Essays on art

Preface

DURING the last five-and-twenty years the criticism of Art in England, with one memorable exception (to which, whether we agree or not with Mr. Ruskin, we are all signally indebted), has been mainly confined to newspapers. Meanwhile, in France, besides more elaborate writings, reviews of the chief exhibitions of the year are now annually collected in a permanent form. It has been thought that a similar attempt might be found interesting at home. Most of the following Essays have appeared in the Saturday Review , and elsewhere ; but they have been minutely revised, and in some cases almost re-written. The aim in this has principally been to exclude matters of temporary interest, and to soften down (perhaps not always with success), those asperities of censure, a bias towards which is one of the most besetting temptations of anonymous literature.

The main object of the book is, by examples taken chiefly from the works of contemporaries, to illustrate the truths, that art has fixed principles, of which any one may attain the knowledge who is not wanting in natural taste, and that this knowledge adds greatly to our pleasure, by giving it depth, permanence, and

VI

PREFACE intelligibility. The more we test and weigh our enjoyment, the more, we make it rest upon fact, the stronger and the more uniform does it become. There is little dispute about the works which really interest the human mind. Tastes only differ , or are not matters for discussion , as people sometimes say, when they are grounded upon arbitrary liking. Judgment of Art, (if the writer may repeat words which much subsequent study of the subject has confirmed,) is a matter which simply resembles other branches of human knowledge : a certain natural faculty or bias must always be presupposed ; with this, as in case of mathematics or of language, taste is obtained by study and observation ; and, as in those sciences, leads to a practical power of decision. Some few strictly technical qualities remain, on which the artist alone is a judge. But this exception does not invalidate the criticism of spectators. Art, like poetry, is addressed to the world at large, not to a special jury of professional masters : the technical qualities are only means to the public end, and the question which remains always is, how far do they tend to the object of all the Fine Arts, high and enduring pleasure. To point out the degree in which a work fulfils this condition, and thereby to assist the artist in fulfilling it, and the spectator in feeling it, is the province of criticism.

London : Mar. 19 : 1866

F. T. P.

Index

PAGE

THE ROYAL ACADEMY OF 1 863 I

MULREADY 1 25

DYCE AND WILLIAM HUNT 135

HIPPOLYTE FLANDRIN I44

HERBERT'S “DELIVERY OF THE LAW ” 1 5 1

RECENT WORKS BY HOLMAN HUNT 160

EXHIBITION OF F. MADOX BROWN 1 68

GEORGE CRUIKSHANK 177

Vlll

INDEX

LOST TREASURES

BEHNES THE SCULPTOR

THORVALDSEN’S LIFE AND WORKS

THE FARNESE MARBLES

TRIQUETl’s “MARMOR HOMERICUM ” .....

THE ALBERT CROSS AND ENGLISH MONUMENTAL SCULPTURE .

PAGE

2 1 1

Certain complaints have been made this year on the mode in which the Hanging Committee have exercised their inevitably ungracious function ; and, although the difficulties of arranging several hundred pictures on walls not really able to admit one-third of the number should be liberally allowed for, yet there is some reason for the remark that original merit of the “ unprotected ” class has been placed too high or too low for sight, whilst privilege may have asserted itself over-conspicuously on the “ line ” of comfortable visibility. Having relieved ourselves by this growl, let it be added that, “ if much be taken, much remains.” So well situated is the country at present in regard to art, in certain directions — so imperative are the claims of several artists to a position in which their works can be not only paid for as part of a spectacle, but actually seen — that it will be found that the Ninety-fifth Exhibition of the Academy affords much which may please, and not a little which may delight, an intelligent spectator.

Before taking in hand the principal pictures shown, it is proper to note certain conspicuous deficiencies in the collection. Owing principally, we believe, to the pressure of other work connected with Art, neither Mulready, Eastlake,

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Maclise, Dyce, Landseer, nor Foley, is represented. In these men we lose some of the most attractive, and some of the most original, of our ordinary contributors ; and others, from whom we have often, on previous occasions, received works of merit — for instance, Phillip and Watts — are by no means seen to the fullest advantage. From most of those now named we may fairly hope for recompense hereafter ; but the loss which the English school has sustained by the death of Mr. Egg will not be supplied so easily. This is not the place for biographical details in regard to this justly-lamented artist ; yet it would be an inexcusable omission were we to be silent upon all that we have suffered by his early removal. The experience of foreign art gained at the “International Exhibition,” appears to have impressed English spectators in general with the knowledge that, in some highly important matters, we are unequal to our Continental contemporaries. We do not draw so well ; we do not hit the point so dexterously ; we are not so skilful in telling a tale without the aid of minor bits of humour or sentiment ; we do not concentrate the interest of our landscapes with such frankness and facility ; we are more given to mere manufacture in our portraits. Now, in some of these points, Mr. Egg was amongst the few, comparatively, who could best stand the test of French and German competition. There was a high and unaffected aim in all that he did ; his command over design in the human figure was large, and he laid out his canvas with a dramatic power which was always increasing in clearness and simplicity. If this brief summary of what he was leads any readers to do him justice in their remembrance — still more, if it should lead some of our existing artists to emulate his career — what we have here attempted to perform will be no inane munus. But we now pass to the living.

I

Ever since his fine “ Procession of Cimabue ” startled us some eight years ago, Mr. Leighton has been one of the “rising men” of the day in figure-painting. Two or three others — as Marks and Calderon — have, during this interval, fairly made their reputation, and we find on these walls proof that, before any long period has gone by, as many more will be “ household names ” to all who care for English art But Mr. Leighton has embraced a wider range than most of his contemporaries, both in the quality of his subjects and the size of his designs. He has apparently set before himself the lofty but hazardous example of those who in the last century were spoken of as the “ great masters ” of the Bolognese school ; and it must hence not be considered unreasonable or discouraging if we still have to look upon him as a man who has not yet finally completed his style, nor secured his reputation. This year, two serious and two ornamental pieces display the versatility of his powers, nor has he shrunk from attempting three on the arduous scale of actual life; whilst one, the “Ahab, Jezebel, and Elijah,” appears to be of larger proportions. Excepting (if they be exceptions) Mr. Herbert’s uninspired and cold, though careful “Judith,” with Mr. Dobson’s sweet but sentimental “ Return of the Holy Family,” Mr. Leighton’s is the only serious Scripture subject in the exhibition. In the Jezebel and Elijah we see that the artist has endeavoured to unite the “ style ” of the sixteenth-century men with that more individual rendering of character and more strictly chronological aspect of scene which familiarity with the real East has rendered, in a manner, obligatory on our modern

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Scripture painters. In this difficult aim he has not attained complete success. The colouring is not free from heaviness, owing to the large unbroken masses into which it is divided ; the action of the Ahab is a little uncertain ; and the smooth surface of the painting combines with the gloss and newness of the dresses to deprive the scene of the air of picturesque veracity. But the arrangement is striking; the lines of the Queen’s drapery are large and beautiful ; and her head, though less original than that of the prophet, is well drawn and imagined. Leighton’s power in seizing character is better shown in the half-length of an “ Italian Crossbowman ” who has, we suppose, registered a vow, sure to be kept, to avenge the death of the comrade whose withered hand is nailed to the city wall above him. Here the gloomy colour corresponds with the sentiment of the scene, although the force of purpose is so strongly marked on the archer’s face, that the artist might have given glow and richness of tone to the whole work without compromising its dramatic effect. Of Leighton’s two ornamental pictures, the larger one, a “Girl with Peacock” has an air of brilliancy, but strikes us as empty and shadow-like in proportion to the amount of work bestowed on it. The “ Girl with Fruit ” is gracefully drawn, and free from affectation.

If the aim of this painter gives him a right, in 1863, t0 the place of first notice amongst those who devote themselves to figure subjects, the place of popularity must be reserved for Mr. Millais. And it will probably be agreed on all hands that the distinguished artist has made a nearer advance towards resumption of his earlier and more forcible style this year than in several preceding Exhibitions. At least, the execution of his “ Child’s first Sermon ” is carried to a high point of technical completeness ; and though the painting of the face, as usual with the artist, is not proportioned in its thoroughness to the treatment of the accessories, yet the life, and earnestness, and simple beauty which he has thrown into the child’s features, render the little canvas one which spectators are long likely to remember with pleasure. In the “ Wolf’s Den ” the details are not quite so satisfactory, and there is evidence of over-haste in the hands and face of the child on the right, and in the rather coarse patch of light which falls on the bosom of the prisoner. We presume, at least, that this little creature, lying so demurely on her back, and absorbed in her snowdrop, is meant to be the victim of her brothers, who are crying “wolf” in different tones of energy from beneath the grand pianoforte. One charm of this pleasing work is, in fact, the truth with which Millais has apprehended the inconsecutiveness of young children — their inability to act a part completely, or for more than a few moments — their deferential, but imperfect, imitation- of the eldest amongst them. Thus, here the biggest boy is the leader of the party, and the gradations of intelligence descend through the child who can only roar “ wolf,” to the child who has totally forgotten that she is in the den at all. Child’s play has been seldom more pleasingly represented than here ; and there is an originality and look of ease about the picture, a power of painting, in short, in which Millais has perhaps no rival.

As a tour de force, Mr. Millais’s picture from Keats is unequalled in this exhibition. The general tone of moonlight is given throughout with astonishing power; although we must confess to some doubt whether due gradation has been observed in the background; would there not have been more of “clear obscurity” throughout the room, when the light is strong enough to bring out so forcibly the table and its ornaments close to the eye, with the blue and silver of Madeline’s robe? But a graver question remains, when we pass from the surprizing effect of the picture to the subject and sentiment which it professes to render. It would be but a poor compliment to Mr. Millais to say, that it was enough to paint moonlight so magnificently, when he has aimed at illustrating a scene of such high poetical and human interest as the “ Eve of St. Agnes.” And, in this respect, we must own that his success does not appear equal. Nothing but the daring dexterity which the picture shows could save it (we think), if indeed saved it be, from leaving the impression of ghastliness. Keats has placed his scene in winter, and has, poetically, endued the cold moonbeams (which, in fact, would take no such splendour in their passage) with the sun’s full power of carrying the rich colours of a painted window with them into the maiden’s chamber. All lovers of poetry know the splendid picture of the kneeling heroine which he thus produced. This was, perhaps, a just licence in the artist who has only words to paint with. But the artist who paints in colours has, with equal justice, corrected the effect, and cast over his figure such pale lurid rays as would really have been thrown by the moonlight. This is managed, on the hair especially, with singular skill. But we must venture to urge, that Mr. Millais’s amended version of the great Poet — and of the great Poet in his greatest work — should have stopped here. If the name of “ Madeline,” and the lovely images suggested by the famous lines quoted in the Catalogue, were to be associated with his picture (without stopping to require the far minor veracities of mediaeval costume and architecture), modest tenderness of expression, blending with passionate impulse, and grace of form, and beauty of colour, even if subdued, were essential. These are the elements of Keats’s “ Madeline ; ” but the images called up by the wan face, blackened lips, and blue-stained bosom of Mr. Millais’s figure, aided by the look of the dismal-looking bed, seem to us rather of the spectral order than of the maidenly.

And stood at William’s feet —

Name the picture thus, and it would be accepted as a powerful rendering of the old ballad ; and even the coarse wrists and attenuated arms of the model, and the inelegant details of fringed corset and petticoat-strings, would have the appropriateness in which we venture to think them now deficient.

Mr. Millais’s children have no equal in the Exhibition, except in Mr. Holman Hunt’s “ King of Hearts.” This is one of those brilliant little works, true and complete in every touch, which we know will speak as clearly to spectators five hundred years hence, if paint and canvas keep together so long, as in 1863. It represents a noble little boy who, after the fashion of Reynolds’s “ Master Crewe,” is enacting a young Henry VIII, and is about to send his china ball with sure aim, under the patronage, like a knight of old, of the device (a heart gules , the old Douglas bearing) from which the picture takes its title. The child’s eyes are full of life and light, and the sunny smile on his face seems to presage success. His features and dress, with a lovely landscape background, are handled with Mr. Hunt’s well-known faithful delicacy. Not far from this work in fidelity — though different in art and finish — we should place Mr. Darvell’s little “ Orange Girl ” — one of the many meritorious pieces sacrificed by the peculiar style of this year’s arrangement. In this the child’s face, and dress, and attitude, are truly, though rather stiffly, caught. It is much nearer nature than Mr. Faed’s version of a similar subject (273), although it cannot compete, in force and richness of tint, with his “ Orange Seller.” Mr. Clark reminds us too forcibly of his popular “ Sick Child ” by a somewhat blurred and morbidly-coloured repetition of very similar models and arrangement in his “After Work.”

Of Webster’s contributions, the aged man seated alone (165) is the most original. It has a pathetic feeling, and, as usual with this artist, is unaffected in character. In good scenes from everyday life this Exhibition is not peculiarly rich. Mr. Horsley, in place of the pretty pictures of this nature which at one time he gave, seems to have retreated into the dressy, artificial period of the corrupt cavalierism of Charles II ; and Mr. Faed’s cottage interior (213), though a successful specimen of his picturesque and spotty manner, has not the dramatic interest of his “ From Birth to Death,” or the “ Life in the Backwoods,” of two or three years back. Mr. Martineau’s single picture — a girl who has knelt down to catch the last rays of firelight whilst she finishes the last chapter of some absorbing book (568) — is one of the most satisfactory pieces of design and execution on the walls : what we rather miss in it is the sentiment of beauty. Beside the expression of the young lady’s face, thoroughly given in its girlish unconsciousness, the skilful gradation of the chiaroscuro , as the room recedes from the light, and the skill with which the cool colours have been harmoniously carried into the centre of the piece by aid of the cover of the book, deserve especial notice. Another work which may be fairly set by this is the “ Sailor’s Return,” by Mr. A. Hughes, remarkable for delicacy of feeling, but whose modest canvas has not thereby escaped condemnation to the region of boots and crinoline edges.

Even this treatment, however, cannot prevent us from observing the tone and tender feeling which Mr. Hughes has thrown into the head of the young sister who watches the passionate grief of the lad, as he throws himself on the grave of the parent or sweetheart whom he has returned to find missing. The drawing of these figures is firm, and the details of the church and trees skilfully managed. Mr. Barwell’s “Reconciliation,” wants greater finish, but tells its tale with clearness. The grandfather (who hardly looks his age), offended by a child's marriage, has been induced to relent towards the now widowed mother by the sudden introduction of her child, effected through the affectionate ruse of his two maiden daughters. The gradations of hope in their heads, and in that of the widow, who grasps the hands of one, and looks only to her face for indication of what is passing, are caught with great dexterity ; and their whole bearing and expression is that of true gentlewomanliness. In these points this work forms a noteworthy contrast to the manner of Mr. Frith, whose lady-figures, as in the “ Ramsgate Sands ” and the “Railway Station,” are apt to have the air of housemaids in kid-gloves ; or to that of his only too faithful follower, Mr. Hicks, in his “Woman’s Mission.” Yet this last gives promise of better things. The dexterity and feeling for grace shown will, we hope, be one day carried by Mr. Hicks into pictures of a more undemonstrative and genuine quality.

II

Most of the figure-subjects hitherto noticed belong to the domestic class. We turn now to a series — beginning with those by our younger men of promise — which draw their incidents from the past, and hence range themselves, more or less, in the historical. These works, amongst which it is impossible to mention all that deserve notice, by the increasing evidence of study shown in the figures, and by the reliance which they display upon the simple setting forth of their story, not lesss than by their number, testify to the growth of our school in a direction which has not, hitherto, been so much followed in England as elsewhere. Our national liking for pictures of children and lovers, household jests, and drawing-room tragedies, has its good side ; yet the art which lends itself decidedly to subjects of this range, although popular for the moment, is apt before long to lose its hold on the purchasing class, and, by iteration within a somewhat narrow and facile field, to relax the energies of the artist. The determination to have something humourous and something pretty in every picture has been the ruin of many a man who, by a wider and manlier selection of subject, might have done us good service ; and the English addiction to the commonplaces of home, has often exposed us to the somewhat contemptuous, though good-humoured, criticism of French and German observers. We do not mean that the foreign schools of “high” or “ historical” art have not produced many vacuous and theatrical designs. But it seems to be a law of life — at least in art — that no man does anything thoroughly well who cannot do whatever analogous work stands in the next stage of difficulty above it. The best figure-schools produce the best ornament. The best books on logic come from metaphysicians. No doubt it is much better to paint a baby well than to fail in a Saint. Yet he who has made earnest effort to represent the Saint will probably paint the better baby — witness Raphael and Velasquez, Rubens and Reynolds. Thus, on more grounds than one, we rejoice to see the enlarging and meritorious band of our historical incident painters, and regret only that, for their sakes as well as the nation’s, some of the fresco-spaces at Westminster were not saved for them from

THE ROYAL ACADEMY OF 1863 II

less able hands. But we trust that there is still opportunity to introduce new blood into the series of Parliamentary commissions. One or two works a-piece by Messrs. Cope, Ward,, and Herbert, would have supplied ample verge and space enough for their powers, and have spared room for artists of more capacity for historical work — let us name Mr. Madox Brown, Mr. Holman Hunt, Mr. Millais, and Mr. Armitage, without exhausting the list, — who have not yet gained admission.

Calderon’s “ Day of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew ” represents the interior of the English Embassy, where the great name of Elizabeth and the presence of the wise Walsingham kept open a single harbour of refuge from the bloody storm of persecution without. The Ambassador is a well conceived figure. He walks, without raising his eyes, across the room where a crowd of retainers and fugitives are gathered, in the meditative humour of a brave man who must witness the crime which he is unable to check. Alarmed women and indignant men, in different modes of passion, fill the rest of the State-room ; we see that something fearful is transacting below in the street, but what it may be is untold except by the expression of the beholders. This picture is full of light and air, firmly, though drily, coloured and drawn. A few hard outlines have been left here and there. Perhaps this is the most complete and original thing of the kind exhibited ; although the “ Parting of Sir T. More and his Daughter,” by Mr. Yeames, gives promise of similar merits when the artist’s style is a little more matured. In this carefullystudied work, the attendant figures, sympathizing with or officially indifferent to the pathos of the situation, are more satisfactory than the daughter. More himself, however, is well imagined, although the expression of his features — familiar to us after three centuries in the immortal delineation of Holbein — might have been strengthened. There is a serious aim, combined with moderately careful work, in Mr.

Stone’s “ Napoleon between Waterloo and Paris ; ” and the features of the French cottage have been well caught. This subject, however, and that of Mr. G. Leslie’s “ War Summons,” call for maturer powers than their designers have yet reached, although honest attempts at a good style, and at themes neither sentimental nor melodramatic, deserve our sympathy. The latter work represents a family group disturbed from a summer afternoon’s enjoyment on their terrace, by a summons delivered to the head of the house to join the campaign of 1485. We must own to thinking any real and unaffected bit of mediaeval life a better subject for art than the mystic and fanciful themes of the Arthurian cycle of legend which have been lately selected by some of our painters : Mr. Archer being this year’s instance. Words can deal with a story so unearthly and far-sought more safely than colours, which almost inevitably fail when they try to render the vague visions of Sir Thomas Mallory’s fascinating prose-epic ; for the romance and the illusions are apt to disappear when dragged thus “ into the light of common day.” A true aspect of this “ common day,” as it may have looked in the time of Chaucer, is rendered by Mr. Pettie in a cleverly conceived and handled little work, the “ Trio.” Here three Wandering Minstrels of old are seen swaggering in comic gravity through mediaeval London, joking with the girls as they pass, yet so penetrated with the sense of time and song that one feels they lose neither step nor note as they make their transit : certainly one of the best bits of humour in the Exhibition, though Mr.

Nicol’s scenes from Irish life — especially that x3 of the thirsty wretch who has taken off his “ dthrop of the cratur,” and displays the emptiness of his breeches pocket with admirable drunken solemnity — rank with Mr. Pettie’s work in vis comica. This quality, in Mr. Marks’s former productions, was apt to run into broad, but effective farce. His “Shakspeare studying humours,” in some street near the Port of London, is handled in a more quiet key. The poet’s dog is a capital idea; we commend him, his name and pedigree, to the researches of Mr. Halliwell and our other industrious Shakspearians, in whose eyes even Shakspeare’s “ second best bed ” has a sacred significance. Might not his descendants be traced somewhere about Stratford or Shottery ? The poet’s own family are all extinct ; but this would be a compensation. — In the other groups we see a blending of ranks, not now so frequent within the Tower Hamlets — the “ruffling” courtier, the picturesque merchant, the demonstrative good wife of Elizabeth’s day. Barring the locality, the scene might be a preliminary sketch for the Wives of Windsor. The painting of this interesting work is rather thin and inharmonious, and the sky tint obtrusive. Mr. Hodgson gives us a scene of a different nature from the epoch of Shakspeare’s youth — the lighting of a beacon-fire on the alarm of the Armada (569). The hostile fleet, dotted in endless file along a far horizon, is imaginatively heralded by a sunset of that crimson brilliancy which Wordsworth and Turner painted more than once, but which is here only sketchily rendered.

A crowd has run down to the edge of the cliff, led apparently by an aged crone, who may be supposed to have prophesied of the evil day, and now summons the inhabitants of some manor-house and village to the accomplishment of her vision. Although Mr. Hodgson’s drawing is not yet strong, there is some vivacity and truth in the action of this group, and the whole arrangement of the picture, if rather straggling, is unconventional. The value of this latter quality will be felt if Mr. Hodgson’s work be compared with Faed’s “Silken Gown,” with its skilfully, but studiously, posed figures ; or with O’Neil’s “ Power of Music,” where the disposition is studied but not skilful. The Civil War has furnished two not dissimilar scenes to Mr. Hay liar and Mr. Goldie (628 and 565). Both have selected the execution of a Royalist by a file of Cromwellian soldiers, for whom our gallant Volunteers have manifestedly supplied the models. We think Mr. Goldie’s the better painted ; but it is more painful and not so dramatically worked out as Mr. Hayllar’s, in which a child is unconsciously drawing the lots of life or death for two Royalist prisoners. The artist appears to have lapsed, in his system of execution, into the ways of the “ blottesque ” school, as Mr. Ruskin named it ; we trust he will resume his earlier and more careful manner. A French Fishwoman, which he exhibited a few years ago, was a capital piece of painting.

Mr. Armitage appears to be our solitary English painter in a class of subject which the French have followed with much success. His “ Burial of a Martyr” represents what may have been a not uncommon scene in one of the Imperial persecutions. So far as we can judge from the position allotted to the work (below which on the line hangs a showy and meretricious picture from the history of Bruce), it is most carefully drawn and worked out, and the sentiment of the occasion — grief almost subdued by calm exultation — truly rendered. This picture would be well

suited for reproduction in fresco, and may be commended to our liberally-minded churchmen as an excellent and appropriate decoration for one of the new churches.

From Mr. Armitage’s careful and truly artist-like canvas, it is a great, and not altogether a gratifying, contrast to turn to those of Mr. Phillip. His style, probably too far formed to allow hope for alteration to those who are unable to rank him amongst the great, or even the thoroughly satisfactory, artists of the day, is well known for picturesqueness and force of colour. These are precious gifts ; and, when the subject has happened to lie well for the painter’s hand, as workmen say, they have issued in clever scenes of Spanish life : although life must be here mainly limited to a theatre for beggars and flirts, priests and smugglers. On this occasion, Mr. Phillip has been unfortunate in his larger subject ; the upper end of the House of Commons supplying but little which can be classed under the superficially picturesque, although he has, even here, made forcible use of the disorderly boxes and paraphernalia of the table. In the rest, he has substituted a lustrous brown background for the true, but difficult effects of light and shade beneath the gallery and the Speaker’s canopy, merging even the heads of the less distinguished members in what is, we presume, a symbolical cloud of London fog. The nearer heads have had just sufficient work bestowed to render them recognizeable ; the likeness in each is carried about as far, allowing for the difference of the material, as in the woodcuts of Punch; but what is enough for a joke or a satire, is below the mark of historical painting.