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Ho vi Ghei PARR CHL, PENH HAC CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY FINE ARTS LIBRARY GAYLORD DATE DUE Cornell University Libra THE MASTER PAINTERS OF BRITAIN THE BLESSED DAMOZEL By Dante GasrieL Rossetti (Frontispiece) CQZEXHIS picture, although inspired by the poem Rossetti wrote at the ey) age of twenty-one, and published in the second number of the ) NS) now famous magazine, 7he Germ (February 1856), appears not to e have struck its author as a suitable theme for a painting until long afterwards. It was ‘in his mind to paint “The Blessed Damozel”’ in 1873, we are told; but not until Mr. Graham suggested it and promised to buy the picture does he appear to have considered the idea seriously. ‘The Blessed Damozel’ here reproduced is not the one commissioned by Mr. Graham and finished about 1876, but another undertaken in 1879 for Mr. Leyland. The first version is most prized by staunch admirers of Rossetti; but the second has found greater favour in the eyes of the public. This latter was altered in many respects, especially in the omission of pairs of lovers clad in deep blue, who in the first version are seen embracing each other in the alleys of a yew-clipped garden behind the central figure. To re-tell its story in a curt summary would be sacrilegious; even at the risk of repeating lines familiar as household words, a few quotations from the poem will serve our purpose far better :— The blessed Damozel leaned out It was the rampart of God’s house From the gold bar of Heaven; That she was standing on; Her eyes were deeper than the depth By God built over the sheer depth Of water stilled at even ; The which is Space begun ; She had three lilies in her hand, So high, that looking downward thence And the stars in her hair were seven. She scarce could see the sun. Her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem, And still she bowed herself and stooped No wrought flowers did adorn, Out of the circling charm ; But a white rose of Mary’s gift, Until her bosom must have made For service meetly worn ; The bar she leaned on warm, Her hair that lay along her back And the lilies lay as if asleep Was yellow like ripe corn. Along her bended arm. Herseemed she scarce had been a day ‘I wish that he were come to me, One of God’s choristers ; For he will come,’ she said. The wonder was not yet quite gone ‘Have I not prayed in Heaven?—on earth, From that still look of hers; Lord, Lord, has he not pray’d? Albeit, to them she left, her day Are not two prayers a perfect strength ? Had counted as ten years. And shall I feel afraid?’ Both versions have also a frede/la (a small picture inserted in the same frame below), showing the lover prostrate upon the grass. The picture here illustrated was sold, as part of the Leyland Collection, at Christie’s, on May 28, 1892, for 980 guineas, Pe rr et en cl | The Blessed Damozel ( Rossetti). TELS. 66S agen cminernnceen gna eran enn we Lette 7 LS DEE MASTER PAINTERS OF BRITAIN EDITED BY (-MitiqelL RESON WHiITs SOMETIME EDITOR OF ‘THE STUDIO’ AUTHOR OF ‘ENGLISH ILLUSTRATION: THE SIXTIES’ ee NEW YORK THE INTERNATIONAL STUDIO JOHN LANE COMPANY MCMIX W. kB ire Gets ND YS 4 W5& A. 237402 Toraaeben fe Orel PREFACE the best paintings of the most notable British Artists, and to give such an account of the painters illustrated, and of their pictures, as shal! afford the reader a view of the development of painting in this country, and of the relation and indebted- ness of one artist to another. In the most attractive form possible then—that of a panorama of the most beautiful pictures extant—the work, it is hoped, will combine with an informal History of British Art, an unconventional method of acquiring a wider artistic culture. For it is by familiarity with the works of Master-Painters, such as Hogarth, Reynolds, Turner, and Raeburn, Rossetti, Burne Jones, Leighton, and Millais, and a hundred others who appear here, that the artistic faculty is developed, and it is only when it is so developed that the rare beauty of the master- pieces of art is appreciated, and intelligent appreciation of their merit becomes possible. The pictures have not been selected to support any given theory of art, but to represent catholically all the different schools. Therefore the title ‘ Master-Painters’ is singularly apt. For, whereas the accepted masterpieces that would provoke no opponent to question their right are few, the master-painters—men who in the way that appealed to them did the best that was in their power—are recognised as such by all wise men, even if personal taste forbids formal approval of their ideal, and if some are but little masters in comparison with the greatest. The realistic school is apt to be contemptuous of the poetic school; the picture with a dramatic or anecdotal subject is disliked by those who rank masterly technique expended upon certain aspects of nature as the highest form of art. Here, the effort has b 6 PREFACE been to give fine examples of all the varying styles which have been mastered by British painters, and to do so with no ulterior motive to exalt any one school to the detriment of the rest. As a perfect anthology is rarely possible except in theory, it would be superfluous to explain why such a collection, despite every effort, must needs be not quite ideal. Yet it is offered as a fair, if not exhaustive, summary of British Art. The work is arranged on a chronological plan. The explanatory note preceding each plate explains fully the theme of the picture, and so supplies what is so often lost—the pleasure of knowing the whole of the story represented. Interesting facts about the artist, information about the picture itself, its origin, its fate, and a few words of criticism from the Editor's pen, thus accompany every illustration. Historical and critical Introductions to each section, and a Biographical Dictionary of the Artists represented, are added, and will, it is hoped, further assist in attaining the aim of the work. CONTENTS PREFACE, ‘ INTRODUCTORY, PICTURE, THE BLEessED DAMoZEL, GRAHAM OF CLAVERHOUSE, VISCOUNT DUNDEE, SIGISMONDA, CANVASSING FOR VOTES, CHAIRING THE MEMBER, : : THE RUINS OF THE VILLA OF Ma@cenas AT TIVOLI, Heaps oF ANGELS, : Mrs. SippDONS AS THE TRacic Musr, Tue BLuE Boy, Mrs. SIDDONS, Tue Parson’s DAUGHTER, . Lapy HamiLTON—THE SPINSTRESS, AN EXPERIMENT WITH THE AtR-PuMpP, THe DEATH OF THE Ear. oF CHATHAM, . Lorp NELSON IN THE VicTORY’s COCKPIT, MORTALLY WOUNDED, Oct. 21, 1805, THE THREE WITCHES, ‘ THE MURDER OF THE PRINCES IN THE TOWER, CANTERBURY PILGRIMS, CANTERBURY PILGRIMS, Deatu’s Door, Boy witH A Rappit, STIRLING CASTLE, MIRANDA, j : THE INSIDE OF A STABLE, . Door oF A VILLAGE Inn, ADMIRAL DUNCAN RECEIVING THE SWORD OF THE DutcH ADMIRAL, THE San NICHOLAS AND SAN JOSEF, THE WINDMILL, NATURE, A CHILD wITH A Kip, THE FIGHTING TEMERAIRE, Tue Duca. PALace; THE BATTLE OFF CAPE TRAFALGAR THe Hay-Warn, FLAaTFoRD MILL, ‘ é THE CORNFIELD, OR CouNTRY LANE, GREENWICH, A GauioT in A GALE, BaTrLeE or St. VINCENT, THE SKIRTS OF THE ForEST, Porcu oF RaTISBON CATHEDRAL, . THE Penny WEDDING, THE PREACHING oF JoHN Knox, TAGE 7 II ARTIST, ante Gabriel sossetli . Lroutisplece «lu Unknown Painter . : 25 IVilliam Hogarth (1697-1 ei: . 27 Villiam Hogarth : 29 Villiam Hogarth : : 31 Richard IWilson, R.A. (1713- aa 33 Sir Joshua Reynolds, P.R.A. (1723-1792) 35 Sir Joshua Reynolds, PRA. . ‘ 37 Thomas Gainsborough, R.A. (1727-1788) 39 Thomas Gainsborough, R.A. . ; 41 George Romney (1734-1802) 43 George Romney . 45 Joseph Wright of Derby op3tane a John S. Copley, R.A. (1737-1815) 49 Benjamin West, P.R.A. (1738-1820). 31 FT, Fuseli, R.A. (1741-1825). 4 53 James Northcote, R.A. (1746-1831) 2 55 Thomas Stothard, R.A. 1755-1834) 57 William Blake (1757-1827) : 57 Wiliam Blake . 5 59 Sir Henry Raeburn, R.A. iis. 1823) . 61 Alexander Nasmyth (1758-1840) 63 John Hoppner, R.A. (1759-1810) : 65 George Morland (1763-1804). 67 George Morland ‘ 4 69 Samuel Drummond, A.R.A. (1763-1844) 71 Leichard Westall, R.A. (1765-1836) 73 John Crome (1769-1821) é 75 Sir Thomas Lawrence, P_R.A.(1769- 1858) a7 Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A. . 79 J. M. W. Turner, R.A. (1775-1851) 81 J. MW. Turner, R.A. 3 : 83 J. M. WV. Turner, R.A. ‘ : 85 John Constable, R.A. (1776-1837) : 87 John Constable, R.A. . : . 89 John Constable, R.A. . gi SirAugustus W.Callcott, R.A. lapis: iad) 93 Sohn Sell Cotman (1782-1842) . 95 Sir William Allan, R.A.,, P.RSA. . 97 David Cox (1783-1859). ; 99 Samuel Prout (1784-1852) . 101 Sir David Wilkie, R.A. (1785-1840) . 103 Sir David Witkie, R.A. * . 105 8 CONTENTS (Continued) INTRODUCTORY (Srconp PERiop), PICTURE, Tue Ficut INTERRUPTED, CHOOSING THE WEDDING Gown, CHRIST CROWNED WITH THORNS, NyMPH AND SatTyrs, . Tse PiLarns or HEAVEN, TENDING SHEEP, BATTLE OF TRAFALGAR, Curist WEEPING OVER JERUSALEM, My UNcLE Tory AND THE Wipow Wapman, AUTOLYCUS A VILLAGE CHOIR, THE SLEEPING BLOODHOUND, THE DrRover’s DEPARTURE, Tue Dyinc Srac, Litium AURATUM, Sir TRISTRAM, THE CoVENANTERS’ PREACHING, ANNE PAGE INVITING SLENDER TO DINNER, St. Paut’s FROM THE RIVER, PETER THE GREAT AT DEPTFORD Docxkyarp, DREDGING OFF THE MERSEY, ; Doctor JOHNSON IN THE ANTECHAMBER OF Lorp CHESTERFIELD, THE SouTH-SEA BUBBLE, La Loteria Nacional, CaRpDINAL WoLsEY’s PROCESSION TO WEST- MINSTER HALL, PAOLO AND FRANCESCa, Love anp Death, Tue Eventnc Hymn, THE Rartway Station, THE RECONCILIATION OF OBERON AND TITANIA, Work, i ‘ Joun Darton COLLECTING Marsu Gas, THE MEssENGER oF Evi TipIncs, VALENTINE RESCUING SyLviA, THe Finpinc or THE Saviour TEMPLE, Dante’s Dream, IsaABELLA, CHILL OCTOBER, THE Biinp Girt, A HucvueEnot, IN THE ARTIST. William Mulready, R.A. (1786-1863) William Mulready, R.A. William Hilton, R.A. (1786-1839) William Etty, R.A. (1787-1849) John Martin (1789-1854) John Linnell (1792-1882) W. Clarkson Stanfield, R.A. (1793-1867) Sir Charles Eastlake, P.R.A. (1793-1865) Charles R. Leslie, R.A. (1794-1859) - Charles R. Leslie, R.A. Thomas Webster, R.A. (1800-1886) Sir Edwin Landseer, R.A. (1802-1873) Sir Edwin Landseer, R.A. Sir Edwin Landseer, R.A. John F. Lewis (1805-1876) William Dyce, R.A. (1806-1864) Sir George Harvey, P.RS.A. (1806-1876) Thomas Duncan, R.A. (1807-1845) Henry Dawson (1811-1878) Daniel Maclise, R.A. (1811-1870) William J. Muller (1812-1845) Edward M. Ward, R.A, (1816-1879) Edward M. Ward, R.A. John Phillip, R.A. (1817-1867) Sir John Gilbert, R.A, (1817-1897) George F. Watts, R.A. (1817-1904) George F. Watts, R.A. Georse Mason, A.R.A. (1818-1872) Witham P. Frith, R.A, (1819- ) Siz Noel Paton, RSA, (1821-1901) . ford Madox- Brown (1821-1893) Ford Madox-Brown Sir W. Fettes Douglas, P.R.S.A. (1822-1891) IV. Holman Hunt (1827- ) IV. Holman Hunt Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882) Sir John E. Millais, P.R.A. (1829-1896) Sir John E. Millais, P.R.A. Sir John E. Millais, PRA. Sir John E. Millais, PRA. PAGE 107 11g 121 123 125 127 129 131 133 135 137 139 141 143 145 147 149 151 153 155 157 159 CONTENTS (Continued) INTRODUCTORY (Tuixp Prriop), PICTURE, Lurr, Boy! THE SCHOOLMASTER’S DAUGHTER, DEFOE IN THE PILLory, THE APOTHECARY, Anno Domin, CimaBuE’s Maponna, An EGYPTIAN SLINGER, D#DALUS AND Icarus, TINTERN ABBEY, St. ALBAN’s RACE, WHITHER ? THE WINE oF CIRCE, THE BEGUILING OF MERLIN, THE Porr or Lonpon, PorTRAIT OF My MOTHER, THE CONNOISSEURS, . THe WatERS OF LETHE, EVENING: AMIENS CATHEDRAL, NAPOLEON ON BOARD H.M.S. BELLEROPHON, TROUBLE, BriITANNIA’S REALM, A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA, . Amy Ropsart, IsRAEL IN Ecypt, THE CaTAPULT, THE LEGEND OF THE Martyr’s WELL, THE Way TO THE TEMPLE, . ‘Ho! wo! Ovp Nott,’ Tue Kino Drinks, . , i THE OLp GatE, THE BATHERS, SUMMER NIGHT, PILcHaARDSs, Aw AUDIENCE AT ATHENS, Epwarp 11, AND Piers GAVESTON, . AN AUTO-DaA-FE, Tue Casua.s, PERSEPHONE, . NEWGATE, GAME TO THE LAST, . ‘Tue Girt I Lerr BEHIND Mz,’ ARTIST, James Clarke Hook, R.il. (1819-1907) James Sant, R.A. (1820- —) Lyre Crowe, A.R.A. (1824- ) ff. Stacy Marks, R.A. (1829-1898) Edwin Long, R.A. (1829-1891) Frederick, Lord Leighton, P.R.A, 1830-1896) Frederick, Lord Leighton, P.R.A. frederick, Lord Leighton, P.R.A. Benjamin W. Leader, R.A. (1831- ) flenry Moore, R.A. (1831-1895) Philip H. Calderon, R.A. (1833-1898) Sir Edward Burne-Jones, Bart. (1833-1898) . Sir Edward Burne-Jones, Bart. Vicat Cole, R.A. (1833-1893) . James M‘Neill Whistler (1834-1903) . George A. Storey, R.A. (1834- ) R. Spencer Stanhope Sir Wyke Bayliss (1835- ) ; : Sir William Q. Orchardson, R.A. (1835- ) Sir William Q. Orchardson, R.A. John Brett, A. R.A. (1830-1902) William M‘ Taggart, R.S.A. (1835- ) William F. Yeames, R.A. (1835- ) Sir Edward J. Poynter, P.R.A. (1836- ). Sir Edward J. Poynter, P.R.A. George H. Boughton, R.A. (1836- ) Str Laurence Alma-Tadema, R.A. (1836- ) John Pettie, R.A. (1839-1893) Briton Riviere, R.A. (1840- ) Frederick Walker, A.R.A. (1840-1875) Frederick Walker, A.R.A. Albert Moore (1841-1893) Charles Napier Hemy, A.R.A. (1841- __) Sir William B. Richmond, R.A. (1843 _) Marcus Stone, R.A. (1844- ) IV. S. Burton ‘ Luke Fildes, R.A. (1844- ) Valter Crane (1845- +) Frank Holl, R.A. (1845-1888) Laslett J. Pott F : Randolph Caldecott (1846-1886 TO CONTENTS (Continued) INTRODUCTORY (FourtH PEriop), PICTURE, THE Last SLEEP OF SAVONAROLA, A War DespatcH—AT THE HOTEL DE VILLE, THE QUARRY, THE PRODIGAL Son, VANITY Farr, ‘SCOTLAND FOR EVER,’ THE Last MusTER, FLIRTATION, A GOLDEN THREAD, OPHELIA, Tur Witcu, Dawn, THE MinIsTER’s GARDEN, SMUGGLERS, THE SPANISH ARMADA, Eve, : THE CONFESSIONAL, THe WIzaRD,. A FisH SaLE ON A CORNISH BEACH, MaiwaNnD—SAVING THE GUNS, Carnation, Lity, Lity, Rosr, A SummMeEr’s Day, A Hopeiess Dawn, . THE BRIDGE AT GREzZ, Tur Man wiTH A SCYTHE, THE HEALTH OF THE BRIDE, ALL Hanps To THE Pump, THe SNAKE CHARMERS, Aw Ipy Lt, CHANGING PasTURES, Dovust, A HicHLAND FUNERAL, Ecuo and Narcissus, “GENTLEMEN: THE QUEEN,’ Goop Kinc WENCESLauUs, A WinTER NIGHT, THe Sea MaIpEN, é z ‘GOLD, FRANKINCENSE, AND Myrru,’ CuPID AND PsycHE, . ; ‘ CoLt-HUNTING IN THE NEw Forzst, Love’s BauBLEs, BIOGRAPHICAL APPENDIX, GENERAL INDEX TO ARTISTS REPRESENTED IN THE WORK ARTIST. Sir George Reid, P.R.S.A. Andrew C. Gow, R.A. IV. ¥. Macgregor, RS. W. John M. Swan, A.R.A. J. E. Christie Lady Butler : Sir Hubert Herkomer, R.A. J Seymour Lucas, R.A. J. M. Strudwick John W. Waterhouse, AR. a Ffon. John Collier Edward J. Gregory, R.A. Cecil G. Lawson John R. Reid « Wiliam L. Wyllie, AR.A. ZT. Millie Dow, R. WS. £. Blair Leighton T. C. Gotch : Stanhope Forbes, A.R.A. R. Caton Woodville John S. Sargent, R.A. William Stott, of Oldham Frank Bramley, A.R.A. John Lavery, R.S.A. Ai. H. La Thangue, A.R.A. Stanhope Forbes, A.R.A. Flenry Scott Tuke Arthur Melville, A.R.S.A. Maurice Greiffenhagen Edward Stott . Henrietta Rae (Mrs Normand, ) James Guthrie, R.S.A. S.J. Solomon, A.R.A. A. Chevallier Tayler . Alexander Roche, A.R.S.A. Niels M. Lund Herbert J. Draper frank Brangwyn Mrs A. L. Swynnerton Lucy BE. Kemp-Welch . Byam Shaw 2 PAGE 293 301 303 305 3°7 309 gil 313 315 317 319 321 323 325 327 329 331 333 335 337 339 341 343 345 347 349 352 353 355 357 359 361 363 365 367 369 371 373 375 377 379 381 383 390 INTRODUCTORY fickle than the choice of certain paintings for honour, and others (which appear to him every whit as good) for dishonour, Nor would it be easy to explain simply the reason for the varying degrees of approval bestowed by artists upon pictures which may all be satisfactory as examples of good craft up to a certain level, and yet nevertheless range from the dullest commonplace to really fine, and at times great, Art. To drag in the much-quoted phrase of Zola, ‘Art is Nature seen through a temperament,’ would be merely to confuse still more our imaginary seeker after truth. For if, unfamiliar with the tenets of the various schools into which modern painting is divided, he can grasp what the sentence means, still he is tempted to ask, whose temperaments interpret Nature, so that the result is Art, and whose produce merely mechanical transcripts of Nature that are not worthy so honourable a title? All this is but proof that no definition of Art has ever yet satisfied a tithe of those interested in the fine Arts; and no one of the attempted definitions has had the least chance of becoming memorable as a perfect explana- tion, unassailable as one of Dr. Johnson’s best examples in his famous Dictionary ; at once satisfying to experts, and intelligible to the man in the street. Therefore, because the subtle qualities that separate works of Art (using the phrase in its most limited sense) from mere pictures have so far eluded a clear and accurate expression, the said man is apt to think the whole affair an affectation. Having come to this conclusion, he regards critics who profess to draw the line as men who would fain pose as superior judges on the strength of their ability to express indefinite and quite sentimental views in picturesque English, or if he be in more aggressive mood, he looks upon them as mere charlatans, who attempt to conceal their lack of meaning by using a jargon that conveys nothing to him, wherein are sprinkled such terms as ‘chiar-oscuro,’ ‘tones,’ ‘ values,’ ‘ vibration,’ ‘plein-air,, and a hundred others, according to the fashionable ‘art-slang’ of the hour. This volume has not been prepared with any intention of adding another failure to the list of responses to the query, ‘What is Art?’ Nor have the pictures which supply the real purport of the book undergone a mystic ordeal 12 MASTER PAINTERS OF BRITAIN which only permitted Art, with its biggest A, and its most inflated and affected superiority, to creep in. The title runs ‘The Master-painters of Britain,’ and the exclusion of the word Art is intentional. For the pursuit of picture-making, under even commercial aspects, is not in itself degrading, nor are such works con- temptible in any way. They may teach certain parables, or record certain impres- sions of nature, in a way that gives genuine pleasure to educated, no less than ignorant people. But unluckily, the two classes of pictures, those which belong to art, and those which are merely well-manufactured, appear very much alike to the casual spectator, who is apt to be over-sentimental, in regarding them all as curious manifestations of something beyond the common efforts of ordinary mortals; or else to believe that the one which satisfies his own taste best, is therefore the best, and that the great masters he cannot appreciate, have been exalted by cranks and fanatics to support some esoteric theories. These volumes include paintings that in every sense merit the most lofty title that could be found ; but at the same time they aim to provide a broad and catholic selection of the most representative work of all classes which Britain has produced since a native school came into existence. Therefore, a few have been included which could not be ranked as masterpieces equal to those by Titian, Holbein, Velasquez, Rembrandt, and others of the innermost sanctuary, and some again that would fail to hold their own in a choice collection of works by European masters of secondary rank, painters like Fra Angelico, Rubens, or Teniers, to choose at random three examples of entirely distinct types. In British paintings of this order, there is not that finality of accomplishment which separates a masterpiece from the great works that are a shade less perfect. Nor in many, especially of half a century ago, is there any marked facility of technique, or complete recognition of the essentials of pictorial art. Without being inspired, they are not even sufficiently accomplished to exact admiration such as a huge allegorical composition by Rubens or a boisterous group of boors by Teniers compels, any more than they exhibit the simple directness of conventional statement and spiritual exaltation which places a Fra Angelico picture beyond the reach of matter-of-fact criticism. English painting may be regarded, at least for our purpose, as starting into independent life with Hogarth. But the portraits of Dobson, a pupil (in a sense) of Van Dyck, and the compositions of Hogarth’s father-in-law, Sir James Thornhill, might serve equally well as an arbitrary point of departure. Had the purpose been to regard foreign artists, who settled in England, as sufficiently British for the purpose, it is obvious that the starting-point must have been placed much earlier. Possibly in such case Holbein would have been, in many senses, easily first, on a list which included Sir Anthony More, Jan Mabuse, Daniel Mytens, Sir Anthony Van Dyck, Sir Peter Lely, Sir Godfrey Kneller, and others. The portrait of Claverhouse, which is herein included, has indeed been attributed, but with scant evidence to support the claim, to Lely, also to Kneller; whoever INTRODUCTORY 13 painted it, whether he was native born or a naturalised citizen, it is in itself a very beautiful work, and will serve to show (supposing it to be by a foreigner) that British painters, at the time Hogarth arose, did not find the field unoccupied. There is no doubt that the first effort of pictorial art in Britain (leaving out of the question altogether early examples of mediaval times) was based chiefly upon that of the various foreigners, some of whom are indicated above; and perhaps only in por- traiture approached anywhere near the standard of the best of them. It would be unfair, however, to overlook the important work of the great miniaturists. These make quite a respectable show both in numbers and quality. Among them are Nicholas Hilliard (1547-1619), many of whose paintings are in Her Majesty's collection at Windsor; Isaac Oliver (1556-1617), of whom some examples are exhibited in South Kensington; Peter Oliver (1601-1660), whose most notable work, a ‘Venus and Adonis,’ is at Burleigh House ; Samuel Cooper (1609-1672), of whom it has been said that he was the first British artist who gave a freedom to a miniature so that it seemed to have the vigour of an oil-painting. Nor must we forget portrait-painters like Robert Walker (? died about 1658), a contem- porary of Van Dyck, who has left portraits of Cromwell, Ireton, and others; John Riley (1614-1691), whose best work has often been attributed to Sir Peter Lely ; Charles Jervas (1675-1739), of whom a delightful anecdote is told—that surveying his own copy of a Titian, he exclaimed, ‘Poor little Tit, how he would stare!’ Robert Streater (1624-1680), serjeant-painter to Charles 11, to whom is attributed the ‘Moses and Aaron’ in St. Michael’s, Cornhill, and a landscape in the Dulwich Gallery ; and Jonathan Richardson (? 1665-1745), whose portraits of Pope, Prior and other celebrities are in the National Portrait Gallery. To the above list may be added Thomas Hudson (1701-1779), the master of Sir Joshua Reynolds, whose portraits of Handel and others are in the National Portrait Gallery. Frank Hayman (1708-1786) is known as an illustrator of Shakespeare, Milton, Don Quixote, etc, and a painting of the ‘Finding of Moses,’ attributed to him, is in the Foundling Hospital. All these, it is true, were, almost without exception, portrait-painters only, and some poor at that—merely artisans who worked by prescribed rule. This fact is supported by the well-known story of an independent sitter who insisted on being painted wearing his hat. He had his way; but, all the same, when the picture was sent home he found himself represented with another hat carried under his arm, after the mode of portraits of the hour! This anecdote, true or false, suggests more quickly than would pages of scientific analysis the dull routine in which many of these so-called artists worked. Many were simply travelling portrait-painters, who went from village to village, depicting people who could afford to be painted, in the same way that skilled pattern-weavers went from house to house to undertake work a little beyond the skill of the good housewife and her maidens. With all due respect to the earlier British artists, one must conclude that if B 14 MASTER PAINTERS OF BRITAIN Zola’s definition of Art, ‘Nature seen through a temperament,’ be correct, it begins, so far as Britons are concerned, with Hogarth. If William Dobson (1610-1646), who had been educated by Franz Cleyn, before Van Dyck discovered and patronised him, saw Nature, and undeniably he did, yet he saw it mainly through the tempera- ments of his two masters; Hogarth saw it anew face to face. If he exaggerated the grotesque side, and did so with a distinct moral purpose, it does but prove that his temperament was closely allied to the Puritans, who have left us in literature a Bunyan’s Pilgrim's Progress, which is peculiarly British in its admixture of humorous tendency towards the grotesque, and didactic teaching in the form of allegory. This love of pictured moralities, whether realistically drawn from common life as Hogarth and Bunyan drew them then, or as Frith and Dickens have done in recent times; or, replaced by fancies that chose to depict the vices and virtues by abstract figures, as Spenser in Zhe Faerie Queen, or Mr. G. F. Watts in our own day portrays them; or whether a romantic version of common life, as in the folklore (of Eastern origin), which has become part of English literature, told by Chaucer or William Morris, or painted by Sir Edward Burne-Jones—all these various phases of character-painting have a certain story-telling quality that links them together. On the other hand, huge allegorical compositions of heathen deities and living notabilities have always been exotic here; so too the grandiose his- torical picture, despite its frequent intrusion, seems not essentially British save in its accidental choice of costumes; nor does the battle-piece of the French find more than an occasional echo in the paintings of the English, and then it is chiefly devoted to naval subjects. Story-telling, landscape, and portraiture; these seem to be the main divisions of the earlier art of Great Britain. In these, before Hogarth, no masterpieces are to be found; but since his time there is much notable work, not undeservedly popular, which it were wiser to consider on its own merits, avoiding any comparisons with similar work of other nations. To do justice to Hogarth, to place that great British artist at his right level, not merely as a satirist, which has long been granted, but as a painter pure and simple, is a task yet to be achieved. His reputation may be obscured for the moment, even as the dilettanti of his own day expended their scorn on his attempts to paint common life as he saw it. He hated ‘the black masters,’ as he termed the numerous canvases, mostly spurious, which were the mode in his day. He ridiculed the sham antique, and wished to compose pictures on canvas similar to those on the Stage, desiring that they should be tried by the same art and criticised by the same criticism. It is curious to find that his contempt of the artificial convention did not lead him far enough to say that he strove to depict nature, but only to choose a less formal artifice. His groups, then labelled ‘conversation pieces,’ too often recall a good stage picture, where every actor is doing his best to provide appropriate ‘business.’ But compared with the artificial compositions of Thornhill or his INTRODUCTORY 15 immediate predecessors, the light Hogarth let in, if not the open air, was at least that of common life, while in many pictures—notably in the ‘Election’ series—he forgot his avowed limit, and went, not to the stage, but to Nature herself. Nor did he bungle in his mere brush-work ; although one cannot claim for him that superb technique, which in Velasquez, for instance, some people find almost too directly in evidence, because its legerdemain dazzles them, and may even divert attention from the thing painted, to the painting. Yet Hogarth’s direct method still charms, and the evident sincerity of his work appeals with more force to-day than it could have done at a period when to be natural in manner, expression, or taste was to be vulgar. But while crediting Hogarth with a bias towards realistic imitation of nature, provoked no doubt by the pedantry of extreme conventionality in vogue in his day, one must not forget that there is the art of making a picture a thing beautiful in itself, and for its own quality as a painting, quite apart from the beauty of its subject. This is an aspect of the case which is scarce suspected by the general public. They would turn with loathing from those misshapen dwarfs and imbeciles Velasquez painted so superbly, and are equally repelled by many of Hogarth’s subjects. But the great Spaniard exalted his pictures to profound works of art: technical achievements of the highest dexterity, and daring solutions of problems of intricate colour, and lighting the most complex. Hogarth cannot be credited with similar powers; and so the two realists must not be put on the same plane, much less set in contrast. For the art of making a great picture—a masterpiece of painting—was not even in Hogarth’s mind so far as his writings go to prove. The two ways of regarding a picture must be clearly understood, and no one has explained it better than Mr. Henley in a preface to A Century of Artists. Indeed any attempt to re-state the fact would most probably result in distorting that fine piece of prose which has become part and parcel of one’s artistic creed. There- fore it were more just to him and to the reader to quote his argument in full. ‘In spite of the spread of culture and the popularity of art criticism, it is only too certain that to the public at large a picture is interesting in proportion as it is anti- pictorial. An eye for paint is no more general than an ear for music or a head for mathematics ; where it does exist it stands as absolutely in need of education and development—it is incapable of doing itself justice without them—as the mathemati- cal head or the musical ear; and as while the means of training are many it is only a few of them that are sound, there can be no manner of doubt that the eye for paint is only now and then worth anything to its owner, and may as commonly be found exulting in subject or disguised literature (they are convertible terms) as the eye which looks for nothing in a picture but the representation of natural fact, or some suggestion of historical or sentimental fiction. In other words, the interest of pure paint is so much the reverse of those which make for popularity, that the preponderance of the absolute pictorial quality in a gathering of pictures designed to satisfy the needs of a mixed public is not a virtue but a ruinous Bi 16 MASTER PAINTERS OF BRITAIN demerit, inasmuch as they are few who are alive to the existence of such a quality and such an interest that to cater for them exclusively, were to insist upon feeding the bulk of the community upon food which it could not digest with profit and could only affect to relish.’ This passage, although recalled by the passing consideration of Hogarth in a hasty record of British Artists, is by no means limited to his manner of picture-making. At present, his method seems to us almost pictorial in the sense Mr. Henley employs the word; but in his day it was probably looked upon merely as ‘literature in the flat,’ a means of expressing moralities and parables, anecdotes and incidents, so that the unlettered might be able to interpret their lesson at a glance. If Hogarth may be credited with founding the British school as regards subject pictures, Richard Wilson, only slightly later in date, deserves equally to be credited as the first great landscape-painter of British birth. ‘In colour and aerial perspective, few landscape-painters have surpassed him,’ is the sort of sentence one meets again and again, sometimes qualified with the addition, ‘almost equal to Claude.’ But Wilson, although most of his canvases are in the grand manner, compositions of symmetrical elegance, with classically disposed figures in the fore- ground, is also represented by one or two works almost as literal in their truth as those of the modern French plecn-air school. ‘Sion House’ (exhibited in the Winter Exhibition of the Royal Academy, 1890, unless one’s memory is at fault) is one of these latter; that in its fresh pastoral greens and open effect recalled work a century later in date. Wilson no doubt prepared the way for Constable, but the difference between the two is so great that their names can scarcely be coupled together, except so far as both eschewed the traditionally composed picture, the one partially and occasionally, the other invariably and entirely. Certainly Wilson is not recognised abroad in any other light than as a very inferior fore- runner of Constable. Dr. Richard Muther, as a rule peculiarly courteous to British painters, is extremely severe in his contemptuous summary of Wilson’s art. ‘Wilson,’ he says, ‘had a fixed notion that the Creator had only made Nature to serve as a framework to the “Grief of Niobe,” and asa vehicle for classical architec- ture —and goes on to show that, in spite of his well-balanced and graceful compositions in the manner of Claude, his success did not even last out his seventy years of life. But one does not abandon Wilson so easily. If he imitated Claude— and what painter of landscape did not at that day ?>—he showed germs of simpler and truer purpose; and is unquestionably the founder of the British school of landscape—a branch of the art wherein at times England has been first, and is still easily abreast of the world. That this pre-eminent position is chiefly owing to John Constable may be granted fully, and yet Gainsborough, who antedates him by half a century, must not be robbed of his share of glory. At present, when portraits by this master fetch INTRODUCTORY 17 record prices in our sale-rooms, there is danger lest the great part he played in the evolution of the English school of landscape-painting should be forgotten. For Gainsborough went direct to nature for his subjects, and despite a certain trace of the grand manner in the composition of his pictures, and to some extent in their colour, he must be reckoned among those who infused topographical records of scenery with a certain romance in harmony with the theme. Gainsborough did not pose mythical characters in his foregrounds : it is true that he hardly had the courage to reject the supernumeraries entirely, but he replaced gods and goddesses by peasants, who were avowedly accessories and not the hypothetical reason for the picture. It is true that some of these are more like studio-models, in sham rags, than veritable country-folk. But despite their conscious pose, and a slight trace of artificiality yet lingering in the landscape, nature was the source of his inspiration. This is evident from Sir Joshua Reynolds’ account of his method of work. ‘If, in his walks, he found a character that he liked, and whose attendance was to be obtained, he ordered him to his house; and from the fields he brought home to his painting-room stumps of trees, weeds and animals of various kinds; and designed them, not from memory, but immediately from the objects. He even framed a kind of model of landscapes on his table, composed of broken stones, dried herbs, and pieces of looking-glass, which he magnified and improved into rocks, trees, and water.’ It is only fair to add that Sir Joshua, after appreciating this innovation, went on to warn his listeners against imitating the practice, and advised them to refer constantly to real nature; but all the same it affords an interesting example of the apologetic way in which painters, even at that date, regarded nature unadorned. As Hogarth wished his paintings to be as true as the stage, so Gainsborough, judged by this anecdote, would have them as real as the rustic landscape of a fernery or other triumphs of the indoor gardener. To note such half-heartedness is not to show disrespect to the artists, for such efforts throw light on the stern convention which had hitherto ruled, against which they were hardy enough to rebel; and serve also to show how lawless and revolutionary even this half-hearted reliance on nature must have appeared to those still in bondage to the traditions of the ‘grand style.’ Taking Turner (although he was born only one year before Constable) as next in chronological order of the great British landscape-painters, it is much less easy to place him in due proportion to the others. For years—thanks to Mr. Ruskin’s pas- sionate eulogy—he has been ranked, not merely as a great painter—which no one will gainsay—but as the greatest of all English masters. A whole theory of the morality and didactic purpose of landscape has been founded upon him. Yet considered solely as a painter, his work is not reverenced by continental experts as highly as that of Constable. In fact, the ultimate rank of Turner is not likely to be settled for a long time. The enormous power Mr. Ruskin exercised upon Victorian taste is gradually 18 MASTER PAINTERS OF BRITAIN waning : a reaction in favour of the Romantic school of Corot and Rousseau, and a predilection for the strongly expressed realism of Constable, both unite to depose Turner from the almost apostolic position to which he had been raised. If the true test of a man be found in his influence upon his descendants, we must own that, at the present day, the methods and theories of the best painters of all schools owe directly little or nothing to Turner, and almost everything to Constable. But to infer that Turner therefore is deposed, and become merely historically interesting as a British painter of sentimental landscape, would be to rush to the other extreme. Probably the truth lies between these poles, but on the whole nearer the estimate of Mr. Ruskin than of his opponents. So long as writers and laymen generally love to find in landscape literally ‘sermons in stones, and books in running brooks,’ so long is Turner sure of an enthusiastic if not peculiarly expert audience. Expert, that is to say, upon matters of paint, and of the qualities which make a picture a self-sufficient object without reference to its moral or its anecdote. He has been called ‘the greatest interpreter of Nature of any time or country’; and this is only a mild and brief summary of the praise heaped upon one who deserved more critical appreciation. For the splendour of his ideas, and his adequate power to interpret them, his clear vision despite the classical convention he often relied upon, and, above, all his discovery of hitherto disregarded miracles of sky and sea, will always keep him among the greatest. A certain prettiness—far more apparent in engravings after his works, than in the oils or water-colours themselves—is no doubt responsible for much of the popularity he has enjoyed so long. That he was the first to set down certain effects of atmosphere, to paint with much poetic charm the evanescent moods of the common day, to impart a strong contrast between implacable nature and the feeble accidents of daily life, may be readily granted. Asa maker of beautiful pictures he attracts the learned and unlearned. But if you com- pare his paintings with those of his great contemporary, Constable, you at once come face to face with irreconcilable differences. As it has been said, every Briton is born a disciple of Thackeray or Dickens, a Liberal or a Conservative, a Classicist or a Romanticist, so all landscape-painters have an instinctive bias towards Turner or Constable, Turner may be typical of a great Conservative force which experi- mented and dared everything, and yet kept in touch with precedent ; Constable of the Democratic adventurer whose aim was to take Nature as he found her, with no thought of the methods of others, and with full recognition of the charm that mere paint is able to achieve. John Constable—the father of modern landscape— not merely threw on one side the classical tradition, which held certain artificial adjuncts essential to the proper presentation of vulgar nature (Gainsborough had already done as much), but went further and established a new school. When we remember that his ‘Hay-Wain,’ shown in Paris in 1824, at once overturned the great French conventions of landscape, and started the movement that controls all that is vital in the art to-day, we can but feel proud that it was a Briton who initiated the INTRODUCTORY 19 great departure. In Constable we find not merely a certain truth of statement, so that the reproductions here given look, to an untrained eye, more like photographs direct from nature than from a painting; he gives us this in a way that is superbly masterly as regards its technique, and controlled the while by the great principle of ‘selection’ as opposed to a mere imitation of landscape such as a looking-glass offers you. The average visitor to a picture-gallery is apt to wonder why a Constable landscape or a Whistler nocturne attracts devotion from the expert, while some other picture which he thinks much more like nature is ignored. But the average visitor is not apt to trouble himself with the real aspect of nature. He has precon- ceived ideas of landscape, and these are mostly based on quite conventional stan- dards. To such an one grass is always green, the sky always blue, and those distant details which his memory helps him to understand, he honestly believes he sees veritably with his naked eye. Those who study pictures earnestly must needs refer to nature perpetually. Not to prove that any master is wrong, but to discover if they can—and where a master is concerned, such discovery is but a matter of time— that Nature justifies the painting. To an honest student, patient observance of the effects of light and shade and colour soon upsets all preconceived notions: unless he be colour-blind, he must needs admit that the infinite variety of aspects of the same scene under changing effects of atmosphere and light, differ more from each other than do representations of it by several masters, who may take the same theme for their subject. Then he awakes to the fact that the pictures which please are those which confirm a student’s observation, and make him love, ‘when first he sees them, painted things he had passed a hundred times, nor cared to see.’ Your first glimpse of the tropics justifies colour that had before seemed crude and impossible. A first trip up the Thames on a grey day quite changes a foreign painter’s estimate of Mr. Whistler. So the obvious moral might be worked out. Here the intention is to raise doubts in the mind of the average person for him to solve at leisure: not to dogmatise, not to insist that he shall bow the knee to this or that shrine, but to ask him before he condemn, to endeavour to study faithfully the appearance of things, as distinguished from mental pictures formed from know- ledge gathered from tradition, from books, and from other pictures. As with Hogarth, we face the birth of modern genre, and with Constable the maturity of modern landscape, so with Reynolds we reach the height of British portraiture. Gainsborough is not far off, perhaps; Romney, Raeburn, Hoppner, and a noble band of most excellent artists, are near; but as Shakespeare towers over the brilliant group of Elizabethan dramatists, so Reynolds is ¢ke great portrait- painter among his peers. Of all subjects that impress an average visitor to a gallery, portraits, unless the personage depicted be a popular hero, are most likely to be undervalued, yet the love for a great portrait, once it controls you, abides steadily, though other tastes may 20 MASTER PAINTERS OF BRITAIN wax and wane. To not a few people, a certain portrait of a ‘Doge’ by Bellini keeps an unalterable position as their chief favourite in the National Gallery. As the mood varies, so a Titian, a Veronese, or, perhaps, a Botticelli may in turn enchant you, but the Bellini portrait all the while retains its place, no less surely your appreciation of the wonderful portrait of a ‘ Tailor’ by Moroni never fluctuates with any mood. How great Reynolds really is no ordinary process-block can even suggest. The superb ‘Tragic Muse,’ as we see it here, does not hint at the real splendour of the picture itself. Ifa word debased by everyday use may be applied to an artist of Sir Joshua's rank, one might say that his work is that of a gentleman; a high-bred courtesy reveals itself everywhere. Nor has this quality aught to do with the man himself. Many irreproachably correct and blameless painters achieve nothing but blatant vulgarity ; others, whose lives were degraded and even vicious, have kept their art absolutely beyond reproach. The conventional Sir Joshua, as we happen to know, was a little pompous and a little grandiloquent; but in his work the pomposity becomes stateliness, the grandiloquence changes to grandeur. But the true Sir Joshua was not hidden from his contemporaries. Two lines in Goldsmith’s famous epitaph— ‘When they talked of their Raphaels, Correggios, and stuff, He shifted his trumpet, and only took snuff’— show you a personality which you would scarcely suspect from the sonorous periods of the Discourses. It is hard to keep this preface from straying into an anecdotal, round-about paper on so tempting a subject. However, harking back to our text, portraiture as the third great division of British art at this period, all one could say in praise of Reynolds’ work would be incomplete unless accompanied with adequate praise of his fellow-artists, who added masterpieces to our galleries by the score. One thing must never be forgotten, that these masterpieces were often enough the pot-boilers of the men who did them. With celebrities and women of fashion both time and patience are limited; and even their vanity rarely sustains them over many sittings. So we discover by written evidence that many portraits, which now fetch thousands of pounds, were painted in a day or two for a very moderate fee. The resources of a craftsman are put to their severest test on such occasions. It has been said that a musician should never perform in public a piece which he considers difficult ; it is not until he has mastered in private difficulties a hundred times as great, that he may venture to show his attainment. The few subject pictures of Reynolds, conscientiously undertaken and produced, doubtless, with prolonged effort, fail to please, compared with the average portrait which he did, probably, under the stress of the moment. That the fugitive pigment which he used has caused the once famous ‘ Holy Family’ to decay, so that it is ne INTRODUCTORY 21 longer exhibited in the National Gallery, is regrettable. Yet, all the same with many of its fellows, it is at best only a very tolerable imitation old master. Imitation of any order soon palls; the sham classic, the sham Diirer may please to-day, but there is no hope, judging from past experience, of its pleasing to-morrow. Itis work born of the times, with all its follies and failings, but also with its life and effort, that stays. It may be that the illustrations of a modern comic paper will outlive popular academic successes which are mere rearrangements of archzological facts or new adaptations of hackneyed properties. The man of the hour is often the man of the century also, and those who worship the hero of the moment at times betray unconsciously more prescience than those who adore the. orthodox professor of scholastic reputation. We laugh at the humour of Phil May’s drawing, or are mildly excited by the portraits of a fashionable painter, or take credit for discover- ing some little appreciated landscape artist who exhibits at galleries which do not inspire reverence in critics, nor coax high prices from buyers. Yet, unpalatable as the conclusion may be, the study of the past enforces its truth; one such illustrator or one such painter of to-day is most probably destined to be the hero of the twenty-first century critics, who will pass by the work of presidents of societies and other venerated authorities without a glance, to marvel at the work of some artist whom no one to-day regards seriously, especially if he be still alive and yearning for sympathy. Nevertheless, the average person should not thereby become convinced of the ultimate verity of his own taste. Because critics are fallible, it does not follow that the uncritical must needs be infallible. For, as a matter of sober fact, nearly all the great masters received ample recognition from a few ‘fit and chosen’ in their life- time; and the verdict of centuries later is not necessarily unchangeable. As we see in the typical instances here chosen, Hogarth, Constable, and Reynolds were fully recognised at the time, and posterity only indorses that verdict. Yet some other masters, then ignored, now find a more sympathetic audience than they did when living ; and this may not be due entirely to their merit, but, in part, to the accident that they anticipated certain qualities which find favour with us. But one thing is absolutely sure, namely, that the course of Art is not always progressing ; it ebbs and flows, and witnesses strange retrogressions. The period of this volume includes far greater men than does that which immediately followed. The far past and to-day rarely fail to please; it is the day before yesterday and yesterday which have lost their power to charm us by novelty and instant sympathy with our moods, and have also not yet acquired the glamour of ancientry, or the sentimental forgiveness we are willing to bestow on ancestors sufficiently remote. It is easy to praise our great-great-grandfathers or to discuss even their failings with tenderness ; but when uncles and cousins are in question, much more rigid criticism is inevitable. Several classes of pictures so far ignored in this prefatory gossip, and so sparsely represented among its illustrations, have never flourished greatly among us. The 22 MASTER PAINTERS OF BRITAIN huge semi-allegorical decorations such as Rubens revelled in, the great battle-pieces which fill miles of foreign galleries, the historical records of coronations and the like, have not been painted in England as they have been painted abroad. A certain manufactured article, honestly and skilfully planned, we indeed possess, but it is confessedly ‘made in England,’ and too often lacks both the abandon and vigour of kindred products from less unemotional nations. Possibly, at times, one may rise above this level; but, speaking generally, the sort of picture intended for a palace, to be environed by stately splendour, is rare enough in these islands. Most of our attempts belong essentially to the realms of anecdote and gemure, and are conceived as histrionic efforts, not with the pompous air of one who wears the purple to the manner born. Indeed, pictures of this latter order are manifestly as out of place in a rich merchant’s dining-room as the tragic accents of a great actor would sound amidst the commonplace chatter at his table. The grand manner is apt to be ridiculous, unless it has a suitable background and a reverent audience; with this in palaces or public buildings it may escape disaster, but even then it is apt to look uncomfortable, Consequently if British art is at its best—in portraits, pastoral landscapes, or genve—we need not despair, since these qualities are more likely to express the sentiment of the nation than mock heroics or grandiloquent melodramatic themes, G. W. GRAHAM OF CLAVERHOUSE VISCOUNT DUNDEE By an Unxnown PaInTER HIS picture of John Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee, has at times been attributed to Sir Peter Lely. But no irr fut- able evidence has been forthcoming to support the theory, nor does the painting itself show any trace of his hand. It is true that the picture which represents Bonnie Dundee in his youth must needs date somewhere about 1670-75, and as Lely did not die till 1680, it is not actually impossible that he could have painted it; but it is extremely improbable, especially as there is another portrait extant which is ascribed without hesitation to Sir Peter Lely. This latter has been engraved in Napier’s Memorials of Montrose. Were it by Lely it would hardly fall into the scheme of this present collection. , Indeed, with the very nationality of its author uncertain, it is included only as a beautiful work in itself, a most interesting record of a hero, and especially as an example to show how high was the standard of excellence of portraiture at the end of the seventeenth century. If character is to be judged from the countenance, and this be a trustworthy likeness, then would many of the stern and cruel deeds which are imputed to Graham of Claverhouse seem to be unlikely. For the face, considered merely as a type, is curiously lacking in those qualities that make for rough and tyrannical actions. The very picturesque arrangement of the hair recalls a famous miniature of the Duke of Monmouth in the possession of Her Majesty the Queen, and does much, no doubt, to give the portrait its illusive charm. Whatever its worth as a picture, no doubt has ever been thrown on its being a portrait from life, and, supported by the evidence of one other portrait extant, is probably an excellent: likeness, although the others prove that this must have been painted at a very early age. An attempt to give even the most cursory summary of its hero would require pages; but it may be said that the popular epithet Bonnie Dundee, now applied] to Claverhouse, was (so later commentaries affirm) in the popular song intended, for the town itself, and never bestowed upon Graham of Claverhouse until years after his death. The painting was shown at the New Gallery as No. 19 5 in the Exhibition of the Royal House of Stuart (1888-89) ; it was then the property of the Lady Elizabeth Leslie Melville Cartwright. 24 Portrait of Graham of Claverhouse (ainler unknowie), 7 SITGISMONDA By Witiram Hocartu * O the general public Hogarth is chiefly known as a caricaturist, or, at best, as a moralist preaching the triumph of Virtue:- But it should not be forgotten that no little of the coarser caricature we associate with Hogarth is not his own, but belongs distinctly — to various engravers, who vulgarised and cheapened his work to an extent hardly conceivable. In ‘Sigismonda’ we have his » venture in the grand style, to which he was provoked by the popularity of spurious replicas of great masters, that the dilettante of his day worshipped as blindly as they adored genuine paintings by the same hands. This picture, a commission from Sir Richard Grosvenor, for which the artist was to receive 400 guineas, was finished in 1759 and refused by his patron. At the sale of Mrs. Hogarth’'s effects it fetched only 56 guineas, Alderman Boydell being its purchaser; but, resold at Christie’s in July 1807, it fell to Mr. Anderdon for its original price (£400). It is both amusing and depressing to read the abuse poured on this ill-fated canvas. Lord Orford, in terms far too brutally frank to be quoted here, declared it to be more ridiculous than any of the vile copies which Hogarth protested against. The artist who had taken subscriptions for an engraving ‘had the sense to suppress it.’ A later and more sober critic says it is ‘rather French and marked with mind (szc), and would probably have been better had it not been so often altered on the suggestion of different critical friends.’ To-day it occupies a place of honour on the line of the most jealously guarded Gallery in Europe. Sigismonda, daughter of Tancred, Prince of Salerno, wedded her father's! page, a youth of poor but noble birth. This being discovered, the page, Guiscardo, was strangled and his heart sent ina golden cup to Sigismonda, who, after weeping; over it, poisoned herself. Dryden, in his poem, ‘ Sigismunda and Giuscardo,’ tells the tale felicitously enough. It is interesting to compare the eighteenth century conception of a scene not essentially unlike that of Isabella and the pot of basil, with the various pre-Raphaelite versions of the other ill-fated heroine with her dead lover's head in a vase. Possibly the painting by Hogarth fails to depict the supreme tragedy of the incident; but, all the same, it is not an ignoble conception, and is still vital and full of interest. It was bequeathed to the National Gallery by Mr. Anderdon in 1879. 26 “(ypivSory) npuousesis CANVASSING FOR VOTES By Wituiam Hocartu show Hogarth in two different aspects. The first is a most delightful transcript of bucolic life: if all the figures were absent it would still be of interest as a record of a typical English village of the middle of the eighteenth century. The second is a poignant satire, where the setting is of small account. It is a series that shows the artist at his best, and, being far less hackneyed than the ‘Marriage 4 la Mode,’ ‘The Rake’s Progress,’ and the rest, one can reconsider the paintings without the prejudice which has been aroused against others owing to their miserably engraved reproductions in cheap publications. Here, as in most of Hogarth’s satirical works, every trifle enforces the moral of the whole. The painted cloth which the travelling showman has hung on the inn-sign is intended, we are told, to ridicule the ‘clumsy and tasteless building of the Horse Guards, the arch of which is so low that the sovereign’s state-coachman cannot pass with his head on’; the lower part has a picture of a buffoon scattering largesse to a crowd. The figures in the foreground tell their story too plainly to : need any comment, and the turbulent mob attacking the rival inn also reveals its intentions clearly enough. Above this group is the man sawing the sign through" between himself and its support—a pictured proverb which has become a hackneyed quotation in political satire ever since. As a record of social life in Merrie England this ‘Canvassing for Votes’ is full of interest. The architecture is obviously the source whence we have derived the so-called ‘Queen Anne’ revival. Despite its very strong suggestion of a stage: set, which is due in great part to the grouping of the characters on the right and to the table theatrically askew, and especially to the position of the actors in the immediate foreground, as if a painted cloth and not real nature were the background,—despite the distribution of motives, so that the eye successively lights upon three or four distinct centres of interest, the painting is far more than a curious record. Its brush-work appears surprisingly when you remembe# that Hogarth intended it merely as a subject to be engraved, and not as a finished painting. It is reproduced here by permission of the Trustees of the Soane Museum, London. 28 SUISSPAUDD EAS CHAIRING THE MEMBER By Witi1am Hocartu to an incident of the Oxford election of 1754, but it may be taken’ as a typical representation of the close of the poll in the. times of pocket-boroughs and open bribery. Mobs cannot be painted - in rose-colour any more than revolutions can be quenched with rose-water. That squeamish people then as now are more dis- gusted than pleased with this picture is probably true. But when you study the original canvas the direct handling of the whole work tempts you to rank it perhaps” even more highly than it deserves. The condition of these four pictures is notably fine. The story goes that they were shown to Garrick by Hogarth, who solicited the actor's subscription for one of a hundred sets of engravings therefrom, which he intended to publish at two guineas the set. Garrick was so pleased with the paintings that he offered the painter 200 guineas for the originals, and also gave him permission to publish his engravings as well. After a short sojourn at Fonthill they were purchased by Sir John Soane, R.A., and are still at his old home in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, now the Soane Museum. They seem of late to have escaped the popularity that they deserve, and this probably is due to the fact of ‘The Rake’s Progress,’ far more melodramatic in its interest, hanging in the same collection. These have no continuous story depicted in striking scenes, and above all no female interest, if we except the second, an orgy which is amazingly full of broad humour. Yet even this and: the third, which represents ‘ The Polling,’ are by no means scenes of unalloyed debauchery : in the one a man dead from overfeeding is being bled by a barber-surgeon ; in the other you see a dying voter carried to the poll— grim touches that make the satire bite more deeply. Hogarth did not mince matters, but stated his facts as remorselessly as a Zola, — and often with as little regard for the more noble fact that the whole is greater than © its parts. For in the two here reproduced, we find overmuch variety of secondary: incidents, a perpetual commentary on the main subject, as in the ‘We must die all : on the dial, in the boys placing gingerbread spectacles on the death’s head, and a hundred other whimsical trifles that distract attention. But if they injure the picture they reinforce the anecdote, and Hogarth, great painter as he undoubtedly was, was on this occasion as on others a picture-maker with a purpose which at times was didactic and at times diffuse. The picture is included by permission of the Trustees of the Soane Museum, | London. | 30 Q = x 8 x — - = 3s 3 ~ 1 cy Sd Ss & a, = 2 ow S 8 = S THE RUINS OF THE VILLA OF MA:FCENAS AT TIVOLI By Ricuarp WItsov, R.A. TAF Wilson, during his life, failed to obtain wide popularity, he was by no means without staunch admirers, and in the early part of this century was appreciated adequately. Circumstances point to a near revival of appreciation for his work. In 1814 a con- temporary notice spoke of his Italian pictures as ‘fine composi- tions mingling the loveliest appearance of nature, when nature is most beautiful with dreary and dark desolation, and every touching image which decaying grandeur in the noblest works of art could suggest to a classical imagina- tion. From these sources emotion is engendered by the magic power of the painter to which we can apply no other word than sacred.’ This passage is quoted here less for the sake of Wilson than to show in what spirit the classical landscape appealed to its devotees in the early Twenties. The picture itself shows the famous villa of Mzcenas, and also the ‘Blan- dusian spring of Horace’ (whose own villa stood behind the trees to the left), introduced here by Wilson at the suggestion of a patron, although it is some distance from the spot. The temple below is one dedicated to the river-god Tiber. The arbitrary arrangement of the trees and dark foreground—such as ‘makes a frame through which the landscape shines out brightly’—is a good specimen of the ‘classical,’ as opposed to the ‘natural,’ landscape. Its artifice may be a little too apparent, and there are not wanting other and less important works which show that Wilson, when he forgot the Italian masters, did not disdain to paint Nature at first hand, instead of through their spectacles. This painting, the first of five of the same subject, was commissioned by Sir George Beaumont, B.A., who presented it to the National Gallery in 1826. SERS —s SAAS Ruins of Mucenas’ Villa (I 7lson). HEADS OF ANGELS By Str Josuua Reynotps, P.R.A. CQAGDHIS picture, which is undoubtedly one of the most popular of (s 6 aN) Sir Joshua Reynolds’ works, is a study of one head in different " a Jey positions. The little lady from whom it was painted, Miss QU 3 Frances Isabella Ker Gordon, was the only child of Lord ‘<7 QS Oy | William Gordon. Although over a hundred years have passed | —<—> since it was first exhibited, it has not become old-fashioned, but is in almost every respect as modern in its feeling as if painted but yesterday. Despite its close obedience to one of the most curious conventions of the old masters, the cherub—a detached head furnished with fluffy wings—there is little sense of aught but beauty. While nearly all other mythical beings in pictures or sculptures are apt to appear slightly grotesque to any age but the one that evolved the type, this convention of the cherub still pleases and still fascinates, whether on the canvases of Correggio, in the majolica of the brothers Della Robbia, or in this painting of the great English master. It would be curious to trace the cause of this abiding delight in cherubs. Angels have changed from the glorified youths of the early masters to the severe ladies with side-curls of the early Victorian period, and still later to the blessed damosels in close-clinging draperies, with their hair arranged after the mode of the hour. But the cherub, from the time it was first depicted, despite its perversion on tombstones, despite its most feeble variants in chromolithography, is yet acceptable. No English version of the theme is more likely to retain its popularity than this, which is a masterpiece of its kind; it disarms criticism, and pleases a connoisseur no less than a layman. Possibly it is the irresistible beauty of childhood, here removed from all accidents of costume, which has. given it immortality. Be it what it may, Sir Joshua’s ‘Angel Heads’ (as it is somewhat erroneously entitled) remains to prove that even ‘pretty’ faces may become of abiding beauty when a master paints them. The painting is No. 182 in Room xvi. of the National Gallery. It was shown in 1787 at the Royal Academy. Sir William Gordon paid £100 for it. In 1841 Lady William Gordon presented it to the National Gallery. The illustration here given is from the reproduction published by the Autotype Company,’ London, W.C. Heads of Angels (Reynolds). MRS. SIDDONS AS THE TRAGIC MUSE By Sir JosHua REYNOLDS, P.R.A. the possession of the Duke of Westminster is always considered to be the original, it is said that Mrs. Siddons herself preferred to regard the other (here reproduced), now at Dulwich Gallery, as the first. Two stories of its conception are current. According “to one which Mrs. Siddons is said to have-told Mr. Phillips it was the production of pure accident. The picture had been commenced in quite another ‘pose, but while the artist was mixing some colours his sitter accidentally — changed her position, which he then requested her to adopt. According to the other, Sir Joshua said to Mrs. Siddons, ‘Ascend your undisputed throne, and bestow on me some idea of the Tragic Muse.’ The great actress complied, and at once assumed the very striking attitude which the picture records. Although the pose may be out of touch with modern realism,. despite the intro- duction of allegorical figures ‘Crime’ and ‘ Remorse’ in the background, despite a certain theatrical rather than dramatic intensity in the conception, the picture is hardly less impressive to us than it was to its first devotees.- It is interesting to compare this work with Mr. John Sargent’s ‘Lady Macbeth’—a portrait, by a great contemporary, of an actress who occupies the nearest equivalent place to that held by Mrs. Siddons. In the one a perfectly symbolical figure is given; in the other an actual character of Shakespeare is portrayed, but in an incident (raising the crown above her head in fierce triumph) which does not occur in the play. The idea in each is not so far removed that a comparison between the old method and the new may not be drawn. In the first a certain repose is felt; but if the brooding figures at the back were not introduced the subject would scarce betray itself. It would do no less well for an embodiment of * Inspiration,’ or of any other suppressed emotion. The other would always suggest a tragic incident no matter if its title were forgotten : the arrested movement of the figure, its vigorous lines, all denoting action, stamp. it as born of the nervous, restless, nineteenth century. The first has a serious purpose, and the artificiality of the grand manner of the earlier epoch ; the latter, the energy and rush of a more bustling time. It were folly to pit one against the other, but all the same it is instructive to study two representations of the most popular actress of her time, each by the most popular, and possibly the greatest, portrait painter of his day. The Dulwich picture was bought by M. Desenfans, in 17809, for £7353 he bequeathed it, with others, to Sir Peter Francis Bourgeois, the founder of the Dulwich Gallery, whence it has been reproduced here. 36 eyitolds). THE BLUE BOY By Tuomas GAINSBOROUGH, R.A. as ‘ The Blue Boy,’ is supposed to have been painted as a protest against Sir Joshua Reynolds’ dictum, that the masses of a com- position should be warm in colour. Whether the picture itself effectually proves the contrary is still an open question; but considered on its own merits, apart from any theory, it well deserves its great popularity. In Sir Joshua’s famous Fourteenth Discourse on the character of Gainsborough, he does not allude directly to this picture, but certain passages read as though it was in his mind. The disputed point, whether blue can be used effectively as the chief colour in a picture, despite Gains- borough's attempt, is still open. Most critics still think that so cold a colour does not supply an effective scheme. But although ‘The Blue Boy’ keeps the promise of the title, further study shows much warmth in the shadows, and a distinct effort to minimise the mass of blue in every way. That it was painted in direct challenge to Reynolds’ Eighth Lecture, delivered in 1778, is impossible, if 1770, the date usually assigned to it, be correct. The matter has been discussed at length in 1870 in the columns of Zhe Tames and elsewhere. Reynolds, to support his view, painted ‘A Yellow Boy.’ There is also‘A Pink Boy’ by Gainsborough, and ‘A Green Boy’ by Hugh Robinson, a little-known but exceedingly capable artist, who died at the age of twenty-four. But whether these, and Gainsborough’s ‘ Lady in Blue,’ were distinct efforts to oppose or support the theory that the masses of colour in a picture'need not always be warm, is at least doubtful. Those interested in the dispute should consult Mr. F. G, Stephens’ elaborate summing-up in the catalogue of the Grosvenor Gallery Winter Exhibition, 1885. The painting is the property of the Duke of Westminster, K.G., by whose - courtesy this reproduction has been made direct from the picture. It is thus in many respects more trustworthy than many versions before the public. 38 Wy The Blue Boy (Cainsborough). MRS. SIDDONS By Tuomas GAINSBOROUGH, R.A. ® HO does not know this exquisite portrait of the great tragic actress, by Gainsborough? Whether you see it in the National Gallery, in a mezzotint or photograph, or even in the coloured supplement of a Christmas number, it never ceases to retain some of its charm as a perfect portrait of a perfect model. Yet a most | irreverent anecdote has come down to us of its painting. Gains- borough found Mrs. Siddons’ nose would not ‘come’ to his liking. ‘Bother the. nose, there’s no end to it,’ he exclaimed, after many failures. In the presence of the stately picture such a flippant joke would not be worth recalling were it not to prove that the dignity and beauty of this painting were only achieved through failure and much sustained effort. It is pre-eminently the picture of a lady, and of a superbly intellectual woman. Supposing the title to be lost, the picture would — please none the less, for it is all-sufficient in itself. That it chances to represent: a great actress is an additional pleasure; but if contemporary engravings are’ correctly accurate, it is not so much a portrait of Mrs. Siddons as the world saw her, as of the ideal Mrs. Siddons that Gainsborough preferred should be handed to posterity. The idealisation he has imparted; but it is not of the usual order—it has not been spent in an effort to make a ‘pretty’ face, but. to emphasise the ‘ grand air’ which contemporaries unite in attributing to the actress. 3 Despite the splendour of Sir Joshua Reynolds’ ‘Tragic Muse,’ you aes from this everyday portrait, far more the attributes which contemporaries never wearied of recording. It is a thing of abiding beauty, and a worthy monument to | a fame even as great as that which is accorded to ‘ Sarah Siddons.’ Painted in 1784, it was purchased for the National Gallery, in 1862, from Major Main, who had married a grand-daughter of Mrs. Siddons. The illustration here given is from the reproduction published by the Autotype Company, London, W.C. 40 Mrs. Siddons (Gainslorough). THE PARSON’S DAUGHTER By Grorce Romney T would be superfluous to print here a rhapsody upon this charming picture, which is a general favourite. Nor is it quite certain who is represented. Rumour alleges it to be a portrait of a Miss Young, who afterwards became Mrs. Pope, a celebrated actress of © her time. But, stripped of all association, with no scandal or fame. to give it added interest, it holds its own among the pictures that have always had a true body of disciples. The foolish accessories which have at times been deemed essential to the attractiveness of the portrait of a fair woman are not encountered here. Romney in this instance did not think it necessary to dress her: up as a heroine of romance, nor to undress her as a goddess. Provided the painter can fix on his canvas something of the charm of the eternal feminine—so long as a world of men exists—he will not lack an audience. The more modest and uncon- scious she appears in his portrait, the more surely will she maintain her power of attraction. Asa rule, the beauties of history, whether chaste or frail, appear merely, commonplace, if not even still less charming, in their portraits. Others, likenesses. of unknown ladies, perhaps because you approach them with preconceived ideal. never fail to please entirely. One may fancy that these were painted for their beauty alone, neither for a patron nor a populace, but just to satisfy the painter's whim. Certainly such a theory might find not a few instances to support it, although if this be really a portrait of Mrs. Pope, the argument fails in its case. This work, now in the National Gallery, was purchased in 1878 at the sale of Mr. Anderdon’s pictures. 42 The Parson’s Daughter (Romney), LADY HAMILTON THE SPINSTRESS By Georce Romney iO) ORATSHE name of Romney is so continually and intimately associated ON with that of Lady Hamilton, that it is impossible to speak of his 1 \ a) work without constant reference to ‘Emma Hart,’ who so be- 3 witched the great portrait-painter that he was never happy when working on any other subject, and reduced the number of his sitters in order to devote more time to endless studies of her beauty. § At a time when Lord Nelson and Lady Hamilton figure as the dramatis: persone of more than one stage-play, when anecdote and history are ransacked to produce fresh biographies of the heroine, it would be folly to attempt to give. even the baldest summary of the subject of this picture. Among other well-known versions of the model are ‘Lady Hamilton as a Bacchante (National Gallery), as Ariadne, as Miranda, as a Wood-nymph, as Circe, as Euphrosyne, as St. Cecilia, ’ as Mary Magdalene, as Joan of Arc, as Sensibility,’ and other ideal subjects, with many that are portraits simply, without pretence of being idealised. This repro-- duction is from a mezzotint and not from the painting itself, but it gives a very fair idea of the picture. Yet any black-and-white version of a Romney must needs suffer much, for the flesh-tints he used impart no little of the peculiar charm that he still preserves. At present there is a tendency to place Romney as the peer of Reynolds and Gainsborough, if not above both; but an earlier and more just verdict credits him with certain qualities of grace, colour, and sympathetic line beyond either, and yet admits that in intellectual vigour and vanity he is far below: Reynolds, and in spirituality and richness of colour below Gainsborough. The world of art would be distinctly poorer did it lose the charming women that came from his brush, and especially the many portraits of the ‘ divine lady’ (‘I cannot give her any other epithet, for I think her superior to all womankind’: so Romney wrote to Hayley in 1791) whom Nelson in his dying words committed to the care of the British nation. The ‘Spinstress’ is owned by the Earl of Normanton. The illustration here given is from the reproduction published by the Autotype Company, London, W.C. . 44 znstress (Romney). he Sp Z AN EXPERIMENT WITH THE AIR-PUMP By Josern Wricut of Derby ® PICTURE which tells its own story, although it be of the most everyday incident, has always delighted, and probably will always attract, humanity. For at times even those technically interested in art forget the analytical study, and are amused by the anec- dote. Yet Wright of Derby must not be classed merely as one who told his stories in pictures instead of words. He set himself to solve certain problems of artificial light, and succeeded to an extent that war- rants an honourable place among British painters. Reynolds himself affirmed, that ‘by candle-light not only objects appear more beautiful, but from their being in a greater breadth of light and shadow and uniformity of colour, nature appears in a higher style, and even the flesh seems to take a higher and richer tone of colour.”: Certainly in this picture Wright did his best to obtain new effects in the colour of objects seen-by artificial light; perhaps to-day we are apt to dismiss his method as savouring more of theatrical than true illumination. It is interesting to compare’ later firelight pictures, say Mr. Frank Bramley’s ‘ Saved,’ with this, and to note how: much more difficult is the problem chosen by the modern painter: not to depict firelight alone, but the cold air of daylight as well upon the same canvas. It is also interesting to find that Wright’s position with certain critics was re-established by! this painting. Although an associate of the Royal Academy, he declined the full membership when proffered him, chiefly, it would appear, from the way his pictures’ had been hung, ‘so close to the floor that the frames and canvases were damaged | by the feet of the crowd.’ A storm raged in the press; he was reviled and defended ; in prose and verse, but parallel passages given in a monograph on his life (by Mr. W. Benn) go to prove that this ‘Air-Pump’ so pleased his former drastic critics that they were again unanimous in praising him. The painted incident is so clearly explained that a printed description is need-. less, Like many pictures of its time—and not a few to-day—it tells its story a. shade too. plainly. In real life—and this is a realistically treated subject—a group of people rarely express their emotions simultaneously and so dramatically in such ‘ picturesque attitudes. All the same, it is an interesting type of the domestic melodrama—the picture which, if not quite a morality, is bent on enforcing a moral! ofa sort, as well as upon depicting certain effects of light and colour. ; The painting was presented to the National Gallery by Mr. Edward Tyrell in 1863. 46 Lhe Atr- THE DEATH OF THE EARL OF CHATHAM By Joun S. Cop ey, R.a. N looking through a biographical list of Royal Academicians it is surprising to find so many of American birth. Yet, as the Academy enrolled them, we may annex them as British without infringing the Monroe doctrine; art need not be parochial in any sense. The subject of this picture is entirely British. The scene is in the Painted Chamber of the old House of Lords, the time: April 7th, 1778, when the Earl of Chatham (William Pitt), after speaking on the necessity of acknowledging the Independence of that part of the British North American colonies now the United States, fainted and was carried home to die on the 11th of May following. There are fifty-five portraits of peers in this picture, the most prominent figure to the right being that of the Duke of Richmond, a patron of the arts. At this date the topical interest in the noblemen depicted is hardly vital enough to make it necessary to reproduce here the key to the painting which hangs near it in the Gallery. As a record of the demolished building it has a distinct interest ; even although considered entirely as a painting it does not provoke one to peculiar , enthusiasm. The conditions of a work of this kind, which demand a large number of heads to be arranged and lighted so that each may reveal itself a portrait, must needs prejudice the unity of the composition considered as a complete picture. ‘He (Copley) was a great painter among the English artists of his day, and is not to be judged by the present standard; being in a manner self-taught, he achieved ; much more than many who have received an academical instruction.’ Thus Bryan’s Dictionary of Painters sums up Copley’s position as an artist. To say less in his | favour were unjust, to say more is hardly possible. Painted in 1779-80, this picture was presented in 1828 to the National Gallery by the Earl of Liverpool. Two large monochrome studies for the large work are also hung in the National Gallery, Nos. 1072-73. GY DEER a) 48 — ae & Ss Ss = 8 S = 8 = OQ > = y 8 Q S 2 ™~ > i ws 8 8 LORD NELSON IN THE VICTORY’S COCKPIT, MORTALLY WOUNDED, ocroser 21, 1805 By Benjamin WEST, P.R.A. ® T is perhaps somewhat uncourteous to accompany a picture with an apology; yet the presence here of Benjamin West's ‘ Lord Nelson’ is not wholly due to its importance as a work of art. A President of the Royal Academy is not necessarily the best British painter of the time that coincided with his election.’ Social fitness and many lay virtues are factors in the choice. Certain paintings.by West once in the National Gallery have been removed to provincial museums; this fact speaks volumes, and renders any further considera- tion of the painter’s rank unnecessary. But the death of Nelson is a subject that is sacred to every Briton. If the representation be inadequate he forgets all else but the theme itself. Despite his shortcomings, West tried to promote realism in art. It is said that he went to the ship itself to paint this scene, and a grim story is told of the hero’s body being replaced for a while in the cockpit to serve as a model for the artist. Whether this be legend or fact need not concern us. ‘The picture is one of the national treasures, and, if ten times less worthy as a painting than it is, would yet retain no little interest. For a picture that satisfies the unlettered. should not be regarded with half the scorn that is provoked by some pretentious attempt which fails to deserve sympathy either popular or esoteric. West lived. before the days of illustrated journalism, and doubtless his picture served the purpose of bringing the incident to the gaze of those whose imagination failed to conjure up the scene for themselves. Therefore for his place in the record of British art, and for the themes he chose, one may respect his memory and yet recognise clearly that his presence among great painters is the result of accident rather than of intrinsic merit. The painting, in poor condition (as the reproduction here shows only too faithfully), hangs in the Painted Hall of Greenwich Hospital, and is given here by permission of the Admiralty. 50 Wy Yi Nelson Mortally Wounded ( West). THE THREE WITCHES By H. Fuse, r.a. but fair to see in his works the first notable examples of a melodramatic use of the grotesque, which found perhaps in Gustave Doré its most complete expression. Although neither of the two can be ranked among the great painters of the world, yet in each there is a certain extravagance of fancy peculiarly Kee effective in rousing the enthusiasm of the populace. Fuseli’s famous picture of ‘The Nightmare’ is perhaps the most typical instance of the half-horrible grotesque which attracted him chiefly. In the ‘ Three’ Witches’ and in many of his illustrations to Shakespeare, there is a distinct attempt to emphasise the commonplace tragedy of the incident. But unluckily both in drawing and colour his technique was often inadequate to express his grandiose imaginings. In some respects we might draw a parallel between his art and that of Edgar Allan Poe, but only roughly. For the author of 7Ze Raven had a full grasp of his material, and chose themes better expressed by the less exact method | of words than by the direct representations in painting. For the unseen is always the most terrifying, and Fuseli, like the mediaeval artists who depicted devils: and imps, weakens the terror he would inspire by showing his bogies to be mere. physical monsters. Hence probably this, ‘The Three Witches,’ a really strong piece, may be selected as a type of the artist at his best. It is strange that he never seems to have gained great popularity by these ‘exceedingly thoughtful and imaginative works,’ as they have been called by a recent critic who traces them to a study of Klopstock and Lavater. All the same, as a bold attempt to break away from tradition, and as one of the founders of the school which both in art and literature still keeps a hold on Anglo-Saxon races, Fuseli is worthy a place in the rank and file of British artists, even if, in common with Dante Gabriel Rossetti and. others, one has to stretch a point to admit that ‘Johan Kaspar Fuessly, born in Zurich,’ is really entitled to be claimed as an Englishman. Still, born in 1741, he reached England in 1779, and lived here until his death in 1825. In 1790 he was elected‘a Royal Academician, and that may be regarded artistically as evidence of complete naturalisation. 52 *(17ASIY) SOYILIAA 2AAY [ IY, THE MURDER OF THE PRINCES IN THE TOWER By James NortHcote, R.A. “®T cannot be denied that the British school is singularly weak in notable pictures of its own history. The ‘Murder of the Princes,’ for instance, which by virtue of its subject has won itself no little popularity, is hardly to be found among masterpieces. It is said that after Northcote’s journey to Rome in 1777 he never ceased to talk of Michael Angelo, Raphael, and Titian. This is quite likely, for the singularly unrealistic, though by no means unimposing, grouping of this picture owes more to the old Italian painters than to nature. But if Northcote was inspired by the late Renaissance, in this particular picture, he is ultra-medieval. The portcullis is a fine feature in the outer portals of fortified buildings, but one would imagine it was very rarely employed at the side of a staircase. Northcote, however, for pictorial reasons, not merely places it so, but again in an arch underneath the stairs, where no possible space exists for the sliding gate to be drawn up. So the Perpendicular arches, fairly correct in outline, which may belong to the period of his subject, are not, one fancies, to be found in any part of the Tower of London in which the murder could have occurred. These trifles all go to prove that in spite of the really effective lighting, the imposing figure of a man in armour, and the grouping of the whole work, the painter was more concerned with a certain theatrical presentation of a pathetic incident, than with archeological details, or with probability. The story itself is of course concerned with the dethroned Edward v., then but a child of twelve, and his brother Richard, Duke of York, who. were smothered in the Tower in 1483, their bodies being buried at the foot of the staircase. Richard 11., the supposed author of the deed, as we know, has found champions who acquit him of the crime, yet the matter remains among the- unsolved mysteries of history. The reproduction here is from a mezzotint after the picture. 54 = 3 8 QS 3 ~ KR S s = XK 3S 8 Ss the AS aN L1ces tt Murder of the The CANTERBURY PILGRIM>s (1) By THomMAS STOTHARD, R.A. yTOTHARD exhibited only ninety-two pictures at the Academy, but his designs are said to amount to as many as five thousand in number’: so runs a sentence in the catalogue of the National Gallery. Therefore, although the accident of size has limited his representation in this work to half a page shared with another painter whose fame is also based on illustrations rather than pictures, no great ( injustice is done. This procession is a good example of the panorama in painting; one which should appeal to the picture-lover who delights to study a work bit by bit. Yet although a panorama, it is also a well- grouped composition considered as a whole. Among the figures, to quote again from the catalogue, ‘may be recognised “the Knight and his Son, the yonge Squier’ with his ‘yeman cladde in cote and hode of green,” the “Prioress with her Chappeleine and Priestes three,” the Mark and the ‘‘mery Frere,” the “ Marchant with a forked beard,” and “on his hed a Flaundrish bever hat,” the “Clerke of Oxenforde,” the “Sergeant of the Lawe,” the ‘‘Frankelein,” the “‘Haberdasher,” “Carpenter,” “Webbe,” “ Deyer,” and “ Tapisier,” the “Coke” and “Shipman,” the ‘ Doctour of Phisike,” and the “good Wif of Bathe,” the “ poore Personne,” the “stout Miller,” the “gentil Manciple,” the “Sompnour that hadde a fire-red cherubinne’s face,” and the “ Pardonere” ; all enumerated and described in the Prologue to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. This painting on a panel is in the National Gallery, for which it was purchased from the Leigh Court Collection in 1884. The illustration here given is from the reproduction published by the Autotype Company, London, W.C. (2) By WILLIAM BLAKE \ ONTRASTING these two versions of the same theme here placed together, it has been well said that Stothard’s grace is over facile, just as Blake’s dignified scheme of figures is over formal. Stothard’s work comforts the eye if it does not satisfy an admirer of Chaucer. Blake’s neither comforts nor satisfies anybody, but it compels respect and admiration, and gives a high enjoyment and a trifling dis- quietude at the same time. It was shown at an exhibition of water-colours by the artist in 1809, and the catalogue contains a long description, which Charles Lamb considered the finest essay on Chaucer he had ever read. Un- luckily, it is far too long to quote here: those who are curious will find it reproduced in full in the excellent edition of Blake’s Works by Mr. Edwin John Ellis and Mr. W. B. Yeats (Quaritch, 1893). The closing passage of this essay, which was written by Blake himself, contains so personal a reference to the other picture which here forms its companion, that it were best to quote it. Itruns: ‘The scene of Mr. S[tothard]’s picture is by Dulwich Hills, which was not the way to Canterbury; but perhaps the painter thought he would give them a ride round about, because they were a burlesque set of scarecrows, not worth any man’s respect or care. But the painter’s thoughts being always upon gold, he has intro- duced a character that Chaucer did not, namely, a goldsmith. . . All is misconceived, and its mis- execution is equal to its misconception.’ ‘The painting is rather more than three feet in length by one in height. ‘To place figures well in a long strip of this kind is a severe test of that sensitiveness to processional cadence in grouping which is one of the rarest qualities of an artist’; and here Blake, in formal competition with an Academician of his day, may be estimated fairly, and the result left to unbiassed criticism, if indeed there be any who are not definitely prejudiced on the matter of the art of William Blake. 56 (aynzq) sUresytegT Cingsaqung “(puny j0IS) SUAS] iT CimgsaquUny DEATHS DOOR By Witiiam Biaxke T is peculiarly difficult to estimate Blake’s true position as an artist; for, while his enemies call him a madman, his friends rank him as the greatest visionary artist England has produced. Undoubtedly his influence is being felt to-day, and even the jealously guarded portals of the National Gallery admit two of his fantastic conceptions. The picture here reproduced is one of a series illustrating Blair's Grave. ‘It shows a rocky mausoleum. The heavy door is open, and an old man on crutches totters in as though seeking his own tomb. Just above the little mortuary hermitage, on the unhewn rocky roof of the sepulchre, a naked youth is rising up as though the light that surrounds his body were the dawn of the last day. He is recognised as the soul of the old man, and the two parts of the design are not considered as belonging to the action of one moment, but the upper portion as showing a later chapter of the story pictured in the lower.’ So runs the description in Messrs. Ellis and Yeats’ memoir. The designs, twelve in number, were executed in 1805. This is decidedly the most popular, but others—notably the deaths of the Good Old Man and the Strong Wicked Man, and of the Soul exploring the recesses of the Grave—are more deeply infused with the mystic symbolism which has earned for Blake the title of the Swedenborg of art. It may be straining the purpose of this book— which is. confined to painters in oil chiefly—to include a water-colour drawing, which owes little to aught but line, among veritable paintings. But Blake is a distinct force in British art, and whether you condemn or approve his methods, it is impossible to deny the vigour of his conceptions, and at times his strong sense of decoration and impressive composition. The illustration here given is from the reproduction published by the Autotype Company, London, W.C. 58 Death’s Door (Blake). BOY WITH A RABBIT By Str Henry Rarsurn RN a somewhat depressing suite of rooms at Burlington House, known as the Diploma and Gibson Galleries, wherein are hung the pictures officially presented to the Royal Academy by each | newly created R.A., within six months of his election, it is with real pleasure that your eye lights upon this dainty canvas. : Around it are pictures blackened by time, with a spurious resemblance to Old Masters ; pictures which were never related intimately to nature, and owed more to artifice than art. But in this charming study of child-life| you find a painting which is worthy to be placed by a Reynolds, if indeed it has not a certain truthfulness of its own, from the entire absence of the grand manner, which makes it even still more lovable. The fame of Sir Henry Raeburn, who was created on George the Fourth’s visit to Scotland ‘ His Majesty’s limner in that part of his dominions, with all the rights, privileges, and advantages thereunto belonging,’ rests chiefly upon his superb series of portraits. But this rare example of gewve proves that he; could have sustained his high reputation by works of another character had he, chosen. It is always a red-letter day:to be remembered when you first come; across a fine series of Raeburns, and the pleasure only increases your surprise. that an artist of such power had not earlier found the favour which at length: he is sharing with Reynolds, Gainsborough, and Hoppner, as a British portrait-painter | of the first rank. One among many qualities that mark out the master is that the costume he employs never strikes you as grotesque, no matter how it may conflict with the! fashions of the hour. That this is due to the artist himself is easily discoverable: by reference to any commonplace engraving from his work. It is this factor which in reproduction has vulgarised many of the exquisite child-portraits of Reynolds, so one may be thankful that this delightful Raeburn has escaped the fatal popularity of harsh engravings on steel or wood, and can appeal now in the more mechanical medium of photo-process work, without any memories of ugly prints) in old magazines intervening. - The painting is the Diploma picture by Raeburn, who was elected a Royal Academician in 1814, and is included here by permission of the Academy. : 60 Boy with a habbit (Raeburn). STIRLING CASTLE By ALexanpEeR NasMyTH collection, as indeed its presence in our National Gallery would imply ; especially when, as in this case, it is found to be a picture purchased by the Trustees. Possibly the work of Nasmyth is often more interesting considered as a foundation of a school rather than for its own sake; but this particular instance needs no extraneous reason to entitle it to praise. The scene is not quite an accurate topographical record. The exigencies of composition have played some havoc with the place as photography would record it. In the painting we see the castle on an eminence to the right, and on the left a wide valley through which a river winds, with hills in the distance; goats are introduced amid the herbage of the foreground. It is true that the picture is not so much nature as an untrained artist would see it, as nature seen through the memories of old masters. In the late eighteenth century a painter who had studied in Rome, and returned to the modern Athens—Edinburgh—could © lardly hope to escape a certain classic influence. But while staunch obedience to classic models usually results in mere pedantry, it is not always a matter for regret that a capable painter, who is not quite a heaven-born genius, should rely some- what on well-founded precedent. The artistic impulse of the Nasmyth family begins here, with Alexander ; but his, son Peter, who called himself Patrick, carried on the tradition to still nobler ends, so that the ‘English Holbein’ became his nickname. The famous inventor of the steam-hammer was another son of the painter of ‘Stirling Castle.’ This fact is not even remotely connected with painting; but the student of lunar landscape and the draughtsman who could project a thing so complex as the steam-hammer from his imagination, so that his first rough sketch supplied a working drawing for its construction to a stranger who saw it by chance, was also a clever amateur artist. Therefore for its associations ‘Stirling Castle’ might be respected were it an infinitely less fine work than it really is. The ‘absurd and famous portrait of Burns’ by Alexander Nasmyth must not be omitted from the family chronicle, nor the fact that there were other members . who became popular as picture painters. But the directory of artists to-day shows no trace of any survivors, and therefore we may properly rank the Nasmyth family school as a past force, in more senses than one. 62 “(yphausvaz) opgsvg Surptys MIRANDA By Joun Hoppner, R.A. (Frontisprece) CREED HE appreciation of Hoppner is comparatively recent. ‘His style NS of portrait-painting appears to have been founded on the study Wie) of the works of Sir Joshua Reynolds; but he was very far from 3 being a copyist. In his portraits of children he was particularly happy, and scarcely less so with those of ladies; but in those of men he was too constrained.’ This faint praise, given in Bryan’s admirable Dectzonary of Painters, is instinctive as evidence that even so lately as 1889 the estimate of Hoppner was far below that of to-day, especially if we regard the huge leap forward in prices paid for his work. It is not wise to pay too much attention to the evidence of the auction-room. Pictures, like Dutch tulips and other objects sought by collectors, fetch very inflated prices at certain times for reasons wholly unconnected with art. But. the desire to possess a specimen of Hoppner’s works, which runs up its price to a startling amount, is not wholly a matter of fashion; they have very sterling merits, and late though the recognition has been bestowed, no impartial critic will deny that he was one of the great British portrait-painters, who, with Raeburn and others, may have been over- shadowed for a time by the superb genius of Sir Joshua, but who is nevertheless worthy of a very liberal amount of praise. If of late his reputation has grown rapidly, it is only once again indorsing the opinion of his contemporaries, for he enjoyed the patronage of the Prince of Wales, and exhibited one hundred and sixty-six works at the Royal Academy, of which he was a member. The delightful portrait which forms the frontispiece of this volume needs no eulogy here. The reproduction is from a mezzotint ; but, in spite of the paraphrase, it represents very fairly a full share of the grace and elegance which characterise the original. 64 Mrs. Angelo Taylor as “Miranda” ( Hoppner j. THE INSIDE OF A STABLE By Georce Morranp Painted when Morland was twenty-eight years old, it was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1791, where it found a purchaser in the Rev. Sir Henry Bate Dudley, Bart. from whom it descended to his nephew, Mr. Thomas Bulle Wolfe, who presented it to the National Gallery. ‘In all the range of British art, there are few things better than a good Morland,’ says Mr. Henley, and this, if not Morland’s best, is at_least one of his best. In the Life of the painter, by George Dane, R.A., the subject is said to represent the White Lion, Paddington, opposite the painter's home at the time, which was his favourite haunt, and for one whose manners were, to say the least, extremely unconventional, a haunt perhaps too alluring. It is far more interesting from the fact that it is the first painting of a stable interior—a subject he repeated so often—which Morland attempted. Speaking of these stable pictures, an earlier critic calls attention ‘to the assemblage of objects always appropriate and disposed as if by accident,’ and claims this careless distribution as his forte. Each person, of course, is quite justified in claiming some particular - quality as his hero’s strong point, but, without being over-appreciative, Morland deserves credit for something greater than ‘careless distribution.” He was first and foremost a painter—that is to say, he did not set out to teach a lesson by means of a pictured parable. He saw certain beautiful effects in ordinary life, and expressed- them in his own medium, which happened to be paint. He was a fine colourist, and knowing exactly what he intended to accomplish, did it so directly that he preserved that spontaneity which is a peculiar virtue in a work of art. Whether the dogma of the joy of the workman in his work be wholly sound or not, there can be no doubt that fine craftsmanship, which has the air of being unlaboured, is far more likely to attract generation after generation than | any tour de force which betrays too obviously the immense pains of its making. !? Because Morland painted pigs and stables he has been called coarse and vulgar; and because he painted them broadly, with no Dutch minuteness of detail, he has still offended further a great class of critics who think the only excuse for depicting common objects is that they should be life-size, and imitative to the last degree. Morland was concerned with the whole more than with its parts, hence to-day he rises higher and higher into favour with those whose taste is based on knowledge. = The illustration here given is from the reproduction published by the Autotype Company, London, W.C. 66 = ‘ x SS = ~ 4 3 DOOR OF A VILLAGE INN- By Georce Morranp RERHAPS it would be more in accordance with the popular : estimate of Morland to have given one of his many pictures of pigs for the second example of his work. But in black-and- white they would probably lose the most of the qualities which make them great. If English connoisseurs prefer his pigs, many continental critics prefer his little social scenes, and say that only © with the greatest master of technique among the Flemish group, Adrian Brouwer, can these pieces by Morland be compared for verve and artistic many-sidedness. Morland seems to have been a typical Merry-Englishman of the free and easy sort, with a taste for the society of his inferiors (he was the heir to a baronetcy) and a hatred of all social restraint, if not of common decency. Yet the man who could carouse in public-houses could also paint the exquisitely refined group ‘The Tea-Garden’ (exhibited at Burlington House, 1886) with a courtesy and suave grace that recalls some fashionable painter who lived in the polite society he painted. This curious admixture of the bucolic man and the refined artist is not without parallel; but it never fails to surprise and vex a school of critics whose very existence is perhaps largely due to Mr. Ruskin, who will compare the ethics — of morality with painting. The motto ‘ Art for art’s sake’ is degraded by too many charlatans, and it is one. that most possibly the easy, careless Morland would have disdained. Yet, however loosely he took the duties of a British tax-payer, he never shirked those of his art, and for this much may be forgiven. His life was full of wild adventure and orgies none too reputable: his pictures are free from vulgarity of subject or treatment. For Morland found beauty in the common tasks of every- day life, not wilfully chosen to represent it in morbid hue, but ‘with all the chivalrous grace of. the time of Werther, and that fine Anglo-Saxon aroma escaping from works of English painters of the present day.’} The picture is in the National Gallery, to which it was bequeathed in 1892 by Sir Oscar M. P. Clayton, C.B. The illustration here given is from the reproduction published by the Autotype Company, London, W.C. 1 Muther, vol. ii. pp. 99 and 100. 68 (, n iy Oe iy. ih Ye, a Lx2 y = ~ s aoe s Ss — 4 ~~ ~s = = ™ Ye 8 = i > s S ADMIRAL DUNCAN 11TH OCTOBER 1797 By SamugeL Drummonnp, A.R.A. sh HE full title of this painting is ‘Admiral Duncan receiving the sword of the Dutch Admiral De Winter on the quarter-deck of the Venerable, 11th October 1797.’ ‘The scene represented occurred at the battle of Camperdown, in which action eleven Dutch ships were taken. The third figure in the group is the Captain of the Venerable, afterwards Admiral Sir William George Fairfax.’ So runs the official description, and it seems to need no further comment. The picture is a fair specimen of the average naval painting. It is alwaysa matter of surprise that the great deeds of English sailors have so rarely inspired artists of the first rank. It is possible that were a list made of al] naval subjects which ever attracted British painters, they would form but an insignificant item in the total of British pictures. Domestic trivialities, scenes from the Bible or from Shakespeare, almost every well-defined class of political history and genre would bulk largely above those from naval or military subjects. Therefore to represent this aspect of our national art at all, you are compelled to include paintings that on their own merit belong to the great army of second-rate, or, at best, mildly academic works. The Painted Hall at Greenwich is full of canvases that are of _ immense interest to any one except a painter, whom they inspire with profound | regret as he recognises the wasted opportunities which the old and picturesque battles presented. No doubt it is traceable to a belief—still held by many good Britons—that the contemporary costume of the period is always undignified, and that azz requires the assistance of a theatrical costwmzer and a stage property man before she can depict heroes or any actors in history. Absurd as the conclusion is, we can find no other to account for the neglect of contemporary history in British art. This picture was presented to the Greenwich Hospital by the British Institu- - tion, and is reproduced here by permission of the Admiralty. 70 ifs Le Uy) a Uy wdmiral Duncan (Drummond). THE SAN NICHOLAS AND SAN JOSEF CARRIED BY BOARDING, Fes. 14, 1797 By Ricuarp WESTALL, R.A. 2 N St. Valentine’s Day, exactly one hundred years ago, the incident ; occurred here depicted by Westall. A large picture by Orme, | devoted to the same subject, painted ‘under the direction of Lord Nelson and the officers of H.M.S. Capéazm, his flag-ship,’ is also ‘ at Greenwich. But this version by Westall must needs take higher rank as a painting, although it would be overpraise to declare that for its intrinsic merits it deserves a place in a National Collection. Westall was perhaps at his best when illustrating popular editions of the classics of English literature. In addition to his contributions to the famous Shakespeare * Gallery, he designed a series of plates for Milton, both commissioned by Alderman Boydell, a munificent patron of the arts. In these a certain prettiness is not always fatal; but in his paintings there is too much elegance in the pose of the figures,.as, for example, in the officer with averted face and uplifted arm to the right of this picture. This was in accord with the mood of his time, and, had his technique and colour been finer, the artificiality of his compositions would not have sufficed| to have debarred him from a higher rank among painters than he is awarded. The story of the incident is best related in Nelson's own words :—‘On the quarter-deck of a Spanish first-rate, extravagant as the story may seem, did I receive the swords of the vanquished Spaniards, which, as I received, I gave to Willian ; Fearney, one of my bargemen, who put them, with the greatest sang-froid, under his arm—‘ bundling them up,” as the gallant Collingwood expressed it, “with as much composure as he would have made a fagot, though twenty-two sail of the Spanish line were still within gun-shot.” The Commodore was supported, as he has” described, by ‘old Agamemnons” and ‘several other brave men, seamen, and: soldiers.” Thus fell_these ships. In boarding the Sax Nicholas, I believe we lost. about seven killed and ten wounded, and about twenty Spaniards lost their lives by a foolish resistance ; none were, | believe, lost in boarding the San Josef. There is a saying in the fleet too flattering for me to omit telling, viz., ‘‘ Nelson’s patent bridge for boarding first-rates,” alluding to my passage over an enemy’s eighty-gun . ship. This occurred February 14th, 1797.’ The picture is reproduced here by permission of the Admiralty. fe Carried by Boarding ( Westalt). THE WINDMILL By Joun Crome HE full title of this picture by ‘Old Crome’ runs: ‘The Windmill, on an undulating heath, probably Mousehold Heath in the neighbourhood of Norwich, a roundabout way of describing | a painting that is singularly straightforward in its simple state- ment of truth. ‘Old Crome,’ as he is always called, and the nickname suggests much, was not only a great landscape painter, but, as an early biographer described him, ‘the founder of the only local school in England of any importance.’ It is but fair to add that this statement was put forth before the world had heard of the Newlyn School, or the Glasgow School, and possibly without thought of the pre-Raphaelite School—three excep- tions which suffice to show that the phrase can hardly pass without protest. But, all the same, the Norwich School is a great fact, and signs are plentiful at present. which point to a still further recognition of its importance. The pictures by this master, we read, never fetched over fifty pounds each — during his lifetime, and only twelve of his works enjoyed the honour of being exhibited at the Royal Academy, between 1807 and 1818. It would be amusing to dissect the catalogues of these eleven years, and see how many of the members’ é works would elicit equal praise from modern critics, or fetch similar prices under“ the hammer. The result of such inquiry would probably be a hopeful augury to | ‘outsiders’ to-day. Now ‘Old Crome’ is an established master. ‘Inspired mainly by nature, he excelled all previous artists in his character of trees.’ This is but one of many aspects that have won him approval. This very picture, dated about 1816, was painted, as he himself said, ‘for the sake of air and space.’ That he brought these into his canvas is evident; he was one of the rebels to whom art owes a debt too deep for payment. The National Gallery purchased this picture at the International Exhibition of 1862 from Mr. William Yetts of Great Yarmouth. The illustration here given is from the reproduction published by the Autotype Company, London, W.C. op Yi Web The Windmill (Crome). NATURE By Sir Tuomas Lawrence, P.R.A. »IR THOMAS LAWRENCE, it is said, declared this to be one of the few pictures by which he wished to be represented to posterity. Greeted from the moment it was painted with rapturous applause, it has kept its position. Indeed the amount of anecdote and eulogistic notices devoted to it would fill many pages of this book. The painting, as a portrait of the children of C. B. Calmady, Esq., was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1824. In Williams’ Life of Sir Thomas’ Lawrence, certain incidents of the sittings, told by their mother, are printed at some length ; these show the painter in a genial aspect. Indeed, the record is. ultra-domestic, and speaks not only of ‘Laura’s glowing and rosy fairness, if one’ may call it so, and Emmy’s entirely different and pearl-like tints,’ but of Lawrence feeding one of the babes with mutton chops and mashed potatoes just before-a letter arrived with the announcement (in French) of his being made an Honorary; Member of the Royal Academy of Denmark. ‘They must have heard I was painting this picture,’ was the painter’s comment after perusing the official document. . All this pleasant gossip gives to the masterpiece the air of a spontaneous effoil undertaken in sheer love of the grace of the children, with whom he was on most! intimate and affectionate terms. Unluckily it has not been found practicable to give a reproduction from the original painting, and a certain ‘prettiness’ which belongs to the engraving reproduced here must not be imputed to the intention of the painter himself but to the engraver. The illustration here given is from the reproduction published by the Autotype Company, London, W.C. Nature (Lawrence). A CHILD WITH A KID By Sir THomas Lawrence, P.R.A. 1800: aet. 5.’ It is an excellent sample of the romantic portrait, with the artificially-natural treatment that was in vogue at the period of its production. It is not likely that an earl’s daughter was in the habit of taking linen to be washed in a stream, or disport herself in old-master-like undress, amid conventionally grandiose landscape. But dismissing the trifling accidents of the little comedy, the figure is a real child, with no little of that exquisite grace which Reynolds, Lawrence’s predecessor, had bestowed on English children. Despite a slightly histrionic pose, and a slightly artificial intensity in the rapt poetic gaze of the little Lady Giorgiana, it is not merely a lay figure prettily disposed in lines that harmonise with the scheme of the composition, but a real child, who in a second might start into mischievous activity. This is evident, even if you study the com- position as it appears in reproduction here, and forget artifice entirely. The kid, which helps to entitle the picture, may not be a masterly rendering of animal life ; but one must not forget its main purpose is to fill an empty corner, just as the pitcher to the left is the near relative of the ‘pot with a lily,’ an equally convenient property for earlier and later painters. But if the obvious convention of the picture is mildly amusing, the real beauty of the child—not merely its head, but the true and tenderly expressed movement of the feet and hands—is impressed with a certain distinction that is absent from many an equally ambitious modern attempt. To appreciate its worth, one has only to recall the average ‘baby and puppy,’ or the much befrocked and_behatted juvenile nobles of a few years ago, to realise how very far removed is this portrait, whatever may be its rank among masterpieces, from the ‘kiss-mammy’ type that floods the Academy year after year now. The picture was bequeathed to the National Gallery by Lady Giorgiana Fane in 1875. )» ith a Kid (Lawrence wd w Ch THE FIGHTING TEMERAIRE By J. M. W. Turner, R.a. F all Turner's paintings none has grasped the hearts of the British more than this. The subject symbolises in a way the death of a hero at that moment which certain painters of landscape love to entitle, ‘At eventide there shail be light!’ But the emotional qualities here are noble enough, and there is no sentimentality in the conception or execution of the work. The steamboat typifies the newborn generation as surely as the old three-decker the fighting hero who has fought his last fight; and so far from lachrymose regret for a dead hero, it is the dawn of a new epoch that the picture foreshadows. It should never be forgotten that Turner, idealist as he was, painted the steam-engine and the steamboat when they were as vulgar in their novelty as a motor-car or bicycle would appear to many an artist to-day. It is true that he gave poetic rather than realistic versions of the new factors that have affected so great a change in social amenities; but he introduced them boldly into serious works. The Témératre was an old ‘ninety-eight,’ named after a French prize, and took part in the battle of Trafalgar as second ship in Lord Nelson's division. She was towed to Rotherhithe to be broken up in 1838. Although the interest of the average admirer of this picture may be awakened chiefly by the incident of its subject, it is as a study of clouds at sunset that a painter prizes it most. The colour of the blood-red sun, and the white mists on the water, through which the ship looms ghostlike, are full of tender beauty. The reproduc- tion here given has caught much of the effect of the modelling in the clouds and the composition of the picture, but it has also imparted a certain sense of gloom not apparent in the original. Indeed, one who had not seen it might be tempted to think it was the ordinary yellow brown of an ‘old master,’ instead of being a delicate harmony more akin to a nocturne by Mr. Whistler. It is given but to few works of art to please all parties, and in this respect the ‘ Fighting T¢méraire’ is almost unique. ‘His entire power is best represented by such pictures as the Zémérazre,’ said Mr. Ruskin. Go when you will to the National Gallery, you will always find No. 524 to be one of the few Turners which tempt the careless — visitor to linger. It was among the hundred finished oil-paintings which, with seven thousand water-colour drawings, were bequeathed to the nation by the painter himself in 1856. 80 (eas) atepipueg F SUrpysey IY, THE DUGCAL FALACE By J. M. W. Turner, R.a. Campanile of San Marco, Ducal Palace, Bridge of Sighs, etc., Canaletti painting,’ and that title is supplemented in the catalogue by this quotation from Rogers’s /¢aly :— ‘There is a glorious city in the sea— The sea is in the broad, the narrow streets, Ebbing and flowing ; and the salt seaweed Clings to the marble of her palaces.’ It is a fine specimen of the painter’s third period, when ‘light with all its prismatic varieties seemed to have engrossed his attention.’ Possibly as two other sea-pieces are given here, one of his mythological subjects would have represented Turner more adequately; but this picture of Venice is better suited for monochrome reproduction than are most of his compositions in the grand manner, which suffer, greatly by reduction, and are apt to be burlesqued in black-and-white. An attempt to eulogise Turner ariew would be foredoomed failure; the danger is rather to-day that Mr. Ruskin’s elaborate and reiterated panegyrics may probably provoke a reaction and cause some injustice to be done to the memory of a great artist. That some of the best qualified critics, on the Continent especially, are disinclined to accept Mr. Ruskin’s estimate as final need not imply that Turner is less than amaster. But it may be that more sober appreciation will praise him not as ‘the greatest colourist, the greatest landscapist of England, the man who absorbed all the best teaching of previous masters and surpassed them,’ but as a painter who was more truly the last of the classical school than the forerunner of the newer, and, as we believe, truer landscape which Constable began and Corot continued. Be this as it may, England has good cause to be proud of Turner, who, illiterate and eccentric to the point of madness in later years, bewitched a singularly fascinating writer, who in turn enlisted the sympathy of artistic England in favour of his hero. This painting, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1833, forms one of the Vernon Collection presented to the National Gallery in 1847. The illustration here given is from the reproduction published by the Autotype Company, London, W.C. att 0 OATS Lhe Ducal Palace, Venice (Turner), THE BATTLE OFF CAPE TRAFALGAR 21 OCTOBER 1805 By J. M. W. Turner, R.A. triton among minnows. The subject represents ‘the great battle in which the British fleet of twenty-seven sail of the line and four frigates completely defeated the combined French and Spanish fleets, consisting of thirty-three ships of the line and five frigates. The Vectory, the principal ship represented in this picture, bore the flag of Lord Nelson. On her quarter-deck he fell mortally wounded by a musket-ball supposed to have been fired from the mizzen-top of the Redoutable, with which ship she was closely engaged.’ The scene, allowing much for a painter’s licence, brings to a spectator the personal element in warfare, which modern conditions have eliminated. Ships now engage at long distances, so that ironclads seem less vessels with guns and fighting men on board, than almost automatic weapons controlled and guided by comparatively few skilled craftsmen. It is a curious sign of the classic tradition which still fettered Turner, that in the foreground a group of men, quite opposed to realistic truth, should engage attention before the real incident, the death-grapple of the two ships, catches the eye. Snapshot-photographs and greater attention to things as they are, have given modern painters and modern audiences quite different ideas. To us, a tossing sea destitute of wreckage. and drowning men would seem more fitting to be the setting of such an incident. But in the painting the splendour of the colour and the complex lines of the composition unite to produce an epic rather than a special correspondent’s report. One does not criticise it as a record of the actual scene, but as a superb impression of naval warfare imagined by a painter of whom Mr. Ruskin said, speaking of his boyhood :—‘ And Trafalgar happening long before we could draw ships, we nevertheless coax all current stories out of wounded sailors, do our best to show Nelson’s funeral streaming up the Thames; and vow that Trafalgar shall have its tribute of memory some day, which, accordingly, is accomplished—once with all our might for its death ; twice with all our might for its victory ; thrice in pensive farewell to the old 7éméraire, and with it, to that order of things.’ The picture, once in St. James’s Palace, was presented to Greenwich Hospital - in 1829 by his Majesty George 1v., and is reproduced by leave of the Admiralty. 34 (uanin p) wvSpofvs fz fo yHeg THE HAY-WAIN By Joun ConstaBLe, R.A. EGY T is said that a great German philosopher, taking his son to the G BNE British Museum, handed him from the reference shelf a small UGS JIS volume—Darwin’s Origin of Species—and bade him note it as =< ne the greatest thing England had done for the world. A specialist WS in the arts visiting the National Gallery would doubtless select Constable’s ‘ Hay-Wain’ for similar approval; for this work occupies a position as epoch-making in the history of painting as the great theory of Darwin holds in sociology. Painted in 1821, it was hung with two others from the same hand in the Salon of 1824, and the whole career of French painting was changed immediately. Constable, who died in poverty in England, had discovered that there was ‘ room enough for a natural painter.’ Yet the first man who dared to accept the common aspect of the everyday world as all-sufficient was overlooked here until he had appealed with irresistible force to Paris—that Paris of advanced thought and of ripe knowledge, where ancient art was profoundly respected, and yet artists were capable of receiving new impulses even from the unexpected direction of Great Britain. : It fired certain of the younger men, and the great Barbizon school—which rose into being with Romanticism for its keynote—dates from this motive power. . Corot and Jean Francois Millet, Courbet, Diaz, Daubigny, and Rousseau are lineally artistic descendants of the Hampstead artist. To him the Dutch school | of landscape owes fealty. Indeed, it would not be claiming too much to assert ° that even the impressionists Monet, Sisley, and the rest, and many a modern school less obviously founded on Constable, owe their very existence to his revolt. This famous picture (with two others) brought the painter £250. Twenty, possibly forty, times that sum would scarce purchase it were it put to auction to-day. But money value is of secondary importance in art; the intrinsic worth of the picture lies in the fact that it opened men’s eyes to the visible beauty of their own world; not a world artificially made elegant by landscape gardening and studio light, but the ‘style of God Almighty,’ the promised land which Gains- borough saw from a distance, and Constable entered into fully. The painting was shown at Burlington House, for the first time apparently, in 1885-86 (the original study for it, owned by Lord Leighton, was sold at Christie’s in 1896). It is now in the National Gallery (No. 1207), to which it was presented in i886 by Mr. Henry Vaughan. The illustration here given is from the reproduction published by the Autotype Company, London, W.C. 86 (agqnjsuoy) wij, -Anzy ay FLATFORD MILL ON THE RIVER STOUR By Joun ConstaB Le, R.A. R AINTINGS by Constable do not afford much scope for comment in words. Face to face with nature, the artist set down his own interpretation of the beauty he saw. To attempt a description of this picture would be merely to re-describe its scene, to try to convey in a less precise medium the colour, light, and move- ment he has fixed with irresistible truth upon the canvas. In the official catalogue of the National Gallery we are told, ‘On the left of the foreground a draught-horse, bestridden by a boy, stands on the towing-path, while a man adjusts a rope by which it is attached to a barge floating on the river, under the guidance of bargemen. On the right is an old dilapidated oak-tree, round the trunk of which a streamlet winds its way between sedgy banks. In the middle distance the river is intersected by a lock, surrounded by trees and farm buildings. Above, a sunny sky, across which large clouds are drifting.’ As a means of identification, this notice leaves nothing to be desired; but how incapable it would be of conveying a mental impression of the picture to a stranger is evident if you study the illustration here. The pastoral character of the scene shows its painter’s contempt for classical composition that could scarce be discovered from the official description quoted. For here is a bit of nature, careless of pyramidical masses, a stretch of landscape that, if cut in two, would leave two pictures each complete in itself—pictorially speaking. To understand, at this date, the strength of Constable’s revolt against tradition, one has but to imagine how this scene would have been manipulated by earlier landscape painters. All its details would have been re-arranged to comply with a preconceived theory, and the straggling land- scape, with several distinct centres of interest, would have been artificially lighted ; and grouped so that the canons of convention were respected. The picture, as it is, is just a finely selected piece of real English scenery, and full of the light of day ; an out-of-doors feeling is everywhere. The hat in the foreground, and the wooden fencing of the stream, are the only items that suggest artifice. The rest, ° so far as composition is concerned, might be found in a snapshot photograph. The painting was bequeathed to the National Gallery in 1888 by Miss Isabel Constable. 88 *(agupsuog) 11277 pLofqwpy THE CORNFIELD OR COUNTRY LANE By Joun ConstTaB Le, R.A. PN this painting there is a more deliberate unity of selection than ’ in many of Constable’s. It is probable that the scene depicted is exactly as the painter saw it; but all the same its parts fall more or less into the ‘composition’ dear to the landscape painters of earlier date. Except the broken fencing in the foreground, which, like that in ‘Flatford Mill on the Stour,’ is less reminiscent of nature than of the foreground studies of the drawing-master, the painting is unvexed by any stage properties. That it has caught the very spirit of an English lane in summer-time is too obvious a criticism to need repetition. Even as here given in black-and-white, the sounds and the odour of the moment depicted seem suggested no less vividly than its colour and atmosphere. The painting is perhaps the first of a class of landscapes which. at one time bid fair to expel all others from popular approval. We see in it the inspiration of the Birket Foster School, and perhaps a slight tendency to the ‘prettiness’ of much mid-Victorian landscape, which at length became merely inane. But in its own way this painting appeals with a direct purpose that no triumphs of modern landscape can do more than rival. Perhaps a certain ‘picturesque’ tree to the right was a concession to formal beauty, or possibly it was actually there. In either case one may wish it away with no disrespect to a mighty master. For Constable is not a painter to be ‘appreciated,’ but to be studied humbly: not merely to be approved as the Briton who upset the French classic school and brought down their lordly temple at a single touch, but as a new force in painting, still vital 4 and still irresistible. The curious thing is that after John Constable’s revelations : English painters could sink back into the platitudes of Academic landscape; yet : from his time until the mid-Victorian period Constable was isolated. Now again we have returned to his legend, and the legitimate heirs to his title are raising English landscape to the position he conquered for it. For we must not forget -that in landscape, and almost only in landscape, can Britons claim the right to a foremost place among the arts. The picture, painted in 1826, was presented in 18 37 to the National Gallery by a group of admirers who purchased it from Constable's executors, The illustration here given is from the reproduction published by the Autotype ‘ Company, London, W.C, | 90 The Cornfield (Constable). GREENWICH By Str Aucustus W. Cattcort, R.A. ® F all paintings that lose from reproduction by the. ordinary ' processes, perhaps sea-scapes—where the real interest of the subject lies in long stretches of water and open sky above— suffer most. Yet to omit Callcott from a representative collec- tion would be unfair, and this picture of ‘Greenwich,’ despite its having naturally lost its colour, yet affords a fair example of the painter. Although he appears to have been influenced but slightly by Claude Lorraine, he has not escaped the honour of being called ‘the English Claude’ —a somewhat doubtful compliment at its best—which becomes absurd when you discover that a dozen or more of British landscape-painters have been so nicknamed by their too zealous admirers. In the simple directness of his work there is much of lasting value; but although here represented by a marine landscape—(if the bull may be pardoned) —he is perhaps better known to the general public by his ‘Raphael and the Fornarina,’ which was engraved by Lumb Stocks, R.A., and given to the subscribers — of the London Art Union in 1843. A picture of ‘Milton and his Daughters,’ exhibited in 1840, has also become widely known. Yet collectors are more inclined to favour him as a landscape and marine painter; and in these branches he certainly produced more vital: work. The ‘Greenwich’ hangs in Sir John Soane’s Museum, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, whence, by courtesy of the trustees, the present reproduction has been made, The illustration here given is from the reproduction published by the Autotype Company, London, W.C. . 92 “(7209 7DD)) Y220LUIALD) A GALIOT IN A GALE By Joun Seri Corman process; and if one of his still more representative works had been selected in place of this, it would have seemed singularly ineffective. Were it not for the voucher of authenticity which a place in our National Gallery gives it, one might even doubt if this were a veritable Cotman. Yet it has much of the large “ handling which seems to bring the tossing sea into the frame, and is not an isolated specimen of the painter's power in marine subjects. Side by side with a reproduction, it seems absurd to call attention to motive or the composition of the picture, nor is it our place here to criticise it. That it is full of vigour and movement is apparent enough, and although it may lack some peculiar qualities, which in his water-colours especially have given John — Sell Cotman a lasting place among great artists, yet it is in its way a noble piece of work, and characteristic of the school to which it belongs. Cotman’s work is amazing, direct, and simple, without affectation ; and without too insistent brusqueness of statement he. sets down with unerring instinct the salient points of his subject. Colour, light, atmosphere, movement, each have their due share of attention, which seems settled rather by instinct than by deliberately conscious selection. It is this which keeps his paintings full of pristine youth, and is likely to preserve their author’s fame evergreen. The painting, bought (for something like £2000) at the sale of Mr. James Price’s collection, is No. 1458 in the National Gallery. 94 *(zepuljog) yn Vv ut joupy BATTLE OF ST. VINCENT By Sir Wititam ALLAN, R.A., P.R.S.A. RO5,0MMODORE NELSON boarding the Sax Mrcolas at the battle of St. Vincent, 14th February 1797. So runs the title of this painting by a former President of the Royal Scottish Academy. The incident is ‘one of the memorable achievements of Nelson.’ ‘After engaging the Spanish four-decker Santzssema Trinidad, Commodore Nelson directed the fire of his ship, the Captain, against the Sax Nicolas. This ship ran foul of, and entangled herself with, the San Josef. The Captain having lost her fore-topmost (szc), Nelson, fearing that she would drop astern, ran her into the starboard quarter of the Sux Nicolas and carried that ship by boarding. On her surrender Nelson pushed forward and led the boarders over the bulwarks of the Saz /osef, which also quickly surrendered.’ The above extract from the official catalogue of the gallery of Greenwich Hospital, to which the picture was presented by Mr. H. C, Blackburn in 1860, explains clearly enough the theme which Sir W. Allan has portrayed. Indeed, it is difficult to add to it, as the manner of Sir William Allan is not peculiarly personal, and this. battle-piece is probably an imaginative effort ; for, although the artist travelled in the East. it is extremely improbable that he was eye-witness of this or any naval engagement. The picture is reproduced by permission of the Commissioners of the Admiralty. 96 THE SKIRTS OF THE FOREST By Davip Cox GALT HOUGH the painter of ‘The Skirts of the Forest’ cannot ® be considered one of Mr. Ruskin’s favourite masters of landscape, yet even he fails to be entirely offended with ‘the loose and blotted handling of David Cox,’ and goes on to say, ‘ There is no other means by which his object could be attained. The looseness and moisture of his herbage; the rustling, crumpled freshness of his broad-leaved weeds; the play of pleasant light across deep-coloured heather moor or plashing sand; the melting of fragments of white mist into the dropping blue cloud ;—all this has not been fully recorded except by him; and what there is of accident in his mode of reaching it answers gracefully to the accidental part of Nature herself.’ So generous a tribute must not be forgotten, despite the fact that elsewhere Mr. Ruskin complains not only of Cox but of Constable, and fears the baleful influence of these painters would ultimately influence English landscape as it had then influenced French. His prophecy has come true, and now we rank as heroes beyond praise the men he but half tolerated, and, in doing so, find the Continent echoing our admiration. The sufficiency of Nature with no moral purpose read into her, and no human sentiment, however noble, artificially added to the presentation of her beauties, has become the creed of modern painters. This splendid landscape is one of the masterpieces of David Cox, and by happy accident included among the brave array of his canvases in the Art Gallery of Birmingham, his birthplace. It was painted for Mr. David Jones for £40, and sold later with ‘The Welsh Funeral’ for £3300. Mr. Joseph H. Nettlefold bequeathed it to the city of Birmingham, where it now-hangs in the City Museum and Art Gallery. It is given here by permission of the Birmingham Corporation. 98 OG The Skirts of the Forest (Cox). PORCH OF RATISBON CATHEDRAL By Samuet Prout IO) OeF=GSHIS is a very typical example of a popular water-colour painter, WG DN? who has perhaps received a little more than his due share of es applause. So typical is it, that even one very familiar with GS L Prout’s work might easily mistake it for another porch— weak Chartres—also from his hand. In both the same point of view is chosen; in both there are artificially disposed groups of peasants; in both the actual architecture looks rather like a ‘profile’ in a stage scene, and lacks solidity. Its colour is neither a faithful imitation of nature nor a deliberate scheme of beauty in itself. Yet no record of British painters could ignore a very typical representation of the much-lauded school of British water-colour painters; but, all the same, it is not quite wise to place work of this sort in direct comparison with the masterpieces of aguarelle or oils. It fills a worthy chapter in the evolution of the Old British school, and needs neither apology nor covert dispraise ; but, at the same time, it were wisest to acknowledge that its merits are rather parochial than cosmopolitan, and that one’s regard for it is not wholly uninfluenced by associations wherein art is not absolutely supreme. The picture is now in South Kensington Museum. OO1 ew Sees of Ratisbon Cathedral (Prout). Lorch THE PENNY WEDDING By Sir Davin WILKIE, R.A. HIS picture, painted by Wilkie for the Prince Regent, is a typical masterpiece of the artist's earlier and better period, when he devoted his attention to simple scenes of peasant life, and was only influenced by the old masters in the technique and mechanics of his craft. Later, too much study of-the grand school led him on to attempt the historical style, where, even in the John Knox which follows, he was not entirely at home. In the Penny. Wedding we have a gréat ‘little master,’ in Kowa ‘little’ would-be great master, a maker of dull canvases that are artificial in conception and execution. Here, as in Reading the Will, The Rabbit in the Wall, Blind Man’s Buff, and many others, the trifling incident supplies him with material for simple composi- tions set down with direct force of statement. Attracted by the same class of genre as the old Dutchmen delighted in, Wilkie, without imitating their minuteness of detail, succeeds in imparting a permanent interest to everyday scenes. His pictures may not elevate the mind, nor arouse esthetic delight; yet he is able to impart pathos and humour to his groups of peasants, and at the same time to satisfy even the ultra-refined by his transparent simplicity of statement. The technical problems of modern painting were unknown to him always, but (until he ventured out of his depth) the world-he knew he had completely mastered. There is no need to tell in words-the story of any one of his early pictures: it - is presented clearly for the most careless observer. But although his motives are artless enough, his manner is by no means untrained, and in his best period: we have a British master of the first order—a capable and accomplished painter i up to the level of his day. To moderns Wilkie appears, if not quite a great draughtsman nor a great colourist, yet all the same, as a typical illustrator, before illustration was a matter of pictures in books, entitled to an honourable’ and lasting. place in the roll of British artists,.and- one, moreover, which, having . withstood successfully severe varying phases of public taste, is likely to remain. The picture in possession of H.M. the Queen is here reproduced by Her gracious consent. - 102 SS Se THE PREACHING OF KNOX BEFORE THE LORDS OF THE CONGREGATION, JUNE 10, 1559 By Sir Davin WILxIE, R.A. RESPITE its melodramatic grouping, this picture is a fine example of Wilkie’s later period after his continental travels. The ‘loose- ness of drawing,’ and the painter's ‘efforts to attain the richness and depth he admired in the ancient masters,’ provoked much censure for this and other paintings from 1825 till his death. It is true that the grandiose style of historical incident which he affects here is far removed from the simplicity of statement which marks ‘Blind Man's Buff, ‘Reading the Will,’ and most of his early works; yet that it is unlike | the early manner should not suffice to condemn it. The scene depicted is obviously arranged entirely to suit pictorial effect. One doubts if at any period (outside an allegorical representation) people ever disposed themselves all over the place, facing all sorts of ways, merely to make an impressive ensemble. But having granted the painter’s right to dispose his figures effectively, there is much power in the contrast between the fiery Calvinist and the almost impassive Queen, which is strongly accentuated by the lighting. It is true that for these and other reasons the picture seems more like an exercise in the manner of Veronese or Rubens, than the spontaneous conception of a Scotch artist. The time is during the regency of Mary of Guise; the place, St. Andrews, Fifeshire. To the right of Knox are Richard Ballenden his amanuensis, with Christopher Goodman his colleague, and Sir James Sandilands. The figure behind, in college cap and gown, is the ‘Admirable Crichton.’ Below the pulpit is the precentor, Thomas Wood, with his hour-glass; the boy in front of him is John. Napier, Baron of Merchiston. On the left is Lord James Stuart, afterwards Regent Murray, with the Earl of Glencairne beyond; the Earl of Morton rests on his | sword in front of the Earl of Argyll; the Countess of Argyll, half-sister to Queen Mary, is next to the Queen. In the gallery are Sir Patrick Learmonth, the boy Andrew Melville, and many professors of St. Andrews University. Below the gallery on the left are a group of Roman Catholic dignitaries. The picture, exhibited in the Royal Academy in 1832, is now in the new Tate Gallery, which was opened in August 1897. 104 rye LP) VOU {0 SUIY PLT 0N 7 INTRODUCTORY—SECOND PERIOD. C<2ZiQSHE painters to whom the earlier part of this volume is devoted include but few of the greatest names in British art. Nor did the period of their activity witness any great revolt against tradi- tion, such as that inaugurated by John Constable. Yet, although the period is one of transition, the new revolt which followed so close upon its heels, a protest this time not against the classic traditions of landscape alone but against well-nigh all the conventions of painting since the time of Raphael, the so-called ‘Pre-Raphaelite’ movement, comes into this, our second volume. That the liberty Constable had promoted suffered the inevitable law of reaction, which required a certain time before the forces he had let loose could again gather together for a new movement, would be a tempting theory and one obedient to the natural laws of evolution, yet it must not be insisted upon. It would be unwise to believe that art is always progressing, still more that its law of progress is inevitable; indeed, to justify such a theory one must confine the evidence mainly to technique, and even then the fallacy would soon be revealed. Art, which is imagination shaped, would seem to be purely a matter of personality. If a few great artists of equal power chance to be living at the same time, we call their period splendid, forgetting that the average is not greatly raised by the presence, of masterly exceptions, or if it be, that however high, it still remains the average. It is the exception which is remembered in art as in other. things, and the men whose works begin this volume show very few exceptionally gifted painters, and perhaps no pictures that were distinctly new forces in art. - .~»; But even ‘at the period in question, a cettain scholarly technique commands perfunctory respect. There is no doubt that where genius is not, academic know- ledge and profound regard for precedent are the next best qualities. But there can never be a substitute for the individually new presentation of eternal verities which men call genius. Yet the academic qualities—that is to say, all those things which can be taught or acquired—were fully represented at this date. Experiment that fails has little more chance of immortality than dull obedience to precedent which succeeds. Each newly successful revolution appears to banish for ever the traditions it attacked; yet, as the history of art shows clearly, the old traditions survive, purged it may be of some diseases contracted by age, but all the same destined to re-attract disciples when the conquering style has become the fashion of the hour and vulgarised by feeble imitation. Hi 108 MASTER PAINTERS OF BRITAIN Social factors were responsible for the course of painting at the beginning of the nineteenth century. A German critic has projected a very plausible theory to account for the didactic efforts which from this date seem to have been almost universally accepted by Britain, so that painters were expected to be ‘public counsellors and almost lay-preachers.’ As he points out, and truly, before this time the patronage of the arts had been almost entirely in the hands of the nobility, who alone enjoyed the luxuries of prosperity, travel, reading and leisure. But a rich middle-class was now coming into existence, which was also leisured and to some extent travelled. These new patrons knew nothing and cared less for the technique of painting, or for the picture as a picture. They were willing to accept even genius, so long as it did not bore them; they demanded of a picture that it should amuse or instruct, and the more readily it pointed a moral or raised a smile the more eagerly they welcomed it. The view which was then accepted of the purpose of the arts, especially of pictures, is still too generally prevalent. The moral lesson of a painting is far more often discussed than its beauty as a scheme of colour, or its revelation of some hitherto disregarded aspect of nature. Many people would have morality rampant even in a landscape; these show no little perverted ingenuity in evolving sermons from stones and parables from scenery. A still larger class, while demanding the moral, is yet far more concerned with the way it tells its story than with the message it conveys. Chiefly attracted by the number of details, it believes the best picture to be the one that reveals most imitative dexterity under close observation. These art-lovers do not regard a painting as a scene in a play or a view from a height, to be looked at from a given distance, but as a collection of specimens set in a glass case, when each one, if you wish, can be looked at with a microscope. Of course such a comparison is purposely exaggerated, but it contains the elements of the truth. The first class of pictures, whether by Velasquez or Constable, by Titian or Corot, may be called ‘impressions’; the latter, whether by the early Italians or later Dutchmen, by Maclise or Mr. Alma Tadema, may be called ‘catalogues.’ Yet these terms need not be taken as implying praise or censure. Beauty in widely varied aspects may be revealed in the best of both schools. Lest these words ‘impression’ and ‘catalogue’ fail to convey to a lay mind the difference between the extremes of pictorial art, at the risk of restating the obvious, a digression may be pardoned. In literature we find similar methods adopted : for instance, on the one hand Richard Jefferies, who notes down, as ina stenographic report, fact after fact, all, it may be, linked together by the poetic idea in his mind; and, on the other a poet who, by a happily chosen phrase, imparts instantly the same effect that the author of 4 Pageant of Summer reveals only after careful reading of many pages. In Jefferies’ description of a pastoral scene you are told of the doings of the early worm and the still earlier bird, of the plants and flowers, the winds and the sky, the scents and sounds, As each ‘SECOND PERIOD. oe: 09g paragraph yields up its meaning, a new factor of the scene is impressed on the reader’s mind, but the long sequence must be retained in his memory before he can project for himself the whole picture which has been gradually unfolded. On the other hand, a poet can:flash you the essentials of the scene in a line, or, if his subject be more complex, in a stanza, and the picture he has dashed in will rival the former in the truth of its impression. For instance, is not a summer landscape depicted instantaneously in these four ‘lines by Mr. Andrew Lang ?— ‘When clamour that doves in the lindens keep Mingles with musical plash of the weir, Where drowned green tresses of crowsfoot creep, Then comes in the sweet of the year.’ The penultimate line alone is a complete picture. Mr. Andrew Langs botany may be accurate or not, it may be crowsfoot or the Canadian water-weed that one recalls as being swayed in the clear stream, but to a casual reader the sum of a thousand memories is reawakened, and the few words call up a perfect landscape, where atmosphere, colour, sound and even odours all play their part. Or take this, a still more definite picture—one that almost reveals the ‘ brush- marks’ and the ‘impasto’ of a painter :— ‘ The sun as he journeys His rounds on the lower Ascents of the blue, Washes the roofs And the hillsides with clarity, Charms the dark pools Till they break into pictures, Scatters magnificent Alins to the beggar-trees, Touches the mist folk That crowd to his escort Into translucencies Radiant and ravishing, As with the visible Spirit of Summer, Gloriously vaporised, Visioned in gold.’ This extract, from Mr. W. E. Henley’s /naian Summer, is in no way a catalogue, but a picture rapidly painted in words which yield a singularly definite impression. Only by some such parallel is it easy to make clear the difference between the two great classes of pictures. It must not be forgotten that if most paintings are not wholly of one class or the other, yet in few examples are the two methods sufficiently balanced that you need hesitate as to which class the painting belongs, Curiously enough, the older pictures—many even in the early nineteenth century —recognised often the larger importance of being pictures first and nature-imitation after, But this was chiefly due to their inspiration being mostly second-hand, 110 MASTER PAINTERS OF BRITAIN Their reverence for the classics still kept obedience to the letter; they felt the importance of making the painting a conventionally harmonious presentation of selected facts, although in doing so they too often cramped their subject to a pre- arranged form. As when, to revert again to literature for a simile, they produced catalogues in heroic couplets, or modified their own impression of nature according to tradition of earlier masters’ impressions, using certain stock phrases—‘sylvan shades,’ ‘breezy morn,’ and the like—instead of their own natural speech. It was a state of transition and timidity. On the one hand painters hesitated to employ the idiom understanded of the people; on the other they rebelled against the stock phrases, which had lost so much of their pristine vigour by too frequent repetition. With Mulready, who begins this volume, we have a cultured academic painter, who was by no means a dry-as-dust pedant. Mr. Ruskin, the champion of’ the new-born pre-Raphaelites, could yet write of a dog Mulready has painted in his ‘Choosing the Wedding Gown’: ‘It displays the most wonderful, because’ the most dignified, finish in the expression of anatomy and covering of muscle ‘and hide, and assuredly the most perfect unity of drawing and colour which the entire rangé of ancient and modern art can exhibit.’ Thus we find that even thé most ardent disciple of the newer revolt did not refuse to discover the qualities’ he admired in work conceived on wholly diverse lines to those he supported at the time. It is true that he calls another painting by the artist ‘perhaps the most forcible illustration ever given of the frivolous application of great powers.’ Mulready appealed to the middle-class ideal, but he did so without loss of dignity, so that his works should at least command our respect, however dull they may seem. William Hunt, a fellow-student of Mulready, although unrepresented in our selection, must not be forgotten. He was a painter of still-life and peasants; of whom Mr. Ruskin said, ‘his drawings are illustrative of rural life in its veracity and purity, without the slightest endeavour at idealisation, and still less with any wish to caricature or deplore its imperfections, and his first pieces ‘absolutely right in colour, in light and shade, and without any rivalship in past or present art.’ Hilton, next in order, is far more academic; for, while Mulready ventured to depict common life, although he could not forget academic tradition entirely, Hilton essayed the grander style, and revealed-something short of mastery even: in his most successful efforts. With Etty we have a fine colourist, whose love for the nude, never widely popular in Britain, was a hindrance possibly to his immediate success, if ultimately he found favour and became an Academician. He had small influence on the art of England; his works were evidently inspired by foreign schools, and have little in common with British taste. With Martin—a certain exaggerated melodrama devoted to lofty subjects—we have a link between Fuseli ‘and Gustave Doré. Sir Charles Eastlake, sometime President, is less interesting ; for his: Biblical: pictures, if irreproachably correct,: are singularly uninspired, and SECOND PERIOD. : IIl have as little chance of immortality as the printed theology of the same period. With Webster we find a sturdy example of the painter who is satisfied to catalogue incidents of childhood and peasant life. His works are masterpieces of their sort, and may be documents for social historians of the future, even if they lose their hold upon artists. C. R. Leslie, a painter of literary anecdote, plays little part in the story of the development of native art. His manner is distinctly British, and an excellent example of the illustrator who happens to devote his energy to easel- pictures instead of books. Sir Edwin Landseer, next in date, is so enormously popular even to-day that any confession of lack of sympathy with his work might be construed as an attempt on the part of the critic to pose as a ‘superior person.’ So lately as 1887 a fellow-academician, summing up fifty years of British art, said: ‘The fame of Edwin Landseer, like that of Schiller’s brave man, rings Joud like organ tones or the clang of bells’; yet even so staunch a eulogist. added, ‘What posterity will say of his claims is not for us to judge.’! Yet, recognising his admirable technique at times, and his power to awaken honourable emotions from gentle and simple, a candid observer feels that silence is the only refuge. No one is catholic enough to be entirely just in all his judgments, and possibly the verdict of the future may reinstate Landseer’s place among great painters. If his idealised animals are wholly admirable for their art or their fidelity to nature, one sins in good company in failing to recognise the fact. The ‘technical accuracy’ of John Lewis’s paintings provoked Mr. Ruskin to declare that they ‘surpass in execution everything extant since Carpaccio.’ Even to-day, when the lack of certain qualities militates against unqualified approval, their fine mosaic of brilliant pigment and their vivid representation of Eastern light mark them as destined to maintain an honourable place in British art. ‘Thomas Sidney Cooper, Sir Francis Grant, P.R.A., Richard Redgrave, R.A., Solomon Hart, R.A., J. R. Herbert, R:A., may be passed with mere mention. ‘The next in date, Paul Falconer Poole, R.A., although unrepresented in this selection, should not be forgotten, for his works show imagination and fancy, and if his achievements fell short of mastery, they aimed high and still maintain their interest. W. E. Frost, R.A., C. W. Cope, R.A., Alfred Elmore, R.A., Richard Ansdell, an animal painter of no little power, may also be dismissed with a bare word. fo In Maclise we encounter a master of his kind, and one eminently British. ~ It is interesting to compare his view of the ‘Play Scene in Hamlet’ with that by Mr. E, A. Abbey, exhibited half a century later. Both may be considered as ‘ up-to- date’ illustrations of their time, yet, passing again and again from-one to other, and recognising that the qualities which each painter deemed most valuable are not the same, the one conviction left upon the mind of the present writer is the utter 1 Fifty Years of British Art.: By J. E. HODGSON, R.A. Heywood, 1887. 112 MASTER PAINTERS OF BRITAIN folly of those who believe in the constant progression of art. The later painting shows that science may indeed claim to be still growing, but also that the literary picture of 1897 differs little in its essentials from that of 1842; it is better liked by contemporaries, of course, but that it will delight more the cognoscenti of 1997 is at least doubtful. The National Gallery catalogue—as a rule most reticent in criticism—says that many of Maclise’s works, although of the highest ability, are not generally pleasing in their tone of colouring: this is an official hint that the fame of the once ‘great painter’ is rapidly diminishing. Nor need we linger over the works of Augustus Egg, R.A., W. C. T. Dobson, R.A., J. C. Horsley, R.A., nor do more than mention the paintings of John Phillip, R.A. (the Spanish Phillip), who brought, perhaps, a new field of gezre into British art. Many famous Scots painters, besides Harvey, Duncan, Fettes Douglas, and others herein represented, played honourable parts in the story of British art. Yet to name even the most worthy of native artists is impossible within these limits. | With Sir John Gilbert, R.A., we encounter a distinctly English painter, who is facile princeps as an illustrator, although possibly ‘prince of facility’ would be a better synonym than the literal translation of the Latin tag. For the exuberant vitality of this artist is simply amazing. Yet, although his oil paintings appear to have been as rapidly executed as his drawings on wood, they show fine technique and a vivid sense of colour; he of all Britons has more of the florid imagination of Rubens and no little of his splendour, without lapsing into a riotous display of forms and colours that only just escape vulgarity by the grand manner which controls them. Sir John Gilbert has style, colour, and a strong dramatic sense, more shown possibly in his composition than in the facial expression or pose of any single figure. He is derived from no previous painter; he has left no follower. It is significant to find that despite his fecundity and power he has escaped even Dr. Miither's omnivorous appetite for modern painters, which would seem to indicate that he has yet to be ‘discovered’ by foreign critics. In England, long before his death he had won hearty appreciation for his art from’ younger critics especially, even as his earlier successes scored victories both popular and technical, His influence may have been small, owing in part to the fact that to rival him would require no little of his peculiar talent. os Mr. G. F. Watts, another veteran, is also alone, so far as Britons are concerned, and with few followers. Except for the’ accident of his birth he might be the last of the old masters—a belated Tiepolo-without the decadence which marks the last of the old masters of Italy. If he has sométimes emphasised the counsellor, and made didactic morality his chief aim, yet in doing so he has never forgotten the painter. Despite a technique of his own, quite out of touch with modern virtuosity, he convinces even his most unsympathetic critics, and has added at least half a dozen veritable masterpieces to British art, and a series of portraits which are SECOND PERIOD. 113 worthy the fame of their heroes. That he has given so large a number of his works to the British nation, and declined titles and official honours must also be recorded to his credit; still more noteworthy is his staunch loyalty to poetic sub- jects. Throughout the days of triviality, realism, impression, and the triumph of the zsthetic school he steadfastly maintained his early ideal. To remember that he was working before the great pre-Raphaelite movement, and remained unaffected by it, is indirect evidence of his strongly marked personality, that rose above the mediocrity before the P.R.B., and yet was untouched by all that sprang from that movement. George Mason, by actual date of birth, comes next in order, but as his work is essentially of the school which came just after the pre-Raphaelite, at this place a mere mention must suffice. Mr. W. P. Frith, R.A., who ialon®) also supplies no link in the chain, and may ‘be considered later. With Madox-Brown and Holman Hunt we arrive at the real beginners of the movement which the actual pre-Raphaelites—Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Millais— formulated. A popular fallacy, that the members and followers of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (the P.R.B., as they call themselves) were bent on imitating the primitive Italians in subject as well as treatment, needs to be contradicted before considering their aims, which Mr. Ruskin has explained at length, and also in brief. For'the passage which follows is as terse a summary of the main objects of the revolt as could be phrased, and as it comes from the most ardent champion for the body, it may be better to quote it than to transcribe Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s programme in full: ‘Pre-Raphaelite subjects must usually be of real persons in a solid world, not of personifications in a vaporous one.’ In other words, the new effort was towards nature-imitation, to paint people, places, and things as like actuality as possible, to substitute plain facts for idealised fancies—‘a mere heartless reiteration of the model,’ which went so far as to provoke the absurd charge, that some of the early pre-Raphaelite pictures were actual coloured photographs. In these days it must not be forgotten that sharp accuracy was the supposed ideal of the camera ; and that-the recognition of the alteration in the appearance of things seen by the normal vision, when contrasted with their supposed appearance, based on a fore-knowledge of the objects, was in the programme of neither painter nor photographer. But here the sources of the ideal of the pre-Raphaelites cannot be discussed even briefly, still less can its tendencies be adequately recorded. A whole mass of literature is available, in which the Zvos and cons of its argument are debated at length: To the average ’person to-day the word pte-Raphaelite suggests something ‘zsthetic’ in the sense the word was employed during the eighties. Coined to express a method with well-defined technical aims, it has been distorted to include all ‘conventionally decorative’ illustration, and nearly all paintings, in whatever method, of poetic and imaginative subjects- especially, the. somewhat archaic manner of the early Italians is more or less distinctly evident. » 114 MASTER PAINTERS OF BRITAIN The pre-Raphaelite idea seems to have taken colour from, if it was not in great part founded on, the Gothic Revival. The first germs of this newly awakened interest in medizval art may be traced to Horace Walpole’s romance,’ The Castle of Otranto, and his house at Strawberry Hill. Thence, with Beckford’'s Fonthill Abbey, the Waverley Novels, the New Houses of Parliament, and the Oxford Movement, we find the growing tendency that Englishmen should turn away from the Greek classic, an exotic which in England followed the naturalisa- tion of the Renaissance and was never fully acclimatised, and study anew the architecture and legend, the missal paintings, stained glass, wood carvings, and other examples of the applied arts of their own forebears. ‘Hence, possibly, the strongly marked ‘Gothic’ tendency, which is characteristic of the pre-Raphaelites, and is more evident in the work of their followers. The expression may have come from Giotto and the Italian school that succeeded him, but the subjects are more often drawn from Arthurian legend and Anglican history. It is this which separates the pre-Raphaelite revival from the earlier Renaissance, which was wholly classic in its source, although (so far as I am aware) it has never been formulated as part of its creed. Historically it begins with Ford Madox-Brown, whose Westminster frescoes had made him the hero of Rossetti. The seven members who formed the actual brother- hood (which was practically dissolved before its rules were formulated), included, besides Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his brother William, John Everett Millais, W. Holman Hunt, F. G. Stephens (the well-known writer upon art), Thomas Woolner (the sculptor), and James Collinson. Its magazine, Ze Germ, which only reached a fourth number, started a school of literature which was not only the earliest official apologia for the pre-Raphaelite idea, but the first of a host of publications conceived on not dissimilar lines, which range from 7he Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, 1856, to The Century Guild Hobby Horse, The Dial, The Pageant, and even to The Knight Errant of Boston, U.S., and certain esoteric and decadent periodicals of France and Belgium in the late nineties. This aspect of the movement has perhaps become more familiar to the public than the veritable purpose of the much-talked-of brotherhood. Dozens of people would never suspect that Mr. Holman Hunt's ‘ May Morning on Magdalen Tower,’ with its realistic detail and its vivid colour, is a legitimate example of the P.R.B. ideal, while they would accept Sir Edward Burne-Jones’s pictures, or even Mr. Aubrey Beardsley’s designs, as lineal descendants. All the same, the decorative movement, which is so often confounded with the realistic intensity of the earlier school, started into being from the hands of Ford Madox-Brown, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and was continued by Burne-Jones and William Morris—of whom all sorts of painters and designers avow themselves disciples to-day. Therefore it is not surprising to find that the general public are apt to confuse the later aspect of decorative painting with the sturdy, if still more impassioned, work of the true SECOND PERIOD. |. 115 P.R.B. In this volume we have not ‘Christ at the Home of His Parents’ by Millais, nor an example of the earliest Rossetti’s, but Millais’s ‘Lorenzo and Isabella.’ ‘The Two Gentlemen of Verona’ by Mr. W. Holman Hunt, and Ford Madox-Brown’s ‘Work’ may be regarded as typical of the original ideals of the brother-hood, while ‘Dante's Dream’ and ‘The Blessed Damozel’ foreshadow its later phase, to be exemplified more fully by works of Sir Edward Burne-Jones and many others in our succeeding volume. Although the works of Mr. W. P. Frith won the admiration of the British public to a sensational extent, so that policemen had to be placed in front of certain of his pictures at the Royal Academy Exhibition to marshal the crowds surrounding them, he cannot be said to have founded or developed any new schools of painting. As a moralist he merely followed Hogarth, and gave the average citizen melo- dramatic or domestic groups, with real if commonplace interest presented simply ; as a painter, technically considered, he has no surprises and no great failings, but keeps to the mean average of excellence that is in itself depressing. Nor need H. Le Jeune, F. R. Pickersgill, James Sant, Goodall, Faed, Erskine Nicol, and many others, detain us. They all have an appointed place in the British art which need not be under-estimated, even if at the moment their work fails to provoke admiration or aversion, and appears merely average. Sir Noel Paton, by his conquests of fairyland, has a more personal interest; his sacred pictures, dear as they are to many still living, will probably, with Overbeck and others, fail to attract new audiences when these are dispersed. But here this running commen- tary must be suspended. With the pre-Raphaelite force let loose we have the last purely British protest against convention. In the following volumes every important new influence must be credited to a foreign source, although of these not a few might possibly be traced still further back to John Constable or the pre-Raphaelites. But as they came to England they bore a foreign accent. The plein-air school and the Impressionists of France, the art of Japan, the per- sonality of Mr. Whistler, the fantastic conceptions of Boecklin, and the Seces- sionists of Munich—all these have played greater or lesser parts in the later moods of British painting; but all are too near to be clearly defined, so that without ignoring certain native forces at work to-day, we may accept the letters ‘P.R.B.’ as the latest symbol for revolt not yet fully accomplished, even as the letters ‘R.A.’ stand more or less accurately for obedience to accepted, and not necessarily unworthy, tradition. A belief is growing that ‘art’ is no close secret of any corporation, but a still closer secret of the individual, which he himself can never express except through the medium of his work. The often- quoted definition of Zola: ‘Art is nature seen through a temperament,’ with which the first volume of this work opened, may close the second. For the only deduction that appears to be well founded is that the progress of art is a pure matter of accident. To-day a real artist is born in England; to-morrow ‘116 MASTER PAINTERS OF BRITAIN Spitzbergen or Ceylon may send us one, Hence the art of Britain only now and again can be said to supply an integral part of the art of the world; but British painting may be allowed to score its modest and perhaps only local triumphs whether a veritable genius chance to be amongst it to throw the rest out of scale, or whether for a season great painters happen to be citizens of other nationality. G. W. THE FIGHT INTERRUPTED By Writtram Mutreapy, R.A. RAINTED in 1816, this is one of Mulready’s largest pictures, and characteristic of his manner. Possibly another half-century or so will impart to it a certain picturesqueness which it seems to lack somewhat at present. The costumes of the boys, notably that of the urchin in a ‘swallow-tail’ coat and trousers, who is seen examining critically the eye of one of the combatants, appear to us more grotesque than attractive. The spirit of the work suggests a very moral Sunday-school pamphlet, and the didactic purpose of the picture unluckily is not sufficiently remote from the illustration such a tract might bear on its front page to be entirely acceptable as a painting. These trifling objections do not affect many sterling qualities in the work itself, and they are only put down to explain why a certain prim, old-fashioned manner seems to age Mulready's work without ae ( LY S 3 adding grace to it thereby. This same picture of ‘the most distinguished of British gewve painters,’ has been called ‘most perfect in his most perfect manner—one of those works of fine colour and consummate execution in which his art culminated.’ But Mulready must not be deprived of his rightful eminence because for the moment his themes and manner are both out of touch with the prevailing mood. Peasant-boys and village incidents are not popular to-day. His studies show him to be a fine artist, and his illustrations to the Vicar of Wakefield (1843) are distinctly notable, and a very important link in the chain that stretches down to Millais and the men of ‘ the Sixties’; while his famous design for a postal envelope makes his name a household word in regions: quite unconnected with art. This painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1816. Elected in 1815 A.R.A,, before it was hung he had been made R.A., a procedure which is almost, if not quite, unique. The painting is now in the Sheepshanks Collection at South Kensington Museum. 118 ‘(Apoaanry) padns.iajuy gy Sey ay. TEINS SSK AK WN es CHOOSING THE WEDDING GOWN By Witi1am Mucreapy, R.A. te T would be hard .to find a more popular picture than this, if the number of times it has been reproduced be a true test of wide- spread appreciation. The official catalogue of South Kensington draws attention to its force and brilliancy and the remarkable rendering of the texture of its draperies. It has been called the painter’s masterpiece, and not unjustly; for to-day, when Mulready’s undoubted power is perhaps under-estimated, this picture rarely fails to extort generous approval even from critics opposed to the academic ideal which it represents. ’ For it is a delightfully rendered piece of gexve—a simple donieen incident recorded without undue sentimentality. If its grouping is artificial, and its com- position marked by pre-arranged negligence, the main purpose is not distracted. thereby. Its colour is rich, and its drawing masterly. In short, it is a very worthy example of the British school at its best. It would be foolish to expect to find in Mulready the qualities we expect from an artist of his calibre to-day. But to condemn him for their absence were not less foolish. He was a great draughtsman, and, compared with his fellows, a great artist; that he is not one of the great master-painters of Europe may be conceded without. depriving him of that lesser place in the roll of artists which he fully deserves. The painting’ was shown at the Royal Academy in 1846, and is No. 145 of the collection in South Kensington. ly Choosing the Wedding Gown (Mulready). CHRIST CROWNED WITH THORNS By Wituram Hixton, R.A. ‘HIS picture, bought by the directors of the British Institution, placed for a while in St. Peter's Church, Pimlico, and the first purchase, in 1877, of the Chantrey Bequest Committee, is 2 typical example of a class which is far more rare in our native art than might be expected. The comparative neglect of Biblical themes by British painters is. possibly due to the old Puritan distaste for pictures in churches. Few private collectors would choose a modern version of sacred story to hang in their dining-room, the one place set aside by long tradition for serious oil-paintings. It is true that some years ago certain English churches contained pictures over the altar; but the fashion did not last long, and as the history of this painting shows, the tendency in recent times is to oust them from the building. Hilton proved by this work, and by his ‘The Angel delivering St. Peter from Prison,’ ‘The Crucifixion, and others, that he was able to treat such themes with dignity and a certain stateliness, based, it is true, on the traditions of the old masters, but nevertheless more than mere imitations of their methods. The huge popular success of Gustave Doré’s paintings, and of those by Tissot, which followed them at the same Gallery, shows that ‘the great heart of the British public’ is still touched by representations of the life of Christ; but it is hard to discover any example by’ a British artist that has at once secured a place among the masterpieces of the art, and become really popular with the masses. Several have nearly pleased both parties, but scarce one has gained a place in every devout household, and also in the list of European masterpieces. This dramatic, and in many respects admirable, presentation of Christ is scarcely known; indeed, very few of Hilton’s pictures have been engraved, a silent but convincing proof that those best qualified to gauge the taste of the public (despite its greed for sentimental figures clinging to crosses, and the Christmas-card subject generally) distrust its appreciation of more scholarly efforts to represent the chief incidents in its orthodox creed. The painting is among the Chantrey Bequest purchases, which, after many wanderings, have at length found a permanent home at Millbank. 122 Hilton ( Crowned with Thorns Christ NYMPH AND SATYR5 By Witi1am Erty, R.A. TAA LTHOUGH classical subjects, painted chiefly to give opportunity SA for a study of the nude, have rarely found favour among exponents in England, yet no representative selection of British work should omit an example of Etty, who, more often than any previous British painter, chose themes of this order. The one here reproduced is his diploma picture, which, in accordance with the rules of the Royal Academy of Arts, must be deposited within six months of the artist’s election. The subject is. so evidently merely an excuse for a composition after the manner of the old masters that one need not attempt to describe it; nor can you regard this work as expressing fully Etty’s aim in all his important pictures, which was, to quote his own words, ‘to paint some great moral on the heart.’ The flesh tints of the sleeping nymph are contrasted with the warmer hues of the satyrs ; the landscape is merely by way of filling the space, and the tambourine in the foreground is obviously introduced to supply a harmonious line to break the sweep of the drapery. Etty’s most important work, ‘ The Combat,’ in the National Gallery of Scotland, which would have represented him more adequately, is in so bad a state, owing to decay of the pigments employed, that no photograph could be a success. Hence in place of the too familiar ‘Youth at the Prow and Pleasure at the Helm,’ or the equally known ‘ Bather, by the doubtful breeze alarmed’ of the National Gallery, it seemed best to choose a no less typical picture, that is also accessible to those of the public sufficiently daring to discover the galleries devoted to the Gibson statues and Diploma pictures. Although the doorway leading where these collections are housed is under the portico of the Royal Academy itself, it is probable that out of every thousand visitors to the latter, not ten are aware of the very existence of the others; and possibly of these ten scarce one has climbed the stairs and studied the really interesting collection for himself. (uapempy) uaavazy fo suri YL, Fp BS ry se TENDING SHEE? By Joun Linney Academy, 1883 (when two galleries were devoted to the work of John Linnell, who had died in the previous year), is typical of those pastorals which won him so high a reputation among collectors. Yet fertile though he was in subject-pictures, portraits, and landscapes, it is doubtful whether his once great fame will be maintained; so far as the sale-rooms are evidence, it would seem certainly that it will not be increased. While we see a painting by Constable or a Gainsborough fetching as many thousands as they once fetched hundreds, those by Linnell, as a rule, keep to the five hundred or six hundred guinea level which they had reached a quarter of a century since. Nor does modern criticism concern itself with them; but this may be due in part to the popularity of the Dutch and French romanticists, whose ideal is far removed from that of Linnell. Dr. Muther thinks that he carried on the tradition of Constable and David Cox to the new period: ‘At first revelling in golden light, in sunsets and rosy clouds of dusk, and at a later time, in the manner of the pre-Raphaelite, bent on precise execution of bodily form,’ but those who love Constable best would hardly be inclined to endorse the statement. Indeed, Mr. Henley has gone so far as to say that, ‘well as he meant, and vigorous as was his temperament, the outcome of it all is in some sort a negation of art.’ The painting, formerly in the collection of Sir John Pender, and now in the City of Birmingham Art Gallery, is reproduced here from a photograph by Mr, J. Caswall Smith. 128. “(ypateurT) Jaays Supua BATTLE OF TRAFALGAR By W. Crarkson STANFIELD, R.A. like delicacy of technique, which is in its way absolutely perfect’? may be conceded, especially if the praise is bestowed on merely the dexterity of craftsmanship exhibited in his water-colours, ‘He is the leader of English Realists,’ wrote Mr. Ruskin, ‘and perhaps among the most remarkable of his characteristics is the look of common-sense and rationality which his composition will always bear when exposed to any kind of affectation. . .. One work of Stanfield alone pre- sents us with as much concentrated knowledge of sea and sky as, diluted, would have lasted any one of the old masters his life.’ In some respects ‘The Castle of Ischia,’ or ‘The Abandoned,’ would have revealed the actual sea-painting of Stanfield more fully; but ‘The Battle of | Trafalgar’ (a sketch for which hangs in the National Gallery) is interesting by way of contrast with Turner's version of the same subject. In Stanfield’s you feel that realism is supreme—not mere imitation, such as a looking-glass might have reflected at a chance moment, but a well-selected composition that is un- flinching in its respect for facts, and yet by no means lacking pictorially. The scene represents ‘the centre of the fleet at half-past two o’clock, almost an hour and a half after Lord Nelson received his death-wound.’ The Victory is in the act of disengaging herself from the Redoutable, a French seventy-four, at that time lashed alongside the Zémérazre, a British ninety-eight, and at that moment the Fougweaux, another French seventy-four, became the prize of the latter. On the left is the oval Soveretgn with her prize the Santa Anna, both unmanageable wrecks ; on the right are the Bucentaur, Admiral Villeneuve’s ship, an eighty, and the San¢isima Trinidad, a Spanish four-decker. The picture, painted about 1836 for the United Service Club, is still in the club-house. » Harry Quilter, 4 Group of Layllists, 1895. 130 ‘“(yarlunjs) avsyoforz fo anivg CHRIST WEEPING OVER JERUSALEM By Sir Cuarves EAstLake, P.R.A. T would be unfair to omit an example of the work of the President of the Royal Academy from 1850 to 1855. Yet, despite its former popularity, there seems to be no class of painting less in touch with modern sympathy than the religious picture of the school of Overbeck. In Biblical subjects painted to-day the costume and accessories of the unchanging East bulk largely, and archeological accuracy seems to hold first place. In the days of this picture sentiment was supreme. That it appears merely sentimental now is partly due to the accident of time, with its inevitable change of taste. For the accomplishment which a picture of this order betrays almost justifies its presence in the National Gallery. It may be needlessly outspoken to call it a fossil, yet to do so is not unduly disrespectful. Fossils lived once; when Raphael founded this school of Biblical incident, and even when Overbeck renewed it, the schools they founded were vital if not robust. But dressing up lay-figures in nondescript robes, and posing them as heroes of Sacred Writ, finds little favour to-day. In this excellent composition its very excellence wearies In its effort to fill the space beautifully, human interest has been overlooked; and a subject which should impress a spectator fails to awaken a single emotion of awe or sympathy. The Christ has rarely been represented with less of the attributes that move men to tears or to rapture. The Apostles are neither unlettered fisher-folk, nor sages with the world’s destinies in their hands. With Michael Angelo an unreal grandeur lifts them above the sphere of daily life to exalt them as demi-gods. With certain moderns the very insistence on their lowly state adds unwonted dignity to their presence in scenes that have enthralled a world. Here they are neither as gods nor as men, but abstract personages who fail to interest in any way. As an example of academic painting—irreproachable but lifeless—the picture may be praised with academic compliments. In itself it provokes neither pleasure nor contempt : it is too remote from human foibles. This painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1841, and came to the National Gallery as part of Mr. Vernon's Collection in 1847. *(aynpiso 7 ) cuagvsnsaf vad Surgoa 4 ystyp MY UNCLE TOBY AND THE WIDOW WADMAN By Cuartes R. Lesitg, Ra. 7 PICTURE which enjoys the honour of being represented by two versions in two important galleries (one in the National Gallery and one in the South Kensington Museum) is past the stage of criticism. The painting here reproduced is probably the original, No. 403 in the National Gallery being a replica painted for Mr. Vernon. The subject, from Zvristram Shandy, illustrates a scene between ‘my Uncle Toby’ and the ‘Widow Wadman’ in the sentry-box, an incident which occupies chapters xxiv. and xxv. of the third volume :— “«T am half distracted, Captain Shandy,” said Mrs. Wadman, holding up her cambric handkerchief to her left eye, as she approached the door of my Uncle ' Toby’s sentry-box ; ‘(a mote,—or sand,—or something,—I know not what, has got into this left eye of mine ;—do look into it :—it is not in the white.”— ‘In saying which, Mrs. Wadman edged herself close in beside my Uncle Toby, and squeezing herself down upon the corner of his bench, she gave him an oppor- tunity of doing it without rising up. ‘ Do look into it,” she said. ‘“T protest, madam,” said my Uncle Toby, “I can see nothing whatever in your eye.” ‘Tt is not in the white,” said Mrs. Wadman.—My Uncle Toby looked with might and main into the pupil.’ The figure of Uncle Toby is believed to be a portrait of Mr. Bannister the comedian. In Leslie’s works ‘there is such a strong dose of realism that his pictures will always keep their value as historical documents—not for the year 1630, but for the year 1830, says Dr. Richard Muther. But although 1832 was the date of its painting, it is difficult to regard the picture as a document of 1830. It is a deliberate attempt to re-embody the costume and spirit of a period nearly a century before. In common with all Leslie’s pictures, it shows nice regard for accuracy in costume, and escapes by the chance of its subject the fatal anachron- ism of many pieces of genre, where we are confronted by the coiffure of models arranged according to the mode of the hour, while the characters themselves are robed in the style of a hundred, or even a thousand, years earlier. The painting is in the Sheepshanks Collection at South Kensington Museum. 134 ~ is s S Q = > 3 $ x 8 3 2 nN LOToOLVouUS By Cuarves R. Lestig,.r.a. It represents ‘a scene in Boheraia, a road near a shepherd’s cottage. Autolycus—(of whom the servant has just said, *O master, if you did but hear-the pedlar at the door, you would never dance again after a tabor and pipe; no, the bagpipe could not move you: he sings several tunes faster than you'll tell money; he utters them as he had eaten ballads and all men’s ears grew to his tunes’)—enters with his song, ‘Lawn as white as driven snow,’ and, after bantering the clown and maids, holds up one of his broadsheets and says: ‘ Here’s another ballad, Of a fish, that appeared upon the coast, on Wednesday the -fourscore of April, forty thousand fathoms above water, and sung this ballad . against the hard hearts of maids; it was thought she was a woman, .and was turned into a cold fish, for she would not exchange flesh with one that loved her : the ballad is very pitiful, and as true.’? The ‘ snapper-up of unconsidered trifles’'is brought into a composition of very formal design; being in short the favourite ‘ pyramid’ which has fascinated formal painters of all schools. But it is not a coldly academic version. ‘Note the skilful painting of the wares in the tray and the bright red of the cap of Autolycus, charac- teristic of so many of Leslie’s pictures’—says one appreciative critic. The colour, however, is hardly ‘fine,’ using the word in a technical sense; but as a Shake- speare incident done into picture it is a distinctly pleasant example of a painter whose sprightly imagination and adequate technique may serve to secure him a certain fame perhaps a little beyond his actual deserts. There are many sorts of ‘bests,’ and-of its particular class this painting may fairly claim to be a very praiseworthy example. Tt hangs now at South Kensington (No. 115) in the Sheepshanks Gallery I. 1 The Winter's Tale, Act iv. Scene 3. etudolycus (Leslie), A VILLAGE CHOIR By Tuomas WessTER, R.A. 8 HERE a picture tells its own story as plainly as this one tells it, it seems folly to accompany it with a description—even of its simple technique, of which the catalogue bids you ‘ note the variety of character and attention to details, even to the painting of the worn prayer-book and the carved oak panels.’ Webster loved to depict the English urchin—not the public-school species, but the peasant-lad. Two of his best-known works, ‘The Smile’ and ‘The Frown,’ depict the effect of the moods of a village pedagogue upon a form of urchins, which Goldsmith immortalised in ‘The Deserted Village.’ The titles of others, ‘A Dame’s School,’ ‘The Truant,’ ‘A BC,” ‘Going to School,’ show how closely Webster kept to his favourite theme. His rustics are all imaginative, law-fearing adults and children, trained to do reverence to the squire and the parson, and to abide content ‘in that station of life’ to which the Catechism doomed them. As a record of the days when the church musicians supplied the nucleus of a village orchestra, this picture has a sentimental value to music-lovers, for with such raw material progress had been possible. Now, as the madrigals and glees, for which Britain was famous in Elizabethan times, are no longer indigenous, so the harmonium has killed the village chamber music. That its harmony was often to seek, Webster suggests here ; but the machine-made. music has banished the simpler art, even as the camera has rung the death-knell of pictures of this class. It is true that a recent German critic calls Webster's ‘rustics, children, and schoolmasters the citizens of an ideal planet’; but this is rather overstating the case. A little ‘prettified’ they must needs be to satisfy the taste which ruled between 1825 and 1876, the half-century that saw him a frequent exhibitor at the Academy ; but they are genuine types of a sort now obsolete. ‘Mr. Webster,’ says Lady Eastlake, ‘was a childlike worshipper of the revelations above and around him—whether seen through the telescope in his garden, or the microscope in his window. ‘It was with the same humorous feeling that gave a charm to his art, that, coming to London once in full spring-time, he complained, with a countenance beaming with health and content, that he had been positively driven away from the country by the smell of the violets and the song of the nightingales.’ The picture here reproduced is No. 222 of the collection at South Kensington Museum. 136 *(aagsgagy ) (204) BSvYI1A FF THE SLEEPING BLOODHOUND By Str Epwin LanpsEer, R.A. T seems almost needless to add printed comment to Landseer's straightforward rendering in paint. But his fine brush-work and capable technique must not be left without a word of appre- ciation, even if the somewhat exaggerated humanising of his beasts makes it impossible to speak of them in the terms of praise which have become stereotyped. That Landseer won the heart of the public is a fact beyond dispute ; that he did so most honourably and with fair technical equipment may also be granted. But, all the same, the doubt will intrude whether it is really ennobling an animal to give it apparent consciousness of those motions we believe to be peculiar to humanity. In the official catalogue of the National Gallery we find this description :— ‘«“Countess,” the hound here represented, sleeping on the top of a balustrade at Wandsworth, one Sunday evening, overbalanced herself, fell a height of twenty-three feet, and died on the same evening. On the next morning she was carried to St. John’s Wood, in the hope that Sir Edwin Landseer would make a sketch of her as a reminiscence of an old favourite. ‘This is an oppor- tunity not to be lost,” said the painter. ‘Go away: come on Thursday.at two o'clock.” At the appointed time “The Sleeping Bloodhound” was a finished picture.’ The anecdote is not without pertinence; for if ‘sleep’ is painted from ‘death,’ that fidelity to nature which the untrained critic credits to Landseer is, for once at all events, proved to be founded on slender basis. It was exhibited at the British Institution in 1839, and bequeathed to the National Gallery by Mr. Jacob Bell in 1859. The illustration here given is from the reproduction published by the Autotype Company, London, W.C. 140 (4aaspuvT) punoypoorg Surgeals 24 [ ASX NS RA x07 AS \ THE DROVER’S DEPARTURE By Sir Epwin LanpsEer, R.A. LTHOUGH Sir Edwin Landseer’s fame was established by his pictures of stags, horses, and dogs, and will probably depend on them, yet he painted many others wherein animals play quite secondary parts. Here is one of them, and such a story as this picture has to tell is fully explained by its title, and by the artificial grouping of the figures, although these, forming the favourite ‘pyramid’ composition beloved of Academician painters of all schools, are more concerned with helping the pattern of the picture than with realistic truth. Seen under the influence of present taste, there is an air of sentimentality throughout Landseer’s works which is apt to blind a critic to their undoubted merits. Their sentiment is noble enough; but the ‘goody-goody’ tone which exhales from all his heroes, biped and quadruped, is apt to distort one’s judgment. But the enormous favour shown to Landseer in his life, and the honours lavished upon him, will compensate for the injustice (if it be injustice) of the present. It is too early to speculate on his final place in art; possibly the really good technique of his early and middle period may bring him through the ordeal, and if so, what to us appears sentimentality may seem, once more, honest sentiment to another generation. But at present, with every intention to be judicial, it is impossible not to feel a certain dislike to the patronising treatment he awarded to the whole animal kingdom in endowing it with polite manners. For it must not be forgotten that docility and good behaviour towards mankind are not the natural attributes of animals, but merely qualities evolved, after count- less generations, by domesticity which is often enough only slavery under a less repellent name. The picture is at South Kensington Museum. 142 *(4aaspunT) ainjivgaT $ AION] OY THE DYING STAG By Sir Epwin Lanpserr, R.A. PERHAPS at this moment it is more difficult to do justice to the fine qualities of Landseer’s work than it will be fifty years hence. Their enormous popularity, not merely in England but through-. out the Anglo-Saxon world, has naturally provoked a reaction, which in its turn doubtless will also cease to distort criticism, and leave the painter in his final place. Landseer imparted to his animals sentimental emotions which belong more fitly to human beings, and emphasised this perversion by his titles—‘ Laying Down the Law,’ ‘Alexander and Diogenes,’ ‘The Shepherd’s Chief Mourner,’ and ‘A Distinguished Member of the Humane Society.’ They are distinctly fables with a moral. Yet, despite this tendency to pose his actors in little dramas, he knew his subjects intimately, and as a sportsman, was able to avoid the many pitfalls into which a studio painter is apt to fall. It was doubtless this knowledge of the habits of horses and stags and dogs which won him the appreciation of a country of sportsmen. It is also true that to men accustomed to the open air, and out-of touch with art, very obvious sentiment appeals irresistibly. Melodrama, which is often a rough and ready imitation of nature, they appreciate far more than subtle analogies which demand from the spec- tator some kindred study. ‘Inevitable death is forcibly depicted in the head of the stag,’ says the official catalogue. It is quite possible that the upturned eye of this dying animal, with its human pathos, is literally true to nature; but, notwith- standing, it is of the school of melodrama, in which nature and humanity are in accord, so that a tragedy takes place in a thunderstorm and a wedding in sunshine. This is not set down in any carping spirit, but only to indicate some of the reasons which prejudice many artists against work that gained a not undeserved popularity. The paintings of our greatest living animal-painter, Mr. J. M. Swan, would seem to.us far more faithful records of real wild life; but it may be doubted if they will ever move the public so deeply as Landseer moved it. The love of sport on the one hand, and the emotional sympathy, which finds expression in the various societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals, both discern in Landseer some- thing that appeals to them peculiarly and deeply. The picture (No. 412) in the National Gallery was exhibited in the Royal Academy of 1883,.and was purchased as part of the Vernon Collection in 1847. The illustration here given is copied from the reproduction published by the Autotype Company, London, W.C. 144 (caaspunT) 801g Sul ay. 7, LILIUM AURATUM By Joun Freperick Lewis HIS brilliant and minutely finished picture is always a favourite when it appears (as through the courtesy of its owner it frequently does) in various loan exhibitions. On looking up its history, the date of its production, 1871, would seem at least twenty years too late, both for its sentiment and the type of beauty it records. But when you rémember that the artist, who had lived in Cairo from 1843 until 1851, was sixty years old when he painted it, the curiously old-fashioned atmosphere which pervades it is explained. The following description is taken from the official ‘ Guildhall’ catalogue, 1890: ‘This beautiful Oriental scene shows an Odalisque and her attendant in the garden of the harem. The Odalisque is dressed in a dark green jacket, richly embroidered with gold; folds of pink, lined with crimson and edged with gold, hang from her waist and trail upon the ground. Crimson drapery is round her figure and drops in a broad fold at her side. A dark crimson and green turban is gathered round her black hair. She holds a richly coloured Tchnak vase with red and white roses in it. Following her is an attendant, a young girl, evidently amused at something. Her blue turban suits her dusky complexion. Her skirt is a rich mauve embroidered with gold; over it is a light coloured garment. She, too, carries flowers. The two have come through a wilderness of lilies, poppies, pansies, and fuschia, to a doorway over which is a climbing rose with numberless blooms, beyond which tiger lilies are seen. In the background is the rest of the garden, enclosed by a low wall, with a row of orange-trees, and beyond are the blue waters of the Bosphorus. It is a gorgeous production, yet a lovely quietude pervades the scene. The minute execution is quite equal to that of the painter’s smaller pictures.’ The picture was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1873, and is now in the collection of Sir Cuthbert Quilter, M.P., by whose courtesy it is here reproduced. 146 Lilium Auratum (Lewis). SIR TRISTRAM By Wirttiam. Dyce, R.A. y SO \ Robing-Room of the Palace of Westminster runs, ‘Admission of Sir Tristram to the fellowship of the Table Round.’ The scene depicted is in the great hall of Camelot, King Arthur’s palace, which is filled with knights of the Round Table and various other characters familiar to students of Sir Thomas Malory’s Morte a’ Arthur. In other panels of the same room are three more scenes from the Arthurian legend, also painted by Dyce, who received his commis- sion to execute them after entering into the State competition for the decoration of the new Houses of Parliament. The National Gallery contains one of his small landscapes, ‘Pegwell Bay,’ and also a ‘St. John leading the Virgin from the Tomb.’ The Scottish National Gallery has an ‘Infant Hercules’ and ‘Francesa di Rimini,’ and ‘The Judgment of Solomon,’ a cartoon for tapestry; but it is by his frescoes in the House of Lords, the Queen’s Robing-Room, Buckingham Palace, Osborne House, and All Saints’, Margaret Street, that he will be best remembered. Dyce was a pioneer in the revival of mural decoration—a well-intentioned artist who, if he did not rise notably above the school of his friend Overbeck and the German Nazarenes, is far more worthy than many whose reputation is world-wide. To all interested in that English movement which the Arts and Crafts Society represents, Dyce stands for more than a mere reflection of German influence, for he set the fashion which still controls much mural decoration. These frescoes have their lineal descendants in Mr. E. A. Abbey’s sumptuous decorations for the Boston Library; especially is this evident if your compare, through the medium of photographic reproduction, the compositions of Dyce.in the ‘forties’ with those of Abbey in the ‘nineties.’ The differences are great, it is true; but the essentials are not so very far distant. That we admire Mr. Abbey’s work, and are nearly unmoved by that of Dyce, may also be true; yet (although the first are by way of being genuine frescoes, and the latter paintings on canvas intended to serve as substitutes) one fancies future historians will take both as representing successive stages in the art of mural decoration, which has never become indigenous in English-speaking communities, We) A oy 148 se yj yy Y) Tristram (Dyce). Ser THE COVENANTERS PREACHING By Srr Georce Harvey, P.R.S.A. SHE official catalogue of the National Gallery of Scotland contains a note upon the series of Covenanter pictures by Sir George Harvey, wherein we find ‘their popularity was great, and engravings from them carried his reputation far and wide. It could not be doubted that in them he touched a chord which vibrated thrillingly in the breasts of his countrymen, and was peculiarly felt in many a home—otherwise devoid of art—in Canada, the Cape, and wherever a Scottish man wandered and worked.’ Pictures of the class to’ which these belong, especially in the form of engravings, do indeed enter ‘many a home otherwise devoid .of art’; hence their attributes in other respects need not be subjected to severe analysis. For their purpose is to preach and to record certain facts which may be outside all questions of art. That they are occasionally in every sense great pictures at the same time does not suffice to raise the whole class to which they belong to a foremost rank. While pure genve may be so arranged as to yield certain arrangements in lighting, colour, or other technical aspects which belong to the higher order of paintings, in these didactic compositions many things must be included, not to help the picture as a picture, but to enforce the lesson it teaches. That it has been done so well by Harvey and others should suffice to remove the prejudice which some critics display, not without cause, towards the ‘subject’ picture. Nor need we limit the functions of the Fine Arts to any particular class. To appreciate technical mastery needs some technical understanding; to enjoy such work as this, for its own good qualities, augurs more real sympathy than to re- serve one’s sympathy for the limited number of real masterpieces. This painting, presented by Mr. John Fleming of London, is in the Galleries of the Corporation of Glasgow, by whose permission it is here re- produced. 150 *(doaapz) Furyw2d ShayUvUIz2ogy IY {, ANNE PAGE INVITING SLENDER TO DINNER By Tuomas Duncan, R.S.A. AND R.A. Windsor (Act i. Scene 1), when Anne Page is vainly endeavour- ing to induce the bashful Slender to join the others at dinner. Through the open window of a house in the streets of Windsor you see Sir John Falstaff and Justice Shallow :— ‘Anne Pace. Will’t please your worship to come in, sir? S.tEenpER. No, I thank you, forsooth, heartily ; 1 am very well. Anne. I pray you, sir, walk in. Stenver. I had rather walk here, I thank you; I bruised my shin the other day with playing at sword and dagger with a master of fence, three veneys for a dish of stewed prunes; and, by my troth, I cannot abide the smell of hot meat since. Why do your dogs bark so? Be there bears i’ the town?’ As it depicts a scene from a comedy it would be unfair to inquire too minutely into the details of the composition, which certainly follow the traditions of stage architecture rather than actual buildings. But, artificial though it be, the whole arrangement is effective. It has been said Duncan’s early death at thirty-eight cut short a career that would have achieved great things, and that as a colourist he had few superiors. Bearing in mind the period of its production, in the ‘forties,’ it is certainly very far above the average of its contemporaries, and one of the few illustrations of Shakespeare which go near to realise the spirit of the text. The painting is No. 273 in the National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh. 152 S&V \ \ SSS }: Duncan lender (7. » Page and § Anne ST. PAUL'S FROM THE RIVER By Henry Dawson fewer painters than might have been expected. Nor has St. Paul’s, which is in its way as imposingly placed as any building in the world, been chosen as often as it deserves. In this excellent work by Dawson we find a sober and accurate tran- script of the facts the scene offers made into a picture, which is full of glamour, by reason of the atmospheric effects of sunrise the painter has conveyed so happily. It is adream city, but also a real workaday London in the magic light of early morning—the time that inspired Wordsworth to his famous sonnet, ‘Earth has not anything to show more fair.’ But although the spirit of that wonderful poem may be suggested here :— ‘ The river glideth at his own sweet will; Dear God, the very houses seem asleep, And all that mighty heart is lying still.’ There are too many signs of life and activity on the shipping to convey the great silence that is felt throughout Wordsworth’s stately lines. Although conceived somewhat under the influence of Turner, both the grandiosity and the grandeur of Turner are absent. Yet, for some moods, this more sober aspect of the spot which is the very heart of the British Empire appeals no less symipathetically. As a painting it satisfies. To treat everyday facts, without any poetic licence, so that they become poetry, is given but to few; and if Dawson be not in every sense a great painter, and has not added to the limited number of the world’s masterpieces, yet he has left faithful and excellent pieces of work that are most certainly destined to receive even fuller appreciation than has been awarded hitherto. The painting is in the Art Gallery of Birmingham, whence it has been repro- duced by permission of the Corporation of that city, 154 *(uosmng) saary ay, most s nv “1S RWI PETER THE GREAT AT DEPTFORD. DOCKYARD By Dantet Mac ise, R.A. HIS painting by Maclise is an extremely representative example of the artificially composed groups which attracted him. Less well-known than the ‘Play Scene in Hamlet’ or the ‘ Banquet Scene in Macbeth,’ it is not less typical of a style that bears about the same relation to nature as did the triumphs of the rustic landscape-gardeners a century ago. Of its order, academic and anecdotal, it shows at its best the class of picture which at its worst brought contempt on the British school. Here is fine drawing, good study of character, and a most elaborately told story. Not an atom of its picturesque confusion but helps to support the central theme. Every adjunct and every attitude take part in enforcing the point; and yet to-day, taught actuality by photographs, so formal a method of depicting a really striking incident seems more akin to stage-grouping than to the real historical fact. That a Czar of Muscovy should work as a labourer in an English dockyard is in itself sufficiently striking to be impressive if pictured in a far simpler manner. It was during the winter of 1697-98 that William 11., with Lord Caermarthen (President of Council) and Lord Shrewsbury (Foreign Secretary), visited the Russian Czar, who, beside his companions Menzikoff, Golownin, Galatzin, and Prince Sikerski, was often accompanied by a dwarf, a. negro boy, a monkey, and a young actress from Drury Lane, all duly seen in the picture. The painting, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1857, was purchased at Mr. Henry Wood's sale in 1883 for £388, 10s. It is now at the Royal Holloway College, Egham, whence it is here reproduced by kind permission of the Governors. “(aseponpy ) paoky20y psofiGa(y 10 wary) 7Y) 432%q DREDGING OFF THE MERSEY By Witiram J. Muier e2=Rs HIS painting, which was added to the National Gallery so lately PSS2) as 1896, is an excellent example of Muller's more direct manner : We) in rapid transcripts from nature. ‘He was one of the most dexterous among the dexterous ; beside Turner, the greatest _ adept of English painting '—says a German critic; yet the name of Muller can be hardly called a household word in British art. His Southern and Eastern pictures are perhaps the most typical of the man, although in some of these there is trace of an artificial grandiose manner, which gives them a slightly old-fashioned air. But when he paints without any suspicion of melodrama, he is undeniably great. Among the most important of his landscapes are ‘ Tivoli,” ‘The Avenue of Sphinxes at Luxor,’ ‘The River Lledr, North Wales,’ ‘A Norfolk Dyke in Winter, and ‘Caernarvon Castle, Early Morning.’ Of figure subjects his ‘Chess Players’ is the most celebrated. This was originally purchased for £25, and was sold the last time for £4000—a fact which shows the rapid advance of Muller’s work in the estimation of collectors. Yet, although he was without Academic honours, and at times scurvily treated by the Hanging Committee at Burlington House, he cannot be said to have been unappreciated during his life. In the ‘ Money Changers,’ ‘ Prayers in the Desert,’ ‘ A Street Scene in Cairo,’ and other Eastern subjects, we have evidence of his accurate observation and keen appreciation of the aspects of light and colour in the Orient no less than in his native land. ‘The climate is much against one, the sunshine intense, the shadow cold. One gets black in the former, in the latter ague. How much one artist goes through to acquire what people at a conversazione go through in five minutes! Did it ever strike you in that light?’ is a passage from one of his letters, that betrays the attitude of Muller to his art and to the public. A special exhibition of his work, gathered together at Birmingham in 1896, revealed the painter in all his moods, and showed him besides in the less familiar aspect of a draughtsman, whose pencil sketches in themselves were sufficient to have established a reputation. The illustration is from the reproduction published by the Autotype Company. The picture was moved in August 1897 to the new Tate Gallery at Millbank. 158 ‘(4aynyy) Aassayy ays fo Surspaaq DOCTOR JOHNSON AWAITING AN AUDIENCE IN THE ANTE- CHAMBER OF LORD CHESTERFIELD By Epwarp M. Warp, R.A. Dr. Johnson (section dated 1754), and Boswell’s own words may be quoted to explain it :— ‘. . . The world has been for many years amused with a story confidently told, and as confidently repeated with additional circumstances, that a sudden disgust was taken by Johnson upon occasion of his having been one day kept long in waiting in his Lordship’s antechamber, for which the reason assigned was, that he had company with him; and that at last, when the door opened, out walked Collie Cibber; and that Johnson was so violently provoked when he found for whom he had been so long excluded, that he went away in a passion, and never would return. | remember having mentioned this to George, Lord Lyttelton, who told me he was very intimate with Lord Chesterfield; and holding it as a well-known truth, defended Lord Chesterfield by saying that ‘‘Cibber, who had been introduced familiarly by the backstairs, had probably not been there above ten minutes.” It may seem strange even to entertain a doubt concerning a story so long and so widely current, and thus implicitly adopted, if not sanctioned by the authority which I have mentioned ; but Johnson himself assured me that there was not the least foundation for it. : In face of the above statement, it might seem curious to find that that incident has been made into a picture ; but another passage from Boswell’s Johnson, quoted in the National Gallery catalogue—‘ Seven years, my Lord, have now passed since I waited in your outward rooms’—gives colour to the fact, even if the story of Dr. Johnson being violently provoked thereby is not well founded. The dramatic possibilities were just those which suited the painter’s manner, and, as an example of the illustrated anecdote, it occupies a worthy place in British art. The original is now in the new Tate Gallery at Millbank, and formed part of the Vernon Collection, bequeathed to the National Gallery in 1847. 160 Se WiMee Wy yz 3 S = = Ss ay ‘S % ~ a 8 S 3 8 S N ‘> KR s Ss S 8 3 $ » 3 = S so y 3 < zg aay = s 3 a 8 S 3 S THE SOUTH-SEA BUBBLE A SCENE IN CHANGE ALLEY IN 1720 By Epwarp M. Warp, R.A. ¢§ ITERATURE in the flat—is the happy epigram which a notable wit coined to denote a certain class of ‘ paintings with a purpose’ —not confined to England, it is true, but at one time monopolising nearly all the attention the British public expended upon art. In this painter's version of a famous national craze, the pleasure the canvas affords a spectator almost entirely depends on his knowledge of the scene depicted: otherwise the tables in the open air, where business is being transacted, and the evident excitement which prevails among all the actors, would convey nothing. Without a title, no human being, unless possibly he were a writer of analytical musical programmes, could provide an interpretation. But if the story of the great Stock Exchange speculation is tolerably familiar, then as you hunt over the picture and comprehend bit by bit its medley of incidents, you can understand what it all means, and at the same time admit that the pictorial annotation of the text—for it is little more—has been achieved with considerable dexterity. In the official catalogue three separate extracts in prose and rhyme accompany its title. Should a picture need not merely a long label but a string of quotations to elucidate its meaning ? This is a question that need not be answered here. But in a popular record of British art the reason for the half-contemptuous attitude of many critics towards work of this order—not, however, specially to this picture—is best indicated. To recognise such a prejudice is not to attack the ‘South-Sea Bubble,’ which is an exceedingly good example of its school, nor to attack even the school. Many people many tastes. Thousands who feel no thrill of pleasure before a painter's masterpiece can enjoy honestly the pictured incident which embodies the anecdote that arouses their interest. Only, the two classes should not be confused. It is true that the line between them is not sharply drawn, any more than between verse and poetry, true literature or journalistic effort; but the extremes of each are wide apart assuredly, and without debasing the one to exalt the other, it is well to recognise that they are not sufficiently inspired by the same intention to be set in competition, The painting, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1847, formed part of the Vernon Collection bequeathed to the National Gallery in 1874. It is now in the Tate Gallery at Millbank. 162 (PLOAL ) 299NG VAS-YINOS 2.1, eoeaeae ae LA LOTERIA NACIONAL By Joun PHILyr, R.a. =e ROM the year 1851, when John Phillip paid his first visit to Seville, his devotion to Iberian subjects won him the nickname of ‘ Philip of Spain.’ The picture here reproduced, painted in 1862, is an excellent example of his second manner. The theme is obviously taken from some incident he had witnessed in a crowd waiting eagerly for the declaration of winning numbers in a State lottery. It shows his success in the delineation of character, his admirable way ot telling a story, and his rich colour; yet it is not quite easy to discover in his work ‘something of the strength of Velasquez united to a more Venetian splendour of colour,’ which, according to a recent critic, reveals him as ‘a painter in the full sense of the word with whom the future will have to reckon.’ But if such eulogy be a trifle overstrained, yet the man who, after an academic period marked by success, was able to cast aside the petty traditions of British genre in the fifties, and.to set about rivalling the great Spanish masters in their own chosen field, commands more than perfunctory respect. He certainly did not catch the spirit of Velasquez so nearly as certain living painters have caught it, but, on the other hand, he escaped the production of merely clever travesties of Velasquez with which others have made us familiar. Throughout he remains true to his sturdy Scots temperament in spite of yielding to the fascination of the sunny south. If his place in art is slightly lower by reason of this reservation, yet he occupies an honourable and assured position among British master painters. The ‘Loteria Nacional,’ at one time in the Manley Hall Gallery, was (as one of the items of Baron Grant's collection) sold at Christie's in 1877 for three thousand guineas. It belongs now to Mr. Holbrook Gaskell, by whose kind permission it is here reproduced. 164 A. rere ne om rei al & is 2 8 — Q er SS 8 8 2 - 8 2 < 8 3 N N CARDINAL WOLSEY'S PROCESSION By Sie Joun GIvpert, R.A. splendour of its colour—especially its scheme of brilliant reds —as seen here in the robes of the Cardinal and the cassocks of the acolytes. The historical subjects which chiefly attracted Gilbert are singularly unlike the rigidly pedantic studies of posed models, faultlessly accurate in costume, and mildly dramatic in their grouping, which form the bulk of our British efforts in this class of paintings. So that the veteran’s work appears to be a rapidly transcribed impression of the scene as he pictured it in his mind. Facial expression and elaborately minute detail were set aside for a broader truth, and if his paintings are not among the consummate masterpieces of art, they are worthy a very near place. For they are full of life and of colour; they suggest mural decorations on a large scale —a shade rococo, and not wholly unrelated to Rubens. That he was a great colourist, in the sense artists understand the phrase, is perhaps more than a candid admirer would claim. But his very faults are almost virtues in disguise ; for he never lost the breadth of his composition by niggling detail. Thus he was unconcerned with the subtleties of texture, or of zuances of ‘tone’ and ‘value’; nor did he trouble himself with atmospheric effects. At times he lacked restraint, and narrowly escaped vulgarity, and yet the splendid vigour of his fertile imagination—whether studied in the thousands of designs for wood-engravings or in the large number of canvases he painted—rarely flags, and never wholly fails to satisfy. Among giants he is no dwarf, and among the average timid work of many contemporaries his stands out virile, a proof of courageous effort that feared no theme, however complex. He is modelled on no predecessor and leaves no followers. It may be that he was essentially an illustrator, and that his paintings are in a sense only coloured drawings; but even if this be so, he bulks largely in nineteenth-century art as a prodigious worker whose imagina- tion was rarely at fault, if at times his technique appears hasty. The picture (in water-colour, 36x40 ins.) belongs to the Corporation of London, by whose permission it is here reproduced 166 "(209972 ) uorssaI04g Ss Aasjo4y Joumpsvy PAOLO AND FRANCESCA By Georce F. Warts, R.A. BN CREERAHE tragic history of the two ill-fated lovers was, as we know, not invented by Dante, but embodies a real incident that happened during his lifetime. Twice he alludes to it in the Dzvene Comedy, and Mr. Watts has doubtless chosen the subject which he has treated so nobly from Canto v. of the /z/erno—the passage that in Cary’s translation begins, ‘One day for our delight we; read of Lancelot,’—but the sestet of the sonnet by John Keats was doubtless also in the painter’s mind— ‘, . . To that second circle of sad hell Where, ’mid the gust, the whirlwind, and the flaw Of rain and hailstones, lovers need not tell Their sorrows. Pale were the sweet lips I saw, Pale were the lips I kissed, and fair the form I floated with about that melancholy storm.’ Lest the story as Dante tells it, as Keats recalls it in the above sonnet, or as Leigh Hunt amplified it in Zhe Story of Reminz, be unfamiliar to any, it may be well to repeat it baldly. Francesca was the wife of the deformed Lanciotto, son of the Duke of Rimini, who, lighting upon her in guilty converse with his brother Paolo, slew both. Dante and Virgil encountered them in the second circle of hell, where carnal sinners are swept along by furious winds in utter darkness. | For a moment they appear, and Dante swoons with the horror. of the story as _ Francesca tells it him. It is said that he wrote this Canto of the Zzferno, to which reference has been made, in the very house wherein Francesca had been born. The picture (here reproduced from a photograph by Mr. J. Caswall Smith), painted by Mr. Watts in 1879, is not among those now at the Tate Gallery, given by the artist to the nation. 168 Paolo and Francesca (Watts). LOVE AND DEATH By Georce F. Warts, R.A. RF one were forced to select a single picture only as ¢he typical Victorian painting, this might well be chosen. As Tennyson's In Memoriam embodies the sober thought of its period, so this embodies the sober sentiment. The principal forces which govern humanity are typified simply—Love, in the old form of a boy-Cupid; Death, in the less familiar aspect of the great mother. It is impossible to overlook the singular analogy between this and the Elegiac Ode of Walt Whitman— “Come, lovely and soothing death, Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving In the day, in the night, to all, to each, Sooner or later, delicate death, Dark mother, always gliding near with soft feet.’ But the parallel must not be pushed too far. Mr. Watts’s theme is the impotence of Love to stay the entry of the ‘dark mother.’ The beloved within the house may be at one with Whitman in welcoming her arrival; but to Love it is the old enemy who approaches—the all-powerful destroyer of the closest human ties. Even from this aspect Death is not figured as a grisly skeleton, a semi-grotesque King of Terrors, but as a veiled, silent figure, slow-pacing and irresistible, whom Love in vain strives to arrest. The rose petals fall from the branches, Love’s hand is wounded with their thorns, and yet a sense of peace rather than of destruction is conveyed. Pictures that preach openly have fallen into contempt, chiefly because the morals they strive to enforce could often be put into words with a far more powerful effect. Here is one of the few modern instances of a great idea ex- pressed as simply as it might be in a verse of the Psalms. No theological doctrines are championed or opposed; Love is not the pagan deity, but the human passion typified; Death is neither the angel-messenger nor the jailer who leads the criminal to his doom, but the mother ready to take the tired mortal to her heart. Stripped of all supernatural accessories, the arrival of Death is no less abnormal than was Birth. The ‘watch and a vision between a sleep and a sleep’ is over; and Love cannot work a miracle to ward off the inevitable. It sounds trite enough put in words; but, as Mr. Watts has pictured it, it offers to a thousand people new aspects of its central truth so clearly that not one of the thousand could mistake its lesson. One version of the picture (here reproduced from a photograph by Mr. F. Hollyer) is in the Tate Gallery, Millbank. 170 ). Watts ( Love and Death THE EVENING HYMN By Greorce Mason, a.rR.a. HE greater popularity of Fred Walker seems to have overshadowed that of Mason. Both sought to inspire transcripts of pastoral English life with the qualities of Greek art. Both were content to lose some of the realisation of the British peasant, in an effort to inspire his pose with the subtle grace of a Southerner. Both had qualities distinctly great. But Mason is not a mere echo of Walker. Without invidious comparison one may believe that he possessed a far more complete mastery of composition, although he rarely chose ‘ subjects’ such as this, and was satisfied with one or two figures well placed out of doors, but not representing any definite incident of pathos or humour. His figures accord marvellously with the landscape, and owe nothing to any country outside England. It has been well said that the classical grace he imparted to their movement is ‘little more than the movement which springs from a healthy body.’ Any one who studies ‘navvies’ at work, or of peasant lads and lasses at play, must be struck constantly with the marvellously ‘ classic’ attitudes they adopt. It is the conventions of society which impart a certain stiffness, and the peasant who is clumsy in a town seems full of natural grace when engaged in his normal pastoral occupations. Mason's colour is rich and satisfying; he beautifies—perhaps a shade more than critical taste at present is willing to endorse—all he touches. But he does so with no affectation, and imparts a sense of childish innocence and adult vigour to his figures, which is at once wholesome and graceful, and at most only an exaggeration of truth. ‘The Evening Hymn’ is owned by the Hon. Percy Wyndham, by whose courtesy this reproduction appears. It has been taken from the engraving of the picture published by Messrs. Colnaghi and Co., Pall Mall, London. 172 The Evening Hymn (Mason), THE RAILWAY STATION By Wirutam P. Fritn, R.A. ITH a painting that tells its story so elaborately as this, it seems scarcely needful to repeat it in words. The scene is the Paddington Terminus of the Great Western Railway just as a train is starting. A father packing his boys off to school, detectives seizing an absconding criminal, a newly married couple off for their honeymoon, a soldier wishing his sweetheart good-bye, and a dozen other domestic and social incidents, are depicted in a panorama full of independent groups of figures handled with no little dexterity of its sort. When Mr. Frith painted this, it was considered a bold thing to choose so unpoetic a background as a railway station. Fortun- ately, that attitude has long since been abandoned by critics. Yet it must not be inferred that the ‘Railway Station’ conforms to modern ideas of a picture. It holds somewhat the same position to serious painting as a sensational play at Drury Lane holds to Shakespearian drama. That all possible incidents of a rail- way station should be happening simultaneously within a painter’s vision (even if his vision be panoramic, as in this case) lands us in the domain of melodrama. Melodrama is viewed with suspicion to-day: we prefer to accept Ibsen’s theory that ‘things don’t happen so in real life.’ Yet any newspaper shows that almost every incident on which melodrama is founded may confront any one of us, at any moment. This ‘Railway Station’ has not a single impossible incident in its crowd; but the sum-total of the whole probably never took place at the same time, certainly not with just the required proportion of onlookers—no more, no less, that sufficed to point each moral. It is this which would place the canvas in a secondary rank, even if its actual painting and general handling were greater than they are. But, all the same, the school it represents hardly deserves the scorn which has been lavished upon it. Homely moralising in paint has a right to exist, but to set it in competition with real masterpieces would be merely absurd; for it is clearly not in any way related to the problems which are solved by a great painter. It belongs to a class which recorded a period, as a critic has said, ‘when people were mostly good and innocent and happy, had no income-taxes and no vices and worries, and all went to heaven and felt in good spirits’—in other words, of a time that never was or will be. The picture is in the Royal Holloway College at Egham, and is here reproduced by permission of Mr. Henry Graves, Pall Mall, East. 174 (yIeeZ) Mornis dparyiwy YT, THE RECONCILIATION OF OBERON AND TITANIA By Sir Noex Parton, R.S.A., LL.D. separates itself into two distinct classes. The best known of these is devoted to sacred subjects treated with great reverence, but also with a certain sentimentality, showing that Raphael and Overbeck have in turn influenced the artist. In another domain, the land of fairies, he is himself—the Mendelssohn of painting— and, like the composer of the overture to the Midsummer Night's Dream, has found in Shakespeare’s play the source of his most delightful inspirations. The passage illustrated occurs in the first scene of the fourth act :— *Trrania. My Oberon! what visions have I seen! Methought I was enamoured of an ass. Operon. There lies your love. Titania. How came these things to pass? O, how mine eyes do loathe his visage now! Oseron. Silence a while.—Robin, take off this head— Titania, music call; and strike more dead Than common sleep, of all these five the sense. Tiranta. Music, ho! music; such as charmeth sleep. Pucx. When thou wak’st, with thine own fool’s eyes peep.’ It is not essential to estimate the value of work of this order, which expends itself on attempts to materialise dreams already painted by the sister art of poetry : but of its kind, Sir Noel Paton’s fairy studies. may rank with the most successful efforts.of illustration. For such pictures, no matter how well painted, are essen- tially illustrations to the printed text—inspired by it, and limited to a certain extent by the author’s imagination. Certainly no creator of the good little people has managed to preserve their dainty attributes more gracefully than Sir Noel Paton: whether they are the fairies of Shakespeare or the fairies of folklore is another matter. To many of us they seem true enough. The ‘Quarrel of Oberon and Titania’ is the subject of a large canvas in the National Gallery of Scotland, where is also this, its companion, which obtained one of the Government premiums at the Westminster Hall competition of 1847, and was painted in 1846. 176 The Reconciliation of Oberon and Titania (Noel Paton). WORK By Forp Mapox- Brown BS the painter’s own description of this picture is extant, it would be impertinent to offer another; but, as his analysis would fill twelve of these pages, only the salient points can be included in a digest therefrom. 7 The picture was begun in 1852 at Hampstead, and repre- sents the main street of that suburb not far from the Heath. The various aspects of useful work undertaken by those who have been taught early are shown in the typical figures of the ‘navvy’ and of the brain-workers, Thomas Carlyle and Frederick Denison Maurice, who are seen standing to the right of the picture. Contrasted with these is the pariah who has never been taught to work, and the rich who have no need to labour, accompanied by the pastrycook’s tray—a symbol of superfluity,—behind which are two ladies distribut- ing tracts. At the back are other typical examples of both workers and non- workers. The ‘gentleman on horseback’ is the artist Martineau; the ‘ beauteous tripping dame with bell-like skirts’ is Mrs. Madox-Brown; the ‘ philosophical baby’ Arthur Gabriel Brown. The effect of hot July light was chosen because ‘it seemed peculiarly fitted to display work in all its severity.’ The colour of the picture is peculiarly vivid. ‘Not colourist’s colour—at least, as I understand the words’ (writes Mr. Ford Madox Hueffer, the grandson and the biographer of the painter); ‘it is wanting in harmoniousness—disturbing, and what not. One might almost say that both pictures—‘ Work” and “The Last of England”—had been painted with the newly discovered aniline dyes.’ . . . In its own way ‘Work’ is a masterpiece as an exposition of a sort of Carlylean energy and exuberance. And so, perhaps, it is the very nature of the work to be wanting in repose—rather voyant and disagreeable. The painting (begun in 1852, recommenced in 1856, and finished in 1868) belongs to the Corporation of Manchester, by whose kind permission it is reproduced. 198 ‘(umoLgy-xopoyy) 7.1044 Sa NS JOHN DALTON COLLECTING MARSH GAS By Forp Mapox- Brown the problem of using comparatively modern, costume decoratively in a way that shall harmonise with the whole of the rest, chosen from all sorts of periods, it is of peculiar artistic interest., é The incident shows John Dalton, the inventor of the Atomic. Theory, collecting marsh gas by stirring up the mud of a stagnant pond, while a boy catches the rising bubbles in a wide-mouthed bottle. The clever: arrange- ment of this picture, and its daring composition, are apparent even in black and white. Considered solely as the realisation of an anecdote told pictorially,. it is also remarkably successful. One has but to. remember how exceedingly difficult it must have been to suggest in a picture, however vaguely, ‘John Dalton dis- covering the Atomic Theory,’ to own that Madox-Brown, by selecting a typical incident in Dalton’s investigations of certain remarkable phases of matter, has well-nigh accomplished the impossible. Although it is not possible here to describe the series of fresco paintings: which occupied so large a part of the artist’s life, yet a bare list of the titles may show how large a field they attempted to cover. The Manchester Town Hall contains ‘The Baptism of Edwin,’ ‘The Romans building Manchester,’ ‘Expulsion of | the Danes from Manchester,’ ‘ Philippa visiting her Flemish Weavers,’ ‘Crabtree watching the Transit of Venus,’ ‘The Proclamation regarding Weights. and Measures,’ ‘ Chetham’s Life Dream,’ ‘First Blood of the Civil War,’ ‘ Bridgewater Canal,’ ‘John Kay saved from the Rioters,’ ‘ Wickliffe on his Trial,’ and ‘John Dalton.’ That the artist lived long enough to complete his task is for our gain; but one could have wished that the pre-Raphaelite before pre-Raphaelites, the first artist to design furniture, and one who attempted to start an “Arts and Crafts’ half a century ago, had received in his lifetime fuller recognition. The illustration here given is from the reproduction by the Autotype Company, London, W.C, 180 *(unrotg -x0, -xopopiy) s ) svQ ysevpy 52729)]09 U0yog uyof WSs BS THE MESSENGER OF EVIL TIDINGS By Srr Wixitam Fetres Douctas, P.R.S.A. C2ZE2HIS painting is a most excellent example of its class. It does not appear to be intended to represent any particular historical incident; but that the story it has to tell is clearly explained, even in the absence of a title, is evident from a glance at the reproduction here given. That the messenger has brought extremely unpleasant news is plain enough, and from the excited attitude of the men at the open door one may imagine that it involves a-call to arms. Yet if the matter in question proved to be only one for fighting in law-courts, and not involving ordeal by battle, it would scarcely affect the interest of the scene presented. The arrested movement of the figures reflects admirably the suspense which is the central motive of the picture. As a decorative composition, the comparative simplicity of the accessories imparts dignity to the whole work. The dramatic moment gains in intensity by a glimpse, through a long passage, of a distant group of people as yet apparently unaware of the evil news which has been brought. The picture is No. 91 in the National Gallery of Scotland. 182 A ages a 8 The Messenger of Evil Tidings (Douglas). VALENTINE RESCUING SYLVIA (7TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA) By W. Hotman Hunt SHEREVER this painting may be hung, amid other contemporary works, its amazing freshness is the first and the last impression it produces. Many of the latest problems of the French wzdriste manner are here faced and conquered. Despite certain details, notably in the fashion of the hair of its men and women, marking the date of production, the treatment does not suggest 1851 any more than 1901. At the time it was first shown, Mr. Ruskin, one of the few critics who praised it at first, wrote: ‘There is not a single study of drapery in the whole Academy, be it in large or small works, which, for perfect truth, power, and finish, could be compared with the black sleeve of Julia and the velvet on the breast, and the chain mail of Valentine. Elsewhere, again referring to it, he says: ‘Examination of this picture has even raised the estimate I had previously formed of its marvellous truth in detail and splendour in colour.’ Heedless of the storm of ridicule and abuse the picture had provoked in London, it is pleasant to find that the Academy of Liverpool awarded it a prize of £50. The incident depicted is from the third scene of the fifth act of the Zwo Gentlemen of Verona; the moment when Valentine rescues Sylvia from Proteus. Valentine and Sylvia (painted from Miss Siddall, afterwards the wife of Dante Gabriel Rossetti) are in the centre, Proteus to the right, and Julia to the left, while at the back you see the outlaws, with the Duke of Milian (father to Sylvia) and Thurio (a foolish rival to Valentine). Its colour scheme is extremely vivid, so that, although by general consent it ranks among the masterpieces of British painting, it has not been, and possibly never will be, a favourite with many critics. It deserves to be studied as a genuine example of the original pre-Raphaelite ideal, which, it must never be forgotten, was zo¢ a matter of choice of subject, but of realistic fidelity to nature. Not fidelity in the larger and perhaps truer sense of a picture regarded as a whole, but to a series of facts minutely observed and accurately catalogued, which need long inspection to do them justice, and provoke the eye to examine the work as if it were a problem to solve, rather than as a scene to be gazed at from a fixed distance, with a sense of pleasure in a complete realisation of an incident where nature and humanity have been cunningly detained on canvas for the delight of centuries. The picture belongs to the Corporation of Birmingham, by whose permission it is here reproduced. 184 Y/Y, Yi Yy y Vatentine Rescuing Sylvia (Llolman TTunt). THE FINDING OF THE SAVIOUR IN THE TEMPLE By W. Hotman Hunt een HIS painting, begun at Jerusalem in 1854, was not completed aN2)) until 1860. Its colour, like that of the ‘Light of the World,’ Ne) is brilliant to a degree that is actually offensive to many people. Dean Farrar considers that ‘No medizval painter, not even Da Vinci or Luini, or Botticelli, or Raphael, ever painted so fine a representation of the boy Christ, or produced any rendering of this favourite subject at all so thorough and so perfect as this.’ Of it the author of John Halifax wrote a eulogistic poem, ‘Then this is Thou! .. .’ in which the following lines occur :— ©O infinitely human, yet Divine, Half clinging, childlike, to the mother found, Yet half repelling, as the soft eyes say— How is it that ye sought Me?’ That Mr. Holman Hunt has attracted a huge, and perhaps not always discriminative, audience of admirers, by the sentiment he has wrought into his work, must not blind one to the fact that other qualities it possesses stamp him as a master; even the colouring, which is obnoxious to a certain school of painters, seems a triumph of technique to others no less well-informed. He is the consistent exponent of the pre-Raphaelite ideal, as first expounded. He seems not to care whether he charms or repels, but to be intent on carrying out his self-set ideal at any cost of time or thought. No painter of his eminence is more likely to be dealt with unjustly. Adulation and censure, both far beyond their right proportions, have been showered upon him. One fact, however, is certain—that ‘The Hireling Shepherd,’ ‘The Scape-Goat, ‘The Wandering Sheep,’ ‘The Awakening Conscience,’ ‘The Triumph of the Innocents,’ and the picture already mentioned, must needs remain as typical monuments of mid-Victorian art. Strongly personal, and with an almost brutal force that insists on its own standpoint—even if you fail to love them, you must needs respect them and the painter who has so consistently maintained an ideal out of touch with the majority of taste, lay or professional, to-day. The picture is reproduced from a photograph by Mr. J. Caswall Smith, and was lent by Messrs. Agnew and Sons to the Guildhall Exhibition, 1894. 186 ‘(qunpy uvuzozz) agduay ay) ut anoivs ay [, DAN TES Dn.E aM By Dante Gasriet Rossetti the Pilgrim Love into a poppy-strewn alcove, where on her bier lies the dead Beatrice. Love is stooping to kiss her; angel- figures hold a sort of baldachin above her prostrate form ; in the background are glimpses of Florence. This painting, of which—like many other of Rossetti’s works —two separate versions exist, is one of the most typical of his later manner. Painted in 1870, it differs in many respects from his water-colour of 1855. In Mr. William Sharp’s monograph upon the artist he quotes a passage from a letter by Sir Noel Paton :— ‘I was so dumfoundered by the beauty of this great picture of Rossetti’s called “ Dante’s Dream,” that I was unable to give any expression to the emotions it excited, emotions such as I do not think any other picture, except the “ Madonna di San Sisto” [Raphael] at Dresden ever stirred within me. The meaning of such a picture is like the memory of sublime and perfect music; it makes any one who fully feels it silent. Forty years hence it will be named among the haif-dozen supreme pictures of the world.’ The extract may be a hasty and ultra-enthusiastic coniment; but even from an impartial standpoint we can appreciate the fine qualities of the work which provoked the generous eulogy, if compelled to admit, at the same time, that technically it lacks at least some of the qualities which go to secure immortality. Yet, with all deductions, it is a noble work of its class—perhaps the most capable that the peculiarly English School which Rossetti founded has yet pro- duced. For it is undeniable that the Briton is curiously moved by a poetic senti- ment, both Biblical and secular, and whether in Bunyan, Blake, Rossetti, or a score of others, is willing to accept superb intention, devoted to a parable or a legend, more readily than magnificent fulfilment achieved with subjects that owe nothing to literary association. The absolute masterpiece of ordered simplicity requires ripe knowledge to appreciate it; whereas the noble effort that is based on literary sentiment, if it be halting, is sure of loyal sympathy both from those who appreciate only a thousandth part of its meaning, and those who are able to supply all the painter failed to embody. Another version, on a smalier scale, with a preaedla (painted in 1880), fetched 1000 guineas at the sale of the Graham Collection in 1886. The version reproduced is in the Walker Gallery, Liverpool. 188 (700862227 fo we1pwLog wor ay) fo UELssIULorg. ag) ‘(277aSS0y) 1UDAaA 8.aguDg KGQOE Z OYy ti Voir, yh Yi Haphiitrsyyygyys PD) RS = Se ISABELLA By Srr Joun E. Mirrats, P.r.a. occupies a unique position in British art. For it is the first important picture signed with the initials of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (P. R. B.) which was shown in the Royal Academy. Critics with almost one accord attacked the Pre-Raphaelites and their works, including, of course, ‘ Isabella.’ With the exception of Mr. Ruskin, scarce one voice of importance was raised in defence. Keats's poem, as we know, supplied the theme which Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and Holman Hunt, three of the original Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, each decided to paint. Millais’s version we see here, Rossetti’s was abandoned, and Holman Hunt’s was not finished until 1867. Millais, following his own bent of mind, chose a scene which foreshadows the impending tragedy in place of one of the more dramatic moments which the story offers. The two lines, ‘They could not sit at meals but feel how well It soothed each to be the other by,’ must be read with the whole poem before a spectator unfamiliar with the legend could interpret rightly the subject. Every one knows the tale of the cruel brothers —who secretly murdered Lorenzo, their clerk and also their sister's lover, and how she, with the help of her old nurse, exhumed his body and cut off the head and bore it away, hiding it ina pot of basil, until that in turn was taken from her. Or if it be unfamiliar to any one, it is needless to recapitulate it in detail, remembering that the poem itself is so readily accessible. The opportunity for depicting Italian costumes of a fine period, and of planning a group with no reference to the hitherto accepted canons of pictorial composition, gave Millais his chance to produce the work which Mr. Holman Hunt has called ‘the most wonderful picture that any youth under twenty years of age ever did in the world.’ Most of the characters therein are portraits. Lorenzo was painted from Mr. W. M. Rossetti; the man drinking, from Dante Gabriel Rossetti; and the man with a napkin, from W. Bell Scott. The prominent incident of the foreground, one of the brothers kicking a hound, is not in Keats’s poem, nor is it to be found in the fifth novel of the Fourth Day of The Decameron of Boccaccio, whence the original story is taken. It was sold in 1849 for £100, and bought in 1883 by the Corporation of Liverpool for £1120, a sum which in no way represents its probable market value to-day. The picture (sometimes called ‘ Lorenzo and Isabella ’) is at present hung in the Walker Art Gallery. 190 ( 200¢ca227 fo p. 2 53 Pb ai22 27 fo 101, NIV AOGL0 iD @) 12 fo worssri speaog A 7) (szv, 2 DIJIQVS 4 SN SS& Kase" CIN bd. (GO) BB By Sir Joun E. Miutrais, p.r.a. N 1871, when Sir John Millais showed his first great landscape, ‘Chill October,’ it was received not merely with an outburst of popular appreciation, but with amazement. That a figure- painter should attempt pure landscape would have been held unseemly at that period, had not his instantaneous success justi- fied the new departure. For in 1871 the idea was maintained very strongly that a man should be a specialist, and not try to express himself in different branches of art. ‘If it is different, people say that he had better have kept to his old style, for there is a profound belief in common minds, as Sir Walter Scott has observed, that no man can do two different kinds of things equally well.’? In. 1871 the public imagined that pictures of people and paintings of landscape each required their specialist, but now all sane folks believe that a painter has no limit imposed on his choice of subject, save that of his own will. Perhaps the influence of ‘Chill October’ did no little to alter popular opinion in this matter. The scene is on the Tay, near Perth; and in face of the peculiarly successful reproduction which is here given (by permission of its owner, Lord Armstrong), it would be folly to describe the composition. Like all Millais’s landscapes, it is painted with the minute attention to detail that he learned in his pre-Raphaelite days. But in this landscape the breadth does not suffer by over-elaboration of each item of the foreground; of some other later works by the same artist so much could not be said truthfully. What can be urged against Millais’s landscapes the curious may discover in Mr. Ruskin’s Wotes to the R.A., 1875, where occurs the fiercest passage—even in the storm-laden air of art criticism—provoked by ‘The Deserted Garden.’ Except that the title ‘Chill October’ has a poetic ring sug- gesting remotely the autumn of life, the picture is free from any taint of that senti- mentality which so often vulgarises subjects entitled, ‘At eventide there shall be light.’ Millais—a giant in black and white, and a great master in portraits and in genre—proves that he was once, at least, a capable landscape-painter—one who felt the exquisite beauty of his subject. Here the handling is free, and the work enjoyable as a whole; yet one has but to recall the texture of a Constable or the colour of some of the Barbizon painters to feel that even this could hardly be called ‘a painter's picture,’ great though it be of its kind. ‘ Sir Arthur Helps, Brevia ; Short Essays and Aphorisms (Bell, 1871). 192 Z Wy Age Y iets (if Y, Yyp 4 Ye Chill October (Adtllats), THE BLIND GIRL By Sir Joun E. Mrrrats, P.r.a. painted in 1856, and gained a prize at the Liverpool Academy. Mr. Ruskin’s description, which is quoted in the Birmingham catalogue, is so complete that no paraphrase should be substituted :— ‘The background is an open English common [Icklesham, near Winchelsea], skirted by the tidy houses of a well-to-do village in the cockney rural districts. I have no doubt the scene is a real one within some twenty miles from London, and painted mostly on the spot. A pretty little church has its window traceries freshly whitewashed by order of the careful warden. The common is a fairly spacious bit of ragged pasture, and at the side of the public road passing over it the blind girl has sat down to rest awhile. She is a simple beggar, not a poetical or vicious one; a girl of eighteen or twenty, extremely plain-featured, but healthy, and just now resting, not because she is much tired, but because the sun has but this moment come out after a shower, and the smell of the grass is pleasant. The shower has been heavy, and is so still in the distance, where an intensely bright double rainbow is relieved against the departing thunder-cloud. The freshly wet grass is all radiant through and through with the new sunshine; the weeds at the girl’s side as bright as a Byzantine enamel, and inlaid with blue veronica; her upturned face all aglow with the light that seeks its way through her wet eyelashes. Very quiet she is —so quiet that a radiant butterfly has settled on her shoulder, and basks there in the warm sun. Against her knee, on which her poor instrument of beggary rests, leans another child, half her age—her guide; indifferent this one to sun or rain, only a little tired of waiting.’ ‘The Blind Girl’ was sold at Christie’s in 1858 for £300, and again at the Graham sale in 1886 for £871, 10s. It was presented by Mr. W. Kendwick, M.P., to the City Art Gallery at Birmingham, and is here given by permission of the Committee. 194 TR SS $ \ x The Blind Girl (Afilats). A HUGUENOT By Sir Joun E. Mirrais, p.r.a. ‘When the clock of the Palais de Justice shall sound upon the great bell at daybreak, then each ' good Catholic must bind a slip of white linen round his arm and place a fair white cross in his cap.’-— Vide Zhe Order of the Duc de Guise. @<2=%E9 HIS superb work, exhibited in the Royal Academy when its AE a2) painter was but twenty-three, achieved immediately a sensational MAS JIS reception. To-day it still preserves its unique charm, and, despite ) freed himself from the influence of Rossetti, which dominated his Wie) previous work, was begun in 1863 (the same year that saw the beginning of ‘The Merciful Knight’), but not finished until 1869, when it was shown at the Exhibition of the Royal Society of Painters in Water-Colours. Other painters, in treating the same theme, have almost invariably closen the moment with Circe triumphant, and her lovers, changed to swine, lying halt-torpid around her. Here, in place of the exuberant wanton who has conquered, we find a malicious, sinuous figure preparing for her campaign ; nor is the whole story forced to reveal its allegory so obviously that it descends to the level of a mere morality fitted to illustrate a temperance pamphlet. The harmony of the golden folds of Circe’s robes, and the black panthers pawing before her, is strongly contrasted with the drapery of the table, and echoed in turn by the sunfl-wers seen against white marble. Ships bearing Ulysses and his mariners are seen, through the open window, and Circe herself is stealthily pouring the magic potion that shall turn them all into beasts, except Ulysses himself, protected by the herb ‘moly’.which Mercury had given him. Whether the panthers are intended to represent former lovers of Circe is of little matter ; one would rather take them as her familiar spirits, and thus avoid any confusion in the legend. In any case, their stealthy movement helps the whole composition, which is marked by breadth and simplicity ; the one ornate object being the dragon-guarded throne of polished steel to the left. If not the finest example of Sir Edward Burne-Jones’s pictures, it is certainly one of the finest, and in certain points is more likely to hold its own than later works, where the type of beauty he has evolved becomes more mannered and the colour schemes are far more complex. The painting (27 inches by 40) was sold at the Leyland sale for 1350 guineas, 250 *(sauof-aang) aru fo aut, auf SRG we. te Mtivbiblippo Uhl nititlllitlitae THE BEGUILING OF MERLIN By Sir Epwarp Burne-Jones, Bart. ®HIS picture must not be confounded with two previous versions of the same theme, ‘Merlin and Nimue’ (1859), ‘The Enchantment of Nimue’ (1862). These earlier works are in tempera, and water- colour. .Both also are based on the legend as Sir Thomas Malory tells it, not upon the somewhat different version as it stands in Tennyson's /dylls of the King, which supplies the theme of the present picture. This is painted in oils, was begun in 1873, and finished in 1877, when it was shown at the first Exhibition at the Grosvenor Gallery. Although the official title of the picture is as appears above, the following quotation from the /dylls of the King might fitly be added. It occurs at the end of ‘Vivien, after the long record of the wiles she had employed to extract the secret from the gentle wizard :— For Merlin, overtalk’d and overworn, ; Had yielded, told her all the charm, and slept. Then, in one moment, she put forth the charm Of woven paces and of waving hands, And in the hollow oak he lay as dead, And lost to life and use and name and fame. Then crying “I have made his glory mine,” And shrieking out “O fool!” the harlot leapt Adown.the forest, and the thicket closed Behind her, and the forest echo’d “ fool.”’ The picture shows Vivien, who has apparently read the. charm from the pages of an open-‘book, and Merlin with his eyes fixed in the trance whence he never awakened. In the earlier version, which belonged to the Leathart collection, and is now seen in the South Kensington Museum, we find Nimue is depicted as a pure damozel ‘of whom Merlin was asotted,’ and it is Merlin who is absorbed in a book, while Nimue causes him ‘by subtlety to pass under a heaving stone into a grave.’ The picture here reproduced fetched 3780 guineas at the Leyland sale, and was exhibited (as the property of the Duchess of Marlborough) at the New Gallery in the winter of 1892-93. 234 The Beguiling of Merlin (Burne-Jones). THE PORT OF LONDON By Vicar Cote, R.A. ®LTHOUGH this painting was selected for purchase by the Trustees of the Chantrey Bequest, it can hardly be regarded as an entirely typical example of the artist’s work, which was usually devoted te picturesque bits of the Upper Thames, or to country meadows with glimpses of distant villages. Yet one aspect of the famous river is well represented in it, and it is interesting to compare it with the more naturalistic version of the same subject, ‘Toil, Glitter, Grime, and Wealth,’ by Mr. Wylie (also in the Tate Gallery). In this work, reproduced here, we are most conscious of picture-making, and of detail subordinated to a prearranged scheme of composition ; for, speaking roughly, all the darks are massed so as to leave an open space whence the dome of St. Paul’s is seen against a brilliant sunset, one of the melodramatic copper-coloured sunsets that are,almost peculiar to the smoke-laken air of London. Yet there is far more attention to topographical accuracy and realistic detail than Turner might have employed: The picture marks a point midway between the romantic feeling imparted toa classic tradition which Turner and his immediate followers obeyed, and the sheer naturalism with a certain French * plein air’ influence of Mr. Wylie’s work. Such contrast is certainly not made with a view to compare ‘The Port of London’ with'the masterpieces of his great predecessor, or even with paintings of the younger Academician, but merely to suggest the great radical difference which separates the various manners of three painters who have been attracted by the same theme quite apart from any question of merit. These have all recognised the magical fascination of the. Thames. below bridge, when it was unspanned by. that master- piece of engineering, . but terrible eyesore, the Tower Bridge, and in their own idiom have set down their impressions in paint. The painting was purchased in 1888 (for £2000) by. the Trustees of the Chantrey Bequest, by whose kind permission it is here reproduced. 236° (3709 J0It.4) uopuoTy Jo 10g auf PORTRAIT OF MY MOTHER ~ By James M‘Nertt WuistTLer TENS 446 C222%8HAT the qualities which place Mr. Whistler's work among the great masters are those which appeal far more strongly to painters than to the general public may be granted. Even this famous picture, honoured by a place in the French gallery of Modern Art at the Luxembourg, is far more often considered ‘from a technical, than from an emotional, standpoint. If we turn to a passage by one who deems it the artist's chefd’euvre in portraiture, we find him wondering ‘by what strange wizard’s craft was accomplished the marvellous pattern on the black curtain that drops past the engraving on the wall. We muse,’ he continues, ‘on the extraordinary beauty of that grey wall, on the black silhouette sitting so tranquilly, on the large feet on a footstool, on the long black dress that fills the picture with such solemn harmony.’ And so the critic studies and analyses detail after detail until we reach ‘the faint, subtle outline of the mother’s face, and seem to feel that the painter has told the story of his soul more fully there than elsewhere. That soul, strangely alive to all that is delicate and illusive in Nature, found perhaps its fullest expression in that old Puritan lady looking through the quiet refinement of her grey room, sitting in solemn profile in all the quiet habit of her long life.’ This description will serve to give others some idea of the way Mr. Whistler’s masterpiece affects one of its lovers who had studied it long and well. If you dissect his phrases of praise, you will find they are less concerned with the presentation of the artist’s mother in the habit as she lived, or the room in which she passed her time, than with the pose of the figure and the selection of certain ‘surroundings, chosen with faultless taste, which help to impart the sense of the beauty of a refined gentlewoman in the evening of her life. Here is no exotic loveliness imparted to the theme, but ‘the level of every day’s most quiet need’—a canvas that artists will prize always, and one in which the most careless visitor cannot fail to discover something of ‘its secret, if he remember his own mother. For it might have been entitled no less adequately ‘Zhe Mother.’ It is the great completion of motherhood that it commemorates— not, like countless pictures, the young mother looking ahead to the future of her child, but one who has accomplished. her life’s work, and meditates with quiet, happy memory upon it. That this is a worthy ideal, portrayed in a way at once novel and masterly, the picture proves, _ The abiding regret is that it is not our own National Gallery which is honoured by its presence, The kindness of the Curator of the Musée National du Luxembourg enables : us to include this plate. | 238 eapasey 11) dayrory: due fo pavapdogy THE CONNOISSEURS By Georce A. Storey, R.A. | ESN HE Connoisseurs’ was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1883, and is founded on the tradition, which represents the elder Teniers mounted on an ass, going with his son David to market to sell his pictures. They would frequently travel from Antwerp to Brussels offering their wares for sale, and it not infrequently happened that they had the humiliation of returning home without finding a purchaser. It is probable that during these peregrinations, whilst the father was vaunting his wares and recommending them to the connoisseur, David would seize the opportunity to make sketches and notes for future works. In the picture, they are represented as stopping at a roadside inn for refresh- ment, and perhaps for business, as old Teniers has just handed a small canvas to'a cavalier, who is carefully examining it through his eye-glass, whilst the other is explaining its merits, which, however, the alewife does not seem to see. The young David is making a sketch of a child feeding the ass, which excites a certain amount of curiosity and admiration in a few onlookers. As Mr. Storey himself has explained, his object was not so much for the story itself as for the touches of nature and the picturesque elements it contains, which lend themselves to pleasant colour and composition. The painting is here reproduced by the artist’s permission. 240 ‘(€a.095) sinasstonnog oY f THE WATERS OF LETHE By R. Spencer STANHOPE 2 LTHOUGH the meaning of this picture is suggested by its full title, ‘The Waters of Lethe by the Plains of Ilysium,’ it may be well to add the catalogue description :—‘ The idea conveyed by the artist is that of humanity hurrying to cast-off its burden of worldly trouble and seek rest in the grave. The passage of the water is intended to represent death, the island the grave, and the gardens a future state of happiness. The artist has adopted the title as the most suitable under the circumstances, but with no intention of giving a classical character to the picture.’ ' Mr. Spencer Stanhope has exhibited chiefly in the Grosvenor Gallery, his most important works being ‘Love and the Maiden,’ ‘The Shulamite,’ ‘The Graiz,’ ‘Charon and Psyche,’ ‘The Birth of Venus,’ ‘ Knowledge. strangling Ignorance,’ and ‘ Love and the Casting Net,’ all marked by a certain archaic manner, at times strongly reminiscent of Early Italian masters; but his colour is often (notably in ‘The Graiz ’) quite dissimilar. The above picture is in the City of Manchester Art Gallery, to which it was presented by the artist; it is here reproduced-by kind permission of the Corporation of Manchester. to Pe is) y a The Waters of Lethe (Stanhope). EVENING: AMIENS CATHEDRAL By Sir Wyke Baytiss ise CRELZAHIS painting by the President of the Royal Society of British AE aN) Artists is an excellent example of the cathedral interiors he picxe) Wie) depicts with a charm that recalls the work of earlier masters. Le. They have been described as* unique in their poetic realisation Wa of dusky atmosphere, faintly jewelled sunbeams, and intricate detail of sculpture and carving,’ and if the description is expressed with some superfluous rhetoric, it is also true. For Sir Wyke Bayliss transfigures the literal beauty of the building to a romantic ideal that has its place in the realms of art; even as Claude in his landscapes imparts a certain unreality to a scene essentially beautiful. Amiens is itself beyond all praise; yet its most ardent lover would admit that it is not quite as we see it in this picture, The painter has recorded it in what might be called the blank verse of art, a style that uses grandiloquence and ornate periods to clothe the bare facts of prose, without distorting their accuracy. With_ such works it is not merely an architectural study the artist aims to give you, but something of the pomp of stately ritual and the pageant of history that has rolled through the building. Even a stern realist must admit that such-a version is legitimate enough, if it be successful ; and that this and many another _ noble interior by the same hand are entirely. good of their kind, is beyond dispute. The painting is here reproduced from the Atkinson Art Gallery by the kind permission of the Southport Corporation. 2 @ 244 se a aes a: we: : Shee er HAR sae ao hn ‘ Ske ie ‘ peat er yey Evening: Amiens Cathedral (Wyke Bayliss). NAPOLEON By Wituram QuiLcer ORcHARDSON, R.A. HIS work, which was considered at the time to be ‘perhaps the finest picture in the Royal Academy of 1880,’ represents the exiled Emperor taking his last long look at France. In the uniform which is peculiarly associated with him, he stands apart from his suite on the deck of H.M.S. Bedlerophon, July 23, 1815, off Cape Ushant. To the left, at a respectful distance, and bare- headed, are his officers. Colonel Plana, General Montholon, Surgeon Manigant, Count Las Cases (whose son is leaning over the rail in the mid-distance), and Generals Savary, L’Allemand, and Bertrand. This is one of the few examples of an open-air subject by Mr. Orchardson, who selects more often the interior of a spacious salon, with ample space of empty floor. That feature, a peculiar characteristic of his work, is present here, and is more than ever valuable in detaching the hero from his surroundings. The lone- liness of the great warrior is emphasised by this isolation to the advantage of the picture as a composition and the dramatic force of the incident. The slight roll of the vessel, indicated by the line of the masts, explains the pose of the Emperor, and suggests the movement of the ship, a suggestion which is also helped greatly by the diagonal lines of the ship’s rigging. The straightforward story-telling, with no comment, no ‘touching’ incidents, and no confusion, is another feature of the artist's work. If you compare this picture with the huge canvases at the Louvre or Versailles, or the pictures in the Painted Hall, Greenwich, you will be conscious of an entirely different expression. The old pictures are, as a rule, florid, and full of adjectives; here the solitary fact—Napoleon taking his last long look at France —is presented bare and unadorned. Yet how much more powerful is the simple, direct statement of such a dramatic moment the picture itself proves. Your attention is not called away by any conflicting motives. If the attitude of the boy suggests that to the next generation the here will be a half-forgotten memory, it is not unduly forced ; indeed, the pose allotted to him may have been chosen for the sake of the pictorial composition only, quite apart from any literary reason. The work was purchased for £2000, under the terms of the Chantrey Bequest whence it has been reproduced by permission of the artist and the President and Council of the Royal Academy. It is now hung at the Tate Gallery with the rest of the Chantrey pictures. 246 ‘(uosp.inyj4Q) uoydorazjag *S* [°F] pwog uo uoapodyyy TROUBLE By Wiriiam QuILLeR OrcHARDSON, R.A. RERE we have a typical example of Mr. Orchardson’s ‘ Society’ * pictures; but how unlike the typical society-picture they really are, may not from this single specimen be so apparent as it should be. For their themes are never exaggerated to melo- drama, nor made a pretext for the display of fashionable attire. In ‘The First Cloud,’ ‘Mariage de Convenance,’ ‘ Her Mother’s Voice,’ ‘A Social Eddy,’ we have people in evening-dress, in spacious salons with old-fashioned flowered carpets on.the floor, and the incident they enact, be it pathetic, humorous, or tragic, is always clearly expressed without undue emphasis. _ It is, however, not so much their subject as their ‘painting’ which entitles these works to rank with the most important of our time. In his own way, with. certain strongly defined mannerisms, Mr. Orchardson has a grand style, never pompous, never self-conscious, but convincing always. Whether in his costume pictures, ‘The Young Duke,’ ‘ Ophelia,’ ‘ Hard Hit,’ ‘The Queen of the Swords,’ ‘Talbot and the Countess of Auvergne,’ ‘Christopher Sly,’ and the rest, in his Napoleonic subject, or in his single figures such as ‘The Connoisseur,’ or ‘A Young Housewife,’ he is always restrained and accomplished. Hung amid the best works in the Paris Salons, or with a medley collection at Earl’s Court, they keep their position as masterpieces of their kind; and the kind is altogether admirable when done as he knows how to do it. ‘Trouble’ is owned by James Ogston, Esq., of Aberdeen, by whose kind permission it is here reproduced. 248 Trouble (Orchardson). BRITANNIA’S REALM By Joun Brett, a.r.A. ROW much a hapoily chosen title assists in winning popularity for a X work of art this picture goes to prove. Had it been entitled simply ‘A Landscape,’ or ‘A Calm Sea,’ it is possible that it would never have become one of the prime favourites of the British public. That it is so, is easily proved after a few minutes in the gallery where it hangs with other pictures bought under the terms of the Chantrey Bequest. But its popularity is deserved, and under any title, so faithful a transcript of facts would be worthy of no little praise. Mr. Brett, who began by being a Pre- Raphaelite, in the old sense of patient realisation of solid facts, showed in his ‘Stone-breaker’ a rare sense of feeling for distant stretches of landscape. Here, as in most of his other pictures, you feel conscious of no limit save that imposed by the frame. It is as if, through a hole cut in the wall, you saw the veritable sea and sky. That this ideal of painting is most capably set forth in ‘ Britannia’s Realm’ may be granted without admitting that it is the only, or even the most worthy, ideal. : To rival the reflection in a mirror is the true aim of Art, as it is understood by the largest section of the public, and also by not a few painters. Indeed, one doubts if the opposite ideal—a painting made,complete in itself, wherein Nature is subjugated, altered, and improved—will ever become acceptable except to certain painters and a few laymen who make Art a serious study. The average person pays as little real attention to the painted version as to the actual scene; there- fore, the record which seems to him most accurate is naturally the one that possesses the greatest number of obvious facts. These may be harmoniously brought together as in this excellent work, or set down in complete defiance of the larger truth of the whole picture; but in either case they do not appeal to him in vain. The picture was exhibited in the Royal Academy of 1880, and purchased for #600 under the terms of the Chantrey Bequest. to ao Oo ‘(77047 ) UpDaYy Ss piUUDiILG A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA By Wiii1ram M‘Taceart, R.S.A. iS GAO far as one can gather, Mr. M‘Taggart has not exhibited at the NO) Royal Academy (London) since 1875, when his picture entitled EY ‘’Twas Autumn, and Sunshine arose on the Way’ was hung there. BY) Therefore to many Southerners his work is comparatively un- known. Yet those fully competent to judge place him in the very first rank of marine painters. Born at Aros, he studied art at the Trustees’ Academy, Edinburgh; and was elected an Associate of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1859, receiving full honours as an Academician in 1870. He became President of the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Water- Colours in 1878. He studied under Scott-Lauder, and is perhaps his most brilliant pupil. His work in turn has had a great influence on the younger Scottish painters. To quote a recent critic: ‘ His art is based on reality, and often thrills one with the sense of actuality and very presence of nature; but to this he adds a fine pictorial sense, and has often a clear and haunting note of lyric poetry. Early in his career he set himself to paint his own impressions of nature, without regard for convention or thought of what others had done or thought before him. This meant experi- ment, and now and then involved failure; but in his work impressionism passes from the region of experiment to the realm of Art. He was an impressionist before the fact, and if a collection of his pictures could be shown in Paris, it would create a sensation and astonish the ‘pioneer painters” of whom one has heard so much,’? ‘A Message from the Sea’ owes its title to the children finding a bottle in the foreground. The real message is in its superb wave-painting, so entirely sufficient that one half regrets the presence of figures. The fine brush-work is evident in this reproduction. Among Mr. M ‘Taggart's more important works are :—‘ Going to Sea’ (1859), ‘The Sailor’s Yarn’ (1861), ‘Lochaber no more’ (1861), ‘ Puir Weans’ (1862), ‘Enoch Arden’ (1866), ‘Dora’ (1867), ‘Adrift’ (1869), ‘For his daily Bread’ (1888), ‘The Bathers’ (1893). The picture is here reproduced by the kind permission of the Albert Institute, Dundee. 1 ‘Victorian Art,’ by James L. Caw. Scottish Review, July 1897. 252 "(240850_Z JW) vas ay7 moLf asvssayy F AMY ROBSART By Witutam F. YEaAmMeEs, R.A. ® LTHOUGH the incident here pictured is described in the last chapter of Sir Walter Scott’s Kenilworth, it would appear from this extract in the Royal Academy catalogue of 1877 that the artist went to Aubrey’s Hzstory of Berkshire for his subject :— ‘Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, being the great favourite of the Queen Elizabeth, it was thought she would have made him her husband; to this end, to free himself of all obstacles, he had his wife, Amy Robsart, conveyed to the solitary house of Cumnor Hall, in Berkshire, inhabited by Anthony Forster, his servant. This same Forster, in compliance with what he well’ knew to be the Earl’s wishes, came with others in the dead of night to the lady’s bedchamber and stifled her in bed, and flung her downstairs, thereby believing the world would have thought it a mischance, and so blinded their villainy; and the morning after, with the purpose that others should know of her end, did Forster, on pretence of carrying out some behest of the Countess, bring a servant to the spot where the poor lady’s body lay at the foot of the stairs.’ The picture was purchased for £1000 by the Trustees of the Chantrey Bequest, by whose kind permission it is here reproduced. ge Miu Amy Robsart ( Yeames). ISRAEL IN EGYPT By Srr Epwarp J. Poynter, P.R.A. HEN this painting hung on the walls of the Royal Academy in 1867 it took the cultured public by storm. So new a version of an ancient theme, read in the light of modern Egyptology, made the story of the Captivity of the Jews appeal with the force of a recently discovered fact. Now, when every painter of Biblical subjects exhausts himself in efforts to be archzologically accurate, it seems less surprising; but that it was by way of being a revelation in the sixties is a matter of history. As acomposition the picture is at once scholarly and original; two qualities which are infrequent in the same work. Technically it might not satisfy a ‘yearnest’ art-student to-day; but of its kind it is admirable. In Sir Edward Poynter’s later work the scholastic side has been more and more pronounced; and the freshness which marked his earlier experiments has been replaced by a certain obedience to precedence which we call ‘ academic.’ That it is befitting for the President of the Royal Academy to be notably ‘academic’ is obvious enough. Such an one must needs put aside his longing and forgo his proper dowry— ‘Once and only once, and for once only So to be the man and leave the artist, Gain the man’s joy, miss the artist’s sorrow.’ And if it follow that, as a rule, only official applause is bestowed upon official achievement, it is but following the universal order of things mundane. The painting is reproduced here by permission of the Autotype Company, London, W.C, 256 *(aagudog) IPhEY 112 7avLST ee THE CATAPULT ‘By Str Epwarp J. Poynter, P.R.A. aZtasHIS painting (exhibited in 1868), like ‘Israel in Egypt,’ which (S axe) followed it, showed an old subject made new by its re-presenta- UGS Je? tion in the light of improved knowledge of ancient customs. It SUITING revealed also a distinctly dramatic power in composition and.a gift of expressing a story so vividly, that it immediately became a favourite, and still remains one of the P.R.A.’s best-known pictures. It represents an incident in the siege of Carthage, as the inscription on one of the uprights of the catapult goes to show, and (also like ‘ Israel in Egypt’) exhibits much ingenuity in mastering the details of primitive methods of engineering. Still earlier in date was the picture of the Roman sentinel dying at. his post, entitled ‘Faithful unto Death’ (1865). Later came four large decorative panels for Lord Wharncliffe’s house :—‘ Perseus and Andromeda’ (1872), ‘The Dragon of Wantley’ (1873), ‘Atalanta’s Race’ (1876), and ‘Nausicaa and her Maidens playing at Ball’ (1879). Other important works are ‘The Festival’ and the ‘Golden Age’ (both 1874), ‘The Fortune-Teller’ (1875, now in the Diploma Gallery at Burlington House), ‘At the Temple Steps,’ ‘The Ides of March’ (1883), ‘Diadumené’ (1885, a picture twice painted, to embody the canons of. proportion for a female figure as the Greeks established them), and ‘A Visit to “&sculapius’ (1880), which is a Chantrey purchase, and now at the Tate Gallery. In recent years Sir Edward Poynter, P.R.A., has almost forsaken historic subjects in favour of semi-decorative arrangements with less anecdotal interest. ‘The Catapult’ is the property of Sir J. W. Pease, of Hutton Hall, by whose permission it is here reproduced. The Catapult (Poynter). THE LEGEND OF THE MARTYRS WELL By Grorce H. Boucurton, k.a. RHIS picture, although at first sight not quite so characteristic of Mr. Boughton as some of his New England or Dutch subjects, could hardly be mistaken for the work of any other painter. Especially is the quiet beauty of the kneeling maiden marked by the peculiar sweetness of which Mr. Boughton has the secret. ‘The Legend of the Martyr’s Blood’ was told to the artist by an old Breton peasant. It is a story of a well that changed colour on the anniversary of the death of the local saint, who was slain near by it. The water at such times became ruddy in colour; and the vision of the saint herself was seen for the first time by a simple village maiden who went at early dawn to fetch the daybreak crvuche of water. This legend, which Mr. Boughton heard years ago, and had forgotten, came back to him one day, as he says, as a vision, where he saw in fancy not’only the saint herself, but the figure of the maiden to whom she was first revealed. For this artist never hunts for subjects, but paints only those which form themselves pictorially in his imagination, exactly as he after- wards puts them on to the canvas. The painting was shown at the Royal Academy in 1893. 260 Lhe Martyr's Well (Boughton). Yj Yj, ON THE WAY TO THE TEMPLE By Laurence Artma-TapEMa, R.A. CZAZE SHE art of Mr. Alma-Tadema is an art of its own. On the one hand he gives you literal imitation of textures and substances. carried to a pitch of microscopic exactitude ;.on the other, with vividly dramatic power, a re-creation, as in tableaux vivants of the domestic life of classic times. This he does, not in a dry-as-dust way, but with modern refinements of etiquette and culture that may or may not be anachronisms, but certainly help to revivify the past. That his way is impressive and easily understood by people as ignorant of classic lore as are the majority of to-day, may be granted ; but that he has added a new realm to pictorial art is also true. He has made the people in the nineteenth century realise that human beings swayed by the same commonplace emotions inhabited Rome and Athens. The follies and foibles which move us to-day moved them also. That he finds it more effective to present a reflection of the nineteenth century robed in antique garb is a matter about which two opinions are possible, but not worth very serious discussion. His indomitable power of taking infinite pains, and his grasp of archeological accuracy, are allowed on all hands; but that at times he has revealed in peeps of distant landscapes, and in the contrast of sunshine and shadow, as keen an observation of nature, is not perhaps as widely recognised as it should be. While investigating with curiosity his marvellously realistic detail, one is apt to forget that here and there are transcripts of sea and sunshine equally wonderful in their way. To compare him with painters who seek completely different aspects of the beauty of the universe would be foolish, He is himself, and no painter ever remained more true to the ideal he has championed. We may like it—or dislike it; but that he has achieved all that he set out to attempt, almost any single picture will suffice to prove. This painting is the artist’s diploma work, and is here reproduced by the kind permission of the Royal Academy, to whom it belongs. 262 SSS GQ SS Tadema). The Way to the Temple (Alma ‘HO! HO! OLD NOLL’ By Joun Pertir, R.A. HIS painting might serve as an object-lesson in the value of blank spaces. As a technical triumph in gewve it confutes another popular fallacy, viz. that you must see the eyes of at least one of the actors before you are humanly interested. Here the faces. are averted, the attitudes of the three figures are in repose, and yet the dramatic moment of the trivial incident is the more effective because of all this reticence. A young cavalier has scratched a rude caricature of Cromwell upon a bare wall. He is writing ‘Ho! ho! Old Noll’ beneath it. No description can add to the artist's own version of the anecdote. One may say that so trifling a theme was not worth painting. It certainly would not have been in the old-fashioned way, when every aspect of the very small joke was laboriously insisted upon. We can imagine how a painter of an earlier day would have made every actor in the group help to drive the point home—the grim Puritan offended, the laughing maid bashfully amused, the man of. the world roaring his applause, the cavalier servants boisterously delighted, and possibly even the Puritan’s dog, with an air of fine scorn, showing his contempt for the behaviour of men. Done in this way, it would have been at most a somewhat tedious zen desprit. But, handled as it is here, it is a fine study of costume and of lighting—a well-filled panel, with most admirable balance of masses, a brilliant example of a small thing achieved so well that it takes its place as a work of lasting value. The painting has been exhibited at the Royal Academy, and is now the property of Mr. W. J. Chrystal, of Calderwood Castle, Blantyre, who kindly consents to its reproduction here. 264 *(2281@d) 1U°N PIO 1 °H i CH: Beate THE KING DRINKS By Briton KRiviexr, R.A. N animal painter who more often elects to let his animals play a secondary part in the incidents he depicts, yet at times Mr. Briton Riviere throws the burden of the sentiment entirely on their shoulders. As, for instance, in this, ‘The King Drinks’ (1881), or in a picture of two lions (1878), illustrating Omar Khayyam’s couplet: ‘They say the lion and the lizard keep the courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep.’ More often he chooses some classical subject where animals play an important part; as, for example: ‘Circe’ (1871), ‘ Apollo and the flocks of Admetus’ (1874), ‘Pallas Athena and the Swineherd’s Dogs’ (1876), ‘Endymion’ (1880), ‘A Roman Holiday: the Arena’ (1881), ‘Acteon’ (1884), ‘The Dead Hector’ (1892), ‘ Ganymede’ (1897), ‘ Phoebus Apollo’ (1895): or even a Biblical scena; as for instance ‘ Daniel’ (1872), and ‘The Miracle of the [Gadarean] Swine’ (1883). At other times he takes a modern subject: ‘ The Last Spoonful,’ a child feeding dogs (1880); ‘Let Sleeping Dogs Lie’ (1881); ‘Giants at Play,’ navvies with a puppy (1883) ; ‘The Sheepstealers’ (1885); ‘ Jilted,’ a huntsman with his pet dog (1887). More rarely he has chosen groups of animals wherein certain humour or pathos is suggested by the incident; as ‘The Last of the Garrison,’ a wounded hound (1875) ; ‘A Stern Chase is always a Long Chase,’ ducks in the water (1876); ‘An Anxious Moment,’ geese alarmed by an old hat (1878). Pathetic figures, where the sympathies of an animal and his master supply the motive, include ‘War Time, a shepherd holding a paper containing the news of the death of his son (1895); ‘Lazarus,’ with dogs licking him (1877); ‘A Legend of St. Patrick’ (1877); ‘In manus tuas—Domine,’ a knight entering a cavern surrounded by frightened dogs (1879); ‘Old Playfellows,’ a dying child with a collie (1883); ‘ The Eve of St. Bartholomew’ (1884); ‘Requiescat,’ a dog watching by a dead knight in arms (1888); ‘Rus in Urbe,’ a tired young rustic homeless in London with his dog (1890); and others too numerous to describe. In all, the animals are well painted, with less of the sentimentality that Sir Edward Landseer was apt to infuse into his models. The work was the artist's diploma picture deposited after his election in 1882, and is here reproduced by permission of the President and Council of the Royal Academy. 266 (acataty) syne” Suzy 3y. S&S SSS SIG THE OLD GATE By Frepertck Wacker, A.R.A. HE subject of this painting was suggested to the artist by Halsway Court, Crowcombe, a fine old manor-house (since much altered), where he stayed while working on ‘The Plough,’ ‘Mushroom Gatherers,’ and ‘The Right of Way.’ ‘The Old Gate’ was shown at the Royal Academy of 1869. Of it Tom Taylor wrote at the time: ‘The first thing which strikes one in it is the power of arresting attention, and the art it shows, not of telling a story, which is common enough, but of setting those who study it to make a story for themselves, which is far rarer.’ It is indeed a picture which suggests a story, but it is one that each spectator had better make for himself; therefore it would be a mere waste of words to comment upon the actors or the scene in which they are placed. The. painting is the property of Mr. A. E. Street, Campden Hill, by whose kind permission it is here reproduced. ‘(.cayt044) 2105 210 PYL ee LO THE BATHERS By Freperick WALKER, A.R.A. BOO) O2=E2 HIS is in many respects the most important picture of a painter whose comparatively few works affected the course of British art for many years after. Although exhibited in the Royal Academy of 1867, it was much worked upon later, even when in 1869 it had passed into the Graham collection. From the time it first appeared until to-day, it has been a universal favourite, although, perhaps, like other of the artist’s works, it has not escaped overpraise. For instance, one critic has written: ‘The composition from one end to the other is complete and altogether excellent, even if measured by the highest standard of excellence we know-—‘“ The Sculptures of Phidias”’; and another says that ‘no painter in England has ever produced a picture more worthy of immortality.’ It is interesting to compare the ideal of this painting with another (repro- duced in this work) not dissimilar in motz/, a quarter of a century later, ‘A Summer's Day,’ by William Stott. In the first the figures are all artificially posed to mimic the elegance of Greek sculpture; in the other, sheer naturalism prevails. Yet however taste may alter, there is no doubt that Walker’s ‘ Bathers’ will remain an honoured example of the idyllic style he and George Mason did so much to establish ; a school where the grace of untrained nature was replaced by a grace possibly uncharacteristic of Britons, yet true to nature all the same. The scene was partly painted near Hurley, but from Walker’s letters it seems that he com- posed the landscape from several different sources. The painting, now the property of Sir Cuthbert Quilter, M.P., is here reproduced by his kind permission, and that of Messrs. Agnew, London. 270 ‘(womans ) svaypog SUMMER NIGHT By Arpert Moore 8 AMSELS, unimpassioned, statuesque, with clinging draperies, set against fabrics, or walls covered with low-relief patterns, in varying arrangements of colour, always harmonious and at times exquisite—these supply the themes of all this artist's most characteristic pieces of decoration. Pictures in the ordinary sense they are not; they tell no story, they grapple with no problem of light or atmosphere; but as schemes of colour (often constructed from an analysis of the flower that entitles them) they occupy a position at once unique and unassailable. The picture here reproduced seems, when compared with certain others, almost dramatic. Yet it is its colour which distinguishes it, although, as our reproduction shows, its composition is graceful, and its sentiment restful. It would appear as if Albert Moore had never wearied of the three Fates of the Parthenon frieze, and rearranged them, now singly, now grouped, with faint, added tints such as a modern sculptor who experiments with colour loves to apply to his marble. The harmonies he sought were those of soft Liberty fabrics, the seed-vessels of the plant Honesty, or the iridescence of a sea-shell. At times, as in ‘Midsummer,’ he essayed problems of fuller colour; but for the most part his darkest shadows were as bright in key as the ‘high lights’ of many older painters. A certain flatness of effect and a pattern of beautiful lines, with a surface devoid of gloss—these are the more obvious features of his work; but they show also a real mastery of delicate colour, with peculiar sensitiveness for its place as pure decoration also. It is these latter qualities which establish his position as a unique painter who had no prototype and has left no disciple. 272 (By Permission of the Corporation of Ltverpool.) Summer Night (Albert Moore). PILCHARDS By Cuartres Napier Hemy, a.Rr.a. SSHIS painting, purchased by the Chantrey Bequest Trustees in 1897, preceded by a few months Mr. Napier Hemy’s election as Associate of the Royal Academy, to which he had been a constant exhibiter for a long time past. For many years a resident in Cornwall, the scene he here depicts must have been familiar to _ the artist, and he has painted it as one who knew it well. The net full of silvery fish makes a fine centre to a composition well disposed, yet obeying, without any obvious artificiality, the canons of art. It is one of the most typical Cornish pictures, and may be compared instructively with an earlier work by Mr. Stanhope Forbes, ‘A Cornish Fish Sale’ (reproduced by photogravure in Vol. tv.). In entirely different methods the two artists, both living among the fisher-folk, have given us two scenes from their ordinary life. Devoid of anecdote or sentiment, they each interest as a direct transcript of sober truth, rendered in a painterlike way ; this with less evident attention to the ideals of the ‘plein air’ school, the other the first and most notable English effort to naturalise its aims. Among Mr. Napier Hemy’s pictures during the last twenty-five years, the following were shown at the Royal Academy :—‘The Tyne—After Rain’ (1875), ‘The Mill in the Flood’ (1876), ‘Red Autumn’ (1876), ‘The Fisherman's Wooing’ (1877), ‘A Nautical Argument’ (1877), ‘Vespers’ (1879), ‘The Seine Fishers’ (1879), ‘De Profundis’ (1879), ‘The Nancy Lee’ (1879), ‘The Calvary’ (1879), ‘Home Again’ (1880), “With Wind and Tide’ (1880), ‘The Evening Glow’ (1880), ‘The Lobster Boat’ (1881), ‘The Nancy Lee,’ second version (1882), ‘Oyster Dredgers’ (1883), ‘The Smelt Net’ (1887), ‘Three Fishers’ (1889), ‘The Rescue’ (1890), ‘The Morning Light’ (1891), ‘The Trammel Net’ (1892), ‘Home Moorings’ (1891), ‘A Fisherman’s Sweetheart’ (1895), ‘Our Boat’ (1896), ‘Through Air and Sea, through Sand and Spray’ (1896), ‘ Lost’ (1897). ‘Pilchards’ is now in the Tate Gallery, whence it is reproduced by kind permission of the Trustees of the Chantrey Bequest. to NI aps ‘( a Crazy) 5} Me (DY: UL SORE. AN AUDIENCE AT ATHENS By Srr Wititam B. Ricumonp, R.A. HIS painting represents ‘An Audience at Athens during the representation of Agamemnon, the first play of the Oresteian trilogy by Afschylus. Although the story of the play need not be recapitulated here, it may be as well to explain that the artist has seized the moment when Clytemnestra is describing the murder of her husband on his return from Troy, whence, hear- ing of her infidelity, he had come back for his revenge ; a fate she prevented by stabbing him as he left his bath, or, as some accounts have it, at the feast in celebration of his home-coming. Clytemnestra is supposed to be saying— ‘Him twice I smote—twice groaning prone he fell With limbs relaxed ; then, prostrate when he lay, Him with third blow I dowered, votive gift To Hades, guardian of the dead below; Then as he fell he chased his soul away.’} The painting is at Birmingham, in the Municipal Collection, to which it was presented by the Trustees of the Public Picture-Gallery Fund. It is here given by the artist's permission. | Aeschylus, translated by Anna Swanwick. (Bell and Sons.) 276 “(puomyy) suayz pf 10 a2u2tpRy UP < . ~ = EDWARD II. AND PIERS GAVESTON By Marcus STONE, R.A. O the general public Mr. Marcus Stone is chiefly recognised as a painter of lovers seated on green wooden benches beneath shady trees. Here we have an example of his earlier historic subjects, of which the more important are perhaps the ‘Road from Waterloo,’ ‘The Princess Elizabeth obliged to attend Mass,’ ‘Henry vir. and Anne Boleyn,’ ‘ Le Roi est mort—Vive le Roi!’ ‘Watt discovering the Condensation of Steam.’ Of ‘Edward II. and Piers Gaveston’ (painted in 1872), a critic has said recently: ‘He is in this picture no mean chronicler . . . what he has given us is a piece of psychology, an expression of the influence gained: by an unscrupulous schemer over a weaker nature. There is undeniable cleverness in the juxtaposition of the grave and reverend counsellors, oppressed with the cares of the State, with the two tittering and whispering youths, whose folly seems to shock even that licensed buffoon, the jester dwarf.’! Although no scene in Christopher Marlowe’s tragedy supplies the actual incident of the picture, it is evidently inspired by the play, and picks up the threads of the Queen’s jealousy, the hatred of the English nobles to the French minion exalted to be the King’s favourite, and the folly of the infatuated monarch. The picture is here reproduced by permission of the artist and Messrs. J. S. Virtue and Co., the owners of the copyright. 1 The Art Annual (1896). ‘Marcus Stone, R.A.,’ by A. Lys Baldry, 273 Edward 1, and Piers Gaveston (Alarcus Stone). AN AUTOD AE E By W. S. Burron XF all artists whose early promise led the world to expect much, few have enjoyed less recognition than the painter of this picture, who exhibited in the Royal Academy of 1897, and is still actively at work. His ‘Cavalier and Puritan,’ shown in the Royal Academy of 1856, and again at the Guildhall in 1897, would alone entitle him to a place in a representative selection of Victorian Art. The present picture is not entirely a representative example ; but for reasons needless to repeat here, it was the only one available. Its subject is so evident, that it would be a waste of space to describe again the horrors which the very title recalls. In whatever form it may be manifested, religious intolerance is an unpleasant theme for art, but so long as virgin martyrs arouse sympathy-one is not justified in expecting they will cease to be attractive to painters; yet the pathos of the theme is in danger of being sacrificed to a certain prettiness, and because the painter here has not quite escaped the danger, one wishes he could have been represented by a sturdier example. That his fame is well secured by work already done, and that his name is comparatively unfamiliar, is only one more proof that to-day, keen as we all imagine ourselves to be in looking out for neglected talent, it often comes under our very eyes at exhibi- tions, without being adequately appreciated. It may be that some of the painter’s later works are not in the Pre-Raphaelite realistic manner which makes his ‘Cavalier’ notable. As they are dispersed and beyond access, the part of praising them must be left to others. But unless the one picture we know well is a misleading sample, Mr. Burton is a painter of singular power who ought not to remain inadequately recognised. 280 willy etre ccna OT OT pret IO AIA An Auto-da- Fé (Burton). THE CASUALS By Luxe Fives, R.A. Herkomer’s ‘Chelsea Pensioners’), first saw daylight in the pages of the Graphic. Indeed, as a full-page of its first number (4th December 1869), it did no little to establish the artistic standing of that still flourishing weekly, and at the same time clinched the reputation of the draughtsman, to whom Dickens had allotted the illustration of “dw72 Drood, his last and unfinished novel. The painting differs but slightly in its composition from the Graphic version. The space is extended to the left, where the policeman adopts a different pose ; the girl at the widow’s side replaces a shivering urchin, and the boy with his hands in. his pockets, who is now in the front of the figure to the right. Otherwise the painting is a direct transcript from the drawing. ‘Applicants for Admission to a Casual Ward’ is its official title now; ‘Houseless and Hungry’ was the legend beneath the Graphic print; and the difference in its treatment is little more important than is the change in its name. Exhibited at the Royal Academy of 1874, it showed the painter for the first time in a sombre mood. In ‘The Widower’ (1876), and ‘The Doctor’ (1891), he again returned to the tragic side of everyday life, which has not attracted him so often as the picturesque and idealised groups of Venetian peasants, who in his hands appear as types of Italian beauty. Of late he has devoted himself chiefly to portraiture. The painting, sold for two thousand guineas at Christie's in 1883, was purchased for the Royal Holloway College, whence it has been reproduced by permission of the Governors, 282 Lhe Casuals (Fildes), THE FATE OF PERSEPHONE By Watter CraNe HE Fate of Persephone’ was first shown at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1878, where its title was accompanied by the following quotation from Paradise Lost (Book tv.) :— ‘That fair field Of Enna, where Proserpine, gathering flowers, Herself a fairer flower, by gloomy Dis Was gathered.’ ‘ The artist communicates the following as to the intention of the picture, which has been to dwell rather on the symbolical aspect of the myth. Persephone, embodying the genius of Spring—the new budding fairness of life—overshadowed by Winter, dimly anticipates her destiny, as Aidoneus, half lover and half fiend, inexorable as Time and Death, with his horses of darkness, rises from the chasm in the earth to bear her away to his shadowy home, whence only she returns to the world in her season. This recurrence is suggested by the design of the wheel of the chariot, in which the figures of the four seasons revolve. Across the chasm grows a little flowering tree of pomegranate, the fruit of which, tasted by Per- sephone, sealed her fate in Hades; and at her feet, and in her basket, is the fateful narcissus, by which she was ensnared. Her attendant maidens, as more human and mortal, are frightened and surprised at the sight of the terrible horses that trample the flowers in the “fair field of Enna.” A sudden cloud overshadows the spring landscape, and a wind blights the blossoms with its chilly breath, ‘ruffling up the edges of the sea.” Etna flames above the awestruck city, and on the edge of the chasm far off a little grieving figure stands for the sorrow of Demeter.’? In the scheme of this picture the horses are black, and the prevailing colours are yellow, orange, and brown in the draperies; with white flowers, and blue in the hills in the distance. The picture is here reproduced by kind permission of the artist. ? Grosvenor Notes, ed. by Henry Blackburn, 1878. 284 *(auvay) auoyfas4ay NEWGATE By Franx Hott, pa. EWGATE:: Committed for Trial,’ was painted in 1878. The following description is from a letter by the artist: ‘The scene is that part of Newgate Prison called ‘“‘ The Cage,” wherein prisoners are permitted at stated times to see their friends. There are two parallel gratings between which a warder walks, so that the _ prisoner and his friends are parted by some distance. The warder thus sees and hears all that passes between them.’ In the same letter the artist goes on to speak of the terrible impression left by the scenes he witnessed. ‘ Prisoners for all sorts of crimes were there—the lowest brutal criminal, swindlers, forgers, and boy-thieves, all caged together, awaiting the result of their separate trials; and in one or two cases the misery of their friends on seeing them in their helpless condition fell but lightly on their brains dulled by crime.’ Frank Holl, who died when he was but forty-three, was often attracted by strongly dramatic incidents, which, in his hands, usually escape the charge of being melodramatic by the simplicity and force of their rendering. The bare titles of ‘No Tidings from the Sea’ (1871), ‘The Village Funeral’ (1872), ‘ Deserted’ (1873), ‘ Widowed’ (1879), ‘Absconded’ (1879), will suggest the subjects he wrought in this mood. Even his portraits, which have considerable distinction, are not wholly free from a certain solemnity of treatment. The painting, exhibited at the Royal Academy of 1878, was bought at Christie’s in May 1882 for £808, 10s. for the Royal Holloway College, whence it is here reproduced by kind permission of the Governors, 286 ty Wewgate (fol), GAME TO THE LAST By Lastett J. Port HIS picture tells its story so clearly that further description would be wasted. Thereby it proves an excellent sample of the work of a painter peculiarly skilful in arranging his figures so that the incident depicted rarely requires an explanatory note added to its title. Nor need his technique detain us ; it is academic, but accom- plished in its-way. He does not set out to provide ‘colour’ as-a modern artist understands it, nor attempts to solve the mysteries of atmosphere and light. They are, frankly, costume-pictures painted from the model, and so good of their kind that they need not be compared to their disadvantage with other work conceived and wrought in entirely different vein. The picture which offers a humorous or pathetic scene appeals successfully to the larger public unconcerned with technicalities of art ; and despite the hatred of the ultra-modern school for the ‘subject-picture,’ those who like it are amply justified, and fortunate when their taste — is so worthily catered for as in Mr. Laslett Pott’s hands. The artist has been re- presented at the Academy (usually by a single picture) for many years past. Asa rule he chooses semi-historical themes—that is to say, themes drawn from anecdote, ~ or pure fiction, rather than from more serious sources. Yet with ‘Paris, 1793’ (1874); ‘ Dismissal of Cardinal Wolsey’ (1874) ; ‘Trial of Queen Katherine’ (1880); ‘The Retreat from Moscow,’ and a few others, he has sometimes attacked the historical picture proper. The titles of the most important of his pictures shown at the Royal Academy during the last twenty years will suggest his wide variety of theme, and his peculiar knack of discovering ‘ taking’ subjects :—‘ Don Quixote at the Ball’ (1875) ; ‘His Highness in Disgrace’ (1876); ‘ Fallen among Thieves’ (1878); ‘Catherine Douglas barring the Door with her Arm’ (1879) ;‘ Before Naseby, ’ playing at chess (1881); ‘The Court Favourite’ (1882); ‘The Ruling Passion,’ [cockfighting] (1883) ; ‘ Disinherited’ (1884) ; ‘ Priscilla’ (1885) ; ‘ News ofa Victory (1887) ;‘ Allis Vanity,’ [Queen Elizabeth dancing to trick ‘the Scottish ambassadors into believing she had taken a new lease of life] (1888); ‘Maria Theresa’ (1890); ‘The Jester’s Story’ (891); ‘Napoleon’s Farewell to Josephine’ (1892); Signing the First Death Warrant’ (1893) ; ‘Sanctuary’ (1894); ‘The King’s Toilet’ (1895); and ‘18 June, 1815’ (1897). The_ painting, here reproduced by kind permission of the artist and of the owner, Wm. Baldwin, Esq., was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1893. 288 ). Game to the Last (Pott TALE, Gi f iit BEHIND ME By Ranpotpn CaLpEcottT ®N the Manchester Catalogue the official description of this picture runs :— ‘A soldier in uniform of the time of our grandfathers is just about to mount his horse to ride off; but he raises his hand to the young girl who is leaving the garden gate, supported by her parents. She casts a last look at the handsome trooper ; but it is a look of misgiving as well as affection. The accessories in this picture are of an English pastoral kind—peaceful, and full of sunlight.’ The claim of this artist to be included among the master painters of Britain would be slender enough if such claim were based on his oil or water-colour pictures. But Caldecott, the illustrator of the famous coloured picture-books that bear his name, of O/d Christmas and Bracebridge Flal/, the founder of a certain half-humorous, half-sentimental treatment of costume subjects in ‘black and white,’ is essentially one of the memorable designers of the nineteenth century. The picture here reproduced is in the Manchester Art Gallery, a little panel only eight and a half by eleven and three-quarter inches : possibly, had not its painter been a Manchester man, it would not have been purchased by the Corporation for their collection, for on its own merits, as a picture, it has no intrinsic importance. But as a memorial of one who gave many happy hours to children of all ages, and who was in his o.n domain a great artist, it is pleasant to include the work in company of far more important painters, to whom picture- lovers owe not one-hundredth part of the delight Caldecott gave them. The painting is reproduced by permission of the Corporation of Manchester. 290 SSL NS SOK SS < : APNE > WS S SY RRA \\ ‘ . WQS Millie CLES (ie + ihe heb Lipsisiietialil pili Lhe SLE ALLY RELELL sale (2702010) 27 PUrye” UOT T 142d YL. INTRODUCTORY—FOURTH PERIOD. TENS, C<2Z% 280 accompany this, the last volume of Zhe Master Painters of e G ay) Britain (consisting as it does of the work of living men), with ] a JME? an estimate of their relative importance would be both impolitic. STNG and impolite. The art of to-day is too much influenced by impulses of the moment to allow it to be contrasted judicially with that of earlier periods. Yet, without taking rose-colour views of modern effort, it seems to be a time of singular interest—a quarter of a century that will leave its mark indelibly, not on British painting alone, but also to some extent on the art of the world. For the moment it may appear that eclecticism is rampant; and possibly that, in abandoning prejudices, principles have often been discarded as well. Yet the cosmopolitan influences, which affect the majority outside the Academy, as well as not a few within, are hardly likely to destroy any precedents worth keeping. Already a return to first principles of sobriety and formality, not of red-tape but of well-established rule, is apparent. Experiment that is only experiment soon ceases to attract, yet the essential qualities of Art are never so rigid that they cannot be expressed in new manners. It was good that insular satisfaction with dead formule should be disturbed; but it is also good to find the rabid seeker after any novelty, however extravagant, returning to the National Gallery, and humbly owning that the old men knew nearly all that he thought was modern discovery, and that the little which is true and also new is not in opposition to the canons they obeyed. Still less can we prophesy which of the forces at work to-day will mould the future of British painting. As of old, it will probably be at times severely local, at others cosmopolitan; but never again, one believes, so insular as in the mid-Victorian period, when the autocracy of the spurious old master had indeed been upset, just before the abiding power of great masters, old and new, had been also set aside in the quest after mere novelty. Yet at the close of the nineteenth century who shall say which of its later products the twenty-first century will prize as its heritage? Therefore it were best neither to look forward nor back, but to limit our consideration here to the period represented, and to endeavour to pick out only those features which made their first appearance in British Art during the last quarter of a century. We find that this eclecticism is a recent growth which has developed to its full 2094 MASTER PAINTERS OF BRITAIN extent since the opening of the Grosvenor Gallery in 1877. At that date Sir Edward Burne-Jones was known but to a few. The Pre-Raphaelite legend had been lost for a while. Mr. Whistler was not even a by-word to the British public, much less a hero. Professor Legros had not obtained wide recognition, although as head of the Slade School he exerted an influence for good upon many younger men. Mr. Walter Crane was known almost ‘entirely by his picture-books, and Albert Moore was comparatively a new force in Art. In the Grosvenor Gallery, not only were these and others introduced to the public for almost the first time, but hanging was undertaken on new principles—the work of each painter being grouped together, and plenty of wall surface left between the frames. Now that so many chances of showing their works are open to the men who reject Academic tradition, it is difficult to realise that in style, subject, even in framing and mechanical details, fossilised traditions were practically supreme less than a quarter of a century ago. Rival Societies were as fearful of novelty as the Academy itself, and the standard of British Art had become almost a parochial matter. Of course there were fine painters inside the Academy then, as before. But no one who experimented, or chose unpopular styles wherein to work, stood much chance of being admitted to any of the recognised exhibitions of the time. Hence the importance and far-reaching effect of Sir Coutts Lindsay’s scheme. After the bulk of the artists supporting the Grosvenor succeeded to the New Gallery in 1888, it lost its peculiar prestige, and soon after ceased even to be a picture- gallery. But meanwhile (in 1885) the New English Art Club had been founded, and won itself a reputation amongst younger men no less quickly than it attracted the scorn of older painters and critics. About the date of the opening of the Grosvenor Gallery another great factor com2s into play—one that has already affected the art of painting in England far more than people imagine—photography. Hitherto picture exhibitions rarely provided illustrated catalogues. From 1875 the Academy Notes of Mr. Henry Blackburn set a fashion carried to excess to-day. Att first such illustrations were drawings by the artist, reproduced by process; now it is a photograph from the picture itself which is thus reproduced. The indirect effect on painters as well as on the public of these semi-mechanical records of an exhibition has not yet been estimated; yet it is not slight, especially as the advance in these processes has made it possible for journalism to illustrate the current shows far more lavishly than had been dreamed of before. In old days the average visitor had to trust to pencilled notes on his catalogue margin for any after aid to memory, and by written description only was able to gain impressions of a gallery he had not visited. At the present time he can form a very fair opinion of the average show from its illustrated catalogue, and from the reproductions, good, bad, and _ indifferent— veproductio ad absurdum—which flood our papers during the month of May each year. FOURTH PERIOD. 295 But here we face a curious fact. Now that immediate illustration of pictures has become the ordinary routine, the very men in whose hands lies the future of British Art produce paintings which are singularly ineffective in reproduction. This fact has been touched upon in a previous volume, but it must be reiterated to explain the absence of many examples from this book, some infinitely more important than those’ illustrated. It would seem that the distinction between popular pictures, and paintings beloved by painters, is likely to be more clearly defined in the future; and possibly that apparently unimportant factor—the illustrated catalogue—may play its part in such a result. It must be that the general public regard the painting they see reproduced everywhere as more im- portant than those not illustrated; nevertheless one fancies that the pictures best worth looking for in shows of the future may turn out to be those which are not suitable for reproduction by the ordinary half-tone process, which is alone possible for printing with type. This, however, is a side issue; here we are concerned, as before, with the record of a certain time, and the chief difficulty is to pick out a few of its most characteristic departures from accepted precedent. Mr. R. A. M. Stevenson, in a notice of the Royal Institute of Painters in Oil Colours, 1898, wrote: ‘There has been no really new revelation of nature since Monet, Duran, Whistler, Degas, and some others sought to find a style for impressionism, and ransacked the works of the Italians, the Japanese, the Barbizon, and Norwich Schools, no less than those of nature, that they might learn to express their feelings with art. The men who followed them have often been sincere and original, inasmuch as they belonged to the general movement no less than the actual initiators of this new cult of style.’ If we take this passage (which was never meant to be isolated) as our text, we find that, except Mr. Whistler, every name is French. This will lead us to expect that the eclecticism of to-day may be traced wholly to France. A statement true to a large extent, but one that must needs be carried back (at all events so far as landscape is concerned) again to England and to Constable, who was the original force that started the French modern school of landscape. If, however, we do not exclude the so-called Decorative School— English in its development, however based on early Italian models—we find that, side by side with a new revelation of nature, has progressed a new revelation of artifice not directly related to nature, which for the moment has become the fashion all over the Continent, as well as in England, where it arose. The so-called ‘Greenery-Yallery craze’—known also as the Aésthetic movement—which set it afoot, also brings us back again to England, and to our starting-place in the Grosvenor Gallery, where we find two great divisions, into which all non-Academic work may be divided. The first of these—whether in the hands of Mr. Whistler or of the men of Barbizon—directly related to nature, with branches equally related to nature, sometimes more to nature as seen in a camera-obscura than through an artist’s temperament ; this includes the Newlyn, the Glasgow, and the New English 296 MASTER PAINTERS OF BRITAIN Schools, all differing widely in their expression, but all starting from the same premises. The second class, springing mainly from Rossetti by way of Sir Edward Burne-Jones, diverges from the direct line, on the one hand, to that of Mr. J. W. Waterhouse and a group of younger men, and, on the other, to archaic decorative or purely allegoric work, which finds in Mrs. Adrian Stokes, Mr. T. C, Gotch, and others, and especially in book illustration, a manner of its own. If from the Grosvenor and the New Gallery we seek the New English Art Club, we find that at first relation to nature was insisted upon as the one verity. ‘ Tone,’ ‘value,’ and ‘atmosphere’ were held vital, and technique and treatment the only qualities worth praise ; subject was discarded, anecdotes from draped lay-figures or hired models held beneath contempt, and the Pre-Raphaelite legend as little respected as in the Academy itself. There Claude Monet, with his problem of vibrating colour, Edward Manet, Degas—in fact all the best of the French impres- sionists and their allies—found disciples, and in a few cases one might add rivals, in kind if not in degree. Coincidently with these societies various prominent outsiders held one-man shows, and helped still more to educate the public to believe that art was no longer the property of one institution. The Painter-Etchers became an important body ; English painters of the younger school contributed largely to the Paris Salons, and thus obtained official recognition outside the fold of Burlington House; in 1883, La Société des Impressionists, Degas, Manet, Renoir, Monet, Sisley, Pissaro, Boudin, Cassatt, and others, shocked demure lovers of British Art when they first exhibited at the old Dowdeswell Galleries; the work of Mr. Sargent and a group of brilliant American artists became familiar to Londoners; and the French and Dutch Romanticists, with notable sponsors in the persons of Mr. W. E. Henley and Mr. R. A. M. Stevenson, were more widely known to collectors and students. In 1886 an exhibition in Edinburgh devoted to these latter schools, and one in 1889 at the Dowdeswell Galleries, came as a revelation to untravelled painters and picture-lovers. So many various influences naturally left traces behind them; and thus new aspects of nature, as seen not only through French and Dutch eyes, but by the Japanese, by Mr. Whistler and many others, are at present: strongly felt, if not always fully assimilated, either here or in Paris. So the bewildered seeker after artistic truth to-day finds himself deafened by aoe of advisers, each one insisting on the truth of his own view and the folly of the rest. “ Myself, when young, did eagerly frequent Dector and Saint, and heard great argument About it and about, but evermore Came out at the same door wherein I went,’ wrote Fitzgerald (paraphrasing Omar Khayyam), and the argument of all the conflicting schools will but confuse us to-day, unless the seeker after truth has FOURTH PERIOD. 297 realised first that it has many aspects, and next, that of all these, at most one, or two, are likely to be in accord with his own idea of beauty, sympathetic to his temperament, and satisfying to his taste. As it was, and always will be in art, the two chief doctrines appear diametrically opposed—the one refers all to nature, either to the impression of nature, as seen by normal vision, or with the picture as a picture, its actual choice of colour, and its deliberate selection of certain facts to the exclusion of others. The opposite faction delight in artificial effects only remotely derived from nature, and far more akin to the convention of an old missal painting, or a modern poster. In the first are the Realists, and the so-called Romanticists ; in the second the Decorative men, and those who, taking Old Romance for their theme, find the word that had else described them has been already appropriated. At the present time both these factions have their faithful disciples at Paris and Munich no less than in London. In sheer weariness of novelty, not a few younger men of distinct power are aping the style of Sir Joshua and the old British masters, and of foreigners from Titian to Watteau. Without singling out the work of any painter whose pictures are here illustrated, except so far as it may be a typical example of his school, it will suffice to mention a few instances of the various styles touched upon in this Introduction. Paintings by Mr. Whistler and Sir Edward Burne-Jones have both been illustrated in a previous volume. The Rose, Lily, Carnation, Rose of Mr. John Sargent may be regarded asa most brilliant example of ‘relation to nature.’ Mr. Lavery’s Bridge at Grez shows another and distinct aspect of pure naturalism typical of the School of Glasgow; and the fact that these were exhibited at the Royal Academy proves how much the new influences have penetrated the most guarded citadel. Mr. Arthur Mel- ville represents his strongly individual manner—which has inspired no little of the Glasgow School—and influenced Mr. Brangwyn and many of our younger men. With Mr. Stanhope Forbes’s Fzsk Sale we have a superb example of what has been called, with no hint of depreciation, nature seen in a looking-glass, and marvellously well seen and well painted—a picture entirely representative of the Newlyn School, which ought also to have been represented by a specimen of the work of another of its leaders who worked still earlier in its manner—Mr. Walter Langley. With Mr. J. M. Swan we have animals painted with vivid fidelity; with Mr. La Thangue and Mr. Clausen rustic themes, also absolutely derived from nature direct; Mr. Chevallier Tayler’s interior, Zhe Queen, and Mr. Bramley’s Hopeless Dawn, and many another, all possess a common factor, which is the realistic truth of the thing as seen by normal vision, or though through a camera- obscura, as opposed to things studied close at hand through a microscope, and painted afterwards at the proper distance more by memory of the details previously discovered than by actual sight. Of the New English-Art Club, no typical canvas could be found that would 298 MASTER PAINTERS OF BRITAIN be effective in black and white. Mr. Fred Brown’s Hard Times was actually engraved, but, possibly owing to the fault of the photographer, came out a mere burlesque. Yet the absence of any work by Messrs. Wilson Steer, Walter and Bernard Sickert, Francis Bate, Charles Conder, Rothenstein, Holloway, Brabazon, and many others, must not be left unexplained. Most artists of these modern schools eschew the picture of models accurately attired, and grouped amid appropriate properties, which supplies genre of all classes with ever-popular subjects. Yet genre is by no means extinct, or likely to be; for it has firm hold of the great majority of people, who proclaim that they know nothing about art, but they do know what pictures they like. Such an attitude is more worthy than to dislike the same pictures for no reason except that it is artistic- ally ‘bad form’ to admire them. Since the expert, or at least the practical painter, has replaced the ‘literary ’ critic in notices of galleries, there is a danger lest the uneducated should try to follow his taste without the faintest notion why he regards something as good and something else as not good. That gexre need not be second-rate in any way Mr. W. Q. Orchardson, for one, has proved repeatedly. It is not the subject but its treatment which controls its final destiny. There are people who have never seen nature except distorted by pre- conceived ideas, often as not based on paintings. ‘We learn to love, when first we see them painted, things we had passed a hundred times, nor cared to see,’ is a remarkably accurate interpretation of their attitude; although, read in this context, it has a meaning which Browning did not intend it to convey. The people who look at nature first, can delight in Corot, in Whistler's misty Thames, in Edward Stott’s pastorals, in Henry Moore’s tumbling seas, in Mr. Greiffenhagen’s imaginative figure-subjects, and a dozen other works, linked only by this one quality, fidelity to the appearance of nature. In this way even the most riotous modernity finds excuse for its innovations. Among painters unrepresented here, for lack of space or other reasons, are Messrs. Manuel (whose ‘ Rosherville Gardens’ would be ineffective deprived of its colour), S. H. Simes, Echardt, and others, who have been affected by French illustration ; a group of ardent students of the colour-print of Japan, Mr. Robert Fowler being not wholly apart from them in some of his moods; and yet another little group who revive the mode of Watteau, and many more whose efforts to say something new—even if it be a bit odd, are alike unrepresented herein. All these show that even with a return to veneration of the old masters, which is certainly a distinct note of to-day, there is also evidence that experiment is still active. Meanwhile the orthodox British School, which supplies the majority of works in every exhibition, carries on its legend, now in a dull perfunctory way, and again with sober obedience to truth and beauty, in canvases that may be more prized when the uproar of to-day is over than many of the works which by their clamorous appeal now attract for the moment away from the elder school. FOURTH PERIOD. 299 One thing seems clear beyond dispute, that scholastic, dry-as-dust tradition is dead, and that the whole level of British Art is raised, however few great men may happen to be painting to-day. As a real study of nature is essential to appreciate the modern school of landscape and open-air genve, so a certain study of literature is essential to the enjoyment of the ‘decorative school,’ whether you meet it at its fountain-head, with the real Primitives of Italy, or with the Neo-Primitives of to-day. On the other hand, if anecdote and Jéric-d-drac, the delight of discovering ten thousand un. important details, attract many visitors to galleries, even as some people find more amusement in studying a catalogue of ‘the stores,’ than reading a book of poems or an essay, it is well that such pictures should be produced. But the issue must not be confused ; the pictures that maintain their interest anew to each generation century after century—those and only those have the indefeasible title to be called master- pieces of art. The rest, which gradually lose their hold on people, and become mere ‘curios,’ or are absolutely forgotten, did not cease to be works of art at any period, but were as valueless essentially when all the world applauded and spent lavish gold to purchase them, as now when they are cast into outer darkness, or retained merely as specimens of extinct taste, much as we prize many other objects, not for their art, but for their archzeological interest. My thanks are specially due to the artists and holders of copyrights who have so kindly given the publishers permission to reproduce their work. The selection actually printed differs widely from the ideal list first drawn up. Many circum- stances combined to ke2p certain pictures out; and as the intention has been merely to give fair working samples of the various schools and styles, the level is naturally not sustained. Any picture-lover will find omissions—regrettable, but inevitable,—for while some few of them may be due to oversight, the Jarger number must be traced to lack of space, or the refusal of the owner of the copyrights to accept any reasonable arrangement for their 1eproduction here. G. W. THE LAST SLEEP OF SAVONAROLA By Sir Georce Re, P.R.S.A. HIS dignified and well-painted subject-picture is the only important work of its class by the President of the Royal Scottish Academy, who has devoted his energies chiefly to landscape and portraiture. In it we have a highly dramatic moment repre- sented simply and directly, with no undue sentimentality nor insistence upon its physical horror. Readers of George Eliot's Romola, or of Mrs. Oliphant’s Makers of ‘Florence, will remember only too keenly the story of the great Florentine reformer’s torture and death at the stake. Here is the moment between these terrible hours—the forecast of the final sleep, which shall release the worn-out body. It may be that we require to know the story beforehand to realise all the picture expresses; yet the hooded monk, who seems veritably Death embodied, and the martyr looking already dead, suggest no little of pathos, that is the essence of the incident itself. The most unlettered person could not fail to receive the idea the painter has seized, even if he were unable to derive therefrom all that preceded and followed it. Sir George Reid is notable also as an illustrator, wherein his work for Smiles’ Life of a Scotch Naturalist, The Clyde, Royal Edinburgh, and many another book, has won him a famous place among black and white artists of the day. ‘Peat Gatherers ’ (1869), ‘Jedburgh’ (1876), ‘Whins in Bloom’ (R.A. 1877), ‘Norham’ (1878), ‘ Broadsea,’ ‘ Haarlem,’ ‘ Dornoch,’ ‘ Montrose,’ are the titles of some of his chief landscapes. His portraits are too numerous to mention; they include, besides a galaxy of Scottish celebrities, Sir John Millais, P.R.A., Dr. John Brown (Rad and his Friends), Dr. George MacDonald (Novelist and Poet), and many others of world-wide reputation. The painting is here reproduced by permission of the Aberdeen Art Gallery. 300 (279y) vjo.wvu0a § fo Jeaps psu] ay [ BE san pee A WAR DESPATCH—AT THE ~ HOTEL DE VILLE By Anprew C. Gow, R.a. » LTHOUGH one of the newest recruits to the ranks of the Royal Academy, the career of Mr. La Thangue has been followed with interest by the critics and by the public for years past. A pupil of the Royal Academy Schools, and afterwards of the Ecole Nationale des Beaux Arts, Paris, he combines French technique with British sentiment, and does so, moreover, with individual power and a very personal insight. As a rule problems of light, both artificial and natural, have attracted him more than sentiment or anecdote. The painting here reproduced has more didactic meaning than he usually permits himself. The reference to the ‘Reaper and the Flowers’ is not forced (as indeed it ought not to be), for the man with the scythe is not Death, nor a conscious monitor of the visitor who is to fetch away the sick child, placed outside the cottage door to catch the warm sunset rays. The painter’s purpose is far too much concerned with the beauty of ‘things seen’ to worry about trifles. Here are no lilies with broken stalks, no thousand and one symbols to reiterate its subject ; for its beauty lies not in its sentiment—not in the grace of the sleeping child, nor in the anxious mother’s face,—but in the peaceful effect of a summer evening in the country, with its very atmosphere brought on to the canvas. Mr. H. La Thangue has exhibited among others—‘A Mission to Seamen’ (R.A. 1891), ‘By the Water, ‘A Sussex Peasant,’ ‘After the Gale’ (R.A, 1892), ‘Punch,’ ‘Gathering Wool’ (R.A. 1893), ‘By the Duck-pond,’ ‘Some People,’ ‘ The Blind Girl’ (R.A. 1894), ‘Last Furrow’ and ‘ Cleaning the Orchard’ (R.A. 1895), ‘In a Cottage Garden,’ ‘A Little Holiday, ‘The Man with a Scythe’ (R.A. 1896), ‘Summer Morning,’ ‘ Travellers,’ ‘Gleaners’ (R.A. 1897), and ‘A Sussex Cider Press,’ ‘Harvesters at Supper’ ‘N ightfall,’ and ‘ Bracken’ (R.A. 1898). He has also shown work at the New English Art Club; and at the New Gallery—in 1888, ‘The Yeoman’; in 1889, two ‘ Studies by Lamplight’ ; in 1890, ‘A Boy Fishing’ and ‘Leaving Home’; in 1892, ‘Nightfall in the Daphinées,’ ‘In the Orchard,’ and ‘Cuckoo Lambs’; in 1894, ‘ Watering the Cows’ and ‘The Woodman’; in 1895, ‘Study by Lamplight’ and ‘Ina Cottage » at Nightfall’; in 1896, ‘In a Shepherd’s Hut’ and ‘Gathering Watercress’; in 1897, ‘An Autumn Morning.’ This painting, exhibited at the Academy in 1896, was purchased for £ 500 by the Trustees of the Chantrey Bequest, and is here reproduced from the original in the Tate Gallery by their kind permission. 348 he Man with a Scythe (La Thangue). THE HEALTH OF THE BRIDE By Srannore A. Fores, A.R.A. »S the ‘Fish Sale on the Beach’ may be regarded as Mr. Stanhope Forbes’s most typical open-air picture, so is this admirable piece of genre equally characteristic of his interiors, although it deals only with common daylight, and is not concerned with the problems of conflicting illumination seen in ‘Forging the Anchor’ and ‘The Smithy.’ Preceded by ‘The Fish Sale,’ ‘Off to the - Fishing-Ground,’ ‘Their Ever-shifting Home,’ ‘The Village Philharmonic,’ ‘ By Order of the Court,’ and ‘Palmistry,’ it marks the full level of accomplishment which the artist may be said to have sustained since. For the school of painting ~ acclimatised at Newlyn has a distinct limit, beyond which it seems to have no : further scope in which to develop, and no new surprises to offer. In ‘The Health of the Bride’ (R.A. 1889) the record of a village’ festivity is put before the spectator as simple, unalloyed fact ; no picturesque but unreal studio. properties intrude. It is as real as if it were a reflection in a mirror caught by some trick of science and kept immovable. The textures are as carefully studied as the types of character; the composition, well managed as it is, never clashes with fact. The attention of every actor is kept well within the frame; no one is posed as ina tableau on the stage ; and realism is obtained by most excellent technique, pleasant colour, and masterly treatment of light, which is natural, and no way modified to suit conventional precedent. . In short, it has all the virtues of the ‘ plein-air’ school, and shows English rustic genre advanced many stages beyond its predecessors towards truth. Here it is not needful to inquire into the comparative importance of the whole question Naturalists versus Romanticists, the subject of an eternal difference of opinion that no amount of argument will ever reconcile. The same year saw ‘The Bridge’ at the New English Art Club. Since then Mr. Stanhope Forbes’s. most important works are ‘The Salvation Army,’ ‘ Forging the Anchor,’ ‘ The Lighthouse,’ ‘The Quarry Team,’ ‘Christmas Eve,’ ‘ October.’ and ‘ The Letter.’ : cae The picture is here reproduced from the original in the collection given (within the Millbank Gallery) to the Nation by Sir Henry Tate, Bart., of Streatham. 350 Dickins, ei-vwrers of the copyright), sun, Swan, & Morgan, and Marry C. Ma rect, London, HF vy Che joer g Regent Str (Ay Peroneysion eo, a The Health of the Brute (Stanhope Lorbes). ALL HANDS TO THE PUMP By Henry Scorr Tuxe ; $R. TUKE has explained that he does not wish to be regarded as a marine painter, but rather as a painter of the nude in the open air. Yet ‘The First Boat In,’ ‘All Hands to the Pump,’ ‘Euchre,’ ‘A Fo’c’stle Yarn,’ ‘Land in Sight,’ and ‘An Idyll of the Sea,’ are all nautical to the last degree; and his pictures wherein the nude is the chief motive—‘ The Bathers,’ ‘A Sum- mers Day, ‘The Swimmer’s Pool,’ ‘August Blue,’ ‘ Leander,’ ‘ Perseus and Andromeda,’ all show more or less of the sea and the seashore. ‘All Hands to the Pump’ was painted on an old brigantine moored in Falmouth Harbour, whereon Mr. Tuke had his studio for many years. ‘ August Blue, his second Chantrey picture, was painted from his new studio-yacht also at Falmouth. Thus we cannot but feel Mr. Tuke’s sailors and seas are peculiarly well understood, for he lives and works among them always. It would be waste of time to describe ‘All Hands to the Pump’ here: it tells” its own story, and tells it with irresistible veracity. Mr. Tuke belongs to that school of painters who have brought from their Paris training one lasting rule :— to paint nothing from memory or imagination, but from the model, be it sentient or inanimate. Yet it would be grossly unfair to a singularly fine colourist and technician to conclude that he merely retains on his canvas what a mirror might reflect. ‘August Blue’ is a superb translation of sunlight over blue sea, bluer by contrast with the ivory bodies of the bathers in the foreground, and the white ships in the opalescent haze beyond. Few painters to-day have won greater approval. from their fellow-artists, and in Mr. Tuke’s case popular applause has been added. Both ‘August Blue,’ purchased in 1894 for five hundred guineas, and ‘All Hands to the Pump,’ purchased in 1889 for £420, are now in the Tate Gallery, whence this latter is reproduced by permission of the Trustees of the Chantrey Bequest. S32 Uy Le yf MY) y » Uy yy ty iy YY eiceaed All Hands ty the Pumps (Henry Scowt Tuke). THE SNAKE CHARMERS . By ArtHur MELVILLE, A.R.S.A, 2R. ARTHUR MELVILLE, whom Mr. Richard Miither places first of ‘the Glasgow boys,’ is not included in Mr. David Martin’s monograph on the Glasgow School, possibly because, although he influenced its first. years so notably, he has never formally associated himself with it nor lived in Glasgow. This apparent contradiction is one more proof that to regard a school as a body bound together more by the accident of locality than by similarity of method or purpose, is apt to mislead people. Certainly Mr. Arthur Melville has nothing to gain or lose by exclusion. He has found a distinctly individual manner of rendering his impressions of brilliant sunshine and picturesque aspects: of nature, as we see from his earlier picture of ‘The Snake Charmers,’ or in his latest and more advanced work, such as the portrait of ‘ Mrs. Graham Robertson,’- or his Venice water-colours, at the Old Water-Colour Society (1898), which owe little to the work of any other painter. Seen in its gallery, Mr. Melville’s pictures seem to belong to another epoch; and the wonder why a painter so entirely opposed to the chance ideal of the Society was elected a member is provoked anew by every visit. It has been said that he solves problems of eolour which seem barbaric—which the Japanese alone had previously solved in equally tasteful manner. But if his works suggest the gaiety of a colour print, that is the only Japanese quality they possess; they are distinctly European in other respects, and have no exact parallel in any other school, East or West. If, however, he himself has been but slightly influenced by Fortuny and a few others, it would be easy to make a somewhat formidable list of distinguished younger painters whose present style is due almost entirely to his personal influence. ‘The Snake Charmers’ is here reproduced by kind permission of Sir James Bell, Lord Provost of Glasgow. 354 pert sbadadawdscds cana See ea The Snake Charmers (Melville), AN IDYLL By Maurice GREIFFENHAGEN OLAS HIS painting has been called ‘the best English picture of the last A (6 a) ten years’; and if to put forward such a claim for it is unwise, Cas JIE as it provokes superfluous comparisons, yet that it is ‘one of the = NS best,’ using the phrase in its most restricted sense, most critics would grant. It was shown at the Academy of 1891, and at once established firmly the reputation of a young painter who had left a brilliant record in the Academy schools, from his entrance at the age of sixteen (during which time he was a constant contributor to /ady, and other illustrated periodicals), until with ‘Hamlet and Ophelia’ he came second in the list for the Gold Medal and Travelling Scholarship, and a second which many whose opinion is worth regarding felt deserved at least to be bracketed with the first. Asked to describe the meaning of this picture, Mr. Greiffenhagen is reported to have said: ‘1 wanted to paint a young man and maiden embracing in the fields, with the sentiment of youth and of nature about them. That is all.’ The picture is much lighter in colour than the reproduction suggests, the scarlet poppies, which here seem blots, tell out against a green, lush meadow, with peeps of the blue sky beyond. It is full of summer, full of passion, a work which is a lasting addition to British masterpieces. Mr. Greiffenhagen, although a regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy, has been peculiarly unfortunate in the hanging of several of his most important pictures, especially in the very fine ‘Judgment of Paris’ in 1896. His record there runs—‘ Sweet Lips Murmuring’ (R.A. 1884), ‘If we stay down here much longer, really, people will be talking’ (R.A. 1890), * Lilies’ (1893), ‘Eve’ (1893), ‘The Mermaid’ (1895), ‘The Judgment of Paris’ (1896), ‘Evensong’ (1897), besides many portraits, of which perhaps the most notable is ‘H. Rider Haggard, Esq.’ (1897). Mr. Greiffenhagen was one of the original members of the New English Art Club, and contributed some important pictures to its exhibitions, including ‘Laertes and Ophelia,’ at its first show at the Marlborough Gallery. ” 356 An Ldylt (Greiffenhagen). (By Permission of the Corporation of Liverpool.) CHANGING PASTURES By Epwarp Storr 2R. EDWARD STOTT is emphatically a painter’s painter; no lay- man can hope to rival the keen appreciation which fellow-workers bestow on his canvases. A frequent contributor to the New English Art Club and the New Gallery, and often represented at the Royal Academy, it is yet possible that his refined and purely sensitive work may be practically unknown to the general public. Its colour is always charged with the spirit of the time of day he depicts, whether it be moon-rise or early morning, a village street at sunset, or bathers by a shady pool at midday ; in each a spectator feels the peculiar glamour of the light which is reflected from his canvas. Asa rule, his subjects are of the simplest, and the value of his work lies wholly in its exquisitely selected record of the beauties of the motive he has chosen, never in its anecdote or in an obvious sentiment. It would be out of place here to discuss his brushwork technically, or to estimate his importance compared with his fellows ; but no reasonable person can doubt that his pictures are destined to be eagerly sought after by collectors, and his contributions to English landscape valued as but few have been valued. One fancies that a peculiarly intimate immortality is in store for his work; not the reputation which is maintained by huge canvases in great national collections, but the sort that gives each owner in turn a new thrill of delight, and pleases generation after generation of those who delight in unaffected and lovely impressions of nature. The following works of Mr. Stott have been shown at the New Gallery :—In 1888, ‘Trees Old and Young Sprouting, a Shady Boon for Simple Sheep’ and ‘Homewards’; in 1889, ‘ Nature’s Mirror,’ ‘The Sheep Pool,’ and ‘Snow on the Hills’; in 1890, ‘ Harrowing,’ ‘On a Bright Spring Morning,’ and ‘Starlight’; in 1891, ‘A Peaceful Evening,’ ‘A Frosty Morning,’ and ‘The Horse Pond’; in 1892, ‘Gleaners,’ ‘In an Orchard,’ ‘ Ploughing in Early Spring’; in 1893, ‘The Labourer’s Cottage,’ ‘Changing Pastures,’ and ‘April’; in 1894, ‘The Village Street,’ ‘A Summer Evening,’ and ‘The White Cow’; in 1895, ‘The Landing-Place,’ ‘ Late Evening,’ and ‘ Noonday’; in 1896, ‘The Old Gate,’ and ‘The Village Inn.’ To this list should be added, ‘A French Garden’ (R.A. 1883), ‘ Marie’ (R.A. 1884), ‘Bathers’ (R.A. 1890), ‘Home by the Ferry’ and ‘Snowstorm’ (R.A. 1891), ‘Red Roses’ (R.A. 1892), ‘Black Horse and Ploughboy’ (R.A. 1896), ‘Sunday Night’ (R.A. 1897). ‘Changing Pastures’ is given here by permission of the owner, John Maddocks, Esq., Heaton, Bradford. 358 (1401S pavmpy) Sadnpsyg SUISUDYD SS | DOUBT By Henrretta Rae (Mrs. Ernest Normanp) evident in the representative selection of works by lady-artists contributed to the Victorian Exhibition at Earl's Court, 1897. ‘Doubt,’ and others by the same hand, were among the most notable in the galleries. It is not the most important of the author’s works; ‘Psyche at the Throne of Venus’ (R.A. 1894) would probably take that place. Nor is it wholly typical, as the themes of the majority of the artist’s paintings are drawn from classical mythology, and deal with the nude. But it serves to show her accomplished handling, and it is in certain respects no less satisfactory than many others of greater ambition. Mrs. Normand first exhibited at the Academy of 1880 with ‘Chloe,’ followed by ‘Miriam’ (1883), ‘Launcelot’ and ‘Elaine’ (1884), ‘Ariadne’ (1885), ‘A Naiad’ (1886), ‘Eurydice’ (1886), ‘Zepherus and Flora’ (1888), ‘Death of Procris’ (1889), ‘Ophelia’ (1890), ‘ La Cigale’ (1891), ‘Flowers Plucked and Cast Aside’ (1892), ‘ Mariana’ (1893), ‘Apollo and Daphne’ (1895), ‘Summer’ (1896), ‘Isabella’ (1897), besides others shown at the New Gallery and elsewhere. ‘Doubt,’ exhibited at the Royal Academy, 1887, is here reproduced by per- mission of the artist. Doubt (Henrietta Rae). (By Permission of the Corporation of Liverpool.) A HIGHLAND FUNERAL By James GUTHRIE, R.S.A. F late years Mr. Guthrie has almost confined himself to portraits, so that to find a ‘subject’ picture suitable for reproduction here we have to go back to the early ‘eighties,’ when this work was painted. It is a notable production for a youth under twenty- five; and exhibits the promise which year by year since has been amply fulfilled. The extreme dignity of the whole com- position, the restrained dramatic force, and the literal truth of the rendering of this impressive incident, need no comment. It is still too early to speak of the ultimate place of a painter of Mr. Guthrie’s calibre; those who prophesy the very highest position for him have much to justify their opinion. Certainly at the Paris Salon his work not merely holds its own, but it is distinguished and notable amid the best work of Frenchmen as it appears in a Scottish or English Gallery. ‘Master Ned Martin,’ an exquisite study of a child, the delightful ‘Midsummer,’ a group of Jadies at tea on a lawn under the chequered shade of trees (which was deposited as Mr. Guthrie’s Diploma Picture at the Scottish National Gallery), and earlier works —‘Schoolmates,’ ‘The Orchard,’ and ‘ The Gipsy’—tempt one to regret that ' portraiture has almost usurped his brush of late years. But whether it be a subject- picture or a portrait, Mr. Guthrie accomplishes it in so masterly a fashion that it is not only convincing, but of abiding interest. Typical of the Glasgow School, often hailed as its head, his work betrays no Monticelli-like treatment of colour, and is but little influenced by Impressionism, the two qualities usually held characteristic of Glasgow ; which seems to show, not that the artist is out of touch with his neigh- bours, but that they form a school chiefly by accident of locality, and not in the sense of pursuing one common creed, or working according to an accepted formula. ‘A Highland Funeral’ is here reproduced -by permission of the owner, James Gardner, Esq. 362 tehland Funeral (Guthrie). al ECHO AND NARCISSUS By S. J. Sotomon, a.R.a. OR many years past Mr. S. J. Solomon has been awarded a special place of honour at the Royal Academy Exhibitions for large canvases chiefly devoted to subjects drawn. from classical mythology. In these he has usually told his story in an orthodox and somewhat Academic manner, with a fine sense of drawing and harmonious colour, pitched, as a rule, in rather high keys, due no doubt to his French training. At times, as in ‘Cassandra’ and ‘Samson,’ he has shown considerable dramatic force, expressed by figures in violent action. The chief pictures he has exhibited at the Academy are— ‘Waiting’ (1883), ‘Ruth’ (1884), ‘Love’s First Lesson’ (1885), ‘Cassandra’ (1886), ‘Samson’ (1887), ‘Niobe’ (1888), ‘Sacred and Profane Love’ (1889), ‘Hippolyte’ (1890), ‘The Judgment of Paris’ (1891), ‘Orpheus’ (1892), ‘ Your Health’ (1893), ‘Mrs. Patrick Campbell as Paula Tanqueray ’ (1894), ‘Echo and Narcissus’ (1895), ‘The Birth of Love’ (1896), and ‘On the Threshold of the City, June 22, 1897’ (1808). It would ‘be superfluous to retell the old-world legend of the nymph Echo, who, in love with Narcissus, was consumed by unrequited affection, so that she pined away until only her voice remained. Milton speaks of ‘Sweet Echo, sweetest nymph that lives unseen Within thy aery shell, By slow Meander’s margent stream’; but Ovid brings her face to face with Narcissus, whence probably Mr. Solomon drew his inspiration for this picture, which is here reproduced by the artist’s kind permission. 364 Echo and Narcissus (Solomon). ‘GENTLEMEN: THE QUEEN’ By A. Cuevariier Tayler 2HIS brilliant piece of genre is a very typical example of the methods of the Newlyn School carried away from grey days and fisher-folk to subjects that have no very strong pathetic, or emotional, interest. For although the toast ‘Gentlemen, charge your glasses—The Queen’ is always received with genuine applause, yet it is too regular an incident in life to be anything but trite. Indeed only the title tells us the subject of the picture. That it is a mess dinner is clear enough, but any other toast might be suggested by it quite as reasonably as the one which entitles the picture. If, however, we leave generalities and study the technique of Mr. Chevallier Tayler’s work, we find every object depicted, with regard to its own texture, with realism well-nigh Dutch in effect, but achieved in a wholly different way. Dutch realistic details can be examined with a lens; indeed sometimes, as in portions of Mr. Alma-Tadema’'s pictures, finished far beyond the limits of the keenest eyesight, a lens is required to do them justice. Here, the appearance of high finish as it is seen by normal vision is most excellently rendered, so that even in reproduction the various substances reveal their identity unmistakably, glass as glass, silver as silver, no less than they would have done had the photo- graph been from the actual objects. The faces are well chosen and well painted, the lighting is excellently managed; it is imitation of real life as the nineteenth century accepts the term, with a distinct artistic control, but it makes no attempt to convey that ‘nature seen through a temperament’ which others assure us is the secret of art. Mr. A. Chevallier Tayler worked some time with the Newlyn School, as a list of the more important of his Academy pictures will show: he has since left Cornish’ fishers and their homes for other scenes, and with no little success, especially in this and its immediate predecessor. The first work traceable in the Royal Academy catalogues is ‘ Interior of a Country Druggist’s Shop (1884); then followed ‘ Not lost, but gone before’ (1886), ‘ Bless, O Lord, these Thy gifts to our use’ (1887), ‘A Dress Rehearsal’ (1888), ‘ A Council of Three’ (New English Art Club, 1888), ‘Confidences’ and ‘The Encore—Home, Sweet Home’ (1889), ‘La Vie Boulonaise’ (1891), ‘A Summer Dinner-Party’ (1893), ‘Gentlemen: The Queen’ (1894), ‘A Twilight Idyll’ (1895), °Vanitas’ (1896), and ‘Cantis.’ Lvangelii’ (1897). = The painting is here reproduced by the kind permission of the artist. 366 = x xs = N s 2 & s oS S s N * Gentlemen: Blane zaman GOOD KING WENCESLAUS By ALexaNDER RocueE, A.R.S.A. PENN 2A HIS example of the work of a prominent member of the so-called Ne Glasgow School of painting has been selected because it is one which, although it suffers considerably, does not wholly lose its interest by translation into black and white. The subject is taken from the old and well-known Christmas carol, the verses illustrated being— ‘ Page and monarch forth they went, forth they went together, Through the rude wind’s lament and the bitter weather. “Sire, the night is darker now and the wind blows stronger, Fails my heart, I know not why, I can’go no longer.” “Mark my footsteps, my good page; tread thou in them boldly, ‘Thou shalt find the winter’s rage freeze thy blood less coldly.” In his master’s steps he trod where the snow lay dinted, Heat was in the very sod, which the saint had printed.’ It is decorative in its plan and colour, actual gold being used for the halo of the saint, and follows the practice (which Van Uhde and other painters have lately adopted) of clothing figures in modern dress in juxtaposition with legendary actors garbed in the supposed costume of their period. The picture was painted in 1886, and shown in London at the New English Art Club in 1890. The ten years which have passed since have been marked by a consistent advance. ‘ A Shepherdess’ (R.A. 1887), ‘ Miss Loo’ (1888), ‘ Téte- a-téte’ and ‘Idyll’ (1882) (now in the permanent collection at Adelaide, New South Wales), ‘The Red Lion Inn’ and ‘ The Window Seat’ (1895), are the titles of some of them. ‘Good King Wenceslaus’ is reproduced by the kind permission of the artist. 368 Good King Wenceslaus (Roche). A WINTER NIGHT By Niers M. Lunp 74* T was intended to reproduce Mr. Niels M. Lund’s picture ‘The Land 4 of the Leal’ (‘ Paysage Ecossais’), which was purchased by the French Government, and hung in the Luxembourg Galleries ; but although the permission to do so was courteously accorded, the photograph available proved unsuitable. Hence another and later work—‘ A Winter Night ’—exhibited at the Royal Academy 1894, and afterwards in the Salon (where it was entitled ‘ Au Clair de la Lune’), has been substituted. ‘Where crowded waters glitter to the moon’ is the motto accompanying its title; and to this it would be superfluous to add any explanation, Mr. Lund has painted all his important works amidst the scenery near Killin, in Perthshire ; the first of these, ‘’Mid the Wild Music of the Glen,’ having been exhibited in the Royal Academy of 1889. Twice honoured in Paris, and enjoying a distinction, accorded to few Britons, of a place in the Luxembourg, a brilliant future may be readily prophesied for one who has begun so notably. (pun) 1Y81N 421A F WS \S THE SEA MAIDEN By Hersert J. Draper HE Sea Maiden’ was a notable picture of the Royal Academy of 1894; and although it needs no literary anecdote to explain its meaning, yet the motto which it bore (the lines italicised in the following quotation from Mr. Swinburne’s ‘ Chastelard’) helps to explain the source of the artist’s inspiration :— ‘ Have you never read in French books the song, Called the Duke’s Song, some boy made ages back ; A song of drag-nets hauled across thwart seas And plucked up with rent sides, and caught therein A strange-haired woman with sad singing lips, Cold in the cheek, like any stray of sea, And sweet to touch? so that men seeing her face, And how she sighed out little Ahs of pain, And soft cries sobbing sideways from her mouth, Fell in hot love, and having lain with her, Died soon?’ Act rL Se. 1. But the purpose of the artist is less the sea-maiden herself, than the effect of their strange haul upon the sailors. From love, and almost adoration, to lust and cruel desire, their faces are revelations of the passions she has inspired. The colour of the picture is rich and decorative; in his later work the fine qualities found here are carried still further, and confirm the promise which Mr. Draper so early betrayed, and has been continued in ‘The Youth of Ulysses’ (R.A. 1895), ‘The Vintage Morn’ (R.A. 1896), ‘Calypso’s Isle’ (R.A. 1897), ‘Foam Sprite,’ etc. (N.G. 1897), and ‘The Lament for Icarus’ (exhibited at the R.A., and bought by the Chantrey Bequest Trustees for £840 in 1898). ‘The Sea Maiden’ is here reproduced by kind permission of the artist. ‘(sagoaq) tapipyy vay ay GOLD, FRANKINCENSE, AND MYRRH By Frank Brancwyn NE of the youngest and most daring of British painters, Mr. Frank Brangwyn is notable for the sudden change in his palette, the result of a visit to the South. From 1889 to 1891 he produced sea-studies, low in tone and full of gloom; powerful work of its kind, that was not overlooked by fellow-artists, although, perhaps, unheeded by the public. On his return from Turkey, with a collection of studies which he exhibited under the general title of ‘From the Scheldt to the Danube,’ he revelled in brilliancy. His work is still marked by vivid colour, and unusual effects of light with a certain decorative composition, - infrequent in combination with the bold brush-work he employs. ‘A Trade on the Beach’ (purchased by the French Government for. the Luxembourg Galleries) and ‘Venice’ (R.A. 1897) are fine examples of his. Southern and semi-Oriental subjects. ‘St. Simon Stylites,’ ‘The Miraculous Draught of Fishes,’ and ‘Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh’ may be named among his more decorative compositions; while pure allegory treated with modern costumes is found in ‘The Blood of the Grape’ (R.A. 1896). For realism ‘The Convict Ship’ (R.A. 1892), ‘The Slave Market’(R.A. 1893), ‘The Buccaneers’ (Salon, 1893), ‘Oranges’ (R.A. 1894), ‘Rest,’ and ‘In the Shade’ (R.A. 1895), are works of importance that must not be forgotten, and especially his ‘The Scoffer’ shown at the Salon of 1897, which represents an old Spanish legend of a prisoner of rank kept by the Moors on purpose to be brought out for execration and torment at their festivals. Dr. Max Nordau wrote a long eulogy upon his Salon pictures of 1895, ‘A Trade on the Beach’ and ‘The Miraculous Draught of Fishes,’ wherein he ranged the young English painter with Delacroix and Franz Hals. The painting is here reproduced by permission of the Curator of the Luxembourg Gallery, where it now hangs. 374 ‘ Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh’ (Brangwyn). CUPID AND PSYCHE By Mrs. A. L. Swynnerton BES—CRNTITLED ‘Cupid and Psyche,’ the picture seems to represent the incident in the legend either as it has been told by William WD BE PR : Morris or by earlier writers. This admirably painted work needs no apology on account RSG SX p) of its being the product of a woman’s hand. If one might OTS ‘GS GK parody Albert Diirer’s well-known inscription on one of his drawings—‘ Better work no woman ever did than this’—it would hardly be a strained statement. For its fine sense of composition, the scholarly modelling, and painting, are apparent even in black and white. In landscape, portraiture, and subject pictures Mrs. Swynnerton has done much work of high order—strong, honest work, neither ‘finikin’ nor ‘robustious,’ two common faults in the work of lady artists, but sober and well sustained, so that it is surprising to find the usual sources of information silent respecting her career, and her record so far. Beyond the facts that she is the wife of a sculptor of distinction, a member of the Society of Lady Artists and of the Manchester Society of Arts, and a frequent exhibitor at the New Gallery (where, in 1891, her ‘St. Martin’s Summer’ surpassed even the remarkable work of the previous year), the Royal Institute, and elsewhere, nothing else can be said. The picture is reproduced by permission of the Corporation Art Gallery, Oldham. 376 Colt-Hunting (Kemp Welch). LOVES BAUBLES By Byam Suaw BYAM SHAW is the youngest painter who is represented herein, the junior by at least a quarter of a century of the men who begin this volume; and a quarter of a century is a long time in Art—long enough to have brought round the Pre- Raphaelite influence again, and to have inspired a young artist to work after its methods. Its methods, that is to say, of painstaking detail, elaborate and careful study, and of colour used in a way that is distasteful to the school of Barbizon, and not wholly congenial even to some Academic painters whose taste (judging by the average hanging at Burlington House), one had imagined, preferred bold contrasts, if not positive discords. Mr. Byam Shaw uses his pigments in a decorative way, now with masses of pure vermillions and pure cobalt when his theme permits it, applied as boldly as upon an old missal, and at other times in more broken colour, pitched, it is true, almost in the key of stained glass, but not more garish in effect than is a jewelled window. The title of ‘ Love’s Baubles,’ which established his position as one of the most promising of all the younger men, is taken from Rossetti’s ‘ House of Life, a Sonnet sequence ’ ;— ‘I stood where Love in brimming armfuls bore Slight wanton flowers and foolish toys of fruit ; And round him ladies flocked in warm pursuit, Fingered and lipped and proffered the strange store. And from one hand the petal and the core Savoured of sleep ; and cluster and curled shoot Seemed from another hand like shame’s salute,— Gifts that I felt my cheek was blushing for. At last Love bade my Lady give the same, And as I looked, the dew was light thereon ; And as I took them, at her touch they shone With inmost heaven-hue of the heart of flame. And then Love said :—‘Lo, when the hand is hers Follies of love are love’s true ministers.’ The picture, exhibited at the Royal Academy of 1897, was purchased from the Liverpool Autumn Exhibition of the same year for the Walker Art Gallery. 380 (200g2a27 fo uOIwAOGLOD 212 fo Korssnusag Lg) *(anwys) Saqnvg sa00T BIOGRAPHICAL APPENDIX ALLAN, SIR WILLIAM, P.R.S.A. (1782-1850). Born in Edinburgh, William Allan was apprenticed to a coachbuilder, and studied with Wilkie at the Trustees’ Academy ; he afterwards entered the Schools of the Royal Academy. After a journey in Russia he returned in -1814 and settled in Edinburgh, being elected a Royal Academician in 1835, and President of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1838. He was made Limner to the Queen for Scotland in 1841, and knighted in 1842. He died in February 1850. ALMA-TADEMA, SIR LAURENCE (1836- ). Born at Dronryp, Holland, 1836, Mr. Alma-Tadema studied at the Antwerp Academy under Baron Leys. He came to live in London in 1869, but has con- tributed to the Royal Academy since 1865. He was elected A.R.A. in 1876 and R.A. in 1879, and is London correspondent of the French Academy of Fine Arts. Zhe Art Annual (Virtue, 1886) was devoted to his life and works, by Helen Zimmern. BAYLISS, SIR WYKE (1835- ). Born at Madeley, Oct. 21, 1835, Sir Wyke Bayliss studied in the Royal Academy Schools. He became President of the Royal Society of British Artists in 1888, on the resignation of Mr. Whistler, and was knighted in 1897. Besides a large number of pictures exhibited, he has published many volumes— he Witness of Art (1876), The Higher Life in Art (1879), The nchanted Island (1888), Rex Regum (1898), etc., etc. BLAKE, WILLIAM (1757-1827). Blake, the son of a hosier in Broad Street, Golden Square, was born Nov. 28, 1757. As a boy he was a pupil in Paris Drawing-school in the Strand, and at fourteen years of age was apprenticed to James Basire, the engraver, after seven years with whom he studied in the Royal Academy Schools. He then essayed illustration, and in 1782 married Catherine Boucher. In 1784 he set up a shop for the sale of prints, and soon began to publish his own works— Zhe Songs of Innocence, succeeded by a large number of mystical books. In 1800 he left London to live at Felpham, in Sussex, but returned in 1804 to take up his residence at 17 South Molton Street. In 1821 he removed to 3 Fountain Court, Strand, where he died on August 12, 1827. For full details, see Allan Cunningham’s British Painters, Gilchrist’s Life (1863), A Critical Essay, by A. C. Swinburne (1863), Zzfe and Works, by Edwin J. Ellis and W. B. Yeats, 3 vols. (Quarritch, 1893), etc. BOUGHTON, GEORGE HENRY (1836- ). Mr. Boughton was born near Norwich, but taken to America when he was but three years old. He first studied art in Paris, came to England in 1862, was elected A.R.A. in 1879 and R.A. in 1896. Besides being a regular contributor to the Royal Academy exhibitions for the last thirty years, Mr. Boughton has illustrated many books—ip Van Winkle (Macmillan), Sketching Rambles in Holland (with Mr. E. A. Abbey)—and contributed to Harper's Magazine. BRAMLEY, FRANK (1857- May 6, 1857 AR.A. 1894. ). Born near Boston, Lincolnshire, Studied in Antwerp and Paris. Gold Medal 1893; BRANGWYN, FRANK. Born 1866. BRETT, JOHN (1830-1902). Brett first attracted attention with ‘The Stonebreaker’ (R.A. 1858), a picture of singularly high finish, of which Mr. Ruskin said ‘I know no such thistledown, no such chalk-hills and elm-trees, no such natural far-away clouds in any of their [the Pre- ee aa work.’ He was elected Associate of the Royal Academy in 1881. BROWN, FORD MADOX- (1821-1893). Madox-Brown was born at Calais in 1821 ; he entered for the Houses of Parliament competition in 1844 and 1848. In 1878 he began to prepare the long series of mural decorations for the Manchester Town Hall, a task he had just com- pleted before his death in 1893. As one of the founders of the famous fim of Morris and Co., the inspirer of Rossetti, the first to suggest an Arts and Crafts Exhibition, and in other ways, his pioneer work influences the course of British Art, so that his place as « painter, honourable though it be, is second to his position as the forerunner of the whole decorative’ revival of the nineteenth century. Zhe Life and Works of Ford Madox-Brown, by his grandson, Ford Madox-Hueffer, was published by Messrs, Longmans in 1896. : . BURNE- JONES, SIR EDWARD (1833-1898). Born at Birmingham in 1883, Sir Edward Burne-Jones was a student at Exeter College, Oxford, when his friendship with William Morris led him towards art. Although he frequently exhibited at the Royal Society of Painters in Water-Colours (to which he was elected Associate in 1863), until the foundation of the Grosvenor Gallery in 1877 he was scarcely known to the British public in general. In 1885 he was elected Associate of the Academy, and exhibited his ‘ Mermaid,’ the only contribution he ever sent to Burlington House ; but as he abstained from contributing to its exhibitions for eight successive years, his associateship lapsed. As a designer for stained glass and tapestry (for the firm of Morris and Co.), and for mosaics, and as illustrator of the famous Chaucer and other Kelmscott Press editions, he established his fame in other branches of art. He was created baronet in 1894, D.C.L. Oxford, Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, and Corresponding Member of the Institute of France. He died suddenly, June 17, 1898. Six Edward Burne- Jones: A Record and Review, by Malcolm Bell (Bell, 1893) and Zhe Art Annual, by Julia Cartwright (Virtue, 1894), are devoted to histories of his life and work. BURTON, W. 8. Of this artist no biographical details are available. He still exhibits at the Royal Academy, and since his first success has consistently devoted himself to paintings which have never failed to find purchasers, although little known to the general public. BUTLER, LADY (1848- » Born 1848; daughter of J. T. Thompson, Esq. Exhibited first as Elizabeth Thompson; married Major-General Sir W. F. Butler, 1877. CALDECOTT, RANDOLPH (1846-1886), Randolph Caldecott, son of an Accountant of Chester, was born at that city March 22, 1846. He became at fifteen a clerk in a Shropshire bank. In 1868 his first published drawings appeared in a Manchester paper, W2// o’ the Wisp. In 1872 he went to London and worked at the Slade School under Sir Edward Poynter. In 1872 he illustrated Henry Blackburn’s 7he Hartz Mountains ; thereafter he was a frequent contributor to Pusch, The Graphic, and other papers. In 1878 appeared the first of his famous toy-books. He died at St. Augustine’s, Florida (U.S.A.), February 12, 1886. CALDERON, PHILIP HERMOGENES (1833-1898). Born at Poitiers in 1833. Educated in Paris. First exhibited in 1850. Knight of the Legion of Honour. A.R.A. 1864, R.A. 1867. Keeper of the Royal Academy from 1887 to his death (1898). CALLCOTT, SIR AUGUSTUS WALL (1779-1844). Born at Kensington in 1779. Brother of the famous composer, Dr. Callcott, Augustus Callcott was in his boyhood a chorister of Westminster Abbey. A pupil of Hoppner, in 1799 he achieved success with a portrait of Mrs. Roberts, which turned him towards painting. He was made Associate of the Royal Academy in 1806, Academician in 1810, and received knighthood in 1837, on the accession of Her Majesty Queen Victoria. He exhibited one hundred and twenty-three works at the Royal Aca- demy. He died in 1844, and was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery. CHRISTIE, J. E. (1847- ). Born at Guardbridge, Fifeshire, in 1847; studied at Paisley, and afterwards at South Kensington and the Royal Academy Schools, in each of which he gained gold medals. COLE, VICAT (1833-1893). Born at Portsmouth in 1833, Vicat Cole exhibited when only sixteen, and in 1853 first contributed to the Royal Academy. In 1870 he was elected A.R.A., being the first landscape painter so honoured for thirty years previously ; in 1880 he was made a full R.A. He died April 6, 1893. COLLIER, THE HON. JOHN (1850- ). Born at London, Jan. 27, 1850; second son of Sir Robert Collier (Lord Monkswell); studied at Slade School, Paris, and Munich. CONSTABLE, JOHN (1776-1837). This great master of landscape, the son of a wealthy miller, was born at Bergholt, Suffolk, June 11, 1776. He was at first intended for the Church, but at the instance of his patron, Sir George Beaumont, turned his attention to art, and in 1799 was admitted student at the Royal Academy. In 1804 and in 1809 he painted altar-pieces, in 1819 he was elected A.R.A., and R.A. in 1829. In 1824 his pictures made a great sensation at the Paris Salon, and changed the whole course of French landscape painting. In 1827 he removed to Hampstead, which supplied = many themes 2 384 for his work. He died suddenly in Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square, April 1, 1837. For further details, see Memoirs, edited by C. R. Leslie, R.A., 1843. COPLEY, JOHN SINGLETON (1737-1815). Copley was born at Boston, U.S.A., in 1737, of British parents, who had settled there just before his birth. After gaining a reputation as a portrait-painter in Boston, he came to England (after a sojourn in Italy) in 1775, and was elected Associate of the Royal Academy in 1776, and a full member in 1779. He sent forty-two works (mainly portraits) to its exhibitions, the last being in 1812. He died September 9, 1815, and was buried in Croydon Church. COTMAN, JOHN SELL (1782-1842). Born in Norwich, where he resided at first, except from 1800 to 1806, when he lived in London. Cotman was a prolific painter ot the Norwich school of landscape. In 1825 he was elected Associate of the [Royal] Society of Painters in Water-Colours, and was a constant contributor to its exhibitions. In 1834 he was appointed Professor of Drawing in King’s College School, London. In addition to his numerous paintings he published a very large number of architectural engravings. He died in London, 1842. COX, DAVID (1783-1859). Cox, the son of a whitesmith in Bir- mingham, born April 29, 1783, was apprenticed to a maker of jewellery ; afterwards he became a scene-painter at Birmingham, and in 1804 came to London for similar work at Astley’s Theatre. He was elected member of the [Royal] Society of Painters in Water-Colours in 1813. From 1814 to 1827 he lived at Farnham and Hereford, and in the latter year came to London, which he left again in 1841 to settle at Harbourne, near Birmingham, where he died on June 7, 1859. Although chiefly famous as a water-colour painter, he executed about a punted pictures in oil, all being landscapes remarkable for their simplicity and vigour. See Hall’s Biography, Solly’s Memoir, etc. CRANE, WALTER (1845- ). Mr. Crane was born at Liverpool in 1845. He exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1862, and illustrated his first book, 74e New Forest, in 1863. Since that time pictures and designs for stained glass, mosaics, fabrics, and illustrations have flowed from his hands. He is the author of many notable books upon art, the most important being Zhe Claims of Decorative Art (Lawrence and Bullen, 1892), Decorative [l/ustration (Bell, 1896), 7he Bases of Design, (Bell, 1898). From 1893 to 1896 he was the Director of Design, Manchester Municipal School of Art. He succeeded the late Mr. William Morris as President of the Arts and Crafts Society, is Associate of the Royal Society of Painters in Water-Colours, Past- Master of the Art Workers’ Guild, Director of the University Ex- oo College, Reading, and holds medals for Paris (1889) and Munich. CROME, JOHN (1769-1821). John Crome, better known as ‘ Old’ Crome, although he lived but fifty-one years, was born at Norwich on Dec. 22, 1769, his father, who kept a small public-house, being a weaver by trade. After being apprenticed to a coach-painter, he devoted his spare time to making sketches in oils, He exhibited twelve pictures at the Royal Academy between 1807 and 1818. In 1810 he was elected President of the Norwich Society, John Sell Cotman being Vice-President, and died at Norwich in 1821. CROWE, EYRE (1834- ). Mr. Eyre Crowe was born at London, October 3, 1824. He entered the Royal Academy Schools in 1844, after being for a while pupil of Paul Delaroche. He was elected Associate of the Royal Academy in 1876, and is Inspector of the Science and Art Department, South Kensington. DAWSON, HENRY (1811-1878). Dawson was born at Hull in 1811. Beyond studying for a time under J. B. Pyne, he had no art tuition ; yet although he exhibited rarely at the Academy, he soon obtained so ay buyers that he found himself obliged to refuse commissions. He iv for a long time at The Cedars, Chiswick, where his death took place in 1878. DOUGLAS, SIR W. FETTES (1822-1891), The President of the Royal Scottish Academy from 1882 till 1891 was a native of Edinburgh, where he studied art at the Trustees’ Academy. He was elected an Associate in 1851, and succeeded to the Presidential Chai death of Sir Daniel Macnee. ae ene DOW, T. MILLIE, Born in Fife, N.B. Studied art at Glasgow and VEcole des Beaux-Arts, Paris. Has exhibited at the Glasgow Institute since 1886, and is usually looked upon as one of the so- il ‘Glasgow School. y P of the so-called DRAPER, HERBERT J. (1864- ). Born in London 1864; studied at the Royal Academy Schools, where he won a prize in 1887 fot the decoration of a fable building (afterwards carried out at Guy’s Hospi- tal), and the gold medal and travelling scholarship in 188 1 in Paris, 1887-88, and in Rome, 1891-92. enna waded BIOGRAPHICAL APPENDIX DRUMMOND, SAMUEL (1763-1844). Drummond was born in London, 1763; he studied at the Royal Academy, and became an Associate in 1808, and afterwards Curator of the Painting School. He died in 1844. DUNCAN, THOMAS (1807-1845). Duncan was born at Kinclaven, Perthshire, May 24, 1807. He studied at the Trustees’ Academy, Edinburgh, to which he was afterwards appointed professor, and ultimately master. He was elected Academician (Scottish) in 1830, and A.R.A. (London) in 1843. He died at Edinburgh in 1845. DYCE, WILLIAM (1806-1864). Dyce was born at Aberdeen in 1806, studied some time at the Royal Academy Schools, was elected Associate of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1835, A.R.A. of the ban Academy in 1844, and R.A, in 1848. He died in London, 1864. EASTLAKE, SIR CHARLES (1793-1865). Eastlake was a son of the solicitor to the Admiralty, Plymouth, and was educated at Plympton Grammar School (Reynolds’s old school), whence he passed to Charter- house, and to the Royal Academy Schools in 1809. In 1814 he exhibited at the British Institution, and onwards to 1825, after which he contributed only to the Academy. He was made A.R.A. in 1827, R.A. in 1830, and succeeded Sir Martin Shee as President in 1850, From 1835 to his death, on December 24, 1865, he was also Director of the National Gallery. ETTY, WILLIAM (1787-1849). Etty was born in York, March 10, 1787, and although, after seven years’ apprenticeship in a printing. office, he worked hard at painting, he seems to have been the butt of his fellow-students for years. But ultimately he triumphed and estab- lished a reputation as a figure-painter, especially as a colourist. Indeed he stands almost alone among his contemporaries in his faithful adherence to the nude. In all he exhibited one hundred and thirty- six pictures at the Royal Academy. He died on November 13, 1849, but a few months after a special exhibition of his works had been held at the Society of Arts. Three of his paintings are in the National Gallery, and others, perhaps more important, are in the Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh. For further details, see Lie of William Eity, by Alexander Gilchrist (London, 1855). FILDES, LUKE (1844- ). Mr. Luke Fildes was born at Liver- pool, 1844. In 1863 he entered the South Kensington Schools, and those of the Royal Academy in 1866. In 1872 he exhibited his first picture at the Royal Academy, of which he was elected Associate in 1879, and R.A. in 1887. In his early years he contributed to Zhe Graphic, Cornhill, Once a Week, and other periodicals, and illus- trated Charles Dickens’s last work, Zhe Mystery of Edwin Drood. FORBES, STAN HOPE ALEXANDER (1857- ). Born at Dublin, Nov. 18, 1857. Studied at Lambeth, R.A. Schools, and Paris, A.R.A. 1892. FRITH, WILLIAM POWELL (1819- ). Born in 1819, he entered the Royal Academy Schools in 1837, and first exhibited in 1840. He was elected A.R.A. in 1845, and R.A. in 1853. For many years he was unquestionably the most popular British painter. His Reminiscences, published a few years ago, show him to be an observant student of human nature, and a faithful worker in the style, out of fashion perhaps for ever, which he has always loyally championed, He is now an Honorary Retired Academician. PUSELI, HENRY (1741-1825). Heinrich Fuessly is the real name of- this painter, who is best known by its Anglicised form. Born at Zurich in 1741, and was intended for the Church, but left it, and devoted himself for a while to literature. In 1765 the British Ambas- sador at Berlin was struck by his drawings, and by his advice Fuessly’ visited England. In 1767 Reynolds advised him to devote himself to- painting, which he did with much success. From 1770 to 1778 he was abroad, chiefly in Italy. In 1780 he painted eight pictures for the: Boydell Shakespeare Gallery. His studies show far more beauty of: drawing and delicate perception than is apparent in his finished works. He was elected A.R.A. in 1788, and became R.A, in 1790. In 1799 he was appointed Lecturer on Painting in the Royal Academy, and in 1804 the Keeper. He died at Putney on the 16th of April 1825. GAINSBOROUGH, THOMAS (1727-1788). Gainsborough was born al, Sudbury in the spring of 1727. At the age of fourteen, after being, educated at the grammar-school, of which his uncle, the Rev. Henry. Burroughs, was master, he became a pupil of Gravelot, the engraver, and afterwards of Francis Ha, an, a painter of historical subjects, whe, became later one of the original members the Royal Academy. Hc. returned to Sudbury in 1745, and married Margaret Burr, soon afte. settling in Ipswich. In 1760 he established himself in Bath, and i 1774 returned to London, occupying part of Schomberg House, P Mi Mall. By this time he had attained considerable popularity, and wa; BIOGRAPHICAL APPENDIX considered the rival of Sir Joshua Reynolds in portraiture, and of Richard Wilson in landscape. From the foundation of the Royal Academy in 1768, of which he was an original member, to 1783, he exhibited ninety-six works in its exhibitions. He died August 2, 1788, and was buried in Kew Churchyard. For fuller details of his life, see Thomas Gainsborough, by Mrs. Arthur Bell, 1897 ; Portfolio mono- graph by Walter Armstrong ; Thicknesse’s Le/e of Gainsborough, etc. GILBERT, SIR JOHN (1817-1897). Gilbert, born in 1817, was almost entirely self-taught. He was elected A.R.A. in 1872, and R.A. 1876. For many years he was President of the Royal Society of Painters in Water-Colours. He was knighted in 1872, and was also a Knight of the Legion of Honour. He painted a large number of pictures in oil and water-colours, and was also the most fecund of English illustrators. He died in 1897. G@OTCH, THOMAS COOPER (1864- ) Born at Kettering, Dec. 10, 1854; studied at Heatherley’s, Antwerp, Slade School, and Paris. Medals, Paris Salon 1896; Berlin 1896. Gow, ANDREW CARRICK (1848- _). Born at London, June 15, 1848; studied at Heatherley’s; R.I. 1868; A.R.A. 1881. GREGORY, EDWARD JOHN (1850- =). Bornat Southampton, April 19, 1850; studied at South Kensington; A.R.A. 1883; R.A. 1898. Gold and silver medals, Paris Exhibition 1889, and at Munich, 1891. GREIFFENHAGEN, MAURICE. Studied at Royal Academy Schools and Paris; a well-known illustrator, who has exhibited frequently at the New English Art Club, the Royal Academy, and the Salon. GUTHRIE, JAMES (1859- ——-)._-:-Born at Greenock 1859; son of the Rev. John Guthrie, D.D.; Associate R.S.A. 1888; Academician R.S.A. 1892; Hon. Mem. Royal Bavarian Academy 1890; Member of Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Paris. HARVEY, SIR GEORGE (1806-1876). Harvey, who was born at St. Ninians, near Stirling, in 1806, was at first apprenticed to a bookseller ; but he soon devoted himself to art, and exhibited for the first time at the Edinburgh Institution in 1826. He was elected Associate of the Royal Scottish Academy on its foundation in 1826, became full Academician in 1829, and succeeded Sir J. Watson Gordon as its President in 1864. He was knighted in 1867, and died in 1876. HEMY, C. NAPIER (1841- —)..:- Mr. Hemy was born at Newcastle- on-Tyne, May 25, 1841, and for a time studied in the local School of Art, and afterwards at Antwerp under Baron Leys. He has been a regular exhibitor to the chief exhibitions for many years past, and was elected Associate of the R.A. in 1897. HERKOMER, PROFESSOR SIR HUBERT (1849- ). Born at Waal, Bavaria, May 26, 1849. A.R.A. 1879; R.A. 1890; Grand Medal, Paris, 1878. Slade Professor, Oxford, 1885-1895; founder of the Herkomer School of Art, Bushey ; Officer of the Legion of Honour, holder of the Ordre pour le Mérite, and also of a Life Professorship, Munich. Zhe Art Annual (Virtue, 1892) is devoted to a chronicle of his life and work by W. L. Courtney. _ HILTON, WILLIAM (1786-1839). Hilton was born at Lincoln in “1786, elected A.R.A. in 1813, R.A. in 1819, and Keeper of the “Academy in 1827, and died in 1839. As a painter of grandiose sub- jects, creditable but not very enthralling, he occupies an honourable position in Academic annals. HOGARTH, WILLIAM (1697-1764). William Hogarth, the son of an honest yeoman of Bampton, near Kendal, was born in London in 1697 (or 1698). He was apprenticed to Ellis Gamble, a silversmith of some eminence, and at the expiration of his time entered the academy in St. Martin’s Lane. In 1729 he married clandestinely the only daughter of Sir James Thornhill, and shortly after commenced his first series of those moralities in paint which then and since have won him so much popular applause. Zhe Harlot’s Progress was followed by The Rake’s regress, Mariage & la Mode, Industry and Idleness, The Stages of - Cruelty, and The Election series. In addition to these stories told in successive tableaux, he painted many single works. Of these a large Number were designed chiefly as copies from which Hogarth could himself engrave plates. He also issued many small designs for invita- tion cards and the like. In 1757 he was appointed ‘ serjeant-painter’ eto the king, with a nominal salary of ‘ten pounds per annum paid quarterly.’ Ele died October 26, 1764, and was buried at Chiswick, ~where a monument erected to his memory by his admirers is adorned with an inscription by Garrick. His book, the Avalysis of Beauty, Written with a view to fix the fluctuating ideas of taste, is still remem- ~ bered if only for its famous definition of ‘the line of beauty.’ To his efforts mainly also may be credited the Act of Copyright for Artists, : 1735. For further details, see Cunningham’s Lzves of the British 385 Painters, vol. i., 1829 ; Walpole’s Anecdotes ; Ireland’s Graphic Iilus- tration, and hosts of other authorities, including an essay by Charles Lamb, and, above all, the monograph by Mr. Austin Dobson. HOLL, FRANK (1845-1888). Frank Holl was born at London in 1845. At fifteen he entered the Royal Academy Schools, where he gained a silver medal in 1862, in 1863 a gold medal and a scholarship, in 1869 the travelling scholarship. He was elected A.R.A. in 1878, and R.A. in 1884; he died July 31, 1888, at the house The Three Gables, Fitzroy Avenue, Hampstead. HOOK, JAMES CLARKE (1819-1907). Mr. Hook was born in London, November 21, 1819, and studied at the Royal Academy Schools, where he won a travelling scholarship, a gold medal, and two silver medals. He held also a gold medal, Paris 1889, and others for Viennese and Chicago Exhibitions; he, was elected Associate of the Royal Academy in 1850, and R.A. in 1860. A study of his life and work, by F. G. Stephens, forms Zhe Art Annual for 1888. HOPPNER, JOHN (1758-1810). Hoppner, born in Whitechapel of German parents in 1758, became a choir-boy of the Chapel Royal; thence he passed, in 1775, to the Royal Academy Schools, where he obtained a medal. In 1793 he was elected A.R.A., and in 1795 R.A., and contributed one hundred and sixty-six works to the Academy exhibi- tions. Patronised by the Prince of Wales, he became a very fashion- pie peeies with Sir Thomas Lawrence for his only rival. He died in 1810. HUNT, WILLIAM HOLMAN (1827- ). Mr. Hunt was born in London in 1827, and admitted to the Royal Academy Schools in 1844. He first exhibited in 1846. As one of the original members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood he has never discarded its traditions, or modified his ‘uncompromising assertion of principles of truth in preference to beauty.’ Zhe Art Annual (Virtue, 1893) is devoted to a consideration of his life and work by Dean Farrar. KEMP-WELCH, LUCY E. (1869- ). Born at Bournemouth, June 1869 ; studied at the Herkomer School, Bushey. LA THANGUE, H. H. Studied at Lambeth and the Royal Academy Schools, where he gained the highest honours, and at Paris; A.R.A. 1898. LANDSEER, SIR EDWIN HENRY (1802-1873). Landseer, who was the youngest son of John Landseer, A.R.A., was born in London, March 7, 1802. He first exhibited in 1815 at the Royal Academy ; was made an Associate in 1826 (being then twenty-four, the youngest possible age at which the honour can be conferred), was made R.A. in 1831, and knighted in 1850. He declined the Presidential Chair on the death of Eastlake, and in 1855 received a geld medal at the Paris Exhibition. He died at St. John’s Wood, London, October 1, 1873, and was buried in St. Paul’s Cathedral. The Winter Exhibition of the Royal Academy of 1874 was devoted entirely to his works, LAVERY, JOHN (1857- ). Born at Belfast 1857; studied at Haldane Academy, Glasgow, at Heatherley’s, and at Paris. Elected Associate of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1892, and R.S.A. in 1897. LAWRENCE, SIR THOMAS, P.R.A. (1769-1830). Lawrence, born at Bristol, May 4, 1769, was a son of a former solicitor, who became successively the landlord of the White Hart Inn, Bristol, and the Black Bear Inn, Devizes. At ten years of age he began as a portrait painter in crayons at Oxford, and soon after set up a house in Bath, commencing to paint in oils when he was seventeen, and the next year came to London and joined the Schools of the Royal Academy. In 1791 he was made an Associate, although not of the prescribed age, and the following year succeeded Reynolds as painter to the king. In 1794 he was elected R.A., and knighted in 1815, succeeding Benjamin West as President in 1820. In all he contributed three hundred and eleven works to the Academy exhibitions. He died in 1830, unmarried. See Life and Correspondence, by Williams (1831), Cunningham’s Zives, ete. LAWSON, CECIL G. (1851-1882). Lawson, the youngest son of Mr. William Lawson of Edinburgh, was born near Wellington, Shropshire, Dec, 3, 1851. In 1870 he exhibited his first picture at the Academy. He married in 1879 a daughter of Mr. J. Birnie Philip, sculptor, who, with her husband, exhibited frequently at the Royal Academy and Grosvenor Gallery. He died June 10, 1882, LEADER, BENJAMIN WILLIAMS (1831- ).. Mr. Leader, born in 1831, entered the Royal Academy Schools in 1854, and exhibited his first picture the same year. He was elected Associate in 1883, and Academician in 1898. He holds gold medals, Paris 1889, and Chicago 1893, and was made Chevalier of the Legion of Honour. in 1889. 386 | LEIGHTON, EDMUND BLAIR (1853- ). Born in London, Sept. 21, 1853; studied at the Royal Academy Schools, and exhibited at the R.A. since 1878, LEIGHTON, FREDERICK, LORD (1830-1896). Frederick Leighton, son of Dr. Leighton, was born at Scarborough in 1830. In 1842 he was taken to Rome, thence he went to Berlin, Florence, Frankfort, Brussels, and Paris, studying in most of these places, and returning to Frankfort, where he worked for a while under Steinlé. In 1864 he was elected Associate, in 1868 Academician, and in 1879 President of the Royal Academy. He received the honour of knighthood in 1878, and was created Baron Leighton of Stretton a few days before his death. A bare enumeration of the titles, official honours, and degrees conferred on him would fill half a column. Not only in painting, but in mural decoration, sculpture, and illustration, he left evidence of a singularly gifted temperament, and a most ardent workman. Despite his official duties, and social functions which would alone have exhausted many a stronger man, he was a regular contributor to the Academy, showing several pictures there annually. As a champion for ‘ drawing’ and for academic composition of a high order, throughout a period of innova- tion, he escaped the applause which would have been bestowed on his works by a less experimental generation. As a President he was . allowed to have filled the post ideally, and used his power with im- partiality and tolerance ; especially was he sympathetic towards the work of beginners, and in private did much kindness that the world never suspected. Yet although an Admirable Crichton of the Arts, and aman of rare tact and courtesy, in his later years his work never won full applause from fellow-painters. He died on January 28, 1896, and was buried in St. Paul’s Cathedral. In 1897 the Winter Exhi- bition at the Academy was devoted to his works. Frederick, Lord Leighton, an illustrated chronicle by Ernest Rhys (Bell, 1898), and The Art Annual, by Mrs. Andrew Lang (Virtue, 1884), contain full biographical details. LESLIE, CHARLES R. (1794-1859). Leslie, whose parents were American, was born in London 1794, entered the Schools of the Royal Academy 1813, was made Associate in 1821, R.A. in 1826. From 1847 to 1852 Leslie was Professor of Painting at the Academy. He pub- lished A Handbook for Young Painters and Memories of Constable. His Life of Reynolds and his autobiography, edited by Tom Taylor, were both published after his death, which occurred in 1859. LEWIS, JOHN P. (1805-1876). Lewis, the eldest son of Frederick Charles Lewis, the engraver, was born in London in 1805. He first exhibited at the British Institution in 1820, and at the Royal Academy 1821. He went to Spain in 1832, and to Egypt in 1843. In 1855 he became President of the Society of Painters in Water-Colours, was elected A.R.A. in 1859, and R.A. in 1865. He died at Walton-on- Thames, 1876. LINNELL, JOHN (1792-1882), Linnell was born in London in 1792, and was admitted to the Royal Academy Schools in 1805. He was a prolific painter both in landscape and portraiture, and exhibited con- stantly in the Royal Academy, of which, however, he was never a member. He died January 20, 1882. At the Winter Exhibition 1883, when two galleries were devoted to his work, a hundred and sixty examples were gathered together. LONG, EDWIN (1829-1891). Was born at Bath in 1829, elected Associate of the Royal Academy in 1875, and became a full member in 1881. He died May 15, 1891. LUCAS, JOHN SEYMOUR (1849- ). Born at London, Dec. 21, 1849 ; studied at the Royal Academy Schools; A.R.A. 1886; R.A. 1898, LUND, NIELS M. (1864- ). Born Nov. 30, 1864. Mr. Lund entered the Royal Academy Schools in 1882 (whence his painting for the Creswick Prize Competition was purchased by Mr. Ouless for a Canadian Gallery), and studicd a short time at Julien’s, Paris, First exhibited at the R.A. in 1887, and the Salon in 1894. He was awarded a gold medal at the Paris Salon 1893, and is a member of the Institute of Painters in Oils. MACGREGOR, W. Y. (1847- ). Mr. Macgregor was born in 1847 ; he first studied with James Docharty, and later at the Slade School under Professor Legros. He has exhibited often in the Royal Academy and New English Art Club, but still more regularly at the Glasgow Institute and the Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh. MACLISE, DANIEL (1811-1870). Maclise, son of a Scottish father and Irish mother, w born at Cork, Tanuary 25, 1811. He studied BIOGRAPHICAL APPENDIX first at Cork and afterwards in the Royal Academy Schools, where he obtained the gold medal in 1829, in which year he first exhibited at the Royal Academy. He was elected A.R.A. in 1835, and R.A. in 1840. In 1844 he was commissioned to paint Chivalry and Justice for the House of Lords. In 1866 he refused the Presidency of the R.A., and also declined the honour of knighthood. He died at Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, April 25, 1870. M‘TAGGART, WILLIAM (1835- ). Mr. M‘Taggart was born in 1835, and has contributed for many years past to the exhibitions of the Royal Scottish Academy, of which he is a full member, MARKS, H. STACY (1829-1898). Born in London, September 13, 1829. Marks studied at Leigh’s Academy and at the Royal Academy Schools. He was elected A.R.A. in 1871, and R.A. in 1878, In 1894 he published Pen and Pencil Sketches, two volumes of auto- biographical gossip, illustrated profusely by his own sketches and those of his intimates. His decorative work at the Royal Albert Hall, at South Kensington Museum, and elsewhere, reflects the spirit of the Gothic revival, and ranks among the first efforts in the new movement for mural decoration in England. MARTIN, JOHN (1789-1854). Martin, who was born at Haydon, near Hexham, in 1789, began his career as a painter of heraldic devices, and in 1806 turned his attention to picture-painting. He married at the age of nineteen, and when twenty-three completed his first picture, ‘ Sadak in Search of the Waters of Oblivion.’ Soon after he became discontented with the Academy, but continued to send his works to its exhibitions, although he also contributed to the Society of British Artists, an institution which he helped to establish. As a painter he was less remarkable than as an illustrator, and herein his imagination set a type which has influenced later artists, especially in melodramatic but impressive scenes from the Bible. He died in 1854. MASON, GEORGE HEMMING (1818-1872), Mason was born in 1818, and studied art abroad from 1844 to 1857. In 1868 he was elected A.R.A., and died in 1872. As a painter of English idyllic pastorals his fame is still growing year by year. For a time he was always placed second to Frederick Walker ; it appears as if the future may reverse the order. MELVILLE, ARTHUR (1858- ). Born 1858; studied at Edin- burgh and Paris. An artist who should be recognised as one of the chief influences upon, if not the actual founder of, the Glasgow School —so-called—to which, however, he never belonged, and in many ways the pioneer of a manner now finding exponents here and on the Continent. MILLAIS, SIR JOHN EVERETT (1829-1896). Millais was born at Southampton in 1829, of parents who had come thither from Jersey. When but ten years old he won the medal of the Society of Arts, and at eleven entered the Royal Academy Schools. Early in his career he devoted much time to the illustration of books, and did enough to consolidate his fame by a marvellous series, including five subjects in the famous 1857 Tennyson’s Poems, and many in Once a Week, The Cornhill Magazine, and Good Words, in which last appeared his famous ‘ Parables of our Lord.’ As a painter he first exhibited in 1846, and was one of the most regular and most popular exhibitors at the Academy until his death. Made Associate in 1853, R.A. in 1863, and President on the death of Lord Leighton, he may be regarded as the most distinguished Academician of the Victorian era. He was decorated with the Legion of Honour in 1878, and accepted a baronetcy in 1885. He died on August 13, 1896, and was buried in St. Paul’s Cathedral. The Art Annual (Virtue, 1885), by Walter Armstrong, and a volume by M. H. Spielmann (Black, 1898), both devoted to the life and works of Sir John Millais, are already published; a full biography by his son is said to be in preparation. MOORE, ALBERT (1841-1893). Albert Moore was born at York, Sept. 1841, a younger brother of Henry Moore, the famous marine painter. In May 1858 he entered the Royal Academy Schools, where he remained a very short time. In 1884 he was elected Associate of ale Royal Society of Painters in Water-Colours. He died Sept. 25, 1893. MOORE, HENRY (1831-1895). Henry Moore was born in 1831, elected an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1885, and R.A. in 1893. During the greater part of his life he was faithful to the sea, and year after year exhibited canvases depicting the ocean in every mood as v0 Briton, perhaps no artist, had ever painted it before. BIOGRAPHICAL APPENDIX MORLAND, GEORGE (1763-1804). George Morland, heir to the extinct baronetcy of Morland of Sulhampstead, Bannister, was the son of Henry Robert Morland, a painter of some distinction. At the age of fifteen he exhibited two landscapes, starred drawings at the Royal Academy. His earliest works include a series of paintings for Spenser’s Faery Queen, and illustrations to other ballads. Romney olfered to take him as apprentice, but he preferred freedom, and left his home to seek his fortune. In 1785 he married the sister of William Ward the engraver, who later married Morland’s sister. Despite a temperament by no means indolent, and a popularity which soon resulted in many commissions, he was constantly in debt. Yet his industry was great: he painted seven hundred and ninety-two pictures, and made a thousand drawings in the late years of his life. Extravagant, hospitable—but with a love of drink,—he died at the age of forty-two, in 1804. The National Gallery contains two of his works, South Kensington seven, and others are at Glasgow. A very large number of his paintings, Bryce says about two hundred and fifty, were engraved. See George Morland, by Ralph Richardson, F.R.S.E. (Stock, 1895), and Zeves by William Collins, 1805,. F. W. Blagdon, 1806, J. Hassell, 1806, and George Dawe, R.A., 1807. MULLER, WILLIAM J. (1812-1845). Muller, son of a Prussian who became curator of the British Museum, was born at Bristol, June 28, 1812, In company with many well-known artists he painted near Bristol, in Norfolk and Suffolk, and later went with George Fripp on along continental tour. Afterwards he resided for some time in the East, but returned to England, and died at Bristol, September 1845. MULREADY, WILLIAM, R.A. (1786-1863). Mulready was born on April 1st, 1786, became a student at the R.A. Schools in 1800. In 1804 he exhibited in the Royal Academy; in 1809 showed there his Fair Time, now in the National Gallery. He was made A.R.A. in 1815, and R.A. in 1816; five of his works are in the National Gallery, and many pictures and studies at South Kensington Museum. His contributions to book-illustration are important, especially those for an edition of The Vicar of Wakefield (1843). He died July 7, 1863, and was buried at Kensal Green Cemetery. NASMYTH, ALEXANDER (1758-1840). Nasmyth, born in Edin- burgh in 1758, when he was quite young went to London and became a pupil of Allan Ramsay. He studied some years in Italy, and returned to Edinburgh, where he practised first as a portrait-painter, and later devoted himself to landscape. His son Peter, commonly called Patrick, who afterwards became famous as a painter of English landscape, was born in 1787. Nasmyth exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1813 to 1826, and died at Edinburgh April 10, 1840. NORTHCOTE, JAMES (1746-1831). Northcote, the son of a watch- maker, was born at Plymouth in 1746. By the kindly offices of his fellow- townsman (Sir) Joshua Reynolds, he was for five years assistant in his studio, and in 1777 went to Rome, returning to England in 1780, when he was elected A.R.A. in 1786, and R.A. in 1787. He died in 1831. ORCHARDSON, SIR WILLIAM QUILLER (1835- ). Mr. Orchardson was born at Edinburgh in 1835, studied art at the Trustees’ Academy, came to London 1863, was elected A.R.A. 1868, and R.A. 1877. He holds a medal, Paris 1889, and the honorary degree of LL.D., conferred by Oxford University 1890. Rumour has it that he has refused the Presidency of the Royal Academy at least once. Zhe Art Annual (Virtue, 1897) is devoted to an account of his life and work by J. Stanley Little. PATON, SIR JOSEPH NOEL (1821-1901). Born in Dunfermline in 1821, in 1843 he entered the Royal Academy Schools, and first ex- hibited at the Royal Scottish Academy in 1844. In 1846 he began to paint fairy subjects, which with sacred themes have brought him the wide popularity he enjoys. In 1866 he was appointed Ifer Majesty’s Limner for Scotland, and was knightcd in 1867; made LL.D. Edin. 1876; was also R.S.A. and D.L., and Commissioner of the Hon. the Board of Manufactures, PEITIE, JOHN (1839-1893). Pettie was born in Edinburgh in 1839, and studied at the Trustees’ Academy under Scott Lauder; first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1861. He was elected A.R.A. in 1867, R.A. in 1873, and died Feb. 11, 1893. PHILLIP, JOHN (1817-1867). Phillip was born at Aberdeen, April 19, 1817. In 1837 he entered the Schools of the Royal Academy, and exhibited in 1839. In 1856-7 he made a tour in Spain, was elected A.R.A. in the latter year, and full R.A. in 1859. He died in London, February 27, 1867. From his fondness for Iberian subjects he is generally known as the ‘ Spanish Phillip.’ POTT, LASLETT J. (1847- ).