the Gate," the empire lady with her hand on a latch in the midst of flowers. In 1878 Mr. Marcus Stone was even unusually brilliant and industrious, exhibiting A TYPE OF BEAUTY. four pictures. " The Post-Bag" (Dy Permission of the Proprietors of the "Graphic.") is a garden scene, with a great deal of space to let. At the further end of a terrace sit two men, father and suitor, we may suppose, to the lovely maiden who has walked away alone with her back to them, to read her letter. The perspective is most skilfully treated. "The Time of Roses" shows love in happier conditions; the lady is not standing alone, for her hand has been caught over the garden paling by the handsome heir of the neighbouring domain. A rose herself, she stands shyly with her basket full of roses, and a rose-bush in fhll-flower at MARCUS STONE, LA.1 129 her side. With this were the "Fruit-seller," a picturesque young woman sitting rather sadly over a basket of apples, and a "Head of a Girl." Next year followed "In the Shade," a lady sitting by herself in the shadowed part of a wide garden while others are strolling in the sunshine;" Summer-time;" and "Discord." The ever-fruitful "1Vicar of Wakefield" gave Mr. Stone one subject for the following Academy, where he was represented by "Olivia and Dick Primrose," the eldest daughter of the good vicar, with the rather stately and dignified beauty which belongs to her, walking through the country lanes with her little brother at her,J Ito, side; while for his second picture he reverted J ~I ` 7 / to the equally well-used French Revolution or. \\, {/ I fit First Empire. A lady, whose heart is, with, i yu" t her traditions and her faith, in the old Regime,, I, gives back letters and presents to a young, I. officer of the army of the new order. Of the two, she looks, as is natural to the steadfast female character, by far the most inflexible. A 1/t If the love-story is not to be broken off for I ever, that young soldier of the Democracy must ' doff that broadside-on cocked hat and give up /il q the campaigns of Napoleon. On no other terms ---- --' 'j will the beautiful face, now averted, be turnedI upon him in grace and favour again. "Mar- MI ried for Love" is a still more delicate and! charming picture. Within a kind of terraced alcove, set round with flower-pots, and sur-. rounded by the brick walls of a last-century -.-.w C - garden, sits the lonely head of a disunited family... AMOUR OU PATRIE." His regrets will be more suddenly consoled than he thinks, for the dismissed and disinherited son is watching him timorously, drawing nearer and nearer across the lawn with his wife's hand in his, doubtftl, but eager to be forgiven. She, even in this all-important moment, sees nothing better to study in the world than the face of the baby whose head is on her arn. It is again a garden that is the scene of action in "11 y en a toujours un autre;" but these are the grounds of a dilapidated estate, much in need of the wealth of the neighbouring squire, who is wooing the daughter of the straitened house on a garden seat at the top of a flight of terrace steps. The damsel's thoughts, however, are far away; the eyes under her huge hat are wandering to the distance, the suitor at her ear has not a chance. Red geraniums are in flower, autumn leaves are drifting, and a glow of sunset gently illumines the figures and the beautiful white of a cat that sits upon the steps. This picture was bought by the Royal Academy under the Chantrey B3equest Fund. "Bad News " takes us farther back 46 130 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. in costume. A lady of the time of the Civil Wars in England has just received a letter from her Cavalier husband away with the King. It falls at her feet while she raises one hand distractedly to her head and reaches out the other to steady her failing strength. The action is somewhat lacking in truth and originality. Two other pictures exhibited at the same time were " The Foundling" and the portrait of Miss Frances Sterling, a child seated, with brilliant hair and a white kitten. "An Offer of Marriage " again takes up the times of short waists and brick-walled gardens, with classic temples artfully composed among the tr3es. At a table set with coffee sits the squire reading a letter just handed to him by the daughter, who stands by with more irresolution in her charming face than bodes well for the writer. This tall, upright picture was one of the first in the first room at Burlington House, and took the place of its predecessor of the year before. Again, in the same interesting corner, which catches eyes all untired, was the " Gambler's Wife " of 1885. The lady sits, in a huge red hat, on a seat that encircles the trunk of an ancestral tree set in a smooth green lawn. In the distance steps lead to the right to the facade of a stately house; in the middle distance is a sun-dial; and beyond, al fresco, is the fatal table at which lawns and timber and house and lands are being played away. The gambler and his friends are intent on their game; the lady has her back to them and her face to the spectator, as she lets her work fall about her feet and clasps her hands in foreboding thought. Her pretty children are coming towards her. The picture is very completely and tenderly painted throughout. It was the artist's only Academy work of that year, and in 1886, also, he sent but one-" A Peace-maker "- when the Hanging Committee moved him away from his nook. In Paris, at the International of 1878, Mr. Marcus Stone was represented by the "Rejected," which we have already described, and " My Lady is a Widow and Childless." This really pathetic picture shows a lonely chadtelaine, in her black, walking under the trees of her domain; on the other side of a fence a workman meets his wife and child, and tosses the little one in the gladness of his heart. This is a far more serious subject than the little sentimental motives this painter treats so prettily. Mr. Marcus Stone is one of the Melbury Road group, occupying a very original, tall-windowed, red-brick house, facing the home built with so much thought and pleasure, for so short an occupation, by the late Mr. Burges. He has to the north an excellent studio, and every room in the house is fit background for one of his own pictures. It only remains to add, that early in the year 1886 Mr. Stone received the full honours of a Royal Academician. ..... 2 E~ v2 w Fr; a d w w X 1~(13 Clf~ I 1 (From the Portrait by limself.) GEORGE FREDERICK WATTS, R.A. R. WATTS is one of the few modern artists who from the beginning of their career to the present time have been consistent in their aims. The wave of Pre-Raphaelitism, and the succeeding waves of neo-medievalism, Mestheticism, and realism, have passed over his head and left him unchanged and unmoved. He started with a distinct inner impulse --an artistic conscience of his own; and though no one has shown himself more widely sensitive to the spirit of the noblest schools of all time, he has permitted nothing to impair his individuality. In allegory or portrait, tiny sketch or colossal fresco, the expression of essential truth has been his one purpose. Idealism based upon thorough knowledge of material facts is the characteristic of all his work The time that he spent in studying sculpture under Mr. Behnes has borne fruit not only in some fine plastic works, but in all his pictures: very notably indeed 132 THE MODERN SCttOOL OF ART. in the fine structural quality and accurate modelling of his portraits. He has always been devoted to the loftiest art. Hiis earliest successes were achieved with vast historical cartoons which won prizes in the competitions (1843 and 1847) for the decoration of the Houses of Parliament. Evidence of his zeal in the cause of great art and his sense of its value in national education is found in his noble offer to cover the great hall of Euston station with mural paintings withou-t remuneration. His large fresco of the History of Justice in the hall of Lincoln's Inn was the result of a similar proposal to the Honourable Society, who not only accepted it in the spirit in which it was made, but proved their admiration of the work by a present of ~500 and a cup. Mr. Watts has been the leader of the reformation of portrait-art in England; he gave it a fresh inspiration and a new point of departure. No one could have done this effectually without Aistinct and original aims pursued with persistence through many years. It was more difficult perhaps to be original in this, the oldest branch of art, than in any other. A man of ordinary ability can be little but a distant follower of the great artists of the English school, to say nothing of the old masters-Raphael and Titian, Holbein and Van Dyck, Rembrandt and Hals. But Mr. Watts is not a man of ordinary ability, and he struck out a path for himself which, though not perhaps new, had been little trodden, and which soon led him far beyond the bounds of conventional art. We say it was not quite new, because all artists of all times have endeavoured to express the minds of their sitters. Few, however, if any, have pursued it so singly, so persistently, and so successfully as Watts. The special aim of his art has been to make the face the window of the mind. Other artists have drawn men and women more bravely in society, but none has painted them more completely as at home-at home, not physically, but mentally; and not only at home, but alone. It cannot be doubted that this strict adherence to his high intention has been attended by no small sacrifice of his natural pride in technical skill-perhaps the greatest sacrifice that a painter can make. He seldom paints more than a halflength; he frequently conceals the hands, and this, not from any want of power, but from the desire to concentrate attention on the face, while the face itself is painted so as not to call attention to the skill of the execution, and, when freshly done, his surfaces have a somewhat rough and crude appearance, as of fresco. Like the author of a play, he is not on the stage; he is only called for when the play has been enjoyed. How great and consistent a sacrifice his practice must involve is shown best by almost the only example amongst his portraits in which he has put forth all his painter's power to charm the eye with glory of colour and rhythmic stateliness of line. In his portraiture of the Hon. Mrs. Percy Wyndham he has employed every resource of his art t~o express, not only character, but physical charm. The scale of colour is not brilliant, but it is rich exceedingly; the dead red of the vase, and the brown and green and cream of its magnolias, are not in more perfect harmony with the rich dress and clear pale complexion than their GEORGE FREDERICK WATTS, R.A. 133 grand rounded forms with the noble graces of the beautiful figure. Of itself this superb achievement is enough to show that it is not because the painter could not have rivalled other masters on their peculiar ground that he has chosen to keep to his own. His portrait of Mrs. Frederick Myers, which we have engraved, is more in his wonted manner. It is a characteristic specimen of his capacity to render not only outward visible form, but the inward beauty of the spirit also. It is, however, in his presentments of public characters that he has attained his greatest distinction both as a man and an artist. It is in these that his special faculty has found its fullest scope. There is not one that does not testify to his unrivalled power of mental diagnosis, not one that does not stamp him as a leader amidst the intellectual forces as well as amidst the painters of his generation. His collective achievement is a most vivid and enduring record of the number and variety of noble minds which have been at work in England during the last quarter of a century. It is not only wonderful in itself; it is not only rarely and loftily beautiful; it is in the truest sense national; it demands not only the admiration of the critic, roE AIT OF MRS. FREDERICK MYERS. but the gratitude of the citizen. We doubt if public money could be more properly or patriotically spent than in securing replicas of every item in the sum for the National Portrait Gallery. It is evident that a man who can paint such portraits is not only an artist but a poet. It is probably not entirely from inclination that Mr. Watts has devoted comparatively little time to purely poetic art, of which he has given us specimens of noble originality and of so rare a quality that there are few great artists of any time to whom he has not been compared by writers in England and on the Continent. For all that, in his creative, as in his portrait art, he remains himself; he is as individual as he is versatile, and brings the same serious and imaginative intelligence to bear upon his work, whether it be the presentment of a poet's face or the embodiment of some one of his dreams. That his genius as an artist in imagination is not duly recognised is sufficiently proved by the fact 134 14TILE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. that one of the noblest imaginings ever painted-his "1Paolo and Francesca "-still remains in his own possession. This is no doubt partly from the insensibility of the British public to any but the most commonplace sentiment in art, partly because of a reluctance to believe that one man can excel in more than one PORTRAIT OF THOMAS CARLYLB. thing. At the same time it must be confessed that of epic work he has finished but little, and that he has too 'frequently exhibited designs which, however suggestive of power and loftiness of purpose, were likely to be neglected in the presence of his fully-wrought portraits. A student of the dead rather than a rival of the living, above all is he indebted GEORGE FREDERICK WATTS, Rt.A. 135 to the Greeks. Classic legend it is that has supplied him with the subjects of perhaps his most perfect pictures. In his "Daphne" he has not chosen to give us any incident of the beautiful old myth-not the flight from the god-like lover, not the supplication nor the blossoming. The figure of the hapless nymph-naked and chaste and pale, against an exquisitely drawn and composed background of laurelis an allegory; of sylvan purity, it may be; in any case, of beauty. His splendid "Wife of Pygmalion," a veritable "translation from the Greek," and his most excellent design of the " Three Goddesses," naked and unashamed, wearing that air of divine dignity which was not re-born at the Renaissance, might almost be described as art before the Fall. There is more of modern sentiment in his sweet, shrinking figure of " Psyche;" and it is the art of Venice rather than of Athens of which we are reminded in his lovely vision of "Endymion," which we have engraved. The painter's tendency to express his ideas of the mysteries of life in allegorical design-though seldom shown till recent years-must have commenced early, if we may rightly presume that his notable composition of " Life's Illusions" (exhibited in 1849) was not its first result. Considered either as a piece of flesh-painting or an achievement in design, this glorious vision of illusive beauty, rising and curling and vanishing like vapour, has not many rivals in modern art. The rest of the allegory is a little obvious-as young men's allegories are wont to be. Mr. Watts's next ambitious work of the kind is the grandly decorative "Allegory of Time and Oblivion." It would seem to be the artist's earliest presentment of his original and lofty idea of Time-not as our withered white-haired enemy with the forelock, but, in his own words, "as the type of stalwart manhood and imperishable youth." The idea is repeated in his "Time, Death, and Judgment." For Death, too, he has invented a new image: as of a great Woman, white-robed and of ghastly complexion, with hollow cheeks and sunken eyes. The two irresistible figures of Time and Death speed on together, rolling a globe of azure at their feet. He grasps his scythe, and from his vigorous brows the flame-like hair stands erect; she droops aside as she advances, and from her folded mantle gathered flowers are falling. Close behind, in mid-air, with hidden face and action of tremendous swiftness, comes Judgment; a sword is held in one hand, the balances aloft in the other. The whole group seems to pass onwards like a vision.- Another, and perhaps the finest, of these great allegories is the famous "Death and Love," in which also there is an invincible and irresistible advance. It is the door of a human dwelling, and Love, a tender boy, with the colours of the iris in his wings, is trying to protect it. But the coming of Death-a massive male Death this-hafs crushed him against the thorns of the growing roses and broken his brilliant pinions. He puts up his arms to ward off the power that comes against him, but the slow impetus of Death is felt to be so enormous, so weighty, that there is not an instant of delay. The expression of Love's face is keenly pathetic; the face of Death is a mystery to us-a mystery just revealed to Love, upon whom it is turned. The allegory is absolutely simple and intelligible, and profoundly impressive. 136 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. The artist has repeated it several times, and in none of the repetitions has it seemed to us so wonderful as in a replica which was just blocked out in monochrome; here the initial impulse of thought was felt to strike immediately from the artist's conception on the spectator's mind. Another of the chief allegories is " The Angel of Death," in which Death is again a woman-a woman and, this time, an angel too. Female angels never appeared in art until the depths of the Italian decadence; but Mr. Watts's conception is by no means one of a decadent art. It is singularly noble and serious. She sits, a benignant and maternal but most solemn figure, on her mysterious throne, to which the types of all mankind are rendering a willing submission. No one is coming reluctantly or with loth heart. The king is rendering up his crown, the warrior Prhis sword, the beggar his crutches. A young and tender woman is laying down her head on the knees of Death, wearied out; a child, born dead, is at the knees of that universal Mother. I& is PAOLO AND FIRANCESCA. a scene of awful but allconquering peace. Next to this great design comes a less easily explicable conception -" To all the Churches." Here the central figure, throned on clouds, seems to bear a resemblance to our Saviour-but a likeness generalised in such a manner that the face is apparently intended to symbolise Christianity rather than to represent Christ'. One hand is held towards the heart, the other open and beckoning in invitation. Grouped at the feet, sheltered by the ample draperies which flow about the knees, are naked children. In the distance t.he clouds of the background are touched with light. IN'ore beautiful and simple in thought is the exquisite "' Love and Life," GEORGE FREDERICK WA ITTS, R.A. 187 painted somewhat, later. Love is presented as a strong but slender adolescent, newly lighted near the summit of a mountain. He comes to meet and rescue Life, a young maiden, whose feet are worn with the long journey to the mountain top. The two are almost at the end of labour. Both the young figures are nude and DIANA AND ENDYMION. spiritual, and most exquisite in line and expression. The colours are, throughout the picture, yellow and blue, colours representing respectively light and space, as, in Mr. Watts's scheme, red represents earthly life. In a far smaller manner of allegory is the comparatively trivial picture, "When Poverty comes in at the door, Love flies out at the window," in which the grim visitor is an old man shivering at the entrance to a cottage, within which a woman reclines, just desertedl by the flying Love, who wings his way into the air. And on a far lower plane again-unique, probably among this painter's creations-is a large 47 1388 THE AMODERN SCHOOL OF ART. canvas which was probably a surprise to his admirers as containing his first pictorial freak. In this Mr. Watts takes us to prehistoric times, and shows us the experiment made by the first mortal who ever tasted an oyster. A boy is the taster. Seated on the sea-shore, in the nudity of that remote day, he holds the empty shell, and seems to follow with dubious introspection the passage of the cold mollusc he has swallowed. Keen, sympathetic interest and interrogation are shown in the face of a girl at his side. It is the little joke of a great painter. Mr. Watts works all the year round, in complete disregard of "sending-in days" and the displays of May. The exhibitions contrive to get something from his easel, but that is yielded with a certain reluctance, for Mr. Watts has no love for the present system of working for yearly display and yearly sale. Moreover, his work really suffers in effect from the neighbourhood of modern pictures, with their modern surface and aggressive colour. All the work of the day is equally inharmonious with his. The real brilliance of true science in light and colour, the attempted brilliance of a merely "noisy" palette, subjects of modern genre, of costume, and of landscapeall are equally unlike Mr. Watts's works, and by contrast increase its peculiarities of surface, its frequent grimy tones and harsh texture. The repose and space by which pictures are surrounded at the Grosvenor makes this contrast much less painful than it is at the Academy. But this master's pictures should be seen in their own company. They were so seen-and a noble life-work they showed-when they formed one of the winter collections at the Grosvenor Gallery. And within the last few years Mr. Watts has himself built a gallery adjoining his own house-Little Holland House, in Melbury Road-where the fruit of his great career may be studied by the public free of cost and without formalities. The bulk of the work has remained in the painter's possession, but in the cases of the most important pictures which have been sold replicas have been made, and the collection is almost completecertainly a completely representative one. Here may be seen visions in art even grander and less reducible to the formula of words than those we have named above. It has sometimes seemed to us that a very great and intellectual painter might think in painting as all the rest of mankind think in words. The idea of such a process is difficult to conceive, but it is just conceivable; and it seems less difficult when we stand, in Mr. Watts's gallery, in face of a great design of the Creation of worlds and wills, which shows vast human figures with Titanic limbs rising from rest on mountains that roll out of cloud. And thought seems to be expressed in colour where Mr. Watts has recorded a vision of " The Spirit of God moving over the Face of the Waters;" the gold of the light and the blue of the space are full of utterance and expression. A vision of a water-nymph is also in misty gold and azure. Then there is a more human picture, showing the fainting head of a dying young warrior, whose last memory is of the face of a woman. That gentle face, with deep, pat~hetic eyes lowered over him iin pity and love, the painter shows us above the beautiful young brows of the mailed lover. From this we may turn to the "Orpheus and Eurydice," TIME, DEATH, AND JUDGMENT. 140 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. which presents the moment in which all is lost for the sake of the kiss of husband and all-but-recovered wife. She has followed him from the shadow of death to the very boundary of life. The little stream was all but passed, when her voice has struck on his impatient heart. One more heart-beat and all was gained; but all is lost. Orpheus has turned, only to clasp the figure of a woman who is not only dead, but spent, gone, faded, fallen away. The all-conquering lyre, fallen from his hand, the lily dropped by hers, have not had time to reach the ground, but Eurydice has slipped back irrevocably and for ever into the land of shadows. All seems to be acted in the comprehensive moment of the artist. And near by is a tragedy of another kindtragedy of living and dying London, not of the Greece of dreams. A woman, with her face wearing the look of death, crouches for her night's lodging under the arches of a bridge. Or it is the study of a child that catches our eyea mere ordinary little girl of some fourteen years, with little beauty in her cabbage-rose cheeks and soft, straight hair, but with a look of goodness in her face that had taken the painter's sympathetic fancy. Her sweet little commonplace profile hangs near to the head of Mr. Swinburne, with its great forehead and wild, red locks; near, also, to the solemn face of John Stuart Mill, to the spiritual and worn beauty of Cardinal Manning's head, to the TO ALL THE CHURCHES: A SYMBOLICAL DESIGN. powerful but earthly force of Browning's, and to the mere physical charm and distinction of a chance Italian model's profile. Merely as a gallery of contemporary portraits, the collection is of infinite interest. And with the portraits are a few heroic landscapes-a tract of country, above which rises a monumental cloud; the lovely line of the Carrara mountains seen from the top of the Leaning Tower at Pisa; a group of the islands of the Greek Archipelago. Of Mr. Watts's future work it is hard to prophesy. Of dreams and designs GEORGE FREDERICK WATTS, R.A. 141 already sketched out there are enough to employ him for many years. It is earnestly to be hoped that some, especially the "Three Goddesses," will receive more perfect realisation. Among them are many inspired by Scripture: as, for instance, the grand and gloomy Esau, and that most tremendous vision of the wrath of heaven descending upon Cain, balanced by the grand and tender scene of Cain's death, where the murderer, having borne the intolerable burden for a patriarchal lifetime, is shown drooping upon the bramble-grown altar of his brother's sacrifice, while an angel descends and sweeps and lifts away the cloud of condemnation. The two projected series of the " Fall of Man" and the "Life of Eve " are full of fine promise, and the scenes from Revelation are quick with germs of greatness. Meanwhile, to whatever work Mr. Watts may turn his hand, we may be sure that nothing small or ignoble will ever come from under it. Certainly neither of these epithets can be applied to the " Britomart," the subject of our full-page engraving. The " Midday Rest," again, is not of a kind that one would have expected from Mr. Watts; but, with its frank and semi-heroic realism, it expresses an intention quite characteristic and quite worthy of the artist-that of the preservation of faithful images of grand and unique types both of man and horse, which he thinks may ere long be refined away. To this end has he painted to the life his brawny, herculean drayman, leaning against his shafts and sleepily casting grain to the pigeons, while his grand, docile brutes stand patient and still. The painter, as may be seen in many of his pictures, has studied animals with great care and to admirable purpose; but there is still reason for surprise at the splendid modelling and grand drawing of these magnificent horses. The same sense of fitness which characterises all his work is evident in, the background of broad horse-chestnut leaves and red brick wall, in harmony with the grandiose simplicity of the whole design. The earlier stages of Mr. Watts's career were remarkable for two peculiarities. One was that he made his first appearance in a kind of incognita, which was not destined to last. These days are not favourable to the hiding or veiling of personality; and Mr. Watts was quickly induced to declare himself in the " Mr. George " of his early pictures. Years later came his election to the full membership of the Royal Academy without the noviciate of the Associateship. It is in the garden at the back of the gallery that Mr. Watts has worked at his gigantic sculpture-the equestrian statue of Hugh Lupus. In this art lie was first known to the world by the " Clytie," an heroic head and bust, with the head turned yearningly backwards, and the great muscles of the neck aMd shoulders brought into strong action. And his own studio is on the left-a plain working room, full of suggestions, beginnings, first thoughts of works which may well take time in the thinking-out. It is, we believe, no secret that Mr. Watts intends to leave to the nation all his works brought together in his gallery. England will then be in possession of the greatest art-work yet achieved-we say this advisedly-by any one of her sons. Meanwhile he has taken the step--wholly characteristic of himself-- of putting his most representative wvork more immediately before the public notice, BIRITOMART AND HER NURSE. GEORGE FREDERICK WATTS, R.A. 143 with the view of hastening the gift which he intends, should a strong interest be expressed in it. For this end a little collection was placed in the South Kensington Museum. And as Mr. Watts had been again and again before the public that attends the Royal Academy and the Grosvenor, it is plain that he wished now to test a wider feeling, and to appeal, as nearly as any painter may do in our time and country, to the people. We say to test the people's feeling; but his own attitude was the most modest one of testing his own art: Was that art such as would touch the universal heart, the general thought? Had it an ideal and a humanity which would appear to the untaught and stir the human feeling, which underlies, as it transcends, all art? Such a question might well be asked by a tentative painter, whose own thoughts may be fairly vague to himself, and whose work has cost him little. But in the case of Mr. Watts, whose art is the mature and grave expression of a noble intellect, and the fruit of long labours of mind and hand, the appeal implies more than modesty-a rare humility. It is as though a Coriolanus stood in the market-place suing for the plebeian voices, and showing the wounds of a great career, not with the scorn of Volumnia's son, but with a serious respect for the men and womnen at whose sympathies he aimed. No merely proud or merely ambitious mind could take a position so sincere, and at once so lofty and so self-effacing. Free from pride, our great English painter has shown himself free also from that smaller weakness of vanity which affects even the largest minds. Mr. Watts has refused the official honours offered to him (the baronetcy proffered at the same time as Sir John Millais'), and of popular contemporary honours he has had little enough. It can hardly be doubted that the future will give his memory the meed of an educated admiration and a gratitude oftener awarded to the memory than to the man. 7. (From a Photograph by Messrs. Elliott and Fry.) WILLIAM POWELL FRITH, R.A. O tell the tale shortly of a long life-journey, early stages cannot be dwelt on when, as in this case, midway and onward the road is crowded with points of interest, constituting the landmarks of the professional career. Hence, having said that Mr. Frith was born at Studley Royal in 1819, that he received his earliest art education at the establishment (immortalised by Thackeray) of Mr. Sass, of Bloomsbury, entered as a student at the Royal Academy in 1837, and exhibited his first picture there in 1840 (" Malvolio before Olivia ")-hung, by the way, at the very top of the architectural room-we must push on to the first notable milestone. This was reached in 1845 by the young painter in a succession of ever-increasing strides, through the domains of Shakespeare, Sterne, Scott, the " Spectator," Moliere, and Goldsmith; his illustration of " The Village Pastor," from the "Deserted Village," securing him his associateship in the WILLIAM POWELL FRITH, R.A. 14 5 November of that year. Halting, and looking back for a moment hereabouts, we find an incident occurring in 1842 which deserves record, as indicating the change of the times. Charles Dickens commissioned the artist to paint him pictures of "Dolly Varden" and "Kate Nickleby," at the price of ~20 apiece; and when, after the great author's death, his relics were scattered by Christie's hammer, "Dolly Varden" was sold for over ~1,000. This "Dolly," however, is not the "Dolly Varden" of the Forster collection, now at South Kensington; that was bought by Mr. Frank Stone, R.A., of his rising young brother of the brush for ~15, and presented to the eminent biographer, who treasured it highly. An augury of the Academic honours awaiting him was received by Mr. Frith in the May of 1845, whilst "The Village Pastor" was exhibiting, by the picture gaining for him the Liverpool ~50 prize, a prize unfortunately since discontinued. The following year he still further justified his election by "An English Merry-making a Hundred Years Ago." This, and its companion, "1Coming of Age in the Olden Time" (exhibited in 1849), show, from the wide popularity they have received through the engravings, how firmly established our painter's reputation was at this period. Mention, too, must not be omitted of the intermediate picture in 1848, for it is seldom that such a dramatic subject from the byways of history offers itself to a painter of Mr. Frith's kind of ability. Its exact title escapes us, but the scene represents a country court of justice in the time of James I. An old woman is accused of witchcraft by the mother of the girl said to be bewitched, who cowers before the gaze that is turned upon her, whilst in the background stands the young swain, the real agent in the bewitchment. Industriously painted, and with all details and accessories wrought out with the utmost care, it can be easily understood that this was a remarkable work. "A Scene from 'IDon Quixote,' " and another from "The Good-natured Man," now in the Sheepshanks collection, bear the date of 1850;1"Hogarth Arrested as a Spy at Calais," that of 1851; and " Pope Making Love to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu," and "Bed Time," that of 1852. Again looking back at the amount and quality of the work turned off from Mr. Frith's easel since 1845, it is not wonderful to find the full honours of the Academy bestowed upon him in 1853, notwithstanding the absence of his name from the catalogue of that season. That he was not then an exhibitor is due to the fact that he was solely engaged upon the picture which was to carry his name to the corners of the world. "Ramsgate Sands " burst upon the public in 1854, and immediately found a purchaser in the Queen; it did not, however, pass into Royal hands direct from the Academy walls. Through some caprice on the part of several gentlemen who were anxious about this time to possess a work by Mr. Frith, and to whom he gave the refusal of this one, they did refuse it, and he sold it finally to Mr. James Lloyd, the dealer from whom Her Majesty obtained it; yes, and obtained it for the price paid to Mr. Frith, with the understanding that it should not be delivered for three years, in order that it might be engraved, Mr. Lloyd making his profit out of the copyright. This he sold to the Council of the 48 146 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. Art Union of London, who placed the picture in the hands of Mr. Sharpe, the engraver, whose reproducbion of it was for many years extremely popular. Naturally, after this effort, the painter's contributions for a year or two were comparatively unimportant. Resting upon what he had done, and girding himself up for another stride, he was hardly prominent again until 1858. But here he reached a milestone on his journey not readily to be forgotten. To mention "The Derby Day" is to mention at once, perhaps, one of the most universally popular pictures ever painted; so universally known is it, that any additional comment here, where space is limited, would be superfluous. A pause once more was to be expected after this triumph, but a portrait of Charles Dickens in his study, taken whilst he was writing the "Tale of Two Cities "-now in the Forster Gallery, South Kensington-was the small but highly interesting contribution of 1859, whilst " Claude Duval" (an engraving from which is given) the following year showed that our artist did not mean to abandon his old love of a period of costume more picturesque than our own. The last-named subject is a very happy one, combining, as it does, possibilities of grace and humour with sufficient dramatic quality. Claude Duval, the ideal highwayman, having, with his merry men, captured the carriage and suite of a lovely lady, with the lady herself, offered her free passage if she would dance a minuet with him then and there, which she did. Mr. Frith has mixed fear and fun prettily in the lady's face as she goes through her steps decorously, with her eyes on her grim but graceful partner. Her companion has fainted in the carriage, at the further window of which another masked robber keeps guard. Another of the gang has his pistol at the coachman's head, and the scene is generally one of terror; but the robber and the lady dance on. The reputation, however, which the "Derby Day" had won for the painter was too potent, and he was immediately called upon to give us another microcosm of contemporaneous life, which he did in the "Railway Station," exhibited by himself in the Haymarket in 1863, and afterwards engraved. Renown bringing with it, like riches and nobility, its own obligations, Mr. Frith was after this commanded by Her Majesty to paint the "Marriage of the Prince of Wales," and on this large and important work he was occupied till 1865. Feeling galled, perhaps, by the trammels which modern garments and accessories had imposed on him in these last two works, he was impelled to throw them off, and plunging into a more picturesque period, immediately set about the painting which perhaps more than any other embodied all his characteristics in the most favourable light. "1Charles the Second's Last Sunday," exhibited in 1867, may be said to show Mr. Frith at his very best. Passing on now to other works of a like calibre, we can only glance at such intermediate canvases as appear to demand especial attention. One of these was "Dinner at Boswell's Lodgings," containing likenesses of Johnson, Garrick, Reynolds, Goldsmith, &c., exhibited in 1868, which, when it came to the hammer at the sale of the Mendel collection, was knocked down for the extraordinary price of ~4,567, one of the largest sums ever paid for CLAUDE DUVAL. (By kind Permission of the Art Union of London.) 148 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. a work by a living artist, being an advance upon what the painter originally received for it of ~3,067. In 1871 there was a return to modern life, in the " Salon d'Or " at Homburg, a group from which forms the subject of one of our engravings. A summer sojourn at Boulogne resulted, in addition to some small local subjects, in another important graphic presentment of national life and manners. "Blessing Little Children, a Procession in honour of Our Lady of Boulogne," which takes place annually at the French sea-port, offered in 1874 a theme in which the artist found himself thoroughly at home, and in which he fully maintained his pre-eminence. Again, amongst smaller canvases exhibited between this period and later years, two are especially deserving of mention, inasmuch as they display Mr. Frith in the class of subject in which he won his earliest honours. They were respectively a scene from "1The Vicar of Wakefield," and one from Molihre's "L'Amour M6decin." Whatever merits may exist in the various modern schools of art which are daily putting forth claims upon public attention, and however greatly they may differ from that in which Mr. Frith was educated and has worked, it will THE LAST OF "THE ROAD TO RUIN" SERIES. be many a long year, we take it, ere it will be necessary at a public exhibition to protect from admiring crowds by a policeman any specimen of the more austhetic principles. Yet we know that this has been necessary with almost every one of our painter's important pictures, from the "Derby Day" down to the "Road to Ruin." It has been maintained, and with some truth, that it is the finest music which is always the most popular; and some have been found to maintain that the principle may be applied to the sister art. It may also be urged that, however critics may differ as to the class of subjects and phases of life sometimes selected by Mr. Frith, there can be no question that in themes where these objections do not obtain, his merits as a painter are considerable. In conscientious and elaborate completeness in the smallest details, and in an almost unequalled knowledge of the way of bringing a picture with countless figures and incidents together in one harmonious, comprehensive, and complete whole, he is perhaps unsurpassed; whilst the quality and method of his painting, from the point of view of his own peculiar school, are as near a certain kind of poerfection as can be. Full recognition, we are happy to know, of these facts is not confined to his own country and to the crowds that have, season after season, made it a difficulty even to get within sight of his WILLIAM POWELL FRITHI, R.A. 149 notable pictures. Wherever these have been exhibited-in Paris, in Vienna, in Brussels, in Philadelphia-they have procured for him but one result, and were it the fashion for Englishmen to display their decorations, his broad chest would be all too narrow to afford space for the crosses, medals, and ribbons which have been bestowed upon him in recognition of the peaceful victories he has won; to say notming of his having been created a member of four or five foreign Academies. With such results before us we give an anecdote which Mr. Frith tells of IN THE SALON D 'OR. (By kind Permission of Messrs. Henry Graves and Co.) himself, with all the quiet, sarcastic, but good-natured humour which distinguishes him; begging leave at the same time to demur entirely from his own final comment. Here it is:" When my father brought me to London, a boy of sixteen, hlie brought also a folio of chalk and pencil drawings, copies of engravings, and showed them to Chalon, R.A., who thereupon advised that I shoald be an artist (if his opinion had b'een adverse I was to be an auctioneer); and I was accordingly made one. Many years afterwards, when I was myself R.A., I tried to recall this incident to Chalon, but he had totally forgotten it. I then showed him the drawings, and he exclaimed, 'You don't mean to say that I advised you should be made an artist after seeing 150 THIE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. those things only!' ' You most certainly did,' said I. 'Then I was very wrong,' said he, 'for they contain nothing that would warrant my doing so;' and he was right." We say we demur to this, for those drawings of a certainty must have contained visible germs of the latent ability which, through steady perseverance, determination, and untiring energy, has led to a success the popularity of which is remarkable even in the history of British art. Mr. Frith, triumphant when the century was in middle life, has had some hard criticism since it has become old. Mr. Ruskin, for instance, who has never, as far as we know, had any fault to find with his methods, has been severe as to his subjects. Consulted in 1880 as to the best choice to be made of pictures for the Leicester Art Gallery, he replied:'" What use is there in my telling you what to do? The mob will not let you do it. It is fatally true that no one nowadays can appreciate pictures by the old masters, and that every one can understand Frith's 'Derby Day '-that is to say, everybody is interested in jockeys, harlots, mountebanks, and men about town, but nobody in saints, heroes, kings, or wise men, either from the east or west." Nevertheless, when, in 1878, Mr. Whistler brought his action against Ruskin for libelling him as an artist whose " ill-educated conceit nearly approached the aspect of wilful imposture," and as a coxcomb who had had the "cockney impudence" to "ask two hundred guineas for throwing his paint-pot in the face of the public," Mr. Frith was a witness on the defendant's side. He was there much against his will, having refused once and then been subpcenaed for the defence. Artistically speaking, his presence there was an absurdity; the opinion of a Frith on a Whistler was a foregone conclusion. The art of the two men is so entirely a different art that the opinion of the one as to the achievement of the other is not in any sense the opinion of an expert. Asked whether Mr. Whistler's pictures were in his opinion works of art, he replied, " I should say not." The following dialogue then took place:-" Take the' INocturne in black and gold,' representing the fireworks at Cremorne; is that a serious work of art? "-" Not to me." "Take the two others?"-" There is a beautiful tone of colour in the picture of Old Battersea Bridge, but the colour does iot represent any more than you could geot from a bit of wall-paper or silk. I should say exactly the same in regard to the other picture. I have heard it described as a good representation of moonlight; but it does not convey that impression to me. The' Nocturne in black and gold' is not, in my opinion, worth ~200. I have seen pictures without extreme finish which were extremely fine." "Are composition and detail important elements in the merit of a picture? "-" Very, and without them a picture cannot be called a work of art." "You attend here very much against your own will? "-" Yes, it is a very painful thing to be called on to give evidence against a brother-artist." Cross-examined by Mr. Serjeant Parry, Mr. Frith said: " I think Mr. Whistler has very great power as an artist; but in these things I do not see it displayed." "Do you agree that he has unrivalled atmospheric power? "-" No." " I suppose, in your profession, men may honestly differ as to the merits of a picture? "--" Yes; WILLIAM POWELL FRI1TH, I.A. 151 that constantly happens." " Have you read Mr. Ruskin's works? "-1" Yes." " We know that Turner is an idol of Mr. Ruskin? "-" I think he should be an idol of all painters." "Have you seen Turner's picture of the Snow-storm? "-" Yes." "Do you know that a critic described that picture as 'a mass of soapsuds and whitewash'?,"-"Yes; and I think it very likely that I should call it so myself. When I say that Turner should be the idol of painters I refer to his earlier works, and not to the period when he was half crazy, and produced works about as insane as the people who admire them. I have heard Turner himself speak of some of his productions as nothing better than salad and mustard." This little bit of cross-examination is worth putting on permanent record for its allusions to Ruskin and Turner, including the very notable anecdote with which it closes. The names of Ruskin, Whistler, and Frith represent the extremities of an equilateral triangle, for each one is as far distant from the one as from the other of the two remaining. So various are the theories inspired by art, which has many various crowns to offer. And no one has worn his crown with more effect, pleasure, and profit, than the painter of the "tRailway Station" in his day and hour. JEAN FRANQOIS MILLET. HE great genius and noble personality of Jean Frangois Millet are united to a story of simplicity, Christian poverty, and bitter privation which makes a strange appearance among the comfortable and prosperous little biographies of the "modern school of art." The genius of Millet is to be reverenced in his work; his personality is one of the sincerest and most uncorrupt in all human history. As to his biography, a few words will tell it. He was born, in 1814, at Gruchy, in the department of the Manche. Peasants as were his parents and his kin, they were no ordinary peasants. His uncle, to whom the artist's early training was confided, was a lowly-born priest, who, after his early mass in the village church, was wont to doff his soutane and go to a day of field labour; a man of mind and of giant physical strength, as the work he did in the soul of his nephew, and the wall which he built single-handed to prop a piece of falling land, bear witness. From him Jean Francois learnt &11 he knew-love of God, love of Nature, Virgil, and the Scriptures. When in after years the painter went back to the church at Gruchy, he found his old tutor praying alone before the altar. The priest asked him did he still remember his Bible. " I get from it all I do," he answered. "And you used to love Virgil." " I love him still." Nor was Millet's father a common peasant, for he quickly saw his son's power, and encouraged him to take as his profession that calling of art which is not familiar to common peasants in any country. His childhood was passed in the austerity, self-denial, affection, and prayers of a home of family love and labour. After a short study of art at Cherbourg, he went to Paris, and had a hard time as a timid JEAN FRANCOIS MILLET. 153 but severe painter, disliked for his originality, his nature, his disapproval of all the trivialities, whether learned or frivolous or romantic. Failure and discouragement were his constant companions. As a young student in Paris, as a husband and father painting for bread in the village of Barbizon, he knew not only hardship, but hunger and want. But in the cruellest years he kept his exalted heart. " Oh, how I wish I could make those who see my work feel the splendours and terrors of the night! One ought to be able to make people hear the songs, the silences, the murmurs of the air." After years of keen o and constant suffering and humiliation at the hands of men, which lsn seemied only to bring him nearer to Divine things, Millet put himself out of danger of hunger, in 1860, by making a contract with MILLET8S HOUSE AT BARBIZON. a picture-dealer, who was to take all his work for ~480 a year for three years. With an undisturbed mind he did his noblest work Tunder the pressure of a kind TIlE IIOTJSE WHiERE MILLET WAS HOHA GRUIJOY. of slavery, which a less noble spirit would have found intolerable. He lived to see his name illustrious, and his pictures contended for at enormous prices; but Poverty took care of her child, for lie never benefited by the money given for his work. In some way the dealers had him in their grasp, and le died in 1875, not in want, but having never known riches. He had been made Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1868, and his name had been enthusiastically applauded. The critics had raved about him, bu he had no respect for the critics. If, however, we need not stop to inquire what men like Thdophile Gautier said of him, what he thought of thiem is well worthy of our study. Millet was some three-and-twenty years old when, in 1837, the year of such handiwork as Ary Scheffer's "Le Christ," and the tremendous "Messe des Morts" 49 0 0 z ri JEAN FRANC9OIS MILLET. 155 of Hector Berlioz, he set foot for the first time in Paris. Seen from afar-from the quiet gallery at Cherbourg, where he copied Jordaens and Van Loo, and from the tiny pastoral hamlet on the cliffs of the Hogue, where he had learned to read Virgil, and to plough and sow, and to discern the meanings and essential qualities in Nature-the city had appeared to him as a kind of intellectual El Dorado, "the centre of knowledge and a museum of all great things; " and he was urged towards its splendid and fascinating mysteriousness as by the promptings of a familiar spirit. His first impressions-of loneliness, terror, hatred, disappointment-were moving enough. To him, fresh from green Norman uplands and the patriarchal simplicity of Gruchy, the flagrant cynicism of the Paris that was Balzac's seemed hideous and abominable. He was bewildered by the tumult and the teeming life: he was affronted by the multitudinous immodesty; the dirt, the noise, the flowing kennels, the squalid lodgings, the pictures in the shop windows-naked lithographs by Achille and Eugene Deveria, the elegant brutalities of Gavarni, the melancholy blackguardisms of Travies-were alike unnatural and repulsive; and it was only after much home-sickness and internal debate that he could bring himself to remain. It was not that he doubted of himself, or that he had any fear of failure as a painter. At no moment in his career did it ever occur to him that self-confidence might possibly be pushed too far, or that what he had to say might, after all, be not worth saying. His aversion was purely moral; his trouble was composed of equal parts of amazement and disgust. He was a solemn and earnest young bumpkin, reared upon the Bible and Virgil and the writers of Port-Royal; and of a sudden he found himself struggling for consciousness and life in the foul ocean of Parisian existence-plunged to the neck in the mud-bath that has "Rolla" for its epic and the " Comedie Humaine" for its universal history. It is hardly too much to say that he would not have been Millet, and that he would never have painted the "Angelus" and the " Semeur," had his loathing been less, and his terrors lighter, than they were. Young as he was, he had already thought out a theory of art. " Je suis arrive h Paris," he says, " avec des idees toutes faites, et je n'ai pas jug e a propos de les modifier depuis." He had a message of his own to deliver, in fact; and we do not doubt that, little as he knew, and much as he had to learn-he had never taken brush in hand-he was in some sort resolved upon the manner of his utterance, as he was upon the matter. Had he alighted in Raphael's Rome or Buonarroti's Florence, we suspect that the spirit of his prelections would have remained unchanged, and that he would have appropriated no more of the methods he could see and study about him than would serve to educate and perfectly develop ideas of technical expression that were already years old, and had been keeping abreast in growth with the artist's growing consciousness of capacity and with his increasing knowledge of the function of art and of the nature and terms of the announcement he had come to make. As it was, his bourne was the Paris of Romanticism, and had for its most popular masters, not Ingres and Delacroix-the one the Wellington of line, 156 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. the other the Napoleon of colour-but Louis Boulanger, the prince of painters according to Hugo, and the two Deverias, and Paul Delaroche, the Shakespeare of Philistinism, the accomplished Robert-Fleury and the sentimental Ary Scheffer, with Schuetz and Leopold Robert, and the improvisatore of forms and aspects, Horace Vernet. Now Romanticism is of all theories of vasthetics the one that may most aptly and readily be burdened with the reproach of theatricality. The expression of a furious reaction against the stupid pedantry that had been since Malherbe a governing influence in intellectual France, and against the systematic perversion of those eternal rules in obedience to which so much of what is best and noblest in French art had been achieved, it was, to begin with, an effect of imitation, and of imitation concerning itself not with essentials, but only with externals, and with externals imperfectly seen and still more imperfectly understood. Affectation flourished; and veracity, grown equally noisome with the principles of classic art, was abandoned to academicians and curates. The movement was an irresistible opportunity of melodrama; and its heroes-as if inspired by the example of Frederick and Dorval, and of Rachel and Bocage, who were making the stage of France the most illustrious and commanding in the world-were histrionic almost to a man. They were quite sincere in their impersonations; but it was as actors are sincere, and as actors who do not quite understand the words of their parts. In these they were but letterperfect at the best; but they played them till they believed in them and in themselves. Pathos, humour, dignity, terror, sublimity, simplicity-all was artificial. Phoebus and his girls inhabited a Parnassus contrived upon the pattern of Abbotsford. It was an epoch of pose, the Golden Age of the tableau, a splendid and sonorous apotheosis of mimicry. The Virgin Justice did indeed return, and among the blessings she brought in her train were Didier's honour and the renovated maidenhood of Marion Delorme-were the erotic falsehoods of Camille de Maupin and the random cynicisms of Mardoche, the Byronics of the " Symphonie Fantastique" and the cheap terrors of the " Ronde du Sabbat," the lackadaisical prurience of Scheffer and the unnatural ineptitudes of Petrus Borel: with the virtue of Leila, and the passion of Antony, and the humour of Robert Macaire, and the Shakespearean quality of " Cromwell " and " Hernani." Everybody was Gothic, fatal, terrible, contemptuous alike of destiny and the classic in art. They adored the grotesque; they garbed themselves in wild waistcoats of crimson satin and majestic Spanish cloaks, and the hat of the free and independent brigand; they partook of ice-cream from skulls, they made their pastime of horrors and medieval oaths, they took a decent pride in singing choruses unfit for print; they refrained enthusiastically from barbering and the theory of virtue, and went about in a glory of hair and imposing adjectives. In imagination they revelled in crime, and as artists they shrank from nothing. They liked to think of and picture themselves as practical desperadoes of the most relentless type:-as tigers in revenge, as hymenas in craftiness and subtlety, as Lucifers in pride and fearlessness and force of will, JEAN FRANCOIS MILLET. 157 as lions in luxury and in love. They wooed their mistresses-in print at least -with threats and truculent imprecations:-" Par la mort, madame," "Par l'enfer," "Par le sang"-and so forth; they went armed against husbands, and " LE DEfPART POUR LE TRAVAIL." were amorous of discovery and the duello; in their raptures they were truculent, savage, formidable " Quel plaisir de tordre Nos bras amoureux, Et puis de nous mordre, En hurlant tous deux!" runs the parody; and the parody is by no means extravagant. All was excess, confusion, mediavalism, immorality, revolt, Toledo blades, and universal boyishness. 158 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. Art became another word for individual caprice; tragedy, a question of subject; extravagance, a substitute for imagination; passion, an excuse for indecency. In all quarters at once " the word it was bilbo; " and Shakespeare, Byron, Scott, Schiller, Goethe, and Calderon were quoted in defence of all that is abnormal, and brought forward as exampling everything horrible. Delaroche, the mildest of men and talents, painted nothing but death-beds, scaffolds, and murders; Delacroix exulted in plagues and massacres and combats; Preault, the Chamfort of the movement, produced a "Tuerie" in bas-relief; Berlioz has become immortal as the musician of orgies and sabbaths, and of the presences of Pandemonium and the abyss; the first fifty-six years of Victor Hugo might have been described as six-andfifty years of violent melodrama; Gautier persistently mistook offensiveness for creation; Dumas, the most boyish of men, has dramatised every crime in the calendar; for a quarter of a century George Sand and impropriety were convertible terms. It was as though every one had resolved to descend, as Baudelaire has it, " au fond de l'inconnu pour trouver du nouveau." What is remarkable is that side by side with this preposterous insufficiency of matter there existed incomparable excellences of manner. The Romanticists were boys in years and experience and the capacity of thought; but they were grown men from the first in technical dexterity and the capacity of form. Victor Hugo not only emancipated French verse; he may almost be said to have created it anew. Dumas invented the modern drama, and produced the strongest and best examples yet achieved. Berlioz, the very genius of technical accomplishment, took up instrumental music, as he says, " where Beethoven had laid it down," founded the modern orchestra, and used it so brilliantly and well as to have left his successors-the most and least inventive alike-no choice but imitation. Barye made sculpture a living art once more; Gautier's literary accomplishment, in prose and verse, is almost phenomenal; the style of George Sand was long held to be one of the high-water marks of prose; the black-and-white work of Honore Daumier has never been surpassed; the draughtsmanship and colouring of Eug6ne Delacroix have been compared with Rubens's own. If, as now is evident, in heart and imagination not less than in tact, dignity, measure, and restraint, Romanticism left much to be desired, and was, indeed, conspicuously imperfect, there is no denying that it had the virtue of form in incomparable fulness, and that, in this respect, its teaching and example have gone far to revolutionise the practice of the world. Blessings like those we have enumerated-blessings mainly " de reflet et de reverbtre," as old Mirabeau would have put it-were not at all to Millet's taste. He was out of love with Romanticism almost ere he knew it; for the loudest and most brilliant of its tendencies were naturally antipathetic to him, and he was deaf and blind to the greater number of those burning questions by which the minds of all Romanticists alike, from Hugo and Dumas down to the impassioned Philothbe O'Neddy and the ardent Augustus MacKeat, were most constantly and most vigorously moved. A countryman of Poussin, he had more than Poussin's gravity of temper, ol-h tv tcý 'IV ipk C, N-0 L-i ol 160 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. and more than Poussin's heroism of mind. Ho had been nurtured, as we have said, upon Virgil and the Scriptures, upon Bossuet and Augustine and Jerome, upon Fen'lon and Pascal and Nicole; his kith and kin had all been given to the practice of an earnest Christianity; he had lived long in a pastoral country, at the sea's edge, in close communion with Nature; his mind and imagination were epical and solemn. In a certain sense, too, he was well and widely read, and in all probability he knew a great deal more about the theory and practice of good literature than the hot-blooded young fanatics who fought the battle of "1Hernani," and applauded the sparkling tediousness of "Albertus." At Cherbourg he had passed his time between books and pictures, devouring all the literary matter he could lay hands on, and judging it decisively and surely. He knew Homer and he knew Paul de Kock; he was an adept in Hugo (whom he admired deeply-and discreetly), and in American Cooper; he had discovered Byron, and Shakespeare-whom he idolised -and Walter Scott, the sovereign of romance; he had read " Faust" and Schiller, and Uhland's ballads and Montaigne's essays; he had drunk of Beranger's champagne and the sweet wine of Lamartine, and the attractive poisons of Musset. He was enamoured of the heroic, in art and in life; he held sincerity for a cardinal virtue and affectation for one of the deadly sins; he went so far, in his lusty and simple Catholicism, as not only to avoid the theatre itself, but to opine that no actor could possibly be other than false, and that the society of actors and actresses and the study of the stage were bad for serious art and serious artists alike. To beauty of form he was in some sort indifferent, at all events as compared with greatness of soul. The qualities that affected him in art were the reverse of those most vigorously pursued by the more distinguished of his contemporaries. Mere gracefulness of line and vivacity and charm of colouring, mere gallantry of phrase and brilliancy of expression, appear, whatever the medium, to have had no sort of attraction for him; he cared nothing for the commonplace, and nothing for artifice, for trick, for insignificant and unprofitable dexterity; he was a thousandfold more curious of matter than form, of meaning than expression, of essentials than externals. Poussin, Michel Angelo, Darer, Leonardo-the masters on whom he formed himself, and in the study of whose practice he developed and completed his own unrivalled method-were precisely those to whom the capacity of perfect expression had been least precious as an end and more useful as a means. It was by the familiarity of these incomparable men that he learned to be the Millet we know, and, possessing himself of the only secrets lie coveted, assured himself of victory in the struggle upon which he had entered. They it was who taught him to represent in visible shapes the hidden soul of things; to clothe his imaginings with dignity and give heroic import to the work of his hands; to make mystery apparent and real, and translate the unspeakable into terms that should be understanded of men. How should one to whom all Beethoven has been revealed surrender himself to the worship of Wagner? How should one who has comprehended Shakespeare and J7Eschylus be passionately interested in Rousseau and Chateaubriand, and prefer the vague JEAN FRANQOIS MILLET 161 romance of "Atala" to the superhuman tragedy of the "Oresteia," or the enervating eloquence of the "Nouvelle HI'loise "t o the tremendous griefs and terrors of "Lear"? Millet, with that in him that passeth show, went on his own way from the outset, and left the braveries and gallantries of Romanticism to whomsoever they might please. He liked them as little as he liked the horseplay at the Chaumi6re, or the pierrots and debardeurs he may have seen at Musard's balls. It must be owned that the Romanticists repaid him in kind. He lived to become the most romantic of modern painters, and to do work in which the quality is felt at once legendary and heroic. But the romance was not that of "IRuy Blas" and the " Francesca da Rimini;" it avoided the Injured Husband and took no account of the Toledo blade; the professional Romanticists were unaware of its existence. Perhaps the bitterest and narrowest of the artist's many c-itics -bitter and narrow as they inclined to be-were Thdophile Gautier, a "vaillant do dix-huit cent trente," and Paul de Saint-Victor, a Romanticist of a later date and a more dubious type. They mistook him for a realist, and they handled him as Jeffrey handled Wordsworth: as arrogantly as they could, that is to say, and with a want of understanding as complete as prejudice and vanity could make it. This was long years after. For the moment Millet was new to Paris, and was behaving in a way that goes far to justify the nickname of "the Wild Man of the Woods" that was presently to be bestowed upon him by his comrades in Delaroche's studio. He was suspicious and shy enough to refuse assistance from the first of those to whom he presented the letters of introduction with which he had been equipped at Cherbourg; because, if you please, the chance was saddled with conditions as to his incomings and outgoings, which he did not feel at liberty to accept. In much the same spirit he betook himself to the house of another of his consignees, who was an expert at one of the museums. The good man received him kindly, was greatly taken with his work, and promised him introductions to all sorts of painters, and a place in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts; but Millet was afraid of schools and rules, and the baffled expert saw him no more. And in a similar humour of distrust did he endeavour to achieve the consummation of one of his dearest wishes. For the moment he thought little of work or cheerful lodgings. What he really lived for was to see the Old Masters in the Louvre; and every morning he went in search of them, not daring to ask his way to the museum for fear of looking a fool, and hoping always that he might come upon it by chance. This, in fact, he did-from the Pont-Neuf; and he hurried up the great staircase "Iavec les battements de coeur et la precipitation de quelqu'un qui atteint un grand but." He found himself in a place "oft tout ce quo je regardais m'apparaissait comme Ia rdalit6 do mues roves." And thereafter he spent a whole month with the immortals; studying, pondering, analysing; living the life of their creations, suffering in their griefs, joying with their joys, dreaming himself into their dreams. Save for them, he was utterly alone; and there were moments when home-sickness came upon him so mightily that he often half-made up his mind to take the road for Gruchy, 50 162 THJE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. and tramp the whole way back again. But the Old Masters had taken possession of him. He went to them, and they consoled him; and at night he forgot his troubles in thinking of their works and ways. His impressions, albeit imaginatively expressed, are singularly precise and luminous. For Boucher and Watteau, whom he was afterwards to imitate for bread, he cared nothing. Boucher "n'dtait qu'un entraineur;" his nymphs and goddesses were "de petites creatures deshabillees; " THE SAWYERS. (By Permission of Constantine lonides, Esq.) to admire them was impossible-with their "jambes fluettes, leurs pieds meurtris dans le soulier h talon, leur taille amincie dans le corset, leurs mains inutiles, leurs gorges exsangues." He forgot them in the contemplation of the burly and glowing beauties of Rubens, or the worship of the antique Diana: "si belle, si noble, et de la plus haute distinction de formes." As for Watteau, "c'etait un petit monde de thbatre, qui me peinait. J'y voyais le charme de la palette, et la finesse de l'expres. sion, et jusqu'h la melancolie de ces bonshommes de coulisses condamnes a rire. Cependant les marionettes me revenaient sans cesse & l'esprit, et je me disais que toute cette petite troupe allait rentrer dans une boite apres le spectacle, et y pleurer sa destin6e." As may be seen by this delicate and suggestive criticism, Millet JEAN FRANQOIS MILLET. 163 GATHERING BEANS. (In the Morgan Collection, New York.) was enamoured of other qualities than grace and fantasy and charm. What he sought was sincerity, was strength, was what is large and liberal and majestic. 164 THEE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. He could see in Lesueur, "the Jansenist of painting," "une des grandes Ames de notre cole;" and the great Italians possessed him with their beauty and their skill. He liked Velasquez only as a craftsman; he admired Murillo in his portraits; he found much to consider in Ribera. Of Rembrandt, whom he did not know till afterwards, he speaks as a higher essence, a being supernatural and august. "Il ne me repoussait pas, mais m'aveuglait," he says; "je pensais qu'il fallait faire des stations avant d'entrer dans le genie de cet homme." Scarce less authoritative and exact is his description of the Pre-Raphaelites-of Angelico and Mantegna and Lippo Lippi. They affected him profoundly from the first; he would look at Mantegna's " Saint Sebastian " till he felt himself bleeding and shot full of arrows; and while he lived he retained his reverence for them and his first impressions of their handiwork, with its passion, its simplicity, its inexhaustible humanity, its poignant and unalterable sincerity. First and last, however, the gods of his idolatry were Poussin and Michel Angelo. He studied them incessantly, 'reading and rereading all they had written, getting by heart all they had produced, making their precept and example the basis of his accomplishment. To him Poussin, "sans cesser d'etre le metteur-en-scene le plus eloquent," was " le prophete, le sage, et le philosophe " of the French school; and he adds, enthusiastically, that he could spend his whole life before Poussin's work without ever having too much of it. For Michel Angelo-" celui qui me hanta si fortement toute ma vie," as he describes him-his reverence was still greater, his admiration still more intelligent and impassioned The sight of one of that Titanic master's drawings-of a man in swoon-affected him much as Berlioz was affected by the "Iphigenie en Tauride," or the immortal "Moonlight" Sonata. " The expression," he writes of it, "of the unstrung muscles the planes and modelling of the body oppressed by physical torture, gave me sensation after sensation. I was anguished, I pitied, I suffered with that very frame and in those very limbs. I saw that he who had done thus much might embody in a single figure all the good and evil of humanity." Read in the light of Millet's own work, this last sentence is curiously significant. It was his to do for a class what he felt the great Florentine might do for the race. His landscapes and his effects of weather are typical and eternal; his figures are legendary and heroic. His Sower strides afield with "the port and gesture of the First Husbandman." His Shepherd, in " Le Berger au Pare," lifts his crook in the mysterious moonlight with a gesture that assumes all human authority. Beside the patriarchs and heroes of the Louvre the moderns in the Luxembourg cut but a poor figure. With Millet, as with Thackeray, Delacroix-the Berlioz of painting as Berlioz is the Delacroix of music-alone found favour among them. A great intelligence, a great draughtsman, a great colourist, a great inventor, inspiring himself from Rubens on the one hand and from Constable on the other, he had been for fifteen years the most renowned and daring captain in all the Romantic host. He had stepped at once into the command left vacant by the death of G6ricault; he had painted the "Bataille de Nancy," the " Hamlet," the " R6volution de Juillet," JEAN FRA NQOIS MILLET. 165 the "1Massacre de Scio," the "Marino Faliero;" hlie had produced, in the "Faust" lithographs a work which had won from Goethe himself the confession that in certain scenes himself had seen less clearly and imagined less vividly than his illustrator. Nourishing himself upon Byron, Scott, Shakespeare, the greater Germans, he had found for the spirit of Romanticism at its highest and clearest an expression so vigorous and commanding as to secure him a place among the princes of modern painting. Chief among his pictures in the Luxembourg was that illustration of Dante-the famous "Barque du Dante "-with which hlie had broken ground as a painter. It is of Virgil and the Florentine embarked with Charon-the "vecchio bianco per antico pelo "-and passing Acheron, the mournful river, among the afflicted and desperate spirits of the damned; and in energy and daring, in vigour of design and imaginativeness of colouring, in abundance of invention and variety and truth of gesture, it remains among the masterpieces of modern art. Millet saw it, and others with it; hlie found them " grands par les gestes, grands par l'invention et la richesse du coloris; " and he always loved and studied their author as he deserved. Years afterwards, indeed, hlie is found making special journeys from Barbizon to Paris to attend the Delacroix sale, and, albeit in the direst poverty, devoting some hundreds of francs to the purchase of certain of the master's drawings. For the master's rivals in the Luxembourg he felt then and always little but indifference or disdain. They were popular all over Europe, but he could discover nothing in their work but "figures de cire, costumes de convention, et une fadeur repoussante dans l'invention et l'expression." The master-works of Delaroche, " Les Enfants d'Edouard," and the picture of the dying Elizabeth, seemed no more than " de grandes vignettes," or at best " des effets de theatre," not forgetting "'la pose et la mise-en-scene." Of Louis Boulanger, the author ot the " Mazeppa " and the " IRonde du Sabbat;" of Achille Deveria, who for a day or two was supposed to have more genius and more art than Delacroix; of Ary Scheffer, the painter of "Faust et Marguerite" and "Francesca da Rimini" and "Les Femmes Souliotes "-the austere young critic says nothing positive and conclusive. We imagine these and others to be included in the condemnation we quoted above of a whole body of painters who had nothing to show for their renown but conventional costumes and waxwork figures, and "une fadeur repoussante" in conception and execution. They were not the men for him. He might have painted his "Starting for Work" for no other reason than to show how utterly he disapproved of their theory of art, and how remote from them and their work-in sentiment, in ambition, in ideal-he was. He liked them ill enough at three-andtwenty; for he concludes his confession of faith by declaring that they it was, and not Bocage and Fred6ric, not "Antony" and the "Tour de Nesle," that made him contemn the stage and mistrust and disparage the actor. (From a Photograph by the Imperial Photographic Company.) JOHN PETTIE, R.A. NOTABLE addition to the number of painters' residences is that of Mr. S Pettie, as described by an observant visitor a few seasons ago. It stands in Fitzjohn's Avenue, that long steep street in South Hampstead which disputes with Melbury Road the honour of being the favourite artistic l haunt. It is just a square red-brick house, that promises to give you good S square rooms, much light and air, although containing none of those curious nooks and angles, so dear to artists of a certain school, so capable of picturesque effects, which are the nineteenth-century development of Queen Anne architecture. This house is really a correct specimen of the Queen Anne period, the othier style being a combination of Elizabethan and Queen Anne. JOHN PETTIE, R.A. 167 There is a certain meagreness about the flat pilasters that form the only attempt at decoration of its front; but these fluted pilasters are perhaps a favourite mode of ornamentation with Mr. Pettie or his architect. At least, we find them frequently repeated inside the house, with better effect, however, than on its exterior. Mounting the steps and entering the square portico, within which is the front door, a suspicion strikes us that this house may have, after all, other than a commonplace tenant, for the sides of the portico are decorated with a dado of stamped Spanish leather-a decorative idea that probably would have occurred only to an artist. It is evident that Mr. Pettie loves light, and admits into his house as much of it as he can get in this dark city of ours. Not only is half of the hall-door of glass stained in light tints, but it is flanked on each side by windows also filled in with faintly-tinted glass, so that a full undimmed light streams into the narrow entrance-hall that leads direct into the studio, and is shut off from the two sides of the house by massive doors. This entrance-hall is paved with small mosaic after the Italian fashion: the colours are cool and low, the pattern is a graceful but unobtrusive arabesque. The walls-divided into panels by raised mouldingsare tinted a light colour, the ceiling is white and decorated in panel. On the walls hang photographs from some of Mr. Pettie's portraits of contemporaries. A couple of miserere seats take the place of hall-chairs; the lamp is a brazen copy of an old lantern; a curtain looped up at the end gives the only touch of warm colour. On each side of this stand busts, by Mr. Lawson, of Mrs. Pettie and one of her sons. It admits into a small ante-room lighted by a circular skylight, whose wooden panelling repeats the pilaster decoration of the front; and herefrom a heavy door, stained a deep dark colour, relieved by mosaic brass handles of the long Continental pattern, admits to the studio. This is a room fifty feet long by thirty wide, and high in proportion, very light, of which the first effect is rather bald. Mr. Pettie is proud of it as a good work-room, and this undoubtedly it must be, while for happy and scientific arrangement of light it probably has not its rival in London. It is evident the artist is no lover of artistic litter; as are his pictures, solid and serious, so is his house. A wooden dado runs round the room, whence spring forth at intervals the fluted wooden pilasters of the exterior. A large window, facing the north, lets in a flood of light, regulated by a blind pulling up from the ground. A heavy curtain of a rich dark brown hangs beside this window, and can be drawn around in the form of a deep semicircle, thus leaving a cosy niche behind its folds. Here stand a comfortable-cushioned sofa, and a small table bearing Havana cigars. That Mr. Pettie is a great smoker there are many indications in his workshop. From this point we can best survey the room, and towards this spot naturally all the easels look that are disposed, apparently at random, about the large square space. The floor is of dark inlaid polished wood, with here and there an Eastern rug spread to break its monotony of chill surface. Immediately opposite the window is the fireplace, also of wood, simple and dignified in design, enclosing an Abbotsford stove 168 TItE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. flanked on each side by dark red-brown tiles, and surrounded by a low fender of the same material. Above the fireplace, and stretching across nearly the whole side of the wall, is a fine piece of ancient Flemish tapestry, designed, it is said, by Rubens, representing the triumph of Antony and Cleopatra. Beside the fireplace, on either side, is a pile of quaint and rusty weapons-ancient muskets, carbines, blunderbusses, halberts, broadswords, pikes, lances, and what-not else of implements of older warfare. Indeed, that arms and armour have an attraction for Mr. Pettie we should learn from his studio did we not know it from his canvases. Upon the chimney-piece, by way of ornament, lie curious old pistols ahd other smaller instruments of murder, flanked on each side by upright brass lamps of that gas whose introduction into our streets has done so much to check the illicit warfare beloved of men in the days Mr. Pettie resuscitates for us with his skilful brush. As chief ornament of the mantelshelf stands a small clay sketch of Sir Frederick Leighton's "Python Slayer," brute animal force being thus contrasted with the implements of human inventiveness. Each side the fireplace stand carved wooden cabinets, surmounted by two complete suits of fine armour, one of the character of that worn about the period of the Commonwealth, the other a demi-suit of the time of Henry VIII. On a table close by lie cross-bows and a shield of the Crusader pattern, doubtless required by some picture momentarily in hand, for a branch of beech still bearing its shrivelled copper-coloured winter leaves is laid across them, suggesting that the arrangement is only a temporary one. Upon the wall that corresponds with the entry-door hang the only pictures that decorate this studio- two from the artist's own brush-the portrait of a lady in eighteenth century costume, and a spirited study of the head of a "1St. John." Between them hangs a dignified full-length of an old noble, dated 1648. Beneath are two curious low Italian intarsia cabinets. Upon these rest-strange incongruity-a couple of Scotch rams' heads; a small model of an early cannon; a silvered copy of Lawson's "Dominie Sampson;" a rather stern head of the artist by the same sculptor; and a few trifles in the way of virth. The studio is lighted by a large sunlight in the roof; and at night by gas from star-shaped burners surrounded by a reflector-after the pattern of the lights in St. James's Hall-and by a movable gas-stand fitted with reflectors. The lay-figure was, when we saw the room, carefully thrust into a dark corner, where its ghastly woodenness was less apparent and obtrusive. Small bookcases, hung on each side the window, contain books chiefly bearing on art, architecture, a(nd history; but we noted no choice works, no eiditions de luxe. It is plain that Mr. Pettie's tastes are directed towards the practical and useful. The studio is divided at about two-thirds of its length by a rich dark crimson velvet curtain; and there is thus formed a second inner studio with an east light. This apartment is more cosy; here sketches stand and lie about; here, too, is the artist's writing-table, and a large comfortable chair stands beside the fireplace, suggesting es, n recreation. Over this fireplace, the saein design st~hat of t~he larger studio, is also stretched a Gobelin, above which hang a couple of JOHNY PETTIE, R.A. 169 broadswords and targets, while from the centre depends a set of pipes. A small staircase leads down into a fair-sized room below, which Mr. Pettie uses as a property-room, thus getting rid of the inevitable artistic lumber, of which the absence is remarkable in his studio. An amusing place it is, with its long racks of clothes, of the most varied characters and periods - the clothes of men and women, cavaliers and roundheads, hangTHE ENTRANCE IIALL. ing together peacefully cheek by jowl. On the walls are pinned rough sketches, little traits of - people or places that will be worked up some day into larger compositions. Retracing our steps through the two studios and the narrow entrancehall, we enter by means of a side-door the inner hall. This is, perhaps, the prettiest and most....~..picturesque bit in the whole dwelling. It is a square space, its height '~t~hat of the house, lighted above the three arches Xl. FEl'S RoUSE-TH STUDIo. figured. in our sketch by 51 170 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. windows of plain glass leaded in arabesque patterns. The low easy stairs are of light-brown unpolished wood, and of the same material is the carved balustrade, harmonising pleasantly with the soft chrome colour of the walls. The ceiling above is of a soft green, while the doors are stained a dark blue-green. The effect of the whole is most reposeful and pleasant. The fireplace is of wood and tiles, massive brass ornaments in the fender furnishing points of light and relief. Some blue-green china on the mantelshelf also contributes its quota of colour, as do the Oriental rugs that lie upon the floor. Above the fireplace stands a spirited terra-cotta, a "Baillie Nicol Jarvie," by Lawson; while round the walls hang etchings, silver-points, and engravings after Millais, Briton Riviere, MacWhirter, and others of the artist's fellow-workmen. They are mostly fine presentation copies, rendered yet more valuable by the donors' autographs. This hall is lighted by a brass lamp of antique pattern. The door figured in our sketch beside the fireplace leads to the regions of the kitchens, while another door facing the staircase gives admission to the dining-room. From the first moment of entering this room it TIHE INNER HALL AND STAIRCASE. strikes us pleasantly, it is so agreeable in colour, richer and deeper in tone than anything we have hitherto seen here. Around the lower part of the walls runs a dado of wood, painted jet-black. The doors, too, are black, their only point of light being their long brass handles. Above the dado the walls are hung with rich Spanish leather, whose golden surface gleams from a frame of ebony, a narrow cornice of black wood below the ceiling repeating the motif of the dado. The ceiling is white and panelled like that of the first hall; the floor is of dark polished inlaid wood; while the massive simplicity of the dark leather furniture maintains the rich subdued character of the room. Upon the sideboard of brown JOHN PETTIE, tR.A. 171 wood are disposed many pieces of blue china, and a few china plates are hung upon the walls. These are, however, chiefly decorated with pictures in oils. Here hang the two bonny portraits of Mr. Pettie's sons, a portrait of his wife by Orchardson, Scotch landscapes by MacWhirter and other friends. A wide window just opposite the doors, and facing Fitzjohn's Avenue, gives light to this room, a THE DINING-ROOM. little subdued by draperies of yellowish-green. The fireplace is of wood, black, as is fitting to match with the walls. It is evident in this room, as indeed throughout the house, that Mr. Pettie, while by no means losing sight of beauty, declines to attain to it at the expense of comfort. Once more crossing the inner hall and opening a door facing its fireplace, we find ourselves in the outer drawing-room, that from which the artist has sketched the inner room beyond. These rooms can be quite closed off from one another, not only by the dead gold-coloured curtains we see, but by substantial 172 12THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. folding-doors. The first room is darker in general effect than the one beyond. It is true the walls are papered in light blue-and-white, one of the pretty chintzlike patterns now so fashionable; but the covering of the furniture is more sombre than that of the room beyond. The fireplace, whose inner portion is tiled with blue-and-white, has an over-mantel that rises in a pointed arch almost to the ceiling. It is of black wood, decorated with intarsia, its surface broken by small brackets bearing china ornaments. In the centre of this wooden arch, which furnishes a handsome frame, hangs a dark oil sketch that at first glimpse looks like an Israels: it is, however, the work of the late Paul Chalmers, R.S.A. In the corners stand triangular intarsia cabinets, repeating the idea of the fireplace. Here, too, is a piano, a cottage one, its front decorated with a worked ornament of pomegranate design. Curtains of rich warm colour flank the window. The room is small and snug, and produces the effect of being much lived in. Not so the room beyond, which, pretty and unconventional as it is, produces rather the effect of the ordinary salon. It is a kind of harmony in creams and gold: these hues, in various shades of treatment, being repeated by walls, ceiling, and decoration. The paper is of a small white-and-yellow chintz design; the ceiling, like that of the first room, is a pale chrome; the doors are painted cream colour; the furniture is chiefly covered with dead gold reps; while the windows are hung with cretonne curtains of a yellow-and-white pattern. There are five windows, three abreast, and one flanking each corner, thus forming a sort of wide window niche, and admitting a mass of daylight. There are spindle-legged chairs more effective to the eye than pleasant to the back; but there are also low-cushioned chairs of modern design and workmanship. Its gem, to our thinking, is the fireplace. It is of white wood picked out with burnished gold in the depths of its carving. The carving is rather Oriental in design, and reminds us of the decoration of some mosque. On the mantelpiece, the over-mantel, and the shelves that flank it, are specimens of Oriental pottery and china, of modern Italian earthenware, vases and tazzas from the potteries of Ginori, Venetian glass from Murano. In two deep niches level with the grate stand slender Oriental jars of peacock blue-green, while a spread peacock's tail forms the hearth-screen. Bric-d-brac and china are also enclosed in a cabinet of good design. But everything, it will be observed, stands in its place, is not strewn about hither and thither, a danger to itself and the spectator, as is,too often the case to-day. Indeed, the room is rather empty than otherwise: there is space to move and to spare, without fear of upsetting or breaking priceless china or furniture. Mr. Pettie's Scotch good sense has stood him in good stead in the arrangement of his house. Plants growing in large blue or brass pots, some standing on the floor, that is covered with a carpet of cool blue colour, give a touch of natural softness to the apartment. A grand piano fills the window niche. Over it is flung a large skin of white and yellow fur, so that in every point the leading hue of the room is respected and repeated. Water-colours decorate the walls; nothing therefore disturbs the general subdued cool, fresh aspect. It is JOHN PETTIE, R.A. 173 lighted at night by gas from brass "VE-W- Ilchandeliers and brackets. In the bookcase we note the complete works of i t e Mr. Pettie's friend and compatriot, the author of " Madcap Violet" and i _ "Macleod of Dare;" also the works "of Scott, Carlyle, Dickens, and Burns. This house, which makes so good t c-j- a dwelling, and is so pleasant in design and execution, was planned by Messrs. Vallace and Flockhart, of Bond Street. John Pettie was born in Edinburgh n 1 in 1839, and began his course of regular art studies at the age of sixteen, in Sthe schools of the Trustees' Academy, under Robert Scott Lauder, R.S.A., and John Ballantyne, R.S.A. Among his fellow-students were William Quiller "r I -Orchardson, Peter Graham, and John h- MacWhirter. Varied and large was the te icapacity possessed by this little knot VIEW INTO THE DRAWING-ROOM. of learners; and it is pleasant to know that the ambition which must have inspired them has, in the case of each one of the four, been crowned with success, and with the honours of the English Academy. Such recognition is as good for ourselves as for our northern compatriots, for the large contingent of Scottish pictures in our annual exhibition contributes a force and vigour that can hardly fail to brace our own artistic temper. The first public appearances of Mr. Pettie were made early in the seven years of his studentship, but were confined to Edinburgh until 1861, when he exhibited his first Royal Academy work, " The Armourers." In the succeeding year he closed his Edinburgh noviciate and followed his picture to London; and not a season has since passed without one or more of his canvases contributing to the principal show ",&&g.'o of the English art-world. The genre of history occupied him for a ".. time; it comprises a rather fascinating family of subjects, in which all the wealth of texture, CABINET IN THE D1AI-ROO 174 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. colour, and picturesque effect of the "costume picture" is united with familiarity of incident, dramatic personality of character, and the quaintness of antiquarian humour. Like many young artists, he began by succumbing to the facile attractions of Cavaliers and Roundheads, but soon passed from the banalitds of those hackneyed personages to something fresher and more individual. "What d'ye lack, Madam? What d'ye lack?" exhibited at Trafalgar Square in 1862, was an amusing piece, JACOBITES, 1745." of historical genre of the fifteenth century, and represents a gay apprentice of a time when London apprentices of spirit were a power in the City, pressing his wares upon the ladies after the manner so vividly described in Scott's "Fortunes of Nigel." "The Trio," a group of medimval itinerant musicians, and "The Tonsure," were also humorous. In 1864 Mr. Pettie produced his first work at once serious in subject and important in size and manner-" George Fox refusing to take the Oath at Holker Hall, A.D. 1663." This was followed in 1865 by "A Drumhead Court Martial," which gained him a considerable increase of reputation. In 1866 his "Arrested for Witchcraft" decided the Academy to elect the young painter to the Associateship. Among his pictures of the following year may be mentioned " Treason," an admirable bit of rich low-toned colour and JOHN PETTIE, R.A. 175 dramatic intensity, in which the conspirators lean plotting across a table. In a few of the artist's later works there is at times no slight touch of melodrama; a little too much emphasis either in the subject or in the execution, with a little defect of sincere impulse, making the subtle difference between the dramatic and the melodramatic. It is this slight though real danger, or rather liability, which has inclined us to consider that Mr. Pettie might do his worthiest work in portraiture. His understanding and realisation seem to be somewhat stronger and more important than his invention; the art, therefore, that gives the former faculties the amplest employment might be considered more appropriately his own. This was somewhat strikingly exhibited in 1877, when his two principal works were "The Threat" and the noble portrait of the Roman Catholic Bishop of Birmingham. There was a certain triviality in the figure of the medimval filibuster, but the portrait was full of the greatest and most sustained and solid power. In equal contrast stand the hardly interesting " State Secret" and the magnificent portrait of Mr. Taylor Whitehead, exhibited at Burlington House in 1878. The latter is one of those rare and essentially immortal works in which the achievement is decisively and definitely unquestionable; it has a comprehensive completeness of easy execution and a flower-like beauty of colour which are hardly to be surpassed in Rubens's greatest portraits. To resume our chronological review of Mr. Pettie's works: in 1867 was also painted " The Doctor; " in 1868 came "Pax Vobiscum," "Tussle with a Highland Smuggler," "Weary with Present Cares and Memory Sad," and "The Rehearsal;" 1869 saw another grave and deliberate historical picture, " The Disgrace of Cardinal Wolsey," and "The Gambler's Victim;" 1870 produced "A Sally," " 'Tis Blythe May-Day," and "Touchstone and Audrey "-the quaint and ungainly lovers of "As You Like It" being especially adapted to Mr. Pettie's love of the drolly-picturesque or sympathetic-grotesque. The other pastoral couple in the same play-Sylvius and Phoebe, who contrast so prettily with the far more realistic rustic pair-made the subject of a picture two years later. In 1871 " The Pedlar," " The Love-Song," and " Scene in the Temple Gardens" appeared, the latter attracting much interest. " The Gipsy's Oak" and " Terms to the Besieged" were the work of 1872. At once painful and grotesque was the motive of the last-named striking composition, which our readers may remember as an advancing group of half-starved men issuing from their dearly-defended walls to offer capitulation and conclude such terms as they shall be able to obtain. If this is comedy, it is comedy of the grimmest kind. "The Flag of Truce," " Sanctuary," and " Midnight Watch" were the pictures of 1873; " Juliet and Friar Lawrence," "A State Secret," and "Ho! ho ho! " of 1874. The following year Mr. Pettie's election to the full membership of the Royal Academy took place; in this, as in the Associateship, he distanced by two years the one of his contemporaries and fellow-students-Mr. Orchardson-whose aims and characteristics accorded most nearly with his own. "Jacobites, 1745," with his 176 THE MODERNl SCHOOL OF ART. diploma picture (now in the Diploma Gallery at Burlington House), and the "Scene in Hal o' the Wynd's Smithy," marked the event of his election. The artist's paintings of 1877 were brilliant. "1Hunted Down" was the single figure-slightly melodramatic, perhaps-of a spent fugitive in a wild mountain glen; the colour, though a little too broken in the carnations, was strong and harmonious. "IA Knight of the Seventeenth Century" was a portrait of the artist's friend, Mr. William Black. Mr. Pettie was, we believe, the originator of the fancy for modern portraits in mediaaval costume which spread so quickly in London a short time ago, and, after a short reign, disappeared as quickly. "A Lady of the Seventeenth Century" was perhaps more successful as a picture, and may be taken as one of the first examples of the artist's brilliant manner adopted of late years; if the "Knight " was almost obtrusively clever in execution, the "Lady" was wonderfully "taking" in its breadth, refinement, brightness, and massiveness, and its indefinable delightfulness of colour and touch. "1A Sword and Dagger Fight" was an admirably-painted bit of wickedness in costume; the two enemies are fighting to the death, and there is a business, a wariness, and thoroughness in their attitudes most excellently rendered. In 1878 were exhibited "Rob Roy" and "The Laird," among others; and in 1879 the artist achieved perhaps the most notable of all his successes. "The Death-Warrant" was one of those dignified groups which have all the character and deliberate individuality, without the uneasiness or ill-disguised artificiality, of portrait groups; the heads were fine and simple in painting, but almost too reserved in expression for a dramatic picture; and this reticence was also remarkable in the face of the boy-king (Edward VI.), who looks away, hesitating in his mournful work. It must, however, be remembered that most of the expressions in these heads are negative expressions, and that to paint a negative is as difficult as to prove one. The statesmen who are seated at the king's council have no emotions stirred by the matter in hand, which is merely a rather graver kind of business to them, and too much interest or vivacity of look would have spoilt the delicacy of the painter's meaning; the young king's eyes wear a look so mixed and reserved that to some persons it seemed to be full of the meaning of the moment, while others did not succeed in finding more in it than a certain rather vacant hesitancy. Mr. Pettie is a master of accessories and texture-painting, a fact on which we have not insisted in view of his higher attainments and of the self-denial and mastery with which he can, when he will, make his wonderful manipulative work efface itself from the spectator's attention. Less important works are " Trout-Fishing" and "The General's Head-Quarters; " but even when Mr. Pettie is not at his brilliant best, he is strongly and strikingly attractive; no cruder colour and no more ignorant touch can stand near his work; his pictures have the peculiar quality of being most killing neighbours in an exhibition. But such killing is of good service; it, must inevitably have the effect of modifying and at last of banishing the cold, raw, grating tones which have so long prevailed on the walls of London galleries. tI2 z r12 52 178 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. In the year of the "Death-Warrant" Mr. Pettie sent a number of fino portraits to the Royal Academy, and in the following season his best work was a portrait group in movement-" Mrs. Dominick Gregg and Children." The lady is in a long black velvet dress, with the full lace at the throat and the flat mob-cap which were worn by young matrons in 1880. She is running forward, her movement being somewhat interrupted by one little girl who clings to her right wrist, while another draws her forward by the left hand, inviting her to a game of battledoro and shuttlecock. The little ones have black stockings and light frocks. The whole TROUT-FISHING AT ARRAN. picture is worked up to a very high point of brilliancy, both in flesh and draperies, and the spiritedness of the composition is very pleasant. With this were exhibited a portrait of Mrs. Fox White, "IBefore the Battle," and His Grace." The latter is of course a costume picture, the time being that of Charles I., or thereabouts; very becoming to the model's long limbs is the fantastically shaped, but simple and distinguished dress. And to the face the artist has given an air of very decided hauteur. Next year appeared the companion picture, "Her Grace," making a pendant to its predecessor, as the "Lady of the Seventeenth Century" made a pendant to the "Knight." "Her Grace" is a most charming youthful lady, with her hair in the shower of curls of that period-long at the sides, short in front, and flowing in the artfully artless manner of which the ladies of Henrietta Maria's court had the secret. The satin of the dress is one of Mr. Pettie's most brilliant bits of JOHN PETTIE, R.A. 179 texture-painting. "Before his Peers" is a single figure, upright, dramatic in expression. Clad in black velvet and wearing his cap, a dignified Peer under accusation stands speaking, with his papers held open, to which he points. The pictures of 1882 were important subjects. In "The Duke of Monmouth's Interview with James II." the effect is very striking. The monarch stands on the right, in an apartment of his palace, with Monmouth on the ground at his feet. The light comes in through blue curtains, with reflections on the polished floor. "The Palmer," though a large and very picturesque canvas, is perhaps less successful. Here Mr. Pettie shows us the interior of an English knight's dwelling in the first centuries after the Conquest. The place has almost all the rudeness and roughness of a hall in a Saxon house before Norman manners were known; the floor is earthen, and the huge fireplace has no decoration in its construction. A fair-haired knight sits back upon a couch of skins, with his wife, in the stately and modest robes of her station and time, upright at his side. Farther off stands the little heir. Opposite to his host and hostess sits the pilgrim, just home from the Holy Land-no Crusader, but a veritable devotee, with the staff and scrip of his long journey. He tells them of his perils by land and sea, stretching out both hands in the energy of narration. The picture is admirably painited, but the conception is rather conventional. The attitude of the little boy, for instance, is precisely the stock attitude of a boy in an English picture-hands behind back, feet apart, head up. It does not show much of that fresh and initiative observation of nature which gives to the simplest attitude and most familiar action an incomparable charm in art. In 1883 Mr. Pettie exhibited "1The Ransom," an old man and his daughter in a cave, at the mercy of bandits; "A Queen's Scholar, Westminster;" and "Dost know this Water-fly? " The latter presents to us that dainty Osric of whom weary Prince Hamlet uses the scornful words, and whom Mr. Pettie has here dressed so exquisitely that we suspect he had almost as much pleasure in designing the clothes as the young Danish courtier could have had in wearing them. See how perfectly the shining satins are cut, with what cunning points and ruffles, and what a triumph is that feathered cap which the Prince could not persuade him to' put to its right use! And it is from that extremely pretty mouth that those nice phrases came about Laertes, and the rapier and dagger. And it is by such a messenger, through the appointment of Shakespeare, that the challenge comes which is the signal for Hamlet's death-for the chance revenge, chance retribution, and chance ending which closes the great tragedy. He was a rash critic, by the way, who once asserted.*that the great dramatists do not bring about their catastrophes through accidents or by means of trivial accessories. For this can hardly be said in view of the use made by Shakespeare of Othello's handkerchief and of this chance~ medley of the close of Hiamlet. In this respect the greatest of all dramatists did hot compose life to suit the theories of art, but gave a stern dignity to the wayward truths of life. And the appearance of the fatal Osric with his summons for h~amlet's soul ftl 0f H JOHN PETTIE, R.A. 181 to vengeance, death, and eternity, is a touch of mortal grotesqueness which is finer than any fair form of art. Soon after came " Charles Surface Sells his Ancestors," a scene from The School for Scandal, and with this was " Challenged." It shows the bed-room of an unlucky young rake who has been in some quarrel over-night, and has forgotten all about it; but his levee is rudely interrupted by the arrival of a cartel. The messenger who has brought it is just disappearing through the door, and the youth satin knee-breeches and his magnificent dressing-gown, leaning against his four-post bed. His action, as he puts his hand to his head, is expressive of nothing more dramatic than a headache. In the same exhibition (1885) Mr. Pettie had the large number, for him, of six pictures. He contributed, besides the above, another School for Scandal subject - " Sir Peter and Lady Teazle Wrangling":Sir Peter. Zounds, madam, you had no taste when you married me. Lady Teazle. Very true, Sir Peter. Others of the artist's pictures were the portraits of Mr. J. G. Orchar, of Mr. Garrett Marten, and of Mr. Bret Harte. In 1886 he had again six works -portraits of Mr. James Ander- " DOST THOU KNOW THIS SATER-FLYT son, of Mr. Ritchie, M.P., and of Mr. Newson Garrett, with two subjects. " The Chieftain's Candlesticks" is a torchlight study of wild Highlanders holding aloft the flamnbeaux of the chief's festivities; and in "The Musician" Mr. Pettie has drawn a composer meditating upon his own speedily coming death:"Alas for those that never sing, But die with all their music in them!i" The reader will recognise the pretty lines that close Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes's 182 TH E MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. poem. But the poet's words had reference not to singers in the literal sense, but to the millions of women who never give articulate expression to the vague aspirations common to womanhood. Dr. Holmes, we all remember, is very sympathetic with women as such, and is evidently inclined to be tolerant of the least forcible feminine literature as a method of relief to the sadness of half the human race. This is decidedly kind on the part of a man of letters so devoted to the literary art. Mr. Pettie seldom takes a subject so suggestive of emotion as is this lastmentioned; or rather the emotions he treats of are as a rule brisk rather than sentimental. But his admirers hold that with a technique so assured and accomplished as his he is free to choose what motive he will, without danger of sacrificing the purely pictorial principle. Yet even in this matter of technique we would not have Mr. Pettie presume too greatly on past achievements and on undoubted successes. Mr. Ruskin, certainly to be ranked among his admirers, has addressed a word of expostulation to his brother Scotchman from time to time. "Now, there's a wrinkle, quite essential to the expression, under the Jacobite's eye, got by a projecting ridge of paint instead of a proper dark line." But, even so, of this picture (" Jacobites, 1745), Mr. Ruskin says-and says as high praise-" It is nearly as good as a piece of old William Hunt." 4N A LOOK AT THIE MODEL. (Drawn by the Artist.) E. J. GREGORY, A.R.A. HE artistic work of one who is among the youngest of the Associates of the Academy is noticeable and delightful not only because Mr. Gregory differs from so many of his brethren by the extent of his achievements, but also because he is peculiarly free from the preoccupations which are wont to limit the efforts and harass the imaginations of cultivated people. We are told, and can well believe, that Mr. Gregory is among the best read men in London-among the most widely read -but if he has read much, at least it has not, like the character in "1Faust," been "dreadfully much." He has not been overpowered. Through neither literature nor society has he submitted himself unduly to influences which are seductive and gentle, but which often end by debilitating. In the last quarter of the, nineteenth century be has bad the extreme courage to see the world with his own eyes. The Art and Letters of the past have given him a cultivation that 184 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. hlie has been strong enough to bear. They have not destroyed his individuality: they have hardly affected it. His forerunners have, indeed, taught him. Now in Italy and now in Holland, he has seen their work with the admiration which no fairly observant person can withhold from the art of Titian or that of Jan Steen. But the poetic realism of the Venetian has left him as free as has the more prosaic fidelity of the Dutchman. Feebler, for we will not say more sensitive, personalities have discovered in Botticelli or Pollajuolo qualities to which they have been obliged to submit. The pupil has declared himself when he has recognised the master. Mr. Gregory, it would seem, is nobody's pupil. The circumstances of Mr., Gregory's early days, his early training, and the nature of his literary education, his first artistic pursuits-all have had the tendency to send or to keep him among modern things, to engage him chiefly in translating into more or less beautiful colour and line an every-day experience and no remote vision. The son of an engineer, and born in a modern seaport town, Southampton, his literary culture gained chiefly for himself, owing nothing to universities and little to Academic men, the delusion has never been encouraged within him that the age in which he exists is an age whose influences it is necessary to avoid, and, accordingly, when another generation than his own takes note of his art and estimates it, it will be found to contain an extraordinarily ample share of the accurate yet really pictorial record of the "very form and pressure" of the time in which it was produced. In it will be the signs of the keen vision-in it is the precise yet beautiful rendering-of much even of what is trivial and accidental in the life of the moment. In so far as it belongs to genre, it belongs to that which is concerned with the things which its creator has actually known. Of genre there are, it may be said, two kinds-historic genre and the genre of the day. Genre can never look forward. It is only theological or so-called "religious" painting that can be concerned with the future. Genre has the choice of looking back to the past or looking to the present. It belongs, therefore-or, upon the surface, seems to belong-to that order of painting which approaches most nearly to the most approved of modern novels. It illustrates daily life. But there is this distinction to remember-that with the main theme of the modern novel, the tracking of the sentiment or of the passion of love, the art of Mr. Gregory hardly deals, and that with Mr. Gregory, or with any painter who works in his spirit, that which is only episode or slighter incident in the novel or the comedy becomes, on the face of it, a main theme. A scene which is a mere link, one link out of many, in the written fiction, becomes, in the painted picture-as in "A Rehearsal" say, or like the flirtation in "Dawn "-presumably the whole subject. But then, again, what distinguishes Mr. Gregory from the feebler or shallower painter of similar things is that such a scene is not at bottom his whole subject. Often his real subject is rather the selected combination of colour, line, and light. The novelist and he may have the same story, but they see it in different ways-treat it for different ends. E. J. GREGORY, A.R.A. 185 The outward aspect, therefore, of the things and persons of the day-and not so much their inner significance-has come to be the material out of which Mr. Gregory weaves his work. But he is drawn, apparently, much more by an unerring instinct, than by a recognised conviction, to the outward aspect of the present instead of to the outward aspect of the past; and it is not too much to say that we may see in him about the highest type of painter who addresses himself to the artistic vision of his time. He does it very likely without a parti pris. He painted St. George and he painted Sir Galahad years ago, and, as his is a personality flexible even to changefulness and instability, it would not astonish us in the least if he painted them again to-morrow. But for the last few years at all events, and probably for most of the years that are to come, Gregory will be found but little devoted to that art which has monopolised the title of "imaginative." Not for him the world of the past-St. George, Sir Galahad, and the Norse pirates of his earlier labours-for a while he has bid them good-bye. In the "Norse Pirates" and one or two kindred subjects, exhibited at the Institute of Painters in Water-Colours a few years since, Mr. Gregory passed, so to say, his needed examinations, took his degree, proved his capacity to do, quite as well as other people, what has been done before, and what will be done again. We are not sorry that the strong young painter, with his whole career before him, offered up these respectable sacrifices on the conventional altar of imaginative art. It has, at all events, removed from the opponents of the work to which he has later betaken himself, the opportunity of asserting that his eventual selection of the life of the day is a matter of hard necessity and not of artistic choice. He could have dealt as creditably as others with that which he had never beheld, and, unsupported by experience, could have produced, with great cleverness, a fictitious art. But by the remarkable picture known as " Dawn," which was shown at Mr. Deschamps' gallery, it became evident that Mr. Gregory's peculiar skill was in the discerning of all that is most artistic and all that is most piquant in the modern life of cities-in the existence of a society that cannot claim to be unsophisticated, that cannot pretend even to the ambition to be simple. " Dawn" catches the flirtation of a night at its last and most critical moment. The scene, very likely, is some big villa in the Regent's Park; the immediate place is a large bowwindowed drawing-room, in which, through the drawn blinds, the first light of the pale cold morning enters to struggle with the glare of the chandeliers. Tawdry curtains drape the recess. At the keyboard of a grand piano, the paid musician, detained too long from the humble bed that awaits him in his lodgings in Soho or Camden Town, half dozes as he plays, and it seems that nobody dances, for there are but two other figures, and these, standing by the curve of the piano, are now in their flirtation's most violent phase. He is middle-aged; has seen the world; been everywhere; done everything. She is young, but perhaps a trifle too much eveilide-or is it only that it is very piquant for intelligent freshness to listen to a superabundance of knowledge.? Anyhow, his flattery has ceased to be guarded; 53 186 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. and the attitude of her attention has ceased to be discreet. If the worn but energetic gentleman had been a little less obviously a 'roue, and the slin young lady a little less absolutely mundane, the story might have been pleasanter; but in no case could the story chosen have been more ieffectively told. And this is the first instance of a faculty of Mr. Gregory's of which so much must be seen hereafterhis power of giving grace even to the most commonplace of modern raiment. Even the man's trousers come well in the composition, while the dress of the lady, the stiffened yet moderately flexible bodice, the floods of frilling, the long trailing skirts, alternately express and hide the figure in ways that are at the command of only a consummate draughtsman. And here, too, is the first introduction-and it is at once a prominent one-of "1that sceptre of the woild, the fan of beauty." It is opened here, and held aloft, almost as a first line of defence -there is still a barrier between the too sudden lover and the too unadvised fair. In the "Rehearsal " it is open, but for the time without significance, for the attention of the figures, merely spectators, is concentrated on the repetition of the play. It has its part, though, in the composition-in the wonderful spiral of dress and accessory. And in a third picture, a direct and complete portrait of a quite different model-of a lady who is the daughter of Mr. Gregory's staunchest upholder and most uncompro. mising friend-Miss Galloway, seated at ease after a long waltz, holds it high, with its pale blue feathers against the blond of the head-it is lightly closed, but ready for service. Mr. Gregory's heroines would never have needed to learn "1the exercise of the fan," even out of so pleasant a text-book as Addison's Spectator. Master, then, of the utility of the fan in artistic design, Gregory is likewise master of the employment of the palette. In Mr. Galloway's house, which is a museum of Gregory's work, there hangs on the drawing-room wall the remarkable water-colour "Last Touches," which appeared at the Institute. It shows the same handsome and dissipated and outworn model who is the hero of "Dawn," but this time he is made to be a painter, and in the closing hours of the day he is weary of his work, of himself, of everything. These last touches-they are the very devil, you know. There is no such thing as being satisfied. Painter and writer, caring for their art, torture themselves over these things. So it is in the drawing. The man who faces you, near the machinery of the easel-his chair tilted back, and he looking at his work-sprawls with wide-opened legs, boots and great knees thrust into the foreground, a brush in one hand and in the other a palette. Behind him, at the remote fireplace of the beautiful studio, stands a young woman in evening dress, not worried like the artist, not tortured at all, but only a little bored lest she should be late for the theatre. The anxious preoccupation of the one person, the trifling preoccupation of the other-the suggestion of two lives led together, with interests a good deal separated-has in it enough of the dramatic. It is an excellent subject, even as subjects are estimated by the lovers of story. But we are evidently not wrong in our surmise that the real motive of the picture was the curve of the palette; the foreshortened curve; its place in the composition. Objects in A REHEARSAL (By~ Permission of IV. Vivian, E&q.) 188 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. themselves generally allowed to be beautiful are here, as so often in Mr. Gregory's work, subordinated to the due display of that whose interest is more lately discovered. The young woman-generally allowed to be beautiful-nay, from whom beauty is generally exacted-she is thrust into the background. The canopy of the ceiling; the decorations of the mantelpiece-all background. In the foreground are the straight lines of the easel, the palette's curve, the great extended legs. Then again, the portrait of Mr. Gregory himself, which is one of our illustrations. Is not the employment of the palette in that composition as original as it is successful? And the crossed leg again, so close to the spectator: is not that almost as bold and as fresh, in a modern portrait? The muscularity of the thingthe sweeping and sturdy line of it-takes us back to the later Renaissance, to the tombs of the Medici, to the sculptures of Gian Bologna. Further, there is a distinct piquancy in the union of this broad and large design with a finish not only so expressive but so dainty as that of which the head gives evidence. The keen perception of beautiful muscular action and of a fortunate " bony structure" (which is the very foundation of beauty of line) revealed beneath the fold or strain of modern dress-that keen and alert perception combined with a faultless draughtsmanship, allows the artist we are considering to treat an every-day folk in every-day ways with a dignity and interest that are at the command of very few of the painters of contemporary life. See, for instance, his Academy picture, the "Intruders." There is a tussle of swans-the "vested interests" of one or other of them to the bounty of the ladies of the boat being threatened by outsiders who would like to share in the expected spoil. And so the water is a-move, the very air seems a-flutter, with the splashing birds and the beating of their great white wings. The scene is by an island of the Thames, opposite Winter's Hill, in the morning hours, in the freshness and the blue of the June weather. In the foreground the fashionuable modern dress and the tawdry decorations of the house-boat come to be reconciled with all that is more admittedly paintable. The feat is accomplished. Some of us will see in the picture just a spirited and entertaining record of an incident of the river. Some of us will see, on the other hand, a good deal more and a good deal that is different. For there is visible-supposing that the Fates have granted us eyes-the masterly record of a swift impression, and the deliberate pleasure of the capable hand in following the intricate beauty of the figure at rest. The young girl seen from behind, with turned head, with extended arm-no drawing, even of Watteau's, goes beyond that, in dainty expressiveness. It must have been done with delight: with delight, and with Macduff's "joyful trouble," if with trouble at all. And so with several things at Mr. Galloway's which record the subtleties of pretty or characteristic attitude: the young woman plunging into the piano, for instance, her head pushed eagerly forward, her elbow and bent-up arm thrown back, her skirts a-rustle, as the little hurrying mouse scampers through the instrument. And again, the drawing of the ballet girl, with her arm laid along the mantelpiece, her figure relaxed in the lounging rest of the bare green-room; the E. J. GREGORY, A.R.A. 189 eyes directed to the friend whose doffed hat, placed on the mantelshelf, alone intrudes into the picture. Mr. Gregory has shown in other works than those of genre painting his curious sensitiveness to unconsidered beauties of line. He has shown it where he has also shown a keen appreciation of character-in portraiture-but it is evidenced still more completely in those grey visions of the land and river which allow one to think of him sometimes along with Whistler and Wyllie. The gaunt black wooden pier or landing-stage that projects into the grey water; the steamboat lying alongside of it; the water-side sheds, the low, flat shore-these are things which (as a drawing at Mr. Galloway's proves) Gregory sees as sympathetically as he sees the blue stream that hurries down amidst the golden fern and the stones of the moorland, or the stretch of tawny and weed-covered rock that lies under a sky of delicate opal. The very words that we want to describe these pictures or to hint at them, " blue " and " golden," " tawny " and " opal," remind us that we are in the realm of colour. Nay, more, these latter pictures not only include colour but give it prominence: they are dependent upon its harmonies or its fortunate contrasts. Now Mr. Gregory has often been said to be uncertain and unequal in colour. We have had from time to time to register his failures in it, or at all events the disappointments that he does not invariably spare us. There was the portrait of Mr. Alfred Seymour, for instance, and there was the " Piccadilly." We must admit the inequality. Perhaps we must even go so far as to say that he is not a colourist primarily-that the leaven of the old Adam of the Black-and-White, the old Adam of the Graphic newspaper, is strong within him. He is a colourist chiefly a ses heures. But then "his hours" come pretty frequently, and when they come they are exquisitely productive. Mr. Galloway's little picture of " The Mouse in the Piano " is beautiful in spite of colour. It has everything else to recommend it: action, vivacity, draughtsmanship, the original and piquant record of a trifling thing. His picture of the plump blonde a little huddled on an ottoman of striped yellow is beautiful because of colour. Perhaps it is beautiful for nothing besides. The whole Venetian series-likewise at Mr. Galloway's-is notable as showing Gregory's dainty control over pure and lovely hues. But for other things too it is notable, though one's first impression of it may conceivably be disappointing. The dainty little canvases are not peculiar: they are not signed over every inch of them with Gregory's mark. They bear no trace of his having been preoccupied with the remembrance of his earlier methods. They are fresh and new and unmannered, recalling his own work as little as they recall Miss Montalba's broad and masculine transcript, or Mr. Whistler's beautiful and fantastic vision. They are the Venice that is-everybody's Venice-just the habitual Venice of midday hours, of steady sunshine and keen light. It is not idealised or changed, it is simply recorded: now the Grand Canal with its rows of palaces; the marble of glowing slab or writhing column; and now the little side-canal with its work-yard where the boat-builder builds the barca of to-day, to which the gondola of old must gradually give place. 190 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. The strength of it is that it is everybody's Venice, painted with a touch so firm and precise, and in hues so luminous. Still, the Venetian work is at best but brilliant study; the river work at Erith and at the mouth of the Medway shows that Mr. Wyllie need not have stood alone-another has been in his path; the Scottish landscape work-well, that is only another indication of the very wide sympathies of this flexible genius. It is none of these we rest upon. They are the work of bye-hours; they are holiday tasks. In portraiture and in genre painting lies the artist's most real force: in portraiture, from " Mr. Eley" to " Miss Galloway;" in genre painting, friom "Dawn" to "A Rehearsal" and the "Intruders," The portrait of Mr. Eley, which was the earliest of his more considerable portraits, was felt, when it was exhibited, to reveal in the artist an originality quite as marked and decisive as it disclosed in the sitter. Yet the "Miss Galloway" went in every way beyond it. Its art was wholly concealed, and the work itself was only the last result of a long observation. Painfully, we believe, and indefatigably, the picture was wrought at weary sitting after sitting. Gregory, it seems, is never easy to please, and he knew he had a chance here, and did not intend to lose it. He destroyed one canvas. Then, with the sitter a little exhausted-since we dare not say she was bored-with her share of the labour, the artist struck into the business again, with a new energy, and perhaps the most life-like portrait of a woman done in our time was wrought rapidly out of the accumulated knowledge that had seemed for a while to yield so little. Doubtless one might often see the face much prettier, but perhaps it is this good-natured air of sufferance-this " Well now, this really must be the last of me "-that gives it its extraordinary appearance of truth. The pose of the figure is one of absolute ease; the painting is as good as the draughtsmanship; it is a triumph of execution. Just because it is a triumph of execution it will not reproduce without too serious a loss. So we do not attempt a woodcut. But it is well to remember that this masterly, refined, and unaffected work was the legitimate sensation of a gallery (the Grosvenor) sometimes a little too indulgent to refinement burdened by affectation, and to ambition unsupported by force. A real and tangible presence was side by side with the ghosts. No wonder, then, that from the eye of the mind the ghosts vanished-the living presence stayed. Perhaps no single genre picture thus far painted by Mr. Gregory makes on behalf of its painter quite so unanswerable a claim as that advanced by this portrait. For, hitherto, the " Dawn" is of his genre pictures the most serious and the most ambitious, and the technical qualities of "Dawn" he has now far surpassed. In genre painting it is not so much by a single work that we should be prepared to class him as by the manifestation in many works together of many various gifts and of that comprehensiveness of spirit, that intellectual and artistic toleration, whichMr. Gregory's brush being what it is-is the best guarantee for his future. It may be that we could wish him hereafter a little less tolerant of red mahogany furniture and sordid belongings, and of a Bohemia which is without Bohemia's E. J. GREGORY, A.R.A. 191 justification.--that it does at least enjoy itself, and improve each shining hour in its own particular way. And while welcoming Mr. Gregory's treatment of modern attire, we might perhaps ask that his choice 1.4 should fall even less frequently than it does at present upon costumes that would be - '.o voted common in an Oxford Street window-cheapish silks, 1 7.74 dependent for their garish... "4 effectiveness upon a prodigi- -.7, ous amount of dress-making. f /./ In Mr. Gregory's best portraits the raiment of his choice has either the simplicity of splendid and lasting material, or the, coquettish fashioning demanded by the dance dress of a night. Why is an eye that understands the charm of both indulgent occasionally to that which has the charms of neither? That is perhaps only an exaggeration of the tolerance and comprehensiveness which are Gregory's distinction, and it may be it is to be regretted only because to the weaker brethren it is something of a stumbling - block, preventing them from receiving all that Mr. Gregory's art is excellently fitted to give. If Mr. Gregory had manifested a great dramatic faculty the ,UR. sympathy of the large public might have been more absolutely his. But as it is, he is dependent practically upon the suifrages of the cultivated; and of the cultivated, many are weak and few are strong. When he is truest to himself he paints modern themes, but he is far too sincere an artist to treat them meretriciously. Thus-it has to be admitted-- in a cert~ain measure he escapes wide popularity.:.:::: 192 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. Nevertheless, as his election to the Academy Associateship sufficiently proves, Gregory must have many admirers; and these, we may be sure, are the very persons out of the motley Forty whom he would wish them to be. We remember years ago hearing Mr. Herkomer speak of Mr. Gregory in terms such as only a great artist employs of another. Mr. Herkomer, drawing perhaps on his own early experiences, was afraid that the popular eye might be distracted by certain obvious clevernesses from the special beauty and felicity of Mr. Gregory's canvases, every inch of which he admired. No doubt the fear was, in a measure, well founded. Mr. Gregory cannot be said to have touched the national heart, and his name is unknown compared with the names of many far inferior painters. But at least Mr. Gregory has the satisfaction of knowing that the company of discerning sight-seers is ever on the increase at our exhibitions, and that these already pay him a homage which his past performances extort, and which the promise of his future renders particularly safe investment of admiration. ~ N c N\% ci N N. (N . \j* MOONLIGHT ON THE SHORE-EASTERN LONG ISLAND. (From "Picturesque America.") HARRY FENN. SANGUINE New Yorker, speculating on the future of his city, will generally refer to the Orange Hills in New Jersey as, its natural boundary towards the south-west. The slopes of this range, he thinks, and the rolling country just beyond them to the upper course of Passaic river, will yet be occupied by a rich and populous suburb. There are already in this quarter so many pleasant villages and scattered residences, that the idea is not without a colour of probability. Looking from the crest of the hills towards New York, one sees the great plain, through which the Hackensack and the Passaic glide, already so thickly sprinkled with dwellings that the confines of the cities of New York and Elizabeth and Jersey City are hardly recognisable from this distance. When one considers that those cities themselves are but adjuncts of New York, and that a large part of the male population of the country as far as the eye can reach is composed of men who are New Yorkers during business hours; when one considers, too, that the city itself is barely out of sight, its position being indicated by the towers of Brooklyn Bridge, which are visible on a clear day from 54 194 THIE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. several of the Orange summits, it hardly seems improper to speak of the district as being, even now, a suburb of New York. The nearness to the city on the one hand, and to unspoiled Nature on the other, has made the district a favourite sketching-ground with New York artists, and several of them have, at one time or another, resided there. There is no telling how often these dells and crags, these meadows and apple orchards, foregrounds rich with wild flowers and bits of faint blue distance, have been painted. Quite 0*7 14 MR. H. FENN'S HOUSE: NORTH AND SOUTH SIDES. a long list it would be that should contain the names of all who have visited them, season after season, with crayon or brush. And a conspicuous place on it would be that which should belong to Mr. Harry Fenn. Through the medium of the illustrated magazines everybody has been made familiar with his drawings. It is needless, therefore, to say anything more about them than, simply, that their subjects have been taken more often from the neighbourhood of the Orange Hills than from any other locality. The old mills, the streams fringed with willows, the spring bloom of the orchards, and the autumn fields full of golden-rod and purple asters and scarlet sumach, have laid hold on him more firmly than on Bolles or Drake or Moran, perhaps his foremost rivals. Hence, no doubt, it is that, after having travelled extensively, in America and out of it, he has returned to the Orange Hills to make there his home. HARRY FENN. 195 With this project in his mind, it is not strange that, of all the many changes which had taken place during his absence, none should have made such an impression on him as those connected with the progress of American domestic architecture. There are few who, like him, have recently spent some time abroad, who have not remarked this change. And, although improvement is less evident in private than in public buildings, though the drawbacks such as accompany every change are most perceptible in modern country houses, still, even in these, great progress is visible. The older country residences along the Atlantic seaboard are, in many respects, well adapted to the climate, and J.not insusceptible of artistic decora- - ' tion. They are, however, better ""' adapted for summer than for winter.eo ar h - weather, and it is difficult to supply -- D. the colour and the appearance of,. comfort demanded by modern taste without detracting from their somewhat Quakerish elegance. One fresh from European experiences can =au. r,.. hardly but feel that the beauty of. colonial mouldings and carvings has been somewhat exaggerated, while a uniform coat of white or grey paint, indoors and out, is apt to so" | strike him as rather chilly in effect. The common disposition of the main hall, wider than in England, adds unnecessarily to the discomfort to THE GROUND PLAN. be experienced in an old-fashioned American house in winter. Running athwart the building, from front to rear, it occasions an increasing current of cold air through the middle of the house, which may be moderated, indeed, but only by double doors and at a considerable expense for fuel. Now, although the younger architects of America, as might be expected of men who have broken with tradition, have quite generally fallen into an unchastened, mongrel style, full of affectations and overladen with bad ornament, still this much may be said for them, that they have almost as generally sought to secure comfort and convenience as well as a picturesque outline, and a warm and harmonious scheme of colour as well as an abundance of rather cheap decoration. Here and there, indeed, common sense and good taste have so far prevailed that only a carping criticism can find much to decry. It is because it belongs to the smaller class, and may afford a good idea of what American architects are aiming 196 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. at in domestic design, that it has been thought well to give here a description of Mr. Fenn's house illustrated by drawings furnished by himself. Like most American country houses, alas! the building is wooden. The Americans have hardly, as yet, arrived at the stone age. As will be seen by reference to our illustration, it has two main storeys, with a basement and a roomy attic. The two views here given show the house to be as picturesque as it is really desirable it should be, standing, as it does, among such picturesque surroundings. But a comparison of them with the ground-plan will show that its interesting projections and recesses result logically from the most convenient possible disposition of the space to be roofed in. Considering that, in the American climate, the piazza is as important as the chimney, a happier disposition can hardly be imagined. You enter by a porch sheltered on two sides by the building itself, and on the third and fourth by the rising slope of the hill and by a skilfully-arranged screen of evergreens. The roof of this porch makes one continued curve with the gable which crowns the projection containing the stairs with which it communicates. From the vestibule you advance into the square hall which, as a hall should, gives you immediate entrance 'to parlour and dining-room, piazza and staircase. The roof above the hall rises higher than that of any other portion of the building, and is further distinguished by the turret-like cap of the two-storeyed piazza, which is really an adjunct of it. The attic under this roof is Mr. Fenn's studio, and the space under the cap of the tower is utilised for storing canvases, &c. Exteriorly, the woodwork of the cottage is painted a dark brown; the plastered surfaces, plainly indicated in the drawing, have, unfortunately, been disturbed by some meaningless incised forms, intended as ornament; but these may be easily covered up by a fresh coat of plaster. Some vines, which have only just been planted, will eventually hide a good part of the exterior surface in any case; and their fresh green will make an acceptable contrast with the brown and grey of the building. The colour-effect of the interior is already all that could be wished for. Much of it is undoubtedly due to the artistic arrangement of Mr. Fenn's choice though small collection of bric-a-brac, and to the draperies of doors and windows. But, as it left the hands of the architect, Mr. Ficken, it must have appeared a pleasant and inviting interior. The wainscoting of the hall, its ceiling, and the woodwork of the stairs, are of Georgia pine varnished to a fine golden hue, which strikes the keynote for all the three principal rooms. The wall above the wainscoting is a cream tint, with panelling of yellowish matting. In the dining-room this last is replaced by the painted surface of the wall, here a light salmon colour; and a frieze is simulated by placing, on a narrow shelf, a row of blue-and-white Delft and Spanish-Moorish platters. A few fine pieces of old Nankin blue-and-white porcelain may be admired on the mantelshelf of the dining-room; and a number of prints in red ink, after drawings by Mr. Burne Jones, occupy the remainder of the wall-space. The drawing-room is mostly in warm greys, corresponding with the Japanese HARRY FENN. 197 portiere with its pattern of waves and tortoises in black-and-white, and with the window of opalescent glass, and bookcases curtained with Japanese brocade. The unplastered brick of the hall chimney should be remembered when forming a conception of the harmony of warm subdued tones furnished by the architect, to which Mr. Fenn has added little but blue and green and gold, his share of the decoration culminating in the tail of a magnificent stuffed peacock, which depends from its perch on the staircase window-sill. The over-mantel is in stamped and gilt Japanese leather. rC THE HIALL, LOOKING INTO TILE DINING-ROOM. The upper rooms are all in the same light golden yellow tone; but each has its individual effect, due to its outlook or to its decoration, or to both. From a railed platform on the roof of the wing which contains the offices and the servants' rooms, a view may be had almost as wide as that from the summit of the neighbouring hill. Among this artist's works in black-and-white perhaps the best known in England are those which illustrate "Picturesque Europe " and "Picturesque America." Seeking, as he was almost bound to do, the panoramic or "viewy" aspects of landscape (from which the contemporary artists generally shrink as most difficult to treat in an individual and interesting manner), Mr. Fenn has, nevertheless, given to his scenes so strong a charm of character, that the " viewiness" is never disagreeable. In the American landscapes, it is true, the solitariness of the places and the Jul11 III!' III III THE HALL FIREPLACE. HARRY FENN. 199 grandeur of the natural features give an almost inevitable air of grandiose conventionality. This is very observable, for instance, in the mountain peaks, abrupt and lofty, and the lonely pine-trees of " Inkermann's Ravine." True to Nature the view may be; but this Nature on a large scale is precisely what conventional art is fond of imagining. *. Therefore, however real, primeval American scenery has in pictures an air of the cheap ideal. Now, it is the value and the wonder of Italy that there the elegance of a perfectly ideal landscape is combined with all that charm of incident and accident which is the individuality of a scene. The combination is altogether unique. Classical forms in mountain and tree and sea, a kind of composition and arrangement of lines which have been the very school and rule of artists, are united there with all possible quaintness and unexpectedness-the very personality of landscape. And there, too, man with his dwellings and his 200 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. toil adds another beauty of familiarity-familiarity which is never vulgar. Thus, whatever seems conventional in Mr. Fenn's views of American mountains in their solitude, disappears from his work when he is treating Italian mountains reigning over Italian homesteads, populous Italian landscapes full of corn and wine and oil. He seems too-witness the foreground of aloes in "The Port of Messina" INKERMANN'S RAVINE. (From "Picturesque America.") -to be particularly sensible of the character of Italian vegetation, which is a charm, not of riches or opulence of foliage, but of shape and character. Strange to say, it has remained for artists of our own day to recognise the distinctive beauty of vegetation which is locally Italian. A generation ago, English painters imported into Italian air their own notions of foliage-large rounded forms of abundant forest trees; whereas the line, the form, the very style of Italy, are expressed in the thin, delicate, distinguished figures of pines, olives, canes, cypresses, and aloes. Nothing richer than the ilex is common there; and though the ilex has abundant leaves, yet those leaves, with their small, acute forms, their fine accents, are altogether Italian in character and different from the roundness of elm or aspen. HARRY FENN. 201 Mr. Fenn, in a word, though he deals in the panoramic, deals in it with a charming intelligence, with a respect for the classic at once, and a love of the familiar. American painters of the old school have been better known in England than those of the new, until quite recent years, when the success at the Salon of Mr. Sargent and of a brilliant little group with him, altogether " in the movement," made an echo in London. Previously no American names since the days of Leslie had been so familiar amongst us as those of Church and Mignot, so that transatlantic painting had associations with the scenic and rather bygone style of art above referred to. It was the same with literature. Fenimore Cooper's romances were universally known, if not quite so widely read; and it is only of late years that England has begun to recognise the true National school of American literature, which is as realistic as it is delicate. The transatlantic novel and the transatlantic picture have developed into something essentially and excellently modern, which is surely what the world had a right to expect. FITCH MOUNTAIN, LAKE GEORGE. (From " Picturesque America.") 55 (From a Photograph by A. E. Firdelle.) BRITON RIVIERE, R.A. HAT the name of Briton Riviere should suggest to some minds that the bearer of it is a Frenchman is not strange. The suggestion, however, has only the remotest foundation in fact, and it would be difficult to find a more thorough specimen of an Englishman than the eminent artist himself. The circumstance that he is a descendant of an old Huguenot family, which emigrated to BRITON RIVIERE, R.A. 203 and settled in this country two hundred years ago, on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV., is the whole and sole plea that could be set up by France for claiming him as her son-a plea surely entirely invalid. His grandfather, Mr. D. V. Riviere, was a student at the Royal Academy, where he gained a medal, and exhibited, later on, many works of great merit in water-colour. William-son of this gentleman (and brother of H. P. Riviere, of the "Old Water-Colour"), born in London in 1806, and father of Mr. Briton Riviere-following the footsteps of his sire, eventually became the head of the drawing school at Cheltenham College, and, later on, by his zeal and energy at Oxford, managed to get art introduced into the curriculum of the university. Prior to this he had been favourably known in London through his works for the competition for decorating the Houses of Parliament. Thus the present inheritor of the honoured name found in his father the most natural and the fittest of masters, and he tells us that from an early age (he was born in London, August 14th, 1840) he studied drawing and painting-first at Cheltenham during the nine years he was there, and then at Oxford. The classic influence of the latter place was not without its effect on the young artist. He became a member of the university, graduating B.A. in 1867, and M.A. in 1873. His university career, however, had in nowise tempted him from his devotion to art. In the years 1858 and 1859 he exhibited at the Royal Academy pictures entitled " Rest from Labour," " Sheep on the Cotswolds," and " On the Road to Gloucester Fair; " but it was not until 1866 that his work obtained much recognition, or was so hung as to allow of its critical examination. "The Poacher's Nurse," a dog licking his sick master's hand, was sufficiently well placed to show the excellent promise which its execution gave; and in the following year (1867) one at least of the compositions exhibited by the artist fulfilled this promise, and at once gained for him a large meed of public approbation. It was entitled "The Long Sleep" (hung at the oil exhibition of the Dudley), and though extremely painful in sentiment, it left no doubt of his powers. An old man, having died sitting in his chair, is watched with wondering disquiet by his two faithful dogs, whose intelligence, displayed in the expression of their eyes, evidently divines already that all is not right, and whose attitude hints plainly at the depths of sorrow into which they will be plunged when they have realised the truth. A water-colour drawing, now in the collection at South Kensington, called "A Game of Fox and Geese," originally exhibited at the Dudley Gallery in 1868, carried Mr. Riviere's reputation prosperously on, until the Royal Academy's first year at Burlington House in 1869 found him represented again by a pathetic subject simply named " Prisoners," a dog and his master, the indissoluble bond of sympathy between them under misfortune being the prominent sentiment expressed. An important engraving by Stacpoole has made everybody familiar with the chief work of the painter in 1870. We have all been touched by " Charity," and have regarded with rising emotion the outcast child upon the street-doorstep sharing her last crust with two equally outcast dogs. This picture was awarded a medal 204 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. at the International Exhibition of Vienna. Continuing to devote some time to water-colour, Mr. Riviere showed, as in the "Fox and Geese," that, notwithstanding his tendency to the pathetic, he could still on occasions be mightily humorous; and in "Suspicion," two sparrows in the snow eyeing doubtfully a fallen apple, hung at the Dudley in 1871, we had a rare specimen, among others, of this side of his genius. The first classical theme which lie treated was also the one with which lie made his first unmistakable score, and "Circe and the Friends of Ulysses" (1871) may be said now to be world-renowned, having obtained for its painter a medal at Philadelphia, and having been engraved, as he himself declares, "by Stacpoole, in.........______.._. _ a manner to give me the greatest delight." " Come Back," likewise exhibited in 1871 at the Royal Academy, offered a striking contrast to the "Circe," being again a domestic drama in which a prodigal daughter, returning to the home whence she has strayed, is recognised by the old dog. "Daniel," in 1872, offered an entirely suitable subject, and the large and VICTIM,,. original treatment of it won (By Permission of C. P. Matthews, Esq.) for our artist a vast increase of 'renown. The climax of Mr. Riviere's pathos was perhaps reached in 1873 in " All that was Left of the oiomeward Bound; " and it might be questioned whether it is fair for an artist, endowed with powers like his, so to wring our hearts as he does, by the perpetuation of such a scene as this, of the young shipwrecked girl lashed to a spar floating, with a starving dog clinging to her, away upon the wide world of waters. A contrast to this picture was offered in the very noble canvas of "Argus"a, most happy combination of classic lore and animal painting. Induced, no doubt, by the success attending his efforts in the region of ancient literature, the painter next caught a suggestion from Euripides. In 1874 "Apollo" became one of the pictures at the Royal Academy, and admirably adapted was the situation selected for exhibiting the cunning of our artist's hand. Very apt, too, were the lines from "Alcestis" taken for the catalogue description, and in reprinting them we shall convey perhaps the best idea of the picture possible where space is limited:"Apollo's self Deigned to become a shepherd in thine halls And tune his lays along the woodland slopes; BRITON RIVIERI,WA R.A. 205 Whereat entranced the spotted lynxes came To mingle with thy flocks; from Othry's glen Trooped tawny lions; e'en the dappled fawn Forth from the shelter of her pinewood haunts Tripped, to the music of the sun-god's lyre." The sleeping lioness at the mouth of her cave, under the name of " Genius Loci," was the second canvas of that year. Alternating his mood once more to modern tragedy and everyday life, the artist in 1875 gave us " War Time," " The " TIlE KING D)RINKS." (Royal Academy Diploma Picture.) Last of the Garrison," and a portrait, "E. Mansel Lewis, Esq." (life-size, with horse and dogs upon the sea-shore), familiar, doubtless, in the memory of most observers of art progress. The first of these three took a medal at Philadelphia. The very humorous picture of "A Stern Chase is always a Long Chase," was one of the most striking of Briton Riviere's works in 1876, and it came in charming opposition to the second of the same year, "Pallas Athene and the Swineherd's Dogs," in which the goddess, "divinely tall," passes before us, a light wind playing with her white robes. The herdsman's dogs, to which alone she is visible, slink and cower at her presence. For the story, the reader is referred to the sixteenth book of the Odyssey. In 1877 both the Academy pictures had a religious interest, of a rather original kind. "A Legend of St. Patrick" shows the saint carrying home across the Irish mountains a hurt fawn, while the mother follows with her wistful face lifted up towards her little one on St. 2006 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. Patrick's shoulder. The beautiful drawing and painting of the hands is specially noteworthy. In "Lazarus," Mr. Riviere has treated his subject with almost too much realism. The group is evidently painted for the sake of the dogs, and the young Oriental mendicant, who lies at full-length at the steps of the rich man's house, is a kind of accessory. But in fact the dogs are wonderful both in drawing and execution; we feel their very life and organism under their shabby white coats. Three of them lean greedily over the beggar, literally "licking his sores," with a most horrible suggestiveness. Most readers of the parable are doubtless accustomed to take the action as a bit of dumb charity, the tongue of the dog having healing qualities-at least in popular estimation in the South. But in the picture the dogs are starving, and are doing their work hungrily. A fourth beast is cringeing up to the door, attracted by the smell of feasting, but prepared for the kick which will eject him if he penetrates too far. In the following year (when he was elected Associate, soon to be made an Academician), the painter had at Burlington House a grand study of two lions wandering by moonlight on a terrace:" They say the lion and the lizard keep The courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep." Here, again, his rare knowledge of living anatomical form has produced a movement, a. unity of organic construction to which few of the most eminent animal painters have attained. With this there is a sentiment of animal power, a seriousness equally unusual. Landseer, with all his cleverness, either painted animals without any facial or bodily expression whatever, or else strained the clear and distinct limitations of animal expression too far, giving them human looks impossible to them, and, with human looks, human feelings. Now an animal's face has its decided language; but it is not the language of human features, nor does it say the same things. And the beast's body is far more expressive than that of manat least, of civilised man. By denying himself the cheap but false exaggerations and misrepresentations by which animals have so often been made burlesques of humanity, Mr. Riviere loses absolutely nothing that could detract from what he gains. See, for instance, the delightful bit of comedy which he has named " An Anxious Moment." In the foreground is an old black hat, battered and crushed, which has been kicked, in the chances of its decay, into the path of a flock of geese. Can they, dare they pass the unknown object? The foremost go by close to the wall, and as far as possible from the formidable hat; all their heads are lifted up proclaiming fear and foreboding; and all is in the manner of geese-extremely expressive and comic, but according only to the expression and comedy possible and natural to them. And at about the same time the painter exhibited at the Dudley Gallery a "Cave Canem," which had the same exquisite tact and truth in its fun. The dog of which we are bidden to beware is a little mongrel pup of ludicrous helplessness and youth, painted with a masterly hand. This little picture became famous, and made a BRITON RIVIERE, R.A. 207 popular engraving. To return to the Academy. With the geese was exhibited " Sympathy," in which a good white dog is bearing a little girl company in her exile, as she sits at a closed door; lie comforts her with inarticulate sounds and with the language of his tongue. This also has been engraved. " Victims "-little girls giving their dogs a compulsory dip in the waves-belongs to the same year. "The Poacher's Widow" (1879), is a picture with a serious intention, as serious as that with which Charles Kingsley wrote: "She thought of the dark plantation, And the hares, and her husband's blood, And the voice of her indignation Rose up to the throne of God." The woman, whose mate has died by law for the petty theft of game in a land of waste and profusion, sits alone at nightfall on the fringes of a wood. With the falling day, the rabbits and pheasants, so little molested by their owners that they have no fear, come out in a crowd and sport between the trees and on the soft grass at her feet. Her head droops in irremediable sorrow, with an action just a little conventional, perhaps, and unrealised, for so strong a designer. "In Manus tuas, Domine," is a romantic subject, also made an opportunity for the painting of animal forms with their characteristic action and expression. A knighterrant has ridden through an enchanted forest to the door of a cavern. He speaks the prayer as he prepares to penetrate to unknown danger, and holds up the cross on the hilt of his sword, his face keeping its serenity and courage. His horse has the crouching movement of extreme fear, and his two hounds cringe in terror at the 'charger's heels. Equally excellent as regards animal painting is the contemporary picture, "A Winter's Tale "-an upright subject of a little girl lying in the snow, with two collie dogs standing over her. In 1880 Mr. Riviere repeated his idea of lions wandering by night through moonlighted ruins, in his "Night Watch." With this he exhibited " Endymion," remarkable for the painting of two Persian dogs:" Ah! well-a-day, Why should our young Endymion pine away 1?" "The Last Spoonful," in which the humours of ducks are given as delightfully as those of geese in " An Anxious Moment," also appeared at the same time. A little farm-house girl has brought her bread-and-milk out in the summer evening to eat her supper among her friends in the farmyard. Little dogs, a cock and a few hens, and a flock of ducks, who have, perhaps, had some little largess from her in the course of her meal, are wrought up to a kind of feverish expectation as she turns up her bowl to enjoy her last spoonful. The dogs can hardly contain themselves, and the multitudinous quack of the ducks is almost audible. In "Envy, Hatred, and Malice" the painter has made a picture of dogs of many kinds and breeds, suffering, in their candid canine way, from the caresses c1 E BRITON RIVIERE, R.A. 209 lavished by a little girl upon the pug puppy which she holds on her shoulder. "A Roman Holiday" is more serious in motive though hardly in execution, for Mr. Briton Riviere puts perfect work into his slightest subjects. Here we are shown the arena of a Roman amphitheatre, the seats and the spectators being out of sight. Thus the painter lets us see the solitude of the gladiator's unpitied death; although many thousands of eyes are upon him, it is an indescribable isolation. He lies helpless on his side, but has just raised himself on one arm to trace a cross with his dagger in the sand; for he is a Christian, and has shed that red stream which flows from his lacerated body for faith's sake. One huge tiger which he has slain lies at his side; the other prowls near with a splendid action and swing of the tail. In "Let Sleeping Dogs Lie " we have still more powerful work in the painting of a white bull-dog, a navvy's companion. In "Hope Deferred" the hero is a capital brown terrier. These pictures were at the Academy together in 1881. Next came " Leopards," another masterly study of animal life; " Cupboard Love," the portrait of Miss Kate Potter in a red dress, with her black poodle; and "The Magician's Doorway." Here the artist has again united romantic imagination with his usual most realistic rendering of animals. The gateway is a magnificent study of architecture, and the eye loses itself in the corridors of the columned interior. One leopard couches on the steps, another stands above peering out. In the following year the interest of this artist's principal picture was pathetic. In " Old Playfellows," a beautiful collie pays a visit to his master, a dying boy, who lies back in his pillows. And stern enough is the motive of another, "The Last of the Crew "-an explorer marching forward along the rim of a blue chasm of ice followed by his dogs, some of whom are fighting for a beaver bone. To the same season belonged " Giants at Play," one of Mr. Riviere's undoubted masterpieces. But he has perhaps allowed a feeling for the heroic to lead him here to idealise his navvies too much, as to their actions. The movement of the one, for instance, who has his arms above his head, is Greek, not English. Even the kind of reflected gentleness which comes of intently watching a little animal at play, would surely never make this man's head turn sideways as the painter has placed it. Nevertheless, the group is admirable, and the pup a perfect chef d'oeuvre. " The Sheepstealers " (1885) is remarkable, not only for its very strong dramatic interest, but for the beautiful rendering of misty moonlight by a painter not professedly a student of landscape. It is night on solitary hills in a bleak stone-wall country, and the robber, raising his head above a wall, has just caught the attention of a flock of sheep, which stand alert and face him. With an intensely energetic action he quiets the dog at his side, who waits crouching intently, seeing nothing, but hanging on his master's order for the signal to charge. The uncertain northern moonlight lies on the hills and the flock, touches the stone edges of the wall, and defines the man's figure. To this figure, by the way, as to his pensive navvy, Mr. Riviere has given a certain elegance more pleasant than truthful. "VeVm Victis," also in the Academy, though vigorous in design, was hardly 56 210 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. so successful a picture. The scene is the side of a mountain summit, where a wolf and an eagle are fighting over the little white prostrate lamb which the wolf has under his claws. The bird's noble wings are outspread in a great sweep as it strikes, erect, with its talons against the furious face of the wolf, whose jaws are open. "An Old Hound," and "After Naseby" belong to the same year, and "The Exile, 1746," "Union is Strength," and "The Welcome " to 1886, with " Rizpah," in which Mr. Briton Riviere has taken for his motive the terrible Old Testament story. The bodies of the dead do not appear within the composition, but we see the foot of the gibbet, close by which is the desperate woman watching the birds of the air and the unclean herd of jackals which are pressing, crouching, and snuffing in a restless circle around her. Mr. Briton Riviere takes a middle place between the painters of animals in their own solitudes and painters of animals in human conditions. We have already referred to Landseer as representative of the latter class, artists who can scarcely be considered as eminent animal-lovers, inasmuch as they seek for the interest of their subjects outside of the limits of animal nature. Of the painters who study the brute by itself, and-if the apparent contradiction may be forgiven us-away from the observation of men, no one has done stronger work than Mr. Nettleship. This artist has chosen to follow the drama of the life of the woods and deserts, as it is played out in suffering, passion, hatred, and love, with no reference to man's pursuit, or use, or sport. The death of an old lioness mourned by her mate, the deadly wars of jealousy, the going forth of the hunting panther at nightfall "seeking his meat from God "-these are some of the motives of this most serious of all the painters of animals. He seeks no help, from human imagination or fancy, which, indeed, seems somewhat trivial in comparison with the facts he renders; and his heart records a truth which needs no comments. Mr. Briton Riviere is also the auimal-lover and the painter of truth; but he generally places the brute in associatiin with man, as his companion, friend, and servant. Even when lihe presents the lions in their solitude, prowling through ruins at night, he does so with a commentary, as it were-a reference to the human story of power and glory passed away. And some of his truest and most expressive work shows the animal as directly affected by man's interests, sharing by sympathy and service in his adventures and work. And, assuredly, some of the strongest-certainly the "most demonstrative-expression of which the beast is capable, is called out by this association. A dog tragically making common cause with a child in trivial trouble does not pass beyond dog nature, but expresses more emphatic and various feeling than he shows in his dealings with his own kind. And the horse in servitude has, to those who care to study the significance of his face, a capacity for pathos which could hardly exist in the natural and unsubdued life of the untamed creature. Much the same distinction is to be found in the manner of studying Nature, or rather in the moods in which she may be studied. Shall the artist paint the wild landscape, as in the gorges and prairies of America; or the BRITON RIVIERE, R.A. 211 tamed landscape of clipped yew-hedges, and peacock- shaped trees, and beds of scentless flowers between brick walls; or the landscape in cultivation, used but not abused, with the hills keeping their own unchangeable outline against the sky, but bearing the crops, dark now with the soft brown of harrowed earth, and now rippled with young green wheat or golden with harvest? The painter who chooses this latter phase of landscape-nature in agriculture is doing work in some sort parallel to that of the painter of animals such as their companionship with man has made them. Technically-for these remarks on the subject do not, of course, belong to technical criticism at all-this English painter takes a first-class rank in draughtsmanship and the rendering of anatomical action. As a painter-purely a handler of the brush-he has superiors in the French school, Troyon and his pupil and successor, Van Maarke, the cattle-painters, for instance, but he has not been surpassed in drawing. Mr. Briton Riviere was represented at the Paris International in 1878 by "The Last of the Garrison, " "1Charity," and the "1Daniel in the Lions' Den." Q~zav*t (From a Photograph by A. E. Fradelle.) PHILIP HERMOGENES CALDERON, R.A. WRITTEN sketch of an eminent man must, like all sketches, be made up chiefly of leading and salient features. We do not, however, come upon many of these in following the life of Philip IHermogenes Calderon, R.A., only son of the Rev. Juan Calderon, from his birth at Poitiers, in May, 1833, up to the spring of 1852, when his name first appears in our I Royal Academy catalogue. His career so far was not very different from that of many another young aspirant to the noble art of painting. Writing to a biographer of himself, he says:-" I was very fond of drawing from my earliest years, but did not begin studying art till 1850, when I was sent to Mr. Leigh's, "SUl*HING HIS SOUL INTO HIS LADY'S FACE." (From the Painting by P. If. aldlerOm, R.A. fin the Possession o oG. C. Schwabe, Esq.) IF, 0 PHILIP HERMOGENES CALDERON, R.A. 213 in Newman Street. After painting from the life for some time there, I went to Paris, and was admitted to the atelier of Monsieur Picot, where I studied for a year. Before that time I had scarcely ever drawn from the life, but always painted (often by gaslight); but at Picot's I was not allowed to use my brush at all, and was rigidly kept to drawing carefully from the model, from the head down to the toes.-On my return to London I painted my first picture, 'By the Waters of Babylon we Sat Down and Wept,' which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1852; after which I painted chiefly portraits for some time, and only began exhibiting regularly in 1857." After exhibiting successively in 185S, 1859, and 1860, "The Gaoler's Daughter," " Flora Macdonald's Farewell to Charles Edward," " Man Goeth Forth to his Work and to his Labour until the Evening," "French Peasants Finding their Stolen Child," and "Nevermore," the painter scored another very palpable hit of a most telling and enduring sort. In 1861 he produced the " Demande en Mariage " and " Releasing Prisoners on the Young Heir's Birthday," this latter work manifesting to the full his exquisite fashion of dealing with womanhood and juvenile humanity. It was, however, in the following year (1862), when "After the Battle" was exhibited, that Mr. Calderon earned, and received, his full meed of praise. It is doubtful, however, whether he has ever exceeded the dramatic strength which, in 1863, he put forth in " The British Embassy in Paris on the Night of the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew." His election as an Associate of the Royal Academy, the following season, was mainly due to this picture, which, in conjunction with a very charming canvas, in a totally different key, called "Drink to me only with thine Eyes," exhibited at the French Gallery, proved that the artist's range was wide and versatile. In 1866 he once more came out with his full strength in those qualities by which he had first made his mark. "Her most High, Noble, and Puissant Grace" is the picture of a little girl-potentate of some six years old, walking in state, preceded by her trumpeters and heralds, and followed by the men and ladies of her court. The child is a true child, simple and tender, but she has been drilled in her lonely duties, and there is something truly pathetic in the look of the infantine form and face in the seriousness of the ceremonial. It is only at the first glance that the subject-with the bowing courtiers, the pomp, and the obeisance in honour of the child queen-has any comedy in it; the pathos is apparent at the second glance, and is so original and so strong that probably nobody who has ever seen the picture has forgotten it. It won for Mr. Calderon, at the International Exhibition at Paris in 1867, the only gold medal granted to an English painter. Two other pictures, "On the Banks of the Clain, near Poitiers," and "Pyrenean Women Spinning, and Driving Turkeys," completed that year's contributions, leading, in conjunction with a very noble work, entitled "Home after Victory," in the spring of 1867, to his election, at that date, as a full member of the Royal Academy. The picture last mentioned showed a knight welcomed by the wife and sister whose hearts have been with him in his dangers. The subject sounds trite enough, the 214 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. hackneyed motive of a costume-picture of the most commonplace kind. But in fact Mr. Calderon has felt his little scene with so unexpected a freshness, and has given the figures such a rapture, such a spring and movement of joy, as few painters have ever conceived. In the wife's face-a firmly-moulded, rather massive, and " CONSTANCE.' (In the Possession of G. C. Schwabe, Esq.) very beautiful face, such as the artist generally chose for his type at that timethe look of happiness is touching and brilliant and most womanly. The choice of the Academicians was fully justified, in 1868, by a charming picture, entitled " The Young Lord Hamlet Riding on Yorick's Back," an illustration of what may be called one of the byways of Shakespeare. Very touching and beautiful was this illustration of a hitherto untrodden region of the drama; and it is to be regretted that the success then obtained by the artist did not lead him to follow it up by more labour in the same field. Of a modern American poet we have an illustration equally skilful, the "Little Face at the Window," which catches the departing light. "~And a little face at the window Peers out into the night.' LvffelloWs'a " Twiight.' THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. Mr. Calderon was represented, in 1869, by "1Sighing his Soul into his Lady's Face "- an admirable example of the manly, chivalrous spirit which he infuses into so many of his conceptions, and which distinguishes him par excellence as a painter of true knighthood no less than of true womanhood and childhood. This picture, together with the head called "Constance," and five others, were exhibited in the year 1878 at the Paris International Exhibition, Mr. Calderon having been one of the artists selected to send an extra number of works; and it will be well to name them here, since they won for him for the second time the honour of the gold medal (rappel de premiire mjdaille). They were, "Home they Brought her Warrior Dead," "On her Way to the Throne,"-V y M r (a head), and "Catherine de Lorraine Urging Jacques Clement to Assassinate Henri III." This last picture was also exhibited in London in 1869. The first-named of these five is one of the most important of the painter's works. It tells its story in the most admirably pictorial manner, and does not need those singularly complete little stanzas from Lord Tennyson's " Princess" lyrics to explain it "Home they brought her warrior dead. She nor swooned nor uttered cry. All her women weepiiig said 'IShe must weep or she will die.' "Rose a nurse of ninety years, Laid his child upon her knee. Like summer tempest came her tears-- 'Oh my child, I live for thee.'" Mr. Calderon has seized the mother's action with a thoroughness and a vigour which give a true vitality to his picture. Following in their chronological order the painter's works is, after all, following the painter's life, for his work is his life: his brush tells his story. Hence, we see in Mr. Calderon's contributions to the Royal Academy Exhibition of 1870, that with " Spring Pelting away Winter with Flowers," he is striking into an allegorical vein, which, let it be said in passing, he does not appear to be quite so happy in as in others. Again, though we have seen, by his own account, that for some years in his early career hie devoted himself to portraiture, we have not until this period found him exhibiting a portrait. But having broken ground in this direction with a head of Mrs. Bland, he henceforth scarcely ever quits it. In 1871, under the title of "1The New Picture," he shows in a very original fashion the counterfeit presentment of a well-known picture-collector and his wife examining a newlypurchased work of art as it stands on a chair. Again, in 1872, he has "Mrs. Cazalet" (portrait), and a very striking and vigorous head of his friend and brotherartist, H. Stacy Marks, A.B.A. In 1873, in addition to a "Portrait of Mr. W. It. Elwyn," there is another very recognisable one in the picture entitled " Good-night," of a young mother, ready dressed for a ball, giving a farewell kiss to her little one. In 1875 two of the best as well as most charming pictures in the Academy were PHILIP HERMOGENES CALDER ON, R.A. 217 scenes from the city of Aries by Mr. Calderon-" Coquettes," and another groupecclesiastics busied over sacristy work. In painting the Arlesiennes, the artist has given all the peculiar mingling of beauty, frankness, and modesty which makes them the most charming bourgeoises in France. Mr. Calderoi describes them as so straightforward and simple that they will stand as models without either vanity or false shame, but out of pure politeness, and will unloose their splendid hair at an artist's request, doing all with the most courteous and obliging manner and "SPRING PELTING AWAY WINTER."1 (By Permission of C. P. Matthews, Esq.) the readiest of smiles. It is now during many centuries that the Aries women have been celebrated in song and story for their good looks. And it is not only in beauty but in pleasantness that they have the advantage of the women of Nimes, the neighbouring city, who are neither charming to the tourist's eyes, nor anxious to oblige him. Mr. Calderon's principal work in 1876 was "The Bird's Nest," a young woman and a child finding out together the tender little mystery that is hidden in the boughs of an arbutus. The picture is pleasantly harmonised with delicate greens, blues, and browns. With this was "1His Reverence," another charming little passage of the graceful citizen life of Aries. Down one of its steep streets 57 218 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. of steps, with an obelisk and trees in the distance, come two women with neat dresses, and fichus crossed in ample folds over their shoulders, and their glossy hair uncovered, exchanging as they go profound bows with a gentle abb6, who meets them doffing his shovel hat. Next year came "Constance," a beautiful young head; "Reduced Three per Cents.;" and the "Fruit Seller," a girl holding out an apple, her face fresh and bright, her arm very cleverly foreshortened; together with "Home they brought her Warrior dead," above described; "Joan of Arc "a solitary figure on the rocks, in a strong glow of sunset, representing the Maid as she was in the days when the voices of her saints were calling to her in her solitude to leave her home and go to the rescue of Orleans and the coronation of the King; and a portrait of the Marchioness of Waterford. In the year following the Academy pictures included portraits of Mrs. Bayley Worthington and of the daughter of Mr. J. C. Bowring; "La Gloire de Dijon "-a radiant-faced girl with a basket of flowers; and "Removing Nuns from Loughborough, December, 1643." The subject of the latter is explained by this extract from a letter sent privately by Oliver Cromwell to his friend:"To Mr. Squire, at his quarters, Fotheringay, Peterborough, this day, 2nd Dec. 1643:-DEAR FRIEND, I think I have heard you say that you had a relation in the Nunnery at Loughborough-Pray, if you love her, remove her speedily; and I send you a Pass, as we have orders to demolish it, and I must not dispute orders. There is one of the Andrews in it: take her away, Nay give them heed to go, if they value themselves-I had rather they did. I like no war on women. Pray prevail on all to go, if you can-I shall be with you at Oundle in time. "From your friend, "OLIVER CROMWELL." Squire has written on the back of the letter:"Got my Cousin Mary and Miss Andrews out, and left them at our house at Thrapstone, with my aunt, same night; and the troops rode over, and wrecked the nunnery by order of Parliament." In 1879 Mr. Calderon exhibited " Summer Breezes," a young girl with a basket of fish on her hip, leaning aside and holding on her hat, as the sea-wind buffets her. Her bodice is red, and the sea is a bright blue. With this were " Twilight," an interior with a girl and child; a portrait of the daughter of Mr. H. W. Smith; and portrait groups of ladies and their children at play, entitled respectively "In Ambush" and "A Cruise round the World." Next year our artist contributed to the Academy " Captives of his Bow and Spear," a benevolent-looking Arab receiving the homage of a woman and three young girls, who kneel at his feet; and a portrait of Mrs. Brocklehurst. In the same exhibition he began a series of decorative paintings with the "Vine" and the "Olive," in which female figures sit crowned and surrounded with grapes and olives, and with the leaves of olive-tree and vine. The rather hard and harsh colouring of these pictures took something from the Southern charm of the subjects. The same idea and treatment were continued, with more emphasis still, in " Flowers of the Earth." Here are terraces and flights of steps, columned and balustraded porticoes, about which are grouped women and girls carrying and weaving flowers. Flowers are in their baskets and in the aprons of the children, and scattered upon the pavements; while a young woman, in a kind PHILIP HERMOGENES CALDERON, R.A. 219 of idealised peasant dress, kneels on one knee crowning herself with a great wreath freshly plaited. But soon after Mr. Calderon returned to subjects of another interest, painting, in 1883, " The Faithful Heart," a rather slight but pleasing picture of an old man laying a posy on a grave just after sunset, while the dusk gathers. " Andromeda," which followed, is a very well-drawn and well-painted study from the nude, made rather unattractive by the hard, violent blue of the sea and the white of the flesh, while the hair looks preternaturally wiry and thick as it flies up in a black fleece, making a background to the head and bust. At the same exhibition were the " River," a portrait of Mrs. Harry Rouse, the "Woodland Spring "" Such sights as youthful poets dream On summer eves by haunted stream," and " Morning "-a young nymph with a " shining morning face," waking in an ecstasy of delight in the summer fields, as the lark soars singing at "Heaven's gate." In 1886 Mr. Calderon had at Burlington House " In Golden Fetters " and " Ruth and Naomi," illustrating the passage" Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God." The two women are embracing, Ruth's profile being the pretty and rather trivial one of an English girl, and behind them rise pink mountains of the Moab chain in the evening light. Mr. Calderon has been an industrious contributor to the Grosvenor Gallery, where among his principal works have been "Leila," a subject illustrating the lines:"Deep in the shady sadness of a vale, Far from the fiery noon and eve's one star;" "Aphrodite "-showing the goddess rolled up, white and round, on the foam of an intensely dark blue sea; and a very beautiful " CEnone," exquisite in its quality of flesh-painting. For his part in the exhibition of pictures of children, got up by the Fine Art Society in Bond Street in 1883, Mr. Calderon painted a pretty boy of some eight years old at his wicket as " Captain of the Eleven." The very various and numerous works imperfectly recorded above are painted in a modest but beautiful studio in the St. John's Wood region, in which effects of open-air light. are produced by means of skylights and reflections from white walls. Of late years a son, Mr. Frank Calderon, has distinguished himself by some unusually true and spirited bits of figure and horse drawing. The sons of Academicians, like the nephews of Popes, are apt to be suspected as to the favours that may fall to their lot; but in this case at least we have an undeniable talent of the kind that can observe and render character, movement, and the gesture of Nature. Of Mr. Calderon's technique one may say that, in addition to admirable colour, 220 TPlE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. it displays some traditions of the French school, grafted on to the originality of the English manner: that originality which comes, as it were, from the absence of any school at all. He paints like a Frenchman and thinks like an Englishman. Were there an adage to the effect that "Those who paint the spirit of chivalry should themselves be chivalrous," one glance at Mr. Calderon himself would be enough to show that in him the adage was borne out. We are struck, as it were, by his likeness to somebody we have seen before, and thinking for a moment, we say to ourselves, "To be sure, Velasquez!" We can recall half a dozen knightly figures from the great Spaniard's brush, for any one of which Mr. Calderon might have sat. As an example, in the picture of the "Lances," or "1 Sopears" (as the "Surrender of Breda " is sometimes called), in the Museo at Madrid, his prototype is very conspicuous. Nor 'i's it to be supposed that his personality in any way belies or overpaints the character of the man. "ARS LONGA, VITA BREVIS." (From the Pantinjl by Haynes Williams, in the Possession of Henry Tate, Esq., Liverpool.) Atp;007 or If o do 410> - HAYNES WILLIAMS. T the age of sixteen, and in the year 1852, Mr. Haynes Williams was S graduating as an usher in a large school at Birmingham, where he had also been educated, although born at Worcester. If his youthful efforts with pencil and brush were not sternly repressed, it was only because no one supposed they were going to divert him from the course of life marked out for him. Thus it came to pass that he acquired, by persistent study on all opportunities, great facility as a draughtsminan, and having been struck by the representation of some object of still life in a lithograph which was shown him by a friendly publisher of such works in Birmingham, he determined to attempt the delineation from Nature of a similar object. When he showed this essay to his friend, that person was so surprised and pleased with young Williams's success that he encouraged him to continue his artistic efforts by then and there giving him some small commissions of a like character to execute. This lithographic feat led up by degrees to 222 T2E2H MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. other and more important work, and for over four years Mr. Underwood, the publisher, and the young aspirant continued to do business together, with, it may be assumed, mutual advantage; for becoming the turning-point in the artist's life, this engagement started him financially on that career which of course before long brought his scholastic one to an end. Thenceforth diligently applying himself to the acquisition of that rudimentary knowledge without which the highest artistic genius is of little avail, Haynes Williams continued steadily to progress. He passed through whatever courses of study the local school of art offered to him, and by degrees he reached a position which enabled him to carry out a long and dearly-cherished project. As a boy, Washington Irving's "Tales of the Alhambra" had inspired him with an intense longing to visit Spain, and a re-perusal of this delightful work at a time when his artistic powers were beginning to mature, kindled afresh his enthusiasm for the peninsula as an unsurpassable happy hunting-ground for the painter. So to Spain he went about 1862, and fully imbued by his sojourn there with the spirit of the country, he has never since ceased to manifest his predilection for Spanish subjects. Nevertheless, for some time after his return, in 1864, he found a difficulty in turning them to account; and as an artist in his position must paint to live in order that he may live to paint, he was forced to turn his attention to more saleable themes. Hence we do not find his name conspicuously associated with his darling Andalusia on the walls of the Royal Academy until 1870, but that year he exhibited a work which possessed technical merits sufficient to arrest the eye of the connaisseur, and also claimed the attention of the crowd from the thrilling dramatic story it had to tell. It was entitled "Desesperados y Inesperados," and showed us some veritable desperadoes in their cave or retreat examining their plunder. One of them lay wounded unto death, whilst the fact, dramatically conveyed through the. expression on the face of a woman, that the stronghold is surrounded by soldiery, lent the turning-point to the romance, and brought vividly before the mind of the spectator the whole progress of the drama, from the crime down to its expiation and punishment. This typical specimen of the strong side of the artist's characteristics was followed up by such works as "The Talisman," an incident of the bull-ring, and " The Soldier's Last March." A wounded toreador in a church, where his wife and friends offer up prayers for him, and the crowd awaiting admission to the bull-ring, were the two subjects selected for the years 1872 and 1873. They were entitled respectively, "Prayers for One Wounded " and "A Los Toros," the latter being by far the most important effort yet made, having over sixty figures in it. In 1874, "Billeted" and " Saludad" represented Mr. Williams on the walls of the Academy. " Modern Occupants of Ancient Homes "--a girl feeding pigeons in the courtyard of an old Moorish mansion in Granada, followed; and "Ars Longa,, Vita:Brevis," which is eminently one of those pictures which speak for themselves, was seen on the walls of B3urlington House in 1877. A quaint Spanish custom, which obtained up to the end of the last century, offered our artist another IIAYNES WILLIAMS. 223 admirable theme in "Foundlings, Spain, 1790." A number of young girls are coming out of the hospital in procession, to seek (as it seems was the habit at certain intervals) for husbands, under properly organised surveillance. This, and a second canvas entitled '' Congratulations "-an incident connected with the national sport-were the products of the years 1878 and 1879. The motive of this latter work is thoroughly Spanish in sentiment. Bull-fighting is the glory and the ethics, and 41most the religion of this group of men and women-the toreador of other days, whose generous pleasure it is to applaud the triumphs of his successors; TiME 8TE1MOTI[ER. toreadores of to-day, who admire the distinguished man too much to envy him; the wife, who feels all the glory of her lord, and the child, who catches up the end of his father's scarlet cloak to excite to frenzy the little toy bull on wheels which he has at the point of his sword. And the congratulations are offered to as fine a figure of a bull-fighter as ever graced the ring. As to the costumes, they are gorgeous enough for a high gala, but with the overloaded gorgeousness which is peculiar to Spain. It is curious that Italian instinct in dress and decoration was-in the picturesque age-almost infallible, whereas Spanish taste alweys made for the tawdry and the theatrical. In "The Stepmother," the high quality of the painting indicated a steady advance in excellence of technique. The subject is extremely graceful, and must make the most modern-minded wish that old fair forms-even formalities-had not been n 0 0 r H r HA YNES WILLIAMS. 225 altogether abolished among the English races. The family- group in Mr. Haynes Williams's picture, with all the latent sorrowfulness or doubt or foreboding which it represents, would be none the better if outwardly it seemed less courteous. Doubtless the situation is sufficiently suggestive of regrets, jealousies, and suspicions; nevertheless, the heir of the house pays graceful homage to the attractive young mistress to whom he is presented, the girls are ready for a stepmotherly embrace; and it is only the little boy, clinging to the old nurse's neck for comfort, who shows frankly how fresh is still the memory of the mother, and how reluctantly the stranger is welcomed. The mere painting of "The First Offence " far exceeds any of the artist's previous brushwork, and has been likened, in its general excellence, colour, quality, and the rest, to De Hooghe. The incident of a little ragamuffin brought before the dignified but good-natured Alcalde for tart-stealing, with all the attendant circumstances of such an affair, if not very exciting, is sufficient to give the artist his chance of displaying his ability in colour, composition, character, and expression. The execution of the details is in his best manner, and the bare, whitewashed walls of the justice-court, broken here and there with old pictures and heavy drapery, the peep into the rooms and passage beyond, the quaint accessories, and the splendidly picturesque Spanish costume of a hundred years ago, all combine to the perfect realisation of the scene and in making a delightful picture. It need only be added that in a portrait of Mr. George Critchett, the oculist, Mr. Haynes Williams proves himself no mean proficient in another difficult branch of his art. Of late years our artist has been a constant exhibitor. In "1The Ancestor on the Tapestry" he shows us a Spanish interior of the last century. The little grandee, who is the heir to a great name and large estates, is walking down a tapestried room with his mother and her lady attendant, when the old steward of the house beckons to the child and points to the picture of a famous ancestor on the arras. In 1881 appeared "1The First Offence," and in 1882 a picture which, in spite of its lofty position over one of the doors, did attract considerable interest and attention. This was "The Sermon," a scene in church-presumably in Spainwith the faces of a row or two of listeners near the pulpit in sermon-time. Mr. Haynes Williams shows us first the old man, whose age is, as Lord Tennyson has it3, "a time of peace." The preacher does not move him keenly, for his sins have long been repented of, and he is quietly "making his salvation" at leisure, without strong emotions. Next to him is a beautiful bourgeoise woman, no longer young, whose life trials are at their height, but in whose large eyes burns the light of faith; she has been telling her beads, but lets them lie in her lap as she listens. At her side is a man of the world, of a rather ferocious type, whose very equivocal conscience has been touched by a stray word, and who seems to pa~use in his habitual thoughts, suddenly troubled. Beyond him again, a poor mother, absorbed in the one practical and sufficient sweetness and care of her life, bends over her baby, altogether careless as to the eloquence in the pulpit, while an elder child sleeps 58 226 THIE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. at her knee. A perfectly careless and unspiritual person is near her; and a little backwards is a thinker, who listens amid a crowd of replies and questions that arise in his own heart. A little farther off are faces expressing with less emphasis the variety of the ground on which the seed is scattered. Mr. Haynes Williams considered his subject good enough to be treated life-size, and it was precisely the kind of picture which, by its over-emphasis as well as by its better qualities, would have made a great popularity if it had been hung where it deserved to be-on the line. To the Grosvenor Gallery in the following year the painter contributed "A Gleam of Sunshine," illustrating the lines:"And the saddened face grew brighter, For the heart had lost its pain, When his dead child's loved little one Looked in his eyes again." A handsome old eighteenth-century gentleman, in a very neat wig and dress and a picturesque chair of an older date, is taking between both hands the charming face of a little girl of twelve, in which he sees the likeness of a lost daughter. There is something very sweet in the girl's serious and frank expression, and in the promise of intellect in her face. At the same gallery, in 1884, Mr. Williams had four works-" An Interior," "At the Fountain," " Going to the Fountain," and the portrait of Mr. Henry Tate. Next year he was represented at the Royal Academy by a picture important in size and slight but pleasant in motive-" An Interruption in the Dance." In a homely room some young people of the First Empire period are brought up in the course of a country dance by a stoppage in the music. Three girls run to see what has happened to the string of a violin, which has caused the interruption. The group is pleasingly composed. Mr. Haynes Williams is decidedly one of the painters whose work, if it ceased to appear, would be a loss to the Academy in general intelligent estimation. (From a Photograph by Done and Co., Baker Street.) THOMAS FAED, R.A. COTLAND has produced not only an extraordinary number of painters, as compared with Ireland, and-taking the difference of population into account-even with England, but also a school of painting most distinctively national, with characteristics exclusively its own. The roll of her great names in the realm of art reaches far back into the past. Jameson was a pupil of Rubens at Antwerp in 1616, and is commonly known as the Scotch Vandyke. At a later period we have in Sir Henry Raeburn a painter who magnificently illustrates the force and largeness of treatment distinctive of Scotch portraiture. The beginning of the present century introduces us to Sir William Allen, whose paintings of "The Battle of Waterloo," from two points of view-the English and the French-were criticised for that fault of cleanness, so 228 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. common to canvases of the kind, by the Duke of Wellington, who, nevertheless, bought them; and to David Wilkie, of living memory. But it was not until our own day that a whole company of Scotchmen rose up almost simultaneously, winning Academic honours and taking the art-loving public fairly by surprise. John Pettie, W. Q. Orchardson, Sir Noel Paton, Peter Graham, J. MacWhirter, and Hamilton Maccallum, are only some of these, even after we have added the name of Thomas Faed, the subject of the present sketch. This sudden torrent of artistic power is, perhaps, capable of an easy explanation; the tide of a great national talent, which had long been pent up in obedience to an icy creed, at length, under the liberating rays of an enlightened culture, expanded, and burst forth brightly. The divines of the Covenant, as Allan Cunningham tells us, regarded both painting and' poetry as matters idolatrous and vain; they not only dismissed from their public worship all external pomp, but adopted a dress and manner of life almost ostentatiously plain and homely. Succeeding pastors, however, softened these asperities; 'he sense of the beautiful grew by slow degrees less and less darkened, until at length Nature asserted her own dignity, and from the very bosom of the kirk there came forth a painter no less eminent than Wilkie. Born in a manse, whose domestic arrangements, both of necessity and on principle, made it " an example of thrift to the parish," the little David, when scarce escaped from his mother's bosom, loved to draw such figures as struck his fancy on the sand beside the stream, on the smooth stones of the field, and on the household floors; and when his fame was high he often declared that " he could draw before he could read, and paint before he could spell." From this healthy, though rough, Academy of the way-side and the fields, where, like Giotto, he lovingly made his first studies, he passed to a grammar-school, where he worked at more finished sketches; and as he grew up-though he lived in a land where, beyond a stray portrait of Sir Joshua, there were no fine examples of painting, and no friendly interpreters of the young enthusiasm which made him feel restless unless he had a pencil in his hand-his art grew with him. The relations between a young man of genius and his family are rarely satisfactory: his elders cannot see that the light which leads him comes from heaven, and they naturally shirk the responsibility of allowing him to turn from the beaten path that leads to a respectable competence, in order that he may venture on the untrodden ways of fame. This was David Wilkie's case; but at last, with fear and trembling, his father resolved to allow him to follow his bent; therefore, at the age of fourteen, he set off for the Edinburgh Academy in November, 1799. How he inhabited a little room in Nicholson Street, and there set up his easel; how he was punctual as time itself to the hours--some ten or twelve--allowed for study in the Academy every day; how he made almost unexampled progress; how he painted and sold pictures for a tithe of their value, and, finally, how he made a reputation that will never die--all this has been told over and over again, and we are only led to refer to it here because, in the hero of it all, we have a thoroughly typical SOh I wha wad buy a silken gown Wi' a puir broken heart? Or what's to me a siller crown Gin frae my love I part?' 230 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. Scotch artist, in the history of whose early struggles we read that of many others who have followed, with more or less distinction, in his steps. One of this number, John Faed-our Academician's elder brother-must certainly be counted. Born in the parish of Girthorn, Kirkcudbrightshire, when the century was some twenty years old, he came from a family which had lived about the Borders for three hundred years, and which has, we believe, an exclusive monopoly of its probably Celtic, but possibly Danish, name. Like David Wilkie, hlie had given promise of artistic excellence at the age of twelve, and proceeding to Edinburgh in 1841, there began to win a public reputation which he continues to extend at the yearly exhibitions of our own Academy. Following in his brother's footsteps, on what had consequently become a comparatively easy path, Mr. Thomas Faed also went to Edinburgh, and while a pupil of Sir William Allan's at the School of Design carried off many prizes which, though they may perhaps be smiled at now, were doubtless of paramount importance then. His earliest exhibited work was a water-colour drawing of "The Old English Baron," and from water-colours to oils was a step which he was quick to take, and with so much success that he was elected an Associate of the Royal Scottish Academy at the age of twenty-three. These early canvases were almost all representations of some phase of Scottish life. Beginning with draught-players and shepherd-boys, the artist went on to more ambitious subjects, such as " Scott and his Friends at Abbotsford," until his reputation was so far established that in 1852 he settled in London, and began to exhibit regularly at the Royal Academy, of which he became an Associate in 1859, and a Member in 1864. He is also a member of the Royal Scottish Academy, and of the Imperial Academy of Vienna. It is commonly said that an age may be judged by its literature; and painting is almost equally expressive of the mental and physical conditions under which it is produced. The religious fervour of the Middle Ages made itself felt in such works as those of Fra Angelico, Perugino, and Francia; the prosaic character of the Dutch is written on Dutch art, just as the elegance of Italy is evident in Italian art, even in its days of decadence; the artificial courtliness of France in the last century stamped a contemporary school of painting, even infecting the religious canvases of the time; and future historians who write of the present century as a distinctively military one for France, will be able to confirm their words by pointing to the fact that her contemporary military art was the greatest in the world. Comining to the Great Britain of to-day, we find her to be before all things domestic. The people live, not in churches, nor courts, nor camps, but in their homes, which they have filled with household gods, and made, in the language of Wordsworth, "kindred points with heaven." We are told that those poets are great who best embody in verse the spirit of their age, and if the same rule applies to the work of the artist, assuredly Mr. Faed holds a certain place among painters. No other has told domestic stories upon canvas so often, and his popu THOMAS FAED, R.A. 231 larity proves how thoroughly he is in harmony with the temper of his time. As early as 1855 his "Mitherless Bairn" was the Academy "picture of the season," and it has been followed up, as all the world knows, by a succession of canvases of an equally sentimental interest, and of greater technical excellence. In 1856 came the "Home of the Homeless," now in the possession of the Baroness Burdett Coutts. A few years later-each year being marked by the appearance of characteristic works which it is unnecessary to name-a sensation was made by the " Sunday in the Backwoods," a large representation of Scotch emigrants who break the silence of the forest by reading the Bible aloud, while a dying lassie leans against her old mother and plays with a pet bird-a reminiscence of the faraway land she loves, but will see no more for ever. Another sensation was made by "From Dawn till Sunset," a picture which shows the interior of a cottage containing the various stages of life, from the unconscious baby at its mother's breast to the old grandmother, whose hand, worn by the touch of death, falls on the coverlid. Of attractiveness equal to either of these was the " Evangeline," which has already been made familiar by many engravings and lithographs, and was especially a favourite in Evangeline's own land, and with the poet whose genius gave her birth. In " Worn Out" we have perhaps the best picture for colour and for feeling that Mr. Faed has painted; it represents a middle-aged workman-a widower-watching his sick boy through the night; the weather is cold and the father has taken off his coat and covered the lad with it; an old bit of rug is placed to keep away the draught; the lamp is set where the light will not get into the child's eyes; his hands clasp his father's shirt-sleeve, lest he should leave him; and so they have fallen asleep, "worn out " as light is just slanting in at the garret window. " Only Herself" is another of the artist's best works, and when it was sold, along with " A Wee Bit Fractious," at a public sale, nearly ~4,000 was realised by the two. The picture we have selected for an engraving represents Mr. Faed in the character he has made peculiarly his own-that of the delineator of homely Scottish life; nor has he ever, even when in this favourite mood, chosen a happier subject than that afforded by the incident to be found in one of the most popular of national ballads:" Oh! wha wad buy a silken gown Wi' a puir broken heart I Or what's to me a siller crown Gin frae my love I part " Mr. Faed, who puts, as the French say, his dots upon all his i's, and will not run the risk of having his meaning overlooked for lack of emphasis and explanation, shows us the family situation in its completeness. The damsel, with her snooded hair, is sitting at her wheel, where she spins the homespun and russet which she is content to wear. The mother has the silken gown, not in promise, but in actuality, unfolded, with its attractive surface at her daughter's elbow, and she whispers into her ear mercenary counsels. Nor is this all; for we are allowed 232 THE MODERN SCHOOL OF ART. to see through a door open exactly far enough, the equally venal father and the rich suitor himself at their bargain. And doubtless this insistence has done something towards Mr. Faed's popularity. Of later years the Scottish artist has persevered in the same prosperous career, painting buxom young mothers in sun-bonnets tending their boys -and girls, and excellent old people in plaids. He allows himself some flights of imagination as regards the colours of his personages' costumes, and in weightier matters, of course, it cannot be pretended that he renders the life of Scotland realistically. His art belongs to a time just passing, when people preferred Nature made pleasanter with sentiment; and for this mild kind of idealisation nobody was the worse. PRINTED BY CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED, LA BELLE SAUVAGE, LONDON, E.C. 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